Post subject: Hello there :)
RD3
Joined: 3/25/2011
Posts: 6
Hey, I'm RD3 and I've finally decided to register at TASVideos :) I'm a big fan of TAS' (I love watching a game run at perfection or simply watching it get pulverized) and I decided I wanted to find out more about how to actually make them rather than just watch them...so here I am :) And with that, I want to try and get my first contribution in for one of my favourite series of games - the Sonic series I think I may have found a 170 frame improvement (don't know exact figures, its around that value) on the current Sonic Advance 1 TAS. However, I don't know where to post it since the actual improvement is super duper simple and I'm not even sure its valid as an improvement so I didn't want to bump a very old topic just to post something that might have already been found out or wasn't actually counted as an improvment. Should I specifically contact the person who made the run or post it here or somewhere else? I also have a couple of questions regarding the VisualBoyAdvance Emulator as I want to try and do a TAS of Bomberman Tournament - All the movies I've made so far (test runs and stuff) are all VMV files. However, all the TAS movie files submitted are VBA and I can't playback any of the TAS' that people have made on the emulator. How do I make it so that I get VBA movie files instead? - Is there an option that lets you see at what frame something happens? - Is there an option that lets you see how many rerecords you've done? I'm afraid I'm a complete noob when it comes to all of this so I apologise if I've missed something I also apologise for the long post :) Thankyou in advance!
Post subject: Re: Hello there :)
Editor, Skilled player (1402)
Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 2081
RD3 wrote:
Hey, I'm RD3 and I've finally decided to register at TASVideos :) I'm a big fan of TAS' (I love watching a game run at perfection or simply watching it get pulverized) and I decided I wanted to find out more about how to actually make them rather than just watch them...so here I am :) And with that, I want to try and get my first contribution in for one of my favourite series of games - the Sonic series I think I may have found a 170 frame improvement (don't know exact figures, its around that value) on the current Sonic Advance 1 TAS. However, I don't know where to post it since the actual improvement is super duper simple and I'm not even sure its valid as an improvement so I didn't want to bump a very old topic just to post something that might have already been found out or wasn't actually counted as an improvment. Should I specifically contact the person who made the run or post it here or somewhere else? I also have a couple of questions regarding the VisualBoyAdvance Emulator as I want to try and do a TAS of Bomberman Tournament - All the movies I've made so far (test runs and stuff) are all VMV files. However, all the TAS movie files submitted are VBA and I can't playback any of the TAS' that people have made on the emulator. How do I make it so that I get VBA movie files instead? - Is there an option that lets you see at what frame something happens? - Is there an option that lets you see how many rerecords you've done? I'm afraid I'm a complete noob when it comes to all of this so I apologise if I've missed something I also apologise for the long post :) Thankyou in advance!
Hello, RD3 and welcome to TASvideos, enjoy your stay! By all means, if you've found an improvement, don't mind bumping an old thread. Since I'm not terribly familiar with the game however, I couldn't tell you if it's already known. As for your questions: - You likely got the non-rr version of VBA. Be sure to get your emulators from this page to make sure they are the correct ones. - VBA-rr does have a frame counter (and a lag counter and input display, for that matter, also very helpful) though I'm not sure about the hotkeys for them. You can reassign them anyway, so everything's good. - Just load the movie file using VBArr, the rerecord count should be displayed with the author and everything. Hope I could help, if you have any further questions, do not be afraid to ask
Post subject: Re: Hello there :)
RD3
Joined: 3/25/2011
Posts: 6
scrimpeh wrote:
Hello, RD3 and welcome to TASvideos, enjoy your stay! By all means, if you've found an improvement, don't mind bumping an old thread. Since I'm not terribly familiar with the game however, I couldn't tell you if it's already known. As for your questions: - You likely got the non-rr version of VBA. Be sure to get your emulators from this page to make sure they are the correct ones. - VBA-rr does have a frame counter (and a lag counter and input display, for that matter, also very helpful) though I'm not sure about the hotkeys for them. You can reassign them anyway, so everything's good. - Just load the movie file using VBArr, the rerecord count should be displayed with the author and everything. Hope I could help, if you have any further questions, do not be afraid to ask
Thankyou very much :) Ahhh I thought I got the wrong version...I will get that one and start to look into doing my first TAS :) Thanks! As for the improvement, it's nothing complicated, its just that the author doesn't soft reset (A+B+Start+Select, I think that's the right term) at the beginning to get the the starting menu as soon as he could...would that be considered an improvement? It wouldn't change the actual gameplay at all so I wasn't sure
Post subject: How do you edit part of a movie but still preserve the rest?
RD3
Joined: 3/25/2011
Posts: 6
Sorry, it's me again and I didn't want to make another thread...still getting to grips with this thing so I apologise if I have missed something out So I've rather stupidly gone and made an error on a practice TAS I'm doing to learn the basics of TAS'. I accidently did an input (Start) a frame later than I should/could have done whilst progressing through the title screen of the game and I'm wondering how I can fix this Obviously I could just go to that point in the movie and start re recording from there but that means I'll have to redo the whole of the movie again despite it being ok (fortunately, I wrote down all the important frame numbers where I do the inputs so all I'd have to do is minus a frame off them if I did have to do it all again) This being a test run, it's not a massive deal but I'm concerned that if this pops up in a run I want to publish, it's going to cost me dearly if I can't figure out how to go to a segment of the movie to edit without having to redo all the bits after it ...what I'm trying to say is - Can I go to a point in the movie (let's say halfway), improve that section (i.e. save a couple of frames) and still preserve the rest of the TAS which is (as far as I'm aware) optimum? Or do I have to start again from scratch? :(
Editor, Skilled player (1402)
Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 2081
You can attempt directly editing the movie file (.vbm is binary I think, so you'll need a hex editor), but it is unlikely and very dependent on the game it will sync. Anyway, this should hopefully be helpful. If nothing works, I'm afraid you'll have to redo it.