Posted: 2/19/2011 3:37 PM
Post subject: Hello, World!
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BeefOwl
Joined: 2/19/2011
Posts: 11
Location: New Jersey
I'm new to the forums but not to TASVideos itself, I've been trolling around here for some time, and I've dabbled in TASing, too, although not too seriously. The reason I'm posting is because I've recently been making TASes that are for decent optimization rather than just sheer entertainment (though I'm still making silly little TASes, too :D) and I've been having some difficulty with the emulators, among other things, and I have a few questions: 1- I made a 2-Player mode TAS of Mario Bros and FCEUX and afterwards (it was a very short test run fortunately) was disappointed to find out that only Player 1's input was being saved in the movie. How do you make the recordings account for multiple player's input? Also, is there any way to recover Player 2's input? (like that my movie only played back one players input but it recorded both). I doubt it but it'd be nice to not have to remake the TAS. 2- I'm not entirely sure if my understanding of the console input is correct, but on the frame you press a button, it counts as a press, and on the second frame it is a hold, and the third is a second press if you released the button on the second frame. So you could push any particular button only 30 times in a single second. Is my understanding of that right? and finally 3- In the submission guidelines, one of the reasons for rejection is "not finishing the game." Is there a gray area for sandbox style games? I know there are several published TASes (like Brain Age, for example) that play unending games to achieve a certain goal (for that, I would say completing one exercise). I was playing around with a few sandbox games where I couldn't seem to think of any action in particular that would qualify as a goal. Also, I apologize in advance for my verbose manner of speaking :3 P.S. What imagehost do you guys suggest for avatars? Every site I try gives me an "invalid url" error... or do I just need a certain number of posts to earn the right to have one?
Posted: 2/19/2011 5:02 PM
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Scepheo
Player (146)
Joined: 7/16/2009
Posts: 686
Hello and welcome to TASVideos! 1. If something is wrong with the playback (which I doubt) the movie file should indeed still contain the input for the second controller. If the input for the second controller wasn't recorded for whatever reason, the input isn't stored in the file and therefor can't be recovered. Either way, you'd need the input file to find out. 2. A button is either held or it is not. How the game handles this depends on the game itself. But you are still somewhat correct. Most game considered a button to be pressed when it is not held on the previous frame, but is held on the current frame. So yes, in a 60 fps game you can only press a button 30 times per second. 3. This very much depends on the game. I suggest you go to the game's own thread (create it if it doesn't exist, but search first) and ask there.
Posted: 2/19/2011 5:14 PM
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BeefOwl
Joined: 2/19/2011
Posts: 11
Location: New Jersey
Thanks for the feedback, but for the Mario Bros movie, it plays back Mario's movements exactly as I entered them, but it doesn't enter Luigi's. If the movie does still contain Luigi's movements, do you have any idea how to play them back?
Posted: 2/20/2011 6:26 AM
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Randil
Skilled player (1828)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Hello and welcome! One easy way to check if the movie file contains any input for player 2 is to load up the ROM, check "Config->Display->Input Display->2 Player", and play the movie, looking at the two gamepads to see what input lights up as you play the movie. If the icon for the second gamepad stays dark through the whole movie, it means that the movie file does not contain any input for player 2. Concerning imagehost, Photobucket has worked for me for the last few years.
My own page on this site.
Posted: 2/20/2011 10:39 AM
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BeefOwl
Joined: 2/19/2011
Posts: 11
Location: New Jersey
Thanks, but unfortunately that would mean player 2's input didn't save... I've been playing around FCEUX and I was wondering if you have to have any special configurations in place to record multi-player input. I tried it two more times with different settings and still neither played back player 2's input.
Posted: 2/20/2011 12:07 PM
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Randil
Skilled player (1828)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Hmm, I've never had any trouble with recording input for more than one player, as long as the emulator recognizes the input... You mean that you can move around with player 2, but the input from controller 2 just isn't recorded into the movie file?
My own page on this site.
Posted: 2/20/2011 1:23 PM
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MESHUGGAH
Other
Skilled player (1920)
Joined: 11/14/2009
Posts: 1353
Location: 𝔐𝔞𝔤𝑦𝔞𝔯
NES TASer of 2013 NES TAS of 2013 NES TAS of 2012 NES TAS of 2011
If you upload the movie file I could watch it that you actually recorded any input for 2nd player.
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
Posted: 2/21/2011 3:29 PM
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BeefOwl
Joined: 2/19/2011
Posts: 11
Location: New Jersey
Here it is: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JWMQVBG1 However, I'm pretty sure it didn't record because no input comes up on Player 2's display during playback, unless for some reason it was stored but not implemented... My real question is what do I do next time to make it record both inputs, though
Posted: 2/21/2011 4:12 PM
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MESHUGGAH
Other
Skilled player (1920)
Joined: 11/14/2009
Posts: 1353
Location: 𝔐𝔞𝔤𝑦𝔞𝔯
NES TASer of 2013 NES TAS of 2013 NES TAS of 2012 NES TAS of 2011
BeefOwl wrote:
Here it is: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JWMQVBG1 However, I'm pretty sure it didn't record because no input comes up on Player 2's display during playback, unless for some reason it was stored but not implemented... My real question is what do I do next time to make it record both inputs, though
It's unfortunate but yes, it's really unrecorded. Try this, it's worked for me: - open ROM - Config > Input... - select gamepad for port2 - click Configure right next to it to bind the keys - click Set at Input presets 1 - Close dialog - File > Movie > Record Movie... Next time just simply open ROM and record movie and it should work. Try it by making a very slow 1-2 sec movie. Also the movie file will contains lines like |0|....T...|.L.U....|| instead of |0|....T...|||
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...