will you upload a WIP of just this level when you're finished please?? :3
Completed:
2010-Current | Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - Individual Level TASes
2014 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Any% in 1:05:03.23
2014 | Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - Hero Story (w/ THC98) in 25:11.87
2016 | Metroid Prime - Any% in 00:37 (In-Game Time)
2018 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Cheat% in 1:42.350
2020 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Any% in 0:39:20.10
2022 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Cheat% in 1:25.567
Currently working on:
SA2:B DARK STORY
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
Mapler and I essentially found the best possible emerald locations for a no death Dry Lagoon run. I honestly think it's impossible to get a better cycle than what we found. You'll see why in a in couple days. ;)
Joined: 10/30/2011
Posts: 146
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Can't wait! Can't wait! The final time of Iron Gate is outstanding! By "best possible emerald locations" you mean that this layout is even better than the old one, making Dry Lagoon also be improved? If yes then this is amazing, if not it's amazing anyway just because the reason of it being slower would be the Iron Gate run. Great job guys
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
Brian_pso wrote:
By "best possible emerald locations" you mean that this layout is even better than the old one, making Dry Lagoon also be improved? If yes then this is amazing, if not it's amazing anyway just because the reason of it being slower would be the Iron Gate run. Great job guys
Joined: 10/30/2011
Posts: 146
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
And it keeps getting better and better, and I'm loving it!
If it wasn't the need to raise the CHAO to get those emblems, I'd love to see an 180 emblems TAS, although we could still have an all missions TAS :)
If a TAS was made of the Dreamcast version instead, would that take precendence over the GameCube version? Just like in the case of PSX Resident Evil obsoleting the DS Resident Evil?
Why, oh, why do I even <i>try</i> to understand my own species?
Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 1466
Location: Not playing Puyo Tetris
I would say that the GC Version of SA2 is preferred since the black market is already built into the game instead of it being online only for the DC version.
About the WIP:
Why no A rank on Eggman?
The Hunting stage got p3nd SO hard.
When TAS does Quake 1, SDA will declare war.
The Prince doth arrive he doth please.
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
ReneBalow wrote:
hegyak wrote:
About the WIP:
Why no A rank on Eggman?
It's no A rank, because he has just 13910 points. But you need for the A rank 20000 points.
Like Rene said, it's based on points, not solely on speed. Yes, you get a speed bonus for doing the levels in a timely fashion, but it's not going to auto-A Rank you for going extremely fast. If the 2 elevators hadn't been skipped (very long waiting period with lots of robots), we probably would have went for an A Rank for the sake of entertainment, but obviously a dual elevator skip is more entertaining than an A Rank, right? ;)
sonicpacker wrote:
RingRush wrote:
Also, do you know if you'll be doing any dualspeed duration in the TAS (getting two speedshoes overlapping to get a permanent speed increase).
We haven't planned that far ahead, but thank you for the reminder.
Can someone explain the meaning of "permanent" in this case? Do the air shoes get carried over to other levels for the same character? Other characters? After a soft reset with the controller to be used in the other 2 stories?
It lasts until you exit the level (whether by completing it or quitting to the menu), but not beyond that. Notably, it does last to subsequent lives if you die with it in effect, but that much probably isn't going to matter in a TAS.
I'm curious as to how the pair of you got around to manipulating the treasure hunt levels. Is there some kind of RAM watch, or skipping the previous cutscene on a certain frame, or what?
My current project: Something mysterious (oooooh!)
My username is all lower-case letters. Please get it right :(
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
theenglishman wrote:
I'm curious as to how the pair of you got around to manipulating the treasure hunt levels. Is there some kind of RAM watch, or skipping the previous cutscene on a certain frame, or what?
The only thing it's based on is what frame you enter the level. In this case, we needed to waste a total of 42 frames before pressing start on the Knuckles/Rouge cutscene.
Joined: 10/30/2011
Posts: 146
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
The WIP is outstanding, it looks too much more amazing while watching everything together, great job! Dying with some health left? LMAO, how did you do that? Did you got hit at the same time you got some rings or something like that?
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
I was trying to glitch the physics and maybe walk on the sand so we could reach Mystic Melody, but sadly, nothing happens:
And Brian, I used a chaos drive. Rings don't fill health when you're "dead." But for some reason chaos drives do. ;)
I would say that the GC Version of SA2 is preferred since the black market is already built into the game instead of it being online only for the DC version.
About the WIP:
Why no A rank on Eggman?
The Hunting stage got p3nd SO hard.
But the black market has nothing to do this TAS.
Incidentally, are the ones doing this run certain that it's faster without a memory card?
Why, oh, why do I even <i>try</i> to understand my own species?
Joined: 10/30/2011
Posts: 146
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Too bad it wasn't possible to discover any way to walk on the sand, it is a great idea. Actually after posting I wondered about that when I noticed the animals/chaos drives list on the bottom right corner, very funny lol
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
N. Harmonik wrote:
Incidentally, are the ones doing this run certain that it's faster without a memory card?
If we were to use a memory card, there would be longer loading times, we would need to create a file, and we would need to choose the file twice after both of the soft resets (to skip the credits).
So no, we don't know for "certain" because it was never tested, but I'm assuming that overall, no memory card is the better option.
I would say that the GC Version of SA2 is preferred since the black market is already built into the game instead of it being online only for the DC version.
About the WIP:
Why no A rank on Eggman?
The Hunting stage got p3nd SO hard.
But the black market has nothing to do this TAS.
Incidentally, are the ones doing this run certain that it's faster without a memory card?
GCN version has less lag, better emulation/TASing support (there's a reason there are no DC games on the site), and Eggman/Tails have an 8 frame delay between locking on to separate targets instead of 12 like on the DC. The disadvantages are that they fixed Knuckles and Rouges Uppercut attacks so that they no longer break the game. There are also small level differences, the only significant one I'm aware of being an invisible platform that was removed in Green Forest, preventing a DC shortcut from working on GCN.
No memory card means no delay from the game trying to save. It also means we don't go insane TASing this game since we would have to delete the memory card file every time we play the movie back. Dolphin is slow enough without having to do things before we can even play the file.
No memory card means no delay from the game trying to save. It also means we don't go insane TASing this game since we would have to delete the memory card file every time we play the movie back. Dolphin is slow enough without having to do things before we can even play the file.
Obviously it's slower here, but if it weren't, you could easily just make a .bat file to delete it if you needed to.
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
So after doing some testing, I've concluded that soft resetting after each level saves approximately 9 and a half seconds (closer to 9.6). On regular levels, the first frame you can reset while having the game register that you completed it is when your time bonus hits 0. A soft reset takes 30 frames to activate. To optimize, you go 29 frames before you're supposed to press a button to skip the time bonus animation, start your soft reset (A, B, X, Start), and then on the frame you need to press a button, press Y while still holding the other 4 buttons. On boss levels, the earliest you can do it is right when the screen fades entirely to white. So this time, go 30 frames before it's all white, then just press the 4 buttons for 30 frames. So far I've done this after Iron Gate and the Hot Shot battle. The first reset saved 9"6 (576 frames) and the second reset saved 9"63 (578 frames). If you're doing this for the Hero Story, I suspect 1 more frame would be saved in each of those situations because you don't need to press right when choosing it after each reset. This also means that we don't have to stick to one story at a time and can switch back and forth between Hero and Dark. I think that allows for some room to be both creative and entertaining. For example, after Dry Lagoon, we could soft reset and go to City Escape instead. That way, people wouldn't have to watch 2 Eggman levels so close to each other. Speaking of Dry Lagoon, due to emerald position manipulation, it looks like we're going to have to find a new frame to enter the level that gives us some good options. I've found one that I estimate would take 14:xx seconds if optimized. It only takes a 3 frame delay at the cutscene as opposed to the 42 frame delay it took in the YouTube WIP. Mapler and I will continue to see if we have any better candidates.
The soft reset code is X-B-Start last I checked. Is there any need for A and Y?
Also, I do like the idea of doing them in chronological order. That would mean going up to Radical Highway before starting City Escape, I believe.
It's useless, but I thought it was funny.
And Brian, I used a chaos drive. Rings don't fill health when you're "dead." But for some reason chaos drives do. ;)
