Post subject: Idea: TAS Run Progression Videos
Reviewer, Active player (287)
Joined: 12/14/2006
Posts: 717
So I might be late to the party, and I hope I'm in the right forum, but when browsing youtube recently I came across this. Link to video I was thinking it might be cool to do something similar with TASes as part of an educational series. The idea is to take certain hotly contested games. Off the top of my head I can think of Super Mario Bros, Megaman, Super Metroid, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and Super Mario 64. I know there are a bunch more. Using those games, go through the history of when and how certain glitches and strategies were found and what effect that had on the final project. On quite a few games on this site, the first run accepted on the site is very different from the most recent run. I know I would be incredibly interested in seeing one of these, and most of the history for these games I believe is documented in the forums and the submission files. This would also show how much work and ingenuity actually goes into a high level TAS, and emphasize the community aspect of TASing. So what do you all think? Is this something worth doing? Any suggestions on formatting or other games that can be covered (maybe Gods has enough of a history, I don't know)? Also, slightly related, should a single video just cover one aspect of the history or put all branches in a single video, since discoveries in one branch often effects others? I'd really like to know what other people think and whether it's worth maybe making some official videos here.
Dwedit
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Seems like it would just be like the history of routing the games.
Reviewer, Active player (287)
Joined: 12/14/2006
Posts: 717
So's the video I posted. I still found it entertaining, and there are a lot of (still) TAS only tricks to cover. Also, it's not just routing. Often new movement techniques and glitches are found, and a lot of movies in the past have beaten previous movies through "minor movement optimization".
MESHUGGAH
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I think SummoningSalt is the closest in terms of "speedrun history" with added "TAS moments". If your question is "is there anyone who would watch this", the answer is yes. I think I don't even need to mention half A presses in parallel universes or creating tedious scenarios for the sake of very short living moment. Presenting and explaining some TASes' elaborate tricks is another thing.
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
Patashu
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There's also SMW credits warp explanations which are popular: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf9i7MjViCE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAHXK2wut_I
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
Expert player (2567)
Joined: 12/23/2007
Posts: 830
This is a great idea, and I also have thought about it myself, but I can't make one due to my poor English skill. I think we can make TAS progression videos at least as good as SummoningSalt's speedrun history series. I think he made some mistakes explaining TAS stuff in his videos. We can skip minor movement optimizations and mainly focus on major time saving skills or major improvements. Somebody from our TAS side should seriously consider putting this idea into reality. We don't yet have a decent TAS introduction video in my opinion. Lots of people on YouTube just comment that TAS are done by robots, or TAS is cheating, probably because we don't tell good stories from our side. It's important to explain important things in a non-technical way so that most people could understand.
Recent projects: SMB warpless TAS (2018), SMB warpless walkathon (2019), SMB something never done before (2019), Extra Mario Bros. (best ending) (2020).
Reviewer, Active player (287)
Joined: 12/14/2006
Posts: 717
Thank you for showing your support. I really do think this is worth putting the effort in to do, and since I'm of the philosophy if I think it's worth the effort, then it's worth it to me to show as much and get the effort started, I made a start on research for what would be the first movie. Once that gets done, I believe I have the equipment to record narration and do some rudimentary editing, though there are people who would probably be better at editing than I am. Anyway, the game I've chosen as the first in the series is Super Mario Bros. I chose it for a few reasons. The biggest of which is that on the surface it seems to be a really simple game to run. I mean all you have to do is hold right and jump at the right times, right? The history of this game will help show that we can't take things like that for granted, especially considering some of the timesavers found, which may seem contradictory at first. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1avQ4zNczd-t9Ce1g4ZkfK5sPGS5jL3QnHj94u6WAZJ8/edit That is my working document. I am currently going through the history of runs published on the site and reading the SMB thread on this forum. I really believe the interest here is the story behind the runs and the mechanics of the game, so I am using the TAS history as a stepping stone for covering those things. This may be easier to see when I make my script. Could some people from the early days of the site and people in the SMB TASing community please fact check what I have so far. Some of the dates on the early runs seems suspect. I'd like to verify. Also, for anybody that would like to help, I do know that I will need at least one thing that I won't be able to pull from the videos of runs from the site. I need two videos, which look identical to each other and start in the same place, except one video hits the 21 frame rule perfectly and the other one misses it by one frame. The time difference there is like half a second and should be visible in real time. I really would like for this to be available on an official TASVideos channel if possible. Think we can make that happen? Also I would very much appreciate if I could have pronunciation guides for some of the names (besides the obvious, like HappyLee and Phil *and now someone's going to tell me that "phil" is pronounced like "file"))
Expert player (2567)
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Thank you, arkiandruski, for putting the idea into action. (And for choosing SMB as your first video.) First, some corrections on your document: the game doesn't save your subpixel position between levels. "Going right faster by going left first" isn't technically correct, and I believe it's called "backwards acceleration" or something. I believe we should have separate videos on warps (any%) and warpless categories. Should be focusing on warps run first. Warpless TAS is more complicated, and its history is yet (very close) to be finished. I don't think we should get too technical on subpixels, because most of the time, it doesn't matter. It doesn't really matter in 8-2, and it only matters in the first stage of 8-4, the one-frame improvement found by klmz. What we should focus on is the wrong warp in 4-2, strategies in 1-2 and 8-4, and most importantly, the discoveries since klmz's time. Flagpole glitch is the most important discovery, and it saves the most time in SMB TASing in total. The Bullet Bill glitch in 8-2 takes even more imagination. Both of them were found by klmz and they are truly amazing. The one-frame improvement of mine is really not that significant, if not for the facts that it improves one of the most unbeatable TAS that's been improved for years, and it could be the very last improvement to SMB warps (any%) TAS. About the controversy you've mentioned in your document, I don't think it should be mentioned in the video. There are TASes that seek for fastest movie end and fastest completion, and I think for SMB, the latter makes more sense. How fast the movie could end largely depends on Bowser's movement and hammers' RNG. If the rule were ending movie as soon as possible, we would likely have to waste several frames in 8-4 on purpose to manipulate Bowser's RNG, which also means having to touch the axe several frames later, and I think that's just stupid, because 8-4 is the only level in SMB TASing that doesn't involves framerule and every frame matters. I can go into details but my English skill limits me, so I only hope there's a chance that I'll see your document before it's finished so we won't make mistakes.
Recent projects: SMB warpless TAS (2018), SMB warpless walkathon (2019), SMB something never done before (2019), Extra Mario Bros. (best ending) (2020).
Editor, Skilled player (1344)
Joined: 12/28/2013
Posts: 396
Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
That's a very nice idea! Super Mario World would also be a source for interesting content, especially the history of the any% branch. I also have (very disabling) English limitations, but I definitely could help with such a project.
My YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVoUfT49xN9TU-gDMHv57sw Projects: SMW 96 exit. SDW any%, with Amaraticando. SMA2 SMW small only Kaizo Mario World 3
Editor, Player (175)
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I loved this idea. TASes really deserve that, and there are plenty of games with a solid history here that can make great videos.
Games are basically math with a visual representation of this math, that's why I make the scripts, to re-see games as math. My things: YouTube, GitHub, Pastebin, Twitter
Reviewer, Active player (287)
Joined: 12/14/2006
Posts: 717
Thank you for your feedback, HappyLee. I'm currently on a business trip, but once I get back, I'll definitely take your post into account. Second video is going to be something besides Mario. I've decided that already. I know Mario is the biggest series in video games ever, but we want to give attention to as many parts of TAS as possible.