Experienced player (633)
Joined: 11/23/2013
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Truly excited for the final draft. The TAS looks polished already, so imagine even more optimization into this game at the end!
Here, my YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/dekutony
Memory
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So this game can be divided up into big rooms and hallways. Sometimes there are doors between parts of big rooms, but they're still considered the same room on the map and when they're loaded. However, parts of rooms are not always visible. There is only ever one section at a time where the graphics are totally present. I will call this the active section. Aside from being unable to scan certain things, and something I will discuss later, inactive sections behave as normal, with the exception that they're invisible When you look into an inactive section from an active section you will see the room textures and enemies and stuff, but this is actually only from certain angles. If you were from a different angle (out of bounds) the inactive section will actually appear as invisible. The way to make various sections active is to pass through invisible triggers from the active section to the inactive section. It's really easy when you're out of bounds to accidentally miss a trigger or pass back through it causing the wrong section to be active. This needs to be done sequentially, you can't go between two inactive sections and make one active. A hallway's collision is not present until you hit the door and get close to it. This happens basically instantly and the game will unload the collision of the previous hallway you went through. If you shoot the door at the end of the hallway and get close to it, the next room will start loading. If the hallway is not the active section, the game will proceed to crash. This is why it's important to keep track of which sections are active, you need to be in the active section when switching between rooms. Now when the new big room loads the previous big room unloads. Now you might think that the new big room is adjacent to the other big room. That is actually not the case. When the room loads, the new big room actually gets placed where the previous room used to be. The hallway is then moved by a predetermined offset to the corresponding location and samus and any shots or bombs along with it thus creating the illusion that you haven't actually moved. I found this out due to my coordinates changing all of a sudden during loads. However this was mostly just a theory... Until this happened: I had paused after a bomb had exploded to load a room faster, but when I had unpaused, the bomb explosion graphical effect was way over there. What happened was that the graphical effect of the bomb exploding maintained its old coordinates after I had paused. Therefore when I unpaused, the bomb explosion was beyond the door. Sadly, I cannot seem to manipulate the bomb's actual position with this, nor any shots. Just the graphical effect of the explosion. This just confirms my theory however. There might be some way to take advantage of this, but I don't know how at this point.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Memory
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I finished the rough draft TAS and plan on having it streamed on rta runner Mr Shasta's twitch channel with commentary this saturday after which point I will make the video public. After that I'll do some more research before starting the final draft.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Memory
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Completed rough draft: Link to video I found an additional skip after the making of this.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Memory
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Since completing the rough draft, I've found a good number of new boost clips that save a decent chunk of time. Link to video One of two clips that could be used to skip sylux but got obsoleted by doing a clip from a different room or from the lower floor and bomb jumping up from the door. Link to video Used to escape with the artifact. Link to video OOB in the landing site that could be used to get the sylux artifact through bomb jumping from oob, thus allowing you skip the green barrier and delay grabbing battlehammer. Link to video Allows you to skip the long psychobit fight in data shrine 01.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Memory
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Thanks to xy2_ who pointed me in the direction of the quick easy encoding guide, my videos should look better now. You aren't here to read about that though. I have found a new skip that I thought could maybe be possible for a while. The first bit was taken from rough draft TAS, but basically once I go back inbounds, everything from that point on is new: Link to video
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Former player
Joined: 4/18/2015
Posts: 168
Location: Canada
Wow, seeing all these cool OoB tricks makes me wonder why this game wasn't TASed sooner! :P I can't wait to see the finished product with all these crazy tricks!
Memory
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Weegeechan wrote:
Wow, seeing all these cool OoB tricks makes me wonder why this game wasn't TASed sooner! :P
It actually was TASed before but never posted here. JP TASer LuckyStarKid did a TAS that you can find on youtube, but I believe he didn't know about R-Button Boosting which means his movement was much slower than mine, plus a lot of his strats are heavily outdated. I still was able to take strategies here and there from him, however. Despite having been TASed before, this is the first time that a TASer has worked closely with the RTA community to break this game as much as possible. This allows for TAS to look very different from RTA, something that I'm very happy about. I imagine a lot of the reason Hunters did not receive as much attention before was due to the game's reputation for being not very Metroid-y. I probably wouldn't have looked into it myself if it wasn't for the revival of the RTA community for the game a couple years ago. I'm not the biggest fan of the game, but I thought the run was cool. I also knew that the game had received much less attention from TASers than pretty much every other Metroid that was easily emulated. Those two things combined with curiosity as to how touch boosting worked was what lead me to messing with the game.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Editor, Expert player (2033)
Joined: 8/25/2013
Posts: 1199
So what is the estimated time now, accounting for these new skips?
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter - some loser
Memory
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I'm not sure, I haven't timed things particularly heavily yet. If I had to guess I'd say sub 50 is a reasonable goal with those skips and other improvements.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Memory
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Spire 2 Skip: Link to video You now no longer fight Spire at all. EDIT: He doesn't seem to appear among the Hunters that can randomly appear now either.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Memory
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I began working on the final draft, here is what I have so far: Link to video I'm 128 frames ahead of my rough draft up to this point.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Editor, Expert player (2033)
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Posts: 1199
Looking good!
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter - some loser
Memory
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WIP 3: Link to video I'm now 2314 frames ahead. While it should be possible to grab the artifact while that section is invisible, I think it's less interesting than actually seeing the clip being performed and is the first real speed/entertainment tradeoff of the TAS. There won't be many though, mostly just stuff like this where I'd rather people be able to see what I'm doing. I also grabbed this etank instead of the one in Arcterra later on. While this one is 2 seconds slower to grab, I think it'd make up for it by allowing more missile jumps early on.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Memory
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WIP 4: Link to video
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Memory
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Posting my two new WIPs here: Link to video Link to video I'm currently 3128 frames ahead of my rough draft.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Memory
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Done all of the first Celestial Archives visit: Link to video 4026 frames ahead
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Former player
Joined: 9/1/2005
Posts: 803
I must say the finished product of the first visit is really solid to watch. I've been watching each individual wip, and while I haven't commented since I didn't really have anything to contribute, but this was worth commenting on for how good it looks alone. It felt like there was so much that simply wouldn't be possible to do at such a speed on the actual system itself. Keep up the great work on this run.
Memory
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I redid a little bit of CA1 and hex edited a bit in where I could. I had grabbed an ammo refill in the room with Shock Coil (blue lightning) that I didn't need. 190 frames saved: Link to video
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Editor, Experienced player (818)
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For encodes, it might be nice taking a look at 4x native upscaling (see http://shikaver01.webcrow.jp/desmume_x432r/index.html, download the build related to your current version.)
Memory
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I was ultimately unable to get that working, so I will continue using what I have been using. WIP 1 of Alinos First Visit: Link to video A little over 5934 frames ahead of rough draft total. If a bomb is close enough to an enemy/plant thing it will detonate immediately. This allows for some very fast bomb unmorph jumps.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Memory
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Done Alinos First Visit: Link to video 6391 frames ahead
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Memory
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Arcterra First Visit Link to video 7302 frames ahead
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Memory
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Alinos Second Visit: Link to video 7583 frames ahead. The reason I paused and unpaused early and then paused again quickly was to manipulate a guardian into not spawning.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Memory
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Link to video I now have to redo some of the more recent bits of the TAS.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero