I know it is against the conventions on your site. Regretably I'm too far into the run to start over and I can't splice together hundreds of soundtracks from every zmv I have. Furthermore, I'm intent on editing out every inactive moment of the game so that the avi size will be reasonable and the run more intense. This game just doesn't seem very fast if you have to wait 10 seconds for every item collected and 5 seconds for every room transition. I can't have the in-game music playing if I'm doing this. My vid will be hosted elsewhere, I came here because I thought people would want to help a speedrunner out even if his format is a little different. The run is what matters imho. Anyway, how can I post a WIP? If you'll remember I'm working with several zmvs, not one smv that has been recorded over and over. As for my current location - I've completed the wrecked ship and am now debating several path options. I'm trying to avoid a refill at my ship but I have very little health/power bombs. About all I can do is post a savestate. Anyone interested?
I haven't had any glitches posted yet, come on guys! Any luck on clearing the Kraid gap without a wall jump? ;O)
It will be entertaining and will require more than a few viewings to catch everything. Anyway, I'm really baffled at all the negative feedback I'm getting even before the release.
You shouldn't be baffled, it's not strange that a lot of people at a site that has certain conventions (for a reason) will have the same opinion about those conventions not being followed, especially because you gave so little information initially that many probably assumed you were following them and then only later revealed otherwise. But, actually there hasn't been and really can't be any feedback (positive or negative) on the contents of your run itself, not until it's released. So I'm not sure what else you expected the response to be after making such a revelation, seeing as how you're keeping most of what you're actually doing secret and not giving much else to talk about (edit: uh, well you just posted something back on track while I was typing that).
Anyway I don't think we're trying to be overly negative about it. I'm sure it will be entertaining, and I'll try to watch it. The only real problem I see with doing what you're doing is that you will have no proof of the legitimacy of your video when it's done (by that I mean, not even proof that it's theoretically possible to do anything you did, even if it probably is), and also that people here most likely don't want a heavily edited AVI associated with this site because there are (or have been) so many misconceptions about the videos that are at the site already.
(edit: And we haven't been unwilling to help out. Most people including me probably just don't know enough about Super Metroid to be able to provide you with helpful info about it...)
Anyway, how can I post a WIP? If you'll remember I'm working with several zmvs, not one smv that has been recorded over and over.
How many zmv's do you have from Start to Escape of the Station?
Perhaps we could start looking at conversion muplitple zmv -> one zmv/smv there ...
So could you please upload just the zmvs until you escape Space station?
cu
Fabian
I currently have 281 zmv's and I'm roughly 1/3 of the way done with the run. We're talking ~1000 zmv's that would have to be stitched together. It would be faster for me to start over... Also, I accidentally erased one zmv after having luckily converted it to avi. It's only a short little segment but it's such that I couldn't record it again exactly as it was done before.
I currently have 281 zmv's and I'm roughly 1/3 of the way done with the run. We're talking ~1000 zmv's that would have to be stitched together. It would be faster for me to start over... Also, I accidentally erased one zmv after having luckily converted it to avi. It's only a short little segment but it's such that I couldn't record it again exactly as it was done before.
Well, I was just talking about the very first part of the game, which should not be more than 20 zmvs ...
cu
Fabian
I think it would be faster in the long run to start over in snes9x and play in frame advance with rerecords, you wont have that much trouble when converting to avi, and you could release the unadultered smv and your edited vid, it would be so much easier than you when exporting the avi of the zmvs
From this point on I despise all of you. Damn you all for making me start this run over! 100+ hours down the drain :'O( Siiiiiiiigh, Snes9x it is. This will set the release back 3+ weeks but anything for the fans...
BTW, I don't really despise any of you. I hope this run is appreciated. I may post updates of the run if you guys promise to provide constructive feedback. I'll also need someone to host the smv for me.
Awesome! After you get used to frame advance and other stuff I'm sure you'll be glad that you started over. And now you can do what you want to the avi but we can still have the smv when it's ready, right?
The smv will be intact for those who want it. I'll be choosing how to present the run in avi format, though. It won't be a direct stream copy of the smv, I'll be editing and supplying my own music. Snes9x has some benefits, movie recording is MUCH MUCH easier. However, the picture/sound quality is not even close to zsnes. Also, there isn't a key combination feature. I have so many tricks that require a frame-perfect mockball and I don't know how I'll manage without zsnes.
You can use frame advance. It's a tool that allows you to make frame-specific movements. It works like this: you pause the game first. Then let's say you want to jump while running, so you'll hold the forward, jump and run buttons and press the frame advance button. On the next frame, you can just hold those same keys if you want to continue jumping and either unpause to let the game roll again or use frame advance to go forward to the next phase where you have to do something tricky. Check your options on which key the frame advance is in your snes9x.
I suggest you grab the Snes9x WIP Here, as it's much less painful. I have both respected save and load keys set on my Joypad, which makes life a lot easier. It sure beats Shift + F1 to save and F1 to load, which is what you'd have to use if you used the official. You can also map the ever useful frame advance to whatever you want.
OgreSlayeR, I've got a joypad->keyboard mapping program with load/save on my joypad already. I probably won't resort to the WIP because an official release is easier to come by. I don't want an smv only compatible with a certain WIP.
I'm having some difficulty with the escape from the Space Colony. Seems that I can't reproduce the times that I was getting with zsnes. For instance the run through the first door is currently timing at 59.84 instead of 58.85. I know this sounds silly but it is very important that I have that extra .01 seconds. If I don't get it I can't manipulate the randomness of rooms further in the escape. What gives?
All I can suggest is using frame advance with the frame counter on if your not already. Try looking at the counter and seeing how you can get to the door in the fewest frames possible.
Edit: Kinda read that wrong..
Use frame advance and choose a frame near where the optimum should be and start running toward the door. If you bump on the door, try the next frame. If you get through the door but are too slow, try the previous frame.
Could it also be that you have started running too close to the door and are not yet at full speed (but extremely close to it, which is why you wouldn't have noticed it) when you go through the door?
The fact that you're off by 1/100 of a second means that it's a sub-frame timing problem dealing with the counter. Try getting hit slightly later by Ridley the last time. (the counter starts later so you can get through the door earlier in the countdown)
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Wow, I would've suggested starting over as being way easier, but for some reason I thought you were too strongly against it.
michael flatley wrote:
I probably won't resort to the WIP because an official release is easier to come by. I don't want an smv only compatible with a certain WIP.
I think some different things are being confused here.
There is a Snes9x 1.43 Final official release, which I suggest you do not use because it seems to always have occasional desync problems. It's no fun to have to re-do something just because the emulator messed up.
There is a Snes9x 1.43 WIP official release. While better as far as desync goes, it is an older release and this is not what OgreSlayeR was talking about.
There is a custom build of Snes9x in the thread OgreSlayeR linked to, which I suggest you DO use because of the extra features, which include hotkey customization and better graphics (depending on what you set) when playing, among other things. It's fully backwards-compatible with the above versions (whichever one you want) and if you don't believe me you can always try playing back your movie with an official version and you'll see that it plays back exactly the same. SMVs made with this version have already been published at this site. It's not "hard to come by" and even if it was, it isn't needed to play back what you make with it. And if your Snes9x movie is already underway (which it is), you can continue making the rest of it with this version without having to start over again. But it's your choice, of course.
As for the slower escape time, I think Omni's suggestion makes the most sense. It might be the case that you're actually faster than before even though this causes the countdown timer to seem to indicate that you're slower. Then again that might not be the case, you are still getting used to using a different emulator after all.
(edit: just to clarify, when you say "currently timing at 59.84 instead of 58.85" do you mean the 59.84 is what you got on ZSNES while 58.85 is what you get now? Because 59.84 is faster than 58.85 if you mean it the other way around.)
MF,
Are you planning on making the ZMVs you did get done available? I'd still be interested in seeing what you had accomplished before you were...coerced....into switching to snes9x.
Even just a big zip file with what you had or maybe just a select few would be cool. There are plenty of folks who could host it for you if that were an issue.
What do you think?
I can get 56.01 and 56.03 but this damn emulator won't give me 56.02! It was so easy to do in zsnes but I've spent hours and can't get 56.02. Damn damn damn! This one stupid thing is holding me back.
edit:
I'm just about to give up on this and it's really upsetting me. I had no idea I'd find such a big difference between these two emulators in just the first few seconds of the escape. At a certain door I can get every time from 55.95 to 56.03 except the one that I need - 56.02. I want to at least equal my last escape time if I'm doing this run over again. If I can't get this exact time the randomness of the explosions in the neighboring room set me back .2 seconds. I've encorporated walking, jumping, ducking, and everything else I can think of but the emulator hates this specific time. I've tried starting the entire run over several times in hopes that something will change but I'm still stuck. You guys may not get to see the escape I pulled off in zsnes :O(
I can get 56.01 and 56.03 but this damn emulator won't give me 56.02! It was so easy to do in zsnes but I've spent hours and can't get 56.02. Damn damn damn! This one stupid thing is holding me back.
edit:
I'm just about to give up on this and it's really upsetting me. I had no idea I'd find such a big difference between these two emulators in just the first few seconds of the escape. At a certain door I can get every time from 55.95 to 56.03 except the one that I need - 56.02. I want to at least equal my last escape time if I'm doing this run over again. If I can't get this exact time the randomness of the explosions in the neighboring room set me back .2 seconds. I've encorporated walking, jumping, ducking, and everything else I can think of but the emulator hates this specific time. I've tried starting the entire run over several times in hopes that something will change but I'm still stuck. You guys may not get to see the escape I pulled off in zsnes :O(
What about giving us the smv with 56.03 you are working on, perhaps someone finds the frame, which needs manipulation to get 56.02 ... ;-)
cu
Fabian
I think I know why you might have had trouble getting 59.85: I tried for the fastest time and could only get 59.84 no matter what frame I started going left, but then I realized I was forgetting to hold down the run button; once I did that I managed to get 59.85. It's not a randomness thing or anything else, I didn't know what I was talking about before, either you're not holding run or you're not starting from as many pixels to the right as you could be without falling off the edge. If it's the former, I'm not saying you're actually forgetting to run, but maybe you have the buttons set up wrong so the button you think is the run button is not really the run button. (Oh, and does your edit mean you ended up getting 59.86? First of all, how? And second of all, maybe that .01 saved is the reason you can't get a certain exact time after the next room.)
(btw, this is another reason to use the custom improved snes9x: you can tell it to hold down the run button for you to avoid having to hold it all the time, and if you press "," it will start showing you which buttons you have held down)
And, I agree that at some point, you should post the smv of just the intro & escape (you're not starting from a saved game, right?), if you don't do anything super-secret during that time, since it's always possible that someone here will find a way to improve upon part of it.
I've been having run auto-held for me since the very beginning. It is true that even with run held you can be forced to get either 59.84, 59.85, or 59.86. In zsnes I had 59.85 that lead to the 56.02 in a room further down. I've tried all three starting combinations and have done everything I can possibly think of to get 56.02. I've honestly spent over 8 hours on this stupid thing.
For clarification I'm using the latest snes9x and I'll be releasing my progress. This will only be done in large chunks, though.
UPDATE:
OMG, I finally have something. It starts out slower than my zsnes run but somehow I gain .08 seconds in the next room. I'm now doing very well and will probably have some of the run ready to showcase tomorrow. And to answer your request yarbles - no, I won't be releasing the zsnes stuff. With snes9x and my route already planned out it won't take me long to catch back up.
