Post subject: It's about time I TAS
Brandon
He/Him
Editor, Player (189)
Joined: 11/21/2010
Posts: 913
Location: Tennessee
Hello all, While I've been infiltrating the ranks to become this site's newest publisher, I have avoiding doing the one thing I came here to do; actually make a TAS of my own. Now, by all means, I've had some ideas for TASes and I've made some interesting things to advance these ideas, but I am far from an expert on the techniques that most people use to TAS. The only effort I have made towards a TAS is my Panel de Pon - VS Very Hard Mode: AI Run. Although I still believe this is a very ambitious project that would get a positive reaction from most viewers, I also realize that it'll take a long time for me to make this robot smart enough to beat a TASer. So, in the meantime, I want to at least make one TAS with the conventional tools. I'm not positive where to start with this. In FCEUX, I see something nifty called "TAS Edit," which seems to allow me to edit the input in every frame of the game. As cool as this is, Nahoc claims that the better way is to just use frame advance and save states. I suppose that's the most efficient way considering I'd most likely TAS a SNES game, and I don't think there's a TAS Edit for Snes9x. Still, I'd like to get some consensus on what I should use. Perhaps more important than all of this is my game choice. I could manually do Tetris Attack / Panel de Pon and try to make my bot somehow beat it, but there are also some other options. Some games that I am fond of that I don't see TASes for include Spider-Man and X-Men: Arcade's Revenge and Disney's Magical Quest 2. Which of these is the best choice for my first TAS? So yes, I'm hoping to get some feedback on all of these items so that I can join the playing community and get one more shiny title tacked to my account. Also, if someone is currently working on a TAS that could use a co-author (Especially one that involves memory exploits like Pokemon Yellow or Super Mario Land), I'd love to be their understudy. Thanks!
All the best, Brandon Evans
Skilled player (1882)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
I definitely think you should TAS using conventional means, i.e. savestates and frame advance. Although it is possible to record input by this table format, it is mostly used to splice movie files together or change a small section of your movie without having to go back and rerecord from that point. As you said, there is a TAS Edit for FCEUX, and FCEUX:s text based movie file format allows you to easily edit the input in a text editor. For other emulators, such as SNES9X, there is TAS Movie Editor (the latest version seems to be in this post). As for what game you should TAS, I'm not familiar with the games you listed. However, there are a few general things that you should consider when choosing a game to TAS. I'll just list a few that I can think of right now: *How much do you like the game in question? Trust me, you will spend more time and energy on the TAS if it's a game that you really like. *How complex is the game? Roughly speaking, the more complex the game, the harder it is to TAS. As your first game, I recommend a simple game, perhaps a platformer or action game. Note that you don't want the game to be too simple, then it won't make an interesting TAS. *Games with lots of variation, in terms of graphics, music, weapons, etc. usually make a good TAS. You want your TAS to have some variety. This also connects to the next point: *How long do you think the TAS will be? Long games (such as RPGs) require much more planning, commitment and knowledge about the game. The risk of having to redo the movie due to early mistakes in the movie is also quite big. It's also easier to keep the viewer's focus if it's a shorter TAS. I hope that helped!
Site Admin, Skilled player (1234)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11251
Location: RU
For CREATING input for other emulators one can take a Multitrack2.lua. It can be configured just lite TAS Edit - to save for backup every frame, etc. It was created for these 2 things - observing youк own input & recording multiple players. It also has awesome description of all functions in itself.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.