Joined: 12/27/2006
Posts: 532
Location: Göteborg, Sweden
I haven't made a TAS in a few years now, but from what I can remember: 1-4 are in-level states that just keep rolling, no real system here. 6-8 are key places in a level which I might need to go back to if I mess up or come up with an improvement. 9 is the start of the level. 0 is usually either a state really far back or one I use when I want to re-watch a specific point in read-only mode.
My published movies [03:45:05] <Naohiro19> Soulrivers: ... [03:45:19] <Soulrivers> ? [03:46:35] <Naohiro19> <Soulrivers> No! <Naohiro19> So? <Soulrivers> Yes! [03:46:48] <Naohiro19> joke
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I think making this topic sticky would be a good idea.
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Skilled player (1703)
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For me, I make a completely seperate save state whenever I enter a new world/chapter/major point in a game. I do this to prevent myself from accidentally overwriting an important save state due to my carelessness.
Editor, Experienced player (607)
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I usually use the first four savestates for everything (3D game TASes too). I'll use the first savestate when I enter a new level, then use the second savestate once I've done some important movements, then use the third state once I've progressed to an important point and am preparing for something big, and then use the fourth state to save the fastest completion of that level once I'm done with it (afterwards, I go back and try to improve it further, and usually succeed). After entering the next area/level and making sure it's optimized as far as I can make it, I'll save over savestate 1 and start working on the next level. The only time I deviate from this four-savestate strategy is when I need precision for something time-consuming or difficult (then I use six savestates, Ex: Paper Plane flying in Paper Mario: TTYD) and when I am testing a hex-edited movie and making it sync (I use savestates 5-8 for that since I don't have to touch my original 1-4). Not sure if I would recommend this strategy, but it works for me because I don't make a bunch of savestates that I don't know what to do with, and can manage them better. I'll know which one to save over once I succeed at what I'm trying to do, since it's easy to remember where you were in 4 savestates.
Player (124)
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Location: In X position=50 y position=20
I use slot1,slot2 and slot9. Slot 1 is major used as others say. Slot 2 is use when halfway through. Slot 9 is on beginning of the stage.
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Post subject: 1,3,5,7,9 100! wait it needs to be odd
Spikestuff
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I use 1-5 1&2 Major 3 Backup 4 Minor as checkpoints are hit etc. etc. (2nd backup) 5 Start of level and going through doors etc. I also use 6 to view what I've done because of how I use 5
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Post subject: Infinite savestates to the rescue!
Experienced player, Moderator, Senior Ambassador (897)
Joined: 9/14/2008
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I am a huge fan of infinite savestates. I relied on them heavily for my Otocky run, which would have been impossible without FatRatKnight's MultiTrack2.lua script (which I believe has a new name nowadays). In the case of the NetHack TAS, the framework we're using can have an infinite number of savestates all saved in a sequence with the ability to select any given savestate as the working state to load when the load savestate button is pressed. This allows us to traverse trees of various attempts in a linear list which means it's possible to get "lost" and forget what happened but gives us an immense amount of freedom and control. I hear BizHawk may have something like that but I haven't looked into it just yet. Needless to say, I'm glad I'm not constrained by only 10 save slots. A.C. ******
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Active player (303)
Joined: 8/21/2012
Posts: 429
Location: France
Ok, my turn. I'll take the example of Sonic Triple Trouble done with BizHawk, using 10 states (and bulletproof rerecording, which is an awesome feature). State 1 is for "ease of encode", I started to use it quite late in the run; this save is done just before the "act name" screen is displayed, so I can just load that at the end when I want to encode each new act separately before moving to the next one. State 2 is done at the exact first frame that accepts input, it's the beginning of the "real" TASing. I don't touch those two until I'm done with the current act. After that I use the others in order, before each important action (when I have to try multiple outcomes depending on the input frames and all). When I find the faster way to do one thing, I use the next state, but can come back to the previous ones if I think something can be changed there to gain speed later. Usually I use this until I hit state 9, then I go back to using state 3-4-5-6... To continue. If I discover that I can't go back far enough to change one thing, I just go in read only, reload 2 then play the movie until the part I want to change, save, go read+write and load... State 0 is used for comparison, it marks my best attempt after a series of actions (that includes multiple "minor" savestates). It's also the state that represents the end of an act, or the point at which I stop working in a middle of a level, to get back in action next time I launch the movie. Since I can always go back to any point using read only mode, overwriting some earlier states is not really a problem.
Skilled player (1703)
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1. A checkpoint early on that works for several revisions of the run. 2. A checkpoint later on that works for the current revision of the run. 3. The current section of the game I'm TASing 4. Same as 3. 5 - 9. A point of interest/checkpoint later on that works for the current revision of the run.
Site Admin, Skilled player (1234)
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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.
Player (70)
Joined: 5/28/2013
Posts: 99
Yeah, Ans pretty much wrote out a perfect explanation of that method for TAS'ing. It's great for games with a ton of sub-segments within a larger segment that require multiple layers of manipulation that all influence the one that follows.
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Experienced player (703)
Joined: 2/5/2011
Posts: 1417
Location: France
F for frame advance Q for save 1 W for load 1 Then shift + 2-9
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how do I use savestate on Hourglass? im trying to test with Rockman7FC
ロックマンX7は? 私はそのクソゲームを憎む
Joined: 10/23/2009
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Hello! I have a question. What is exactly a savestate slot? I know what is a state. But the word slot is confusing me.
Editor, Skilled player (1502)
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The savestate is a copy of the memory at a given point. The slot is a number to reference a specific savestate, usually 0 to 9. Like a pseudo memory address, so your computer loads the right savestate when you press load.
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Location: Where?
Ooh okay, so the state slot is the savestate itself. We need slot since there is more than one state?
Editor, Skilled player (1502)
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No, just a number. See each savestate like a written sheet of paper and a number at the top of it represents the slot.
We need slot since there is more than one state?
Yes.
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Joined: 10/23/2009
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Location: Where?
Ohh okay, thanks. So to sums up, we have 10 states slot, and 10 states possible.
Editor, Skilled player (1502)
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Depends on the emulator. The keyboard savestates are usually limited to 10, for lsnes to 30 althought it can use like a million. It's possible to make a named savestates in "save state as...", which give the possibility to make infinity of them.
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filwac
He/Him
Joined: 12/12/2009
Posts: 29
Location: Forever floating in a secret world
First is primary Second is kind of a backup so don't have go all the way back wherever slot 3 is Third is beginning of stage usually F1 is beginning but after intro F2 - F7 are placeholders
Waiting takes too long
Amaraticando
It/Its
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In lsnes, I use 20 savestates: F1 to F10 and 1 to 0 F10: the earliest point in the movie that is useful to me. 0: the earliest point in the movie near the part I'm TASing. 6-9: interesting end points. F1-F9, 1-5: regular savestates. I don't imagine myself with only 10 slots. EDIT: I usually take named savestates at the beginning of each level.
Editor, Skilled player (1502)
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Since my savestating behaviour has change since back then, I feel like I need to update, because now that most platforms support non-linear TASing. When do I savestate: Never, it does it automatically, it is known as greenzones. When I playback the movie it save the greenzone for every n frames, when I rewind it loads the previous greenzone, when I edit the movie it loads the greenzone where I click and invalidates the ones after it. There're also branches which have several features normal savestates don't have; they save the entire movie and don't truncate it when loading, and branch screenshots which let's me compare movies without taking notes on a notepad. My hotkey layout (some might not be in TAStudio): Frame-advance: tab Rewind: q, backspace Pause: w, pause Turbo: tilde Restore last position: a Toggle auto-restore: s Branches: mouse Controller input: mouse And I use some of the stuff in TAS Editor/TAStudio that can't change hotkeys too. I'd like to be able to change some of these though.
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Site Admin, Skilled player (1234)
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TASeditor wrote:
And I use some of the stuff in TAS Editor/TAStudio that can't change hotkeys too. I'd like to be able to change some of these though.
Like which? My layout is this (in fceux): ~ - Frame Advance. Esc - Pause. All the rest is done with mouse only (combined with Alt, Shift and Ctrl).
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.
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feos wrote:
TASeditor wrote:
And I use some of the stuff in TAS Editor/TAStudio that can't change hotkeys too. I'd like to be able to change some of these though.
Like which?
Some for editing need better places for me: Cloning, deleting, selection courser up/down. I'd like to put them somewhere near my left hand, so I don't need to move my hand from mouse or my other one all over the keyboard, they should be single key. Copy/paste/paste-insert/cut are already on the left, but multi-key.
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Site Admin, Skilled player (1234)
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Agreed, I'll look into that in tastudio when I get back to it (after some of the current things).
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.