Post by arkiandruski

Posted: 8/28/2014 11:44 AM

Quote

Truncated

Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (968)

Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
Location: Sweden

dwangoAC wrote:

Oddly, the realtime speedrunners I've spoken to are extremely confident that they will come out on top, so it'll be interesting to see what the outcome is.

Odd indeed. Honestly I can't see a lot of games where even a sloppy TAS doesn't beat a live speed runner. But perhaps I'm wrong. I think such a challenge would be interesting, but perhaps mainly to the TAS audience? It would be like an extremely short Dream Team Competition, which has been popular in the past. Since the general audience is not involved in the creation, I don't know how interesting only showing the final result would be. I can volunteer to tas a game in 4 hours to test it out, but it would need to be under the honor system - I can't guarantee long stretches of free time.

Posted: 8/28/2014 3:55 PM

Quote

Grincevent

Active player (306)

Joined: 8/21/2012
Posts: 429
Location: France

I'm with Derakon about "simply" showing good TASes, instead of trying too hard to find weird ideas or innovations :P I'm not saying that the ideas in this thread are bad, I like most of them, I'm just giving a "vote" towards simplicity.

Derakon wrote:

I'm inclined to say that we should mostly try to avoid weird gimmicks. If the focus is on TASing, then let's show TASes. Here on these forums we are of course extremely familiar with TASing, which tends to mean that we're more interested in the more outré examples of the art, but in a setting like AGDQ I think we'd be better-served by simply showing a set of very high-quality TASes. The documentary thread has a bunch of discussion of what would make a good "TASVideos trailer", and I think much of that should be adaptable to an AGDQ TAS block. In general, I'd say that we should prioritize: * Runs of games that many people are familiar with and that are played in highly-unexpected ways. The SMW ACE run was an excellent example of this at AGDQ 2014. * Runs of games where the TASer (or an experienced speedrunner) can provide commentary, ideally in-person but with a voiceover or prerecorded speech if necessary. Commentary goes a long way to explaining the sometimes odd-looking decisions made in games. * Runs that stand on their own well. International Super Star Soccer Deluxe might be a good example here. But really, just run down the starred runs and select ones you like and/or have the cart for. I do think it could be interesting to show a speed-TAS vs. speedrunner competition; if nothing else it should help demonstrate how much effort a TAS takes, since I doubt that 4 hours would be enough time to make an especially optimized TAS.

After all, I'm pretty sure that what most people prefer about TASes is watching them. So, if there are problems with the other ideas in the end, this option will always be available.

Posted: 8/29/2014 9:31 PM

Quote

Corrodias

Joined: 8/28/2014
Posts: 7

Operating under the assumption that they're all console-verifiable... I'm not sure about River City Ransom. It does have its entertaining moments, and it is an appropriate length. I am less interested when they're just hitting each other. It's not bad. I think it really needs to stand out if it's not going to be a speedrun. Super Mario All Stars is cool, but at 90 minutes, I think it's going to be too long. International Super Star Soccer is pretty good. Reminds me of the RBI Baseball one. I'm going to provide a Super Metroid cart so we can find out whether the Game End Glitch run syncs. 100% would be neat but, I think, is simply too long. The faster ones are snes9x movies and are very unlikely to sync (worth a try if there's any chance).

Posted: 8/30/2014 4:03 PM

Quote

True

Editor, Player (68)

Joined: 1/18/2008
Posts: 663

You could check the threads or the console verification progress page for some of these answers. River City Random does not sync. The enemies perform different actions on console than on emulator. International Super Star Soccer is untested. Super Metroid does not sync and will not sync without modifying the console.

true on twitch - lsnes windows builds 20230425 - the date this site is buried

Posted: 8/30/2014 4:38 PM

Post subject: Wow, thanks for the responses!

Quote

dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (898)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1007

I'm thrilled by the response in this thread. A few notes: I received true's MultiReplay board! He said he doesn't yet have an official page, but you can eventually find information at http://truecontrol.org and i suspect he'll make a post at some point announcing it. I'll be showing it off in the coming days, as I'm using it for console verifications. Corrodias, thank you very much for the game suggestions. I borrowed a few cartridges to test with from a friend in town including RBI Baseball so I'll let you know how that works out. TheAxeMan, I borrowed a copy of Final Fantasy and I have the Raspberry Pi up and running. I hope to have time to try out the script, but we'll have to see. I don't have a way to clear RAM, however, so I suspect I will not get far with this this weekend. Regarding an ACE exploit, I borrowed a Super Game Boy and Pokemon Yellow. I do not have high hopes, but it's worth a try and would be far easier than trying to get an original Game Boy working. Does anyone else want to tackle a new total control payload on an existing verifiable game? I've received a suggestion from DarkKobold on a really awesome SNES game choice but the game will have to be re-run in lsnes and the.. er.. inputs need to be modified. If you are interested in assisting with creating something fun, please contact me privately. (DarkKobold, I am still not entirely convinced that keeping the game name a secret is a good idea, but I'll keep it on the down low for now). I've ordered a copy of the game with two-day shipping (at a very reasonable cost!) to determine if it will even sync. Regarding the race, I'm very pleased with the response in the speed TASing competition thread. The initial results show that this is a fairly viable option as long as the time limit and game choice are carefully selected, but I might have a different opinion after seeing the full results. :) If you haven't made an attempt in the race and you're still thinking about whether to do it or not, go for it - there's a 2 hour total time limit on the honor system but feel free to break it up if you need to. Thanks again, everyone!

I was laid off in May 2023 and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as I work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD. I'm dwangoAC, part of the senior staff of TASVideos as the Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 8/30/2014 11:47 PM

Quote

Corrodias

Joined: 8/28/2014
Posts: 7

I have searched the site and the forum and I cannot find information related to verifying Super Metroid runs. The "Game End Glitch" run was recorded in lsnes. What sort of console modification would be required to make it work? dwangoAC did not seem concerned about any difficulty in getting the bot the ability to hard reset the console. I did not search the entirety of the 250+ page general Super Metroid thread, as I see no function for searching within a thread on this forum.

Posted: 8/31/2014 9:59 AM

Quote

andypanther

Any

Former player

Joined: 6/30/2010
Posts: 1093
Location: Zurich, Switzerland

The SMB quad-run would be very impressive to the viewers, but I guess it would be a bit excessive to set up. Besides this, I don't remember any console verification of a FDS game.

Current project: Gex 3 any% Paused: Gex 64 any% There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.

Posted: 8/31/2014 10:05 AM

Quote

feos

Site Admin, Skilled player (1236)

Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11268
Location: RU

andypanther wrote:

The SMB quad-run would be very impressive to the viewers, but I guess it would be a bit excessive to set up. Besides this, I don't remember any console verification of a FDS game.

THIS!!! Heck, how didn't anyone come up with it? So obvious and... cheap way to entertain masses. FDS not verified? Just drop it and show the rest 3!

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.

Posted: 8/31/2014 11:18 AM

Quote

Warp

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

Not to be a contrarian, but more than 2 games at the same time is too confusing to watch.

Posted: 8/31/2014 11:22 AM

Quote

feos

Site Admin, Skilled player (1236)

Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11268
Location: RU

Warp wrote:

Not to be a contrarian, but more than 2 games at the same time is too confusing to watch.

True (that's why I don't watch those), but won't really matter for a crowd that hardly imagines several games ever being beaten with one input, let alone actually simultaneously. Also, they can release the footage of that event with several audio tracks easily, which would people want to rewatch afterwards.

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.

Posted: 8/31/2014 12:55 PM

Quote

jlun2

Skilled player (1706)

Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4952
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"

Can the kirby super star ACE run be verified? If so, maybe make some sprite movie or something for the event. Also for the FDS, what exactly is stopping it from verification?

LLCoolDave wrote:

This seems to be competing for the "Worst looking TAS of 2011" Award.

Posted: 8/31/2014 2:22 PM

Quote

Derakon

Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960

If we're going to show a multirun, it should be one where it's actually evident that the games are using the same input. Basically every multirun after the first one (of Megaman X + X2) got extremely clever about "desynchronizing" the different games, which improves speed (and I'm sure makes for a more interesting puzzle for the TASer), but makes it a lot harder to watch for the uninitiated. So yeah, do the X+X2 multirun if you're going to do one.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/31/2014 6:49 PM

Quote

True

Editor, Player (68)

Joined: 1/18/2008
Posts: 663

Corrodias wrote:

I have searched the site and the forum and I cannot find information related to verifying Super Metroid runs. The "Game End Glitch" run was recorded in lsnes. What sort of console modification would be required to make it work? dwangoAC did not seem concerned about any difficulty in getting the bot the ability to hard reset the console. I did not search the entirety of the 250+ page general Super Metroid thread, as I see no function for searching within a thread on this forum.

SNES has two crystals, clocking the CPU and APU repsectively. There is likely either code that tries to access the bus at the same time but the bus is busy, or timing-critical interrupts between the two. The clocks have been tested on emulator down to 1ppm or so and the run still ends up desyncing. The issue isn't the absolute clock speed, but rather the clocks always running at the exact same ratio, in this case the "ideal" ratio as in the emulator. The modification will require either injecting two accurate phase-locked clocks or some other method. dwangoAC said he is sending me a less than ideal SNES so I will modify this for clock injection and see if I get better results.

true on twitch - lsnes windows builds 20230425 - the date this site is buried

Posted: 8/31/2014 6:56 PM

Quote

True

Editor, Player (68)

Joined: 1/18/2008
Posts: 663

jlun2 wrote:

Also for the FDS, what exactly is stopping it from verification?

Disk access time, and not having one to know if it continues polling the controller during disk reads (may depend on the game). If I had one, I could work to making it verifiable, as for some games it very well may be.

true on twitch - lsnes windows builds 20230425 - the date this site is buried

Posted: 8/31/2014 10:02 PM

Quote

dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (898)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1007

jlun2 wrote:

Can the kirby super star ACE run be verified? If so, maybe make some sprite movie or something for the event.

I have only tried Kirby's Adventure for NES and I was unable to get it to sync, unfortunately.

I was laid off in May 2023 and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as I work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD. I'm dwangoAC, part of the senior staff of TASVideos as the Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 9/2/2014 4:08 PM

Post subject: Please provide feedback on this draft AGDQ submission video

Quote

dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (898)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1007

Link to video Please take a look; this is unfinished but is the direction I want to go in. I still need to replace the backgrounds for some games and I need to add Weatherton's race video. I can upload raw video if someone is willing to do a better job of editing today. I am running out of time to write the submission text as I was up very late yesterday trying to make a dead camera work and trying to make a sleeping bag stand in for a proper green screen. Any offers of help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I was laid off in May 2023 and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as I work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD. I'm dwangoAC, part of the senior staff of TASVideos as the Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 9/2/2014 4:52 PM

Quote

feos

Site Admin, Skilled player (1236)

Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11268
Location: RU

Ho! I love it!

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.

Posted: 9/2/2014 5:14 PM

Quote

TheAxeMan

Ambassador, Experienced player (696)

Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE

This was pretty cool. Once we decide what is in we should definitely make a hype video. It could be part of a campaign to ask for more donations. One more thing to mention is that Final Fantasy has another unique draw: I can set up the names on demand for a donation item. There are probably a few people out there who would get a kick out of seeing their name in a TAS.

Posted: 9/2/2014 6:30 PM

Quote

Warp

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

The video is very good in terms of presentation. A bit of editing, as you say, and it should be superb. (I'm wondering how much detail should there be in this kind of submission video, and if there could be more detailed and/or concise technical details.)

Posted: 9/2/2014 7:21 PM

Quote

Derakon

Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960

No mention of just showing a standard awesome TAS? It'd only take a sentence or two, and it'd give a graceful fallback option if whoever's reviewing these videos doesn't like any of the more "edgy" submissions.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 9/2/2014 7:37 PM

Quote

dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (898)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1007

Derakon wrote:

No mention of just showing a standard awesome TAS? It'd only take a sentence or two, and it'd give a graceful fallback option if whoever's reviewing these videos doesn't like any of the more "edgy" submissions.

I aimed to cover that in my description of the playaround category and my subtle hint at the end where I mention there are other potential game choices (while playing the SMB3 glitched TAS in the background). I have some other recorded clips I can insert that hint at that a bit better that i can throw in, though. I have to be extremely careful - submissions are limited to 5 games, and they are extremely strict about saying that if you go over you get "0" games. I anticipate that because I am making a single submission on behalf of all of TASVideos that we'll be given some leeway but I don't want to push my luck, so instead I'll make sure that I'm a bit more clear about the fact that we have other options available. Thanks for the feedback! Is anyone else willing to help me edit these clips? I can provide full source material and even the iMovie project (yes, I used iMovie - it's what I had available. :) I'm writing the submission text tonight but that won't give me much time for the video editing.

I was laid off in May 2023 and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as I work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD. I'm dwangoAC, part of the senior staff of TASVideos as the Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 9/2/2014 10:24 PM

Quote

TASeditor

Editor, Skilled player (1505)

Joined: 7/9/2010
Posts: 1317

The video is completely fine. I think you should submit this whole thing as "TAS Block" without going into details about games. If someting specif gets rejected you can easily rearrange the "TAS Block" afterwards.

Favorite animal: STOCK Gt(ROSA)26Sortm1.1(rtTA,EGFP)Nagy Grm7Tg(SMN2)89Ahmb Smn1tm1Msd Tg(SMN2*delta7)4299Ahmb Tg(tetO-SMN2,-luc)#aAhmb/J YouTube Twitch

Posted: 9/2/2014 10:52 PM

Post subject: Individual pitches instead of a single block

Quote

dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (898)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1007

TASeditor wrote:

The video is completely fine. I think you should submit this whole thing as "TAS Block" without going into details about games. If someting specif gets rejected you can easily rearrange the "TAS Block" afterwards.

That is precisely what I did last year and it worked out well. However, this year the submission process has changed and we have to get the pitch text to fit in 400 characters, so I'm forced to submit everything separately. Even if I wasn't forced I think I would prefer to have TAS exposure spread out throughout the marathon rather than all in one block. I still plan to reinforce that Mike can pick a game of his choice, which is I think the primary thing you are interested in.

I was laid off in May 2023 and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as I work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD. I'm dwangoAC, part of the senior staff of TASVideos as the Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 9/3/2014 2:39 AM

Quote

Weatherton

Experienced player (601)

Joined: 10/23/2004
Posts: 706

dwangoAC, here is my description you asked for: Title: Mario Kart 64 Choco Mountain Gauntlet Challenge Description: An N64 TASbot controls players 1 - 4 for a 3 minute setup routine, moving the levels boulders to new, harder locations. While moving these, it also places banana peels and shells throughout the level in difficult locations before placing all four players on the starting line. The TASbot is disconnected and four experienced human players are given controllers and challenged to run the gauntlet!

Current Project: - Mario Kart 64