RetroEdit
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Caveat: I am not a judge myself, either.
strizer86 wrote:
I wasn't sure if there was a clearly defined spot to check under the game itself, or to verify via the old TAS by SirVG. It's only a difference of about a second and half, but I just want to make sure I am accurate and know for future.
As MemoryTAS and Invariel commented right before me, the time according to the site is based on the calculated time from the input file length. However, it sounds like you might be asking a slightly different question, which is how to compare your run to the previous TAS. In general, this is a slightly more complicated question, because raw time differences may be influenced by emulation accuracy. For instance, it is often the case that runs made on older emulators emulate less lag and are therefore artificially faster (the reverse can also sometimes be true). For the purposes of time comparison, timing differences between emulators are ignored. See http://tasvideos.org/MovieRules.html#ObsoletingAPublishedMovie for more details. Because of the complexity, it is very difficult to make a perfect time comparison between runs, but there is at least some evaluation (For instance, a new TAS with identical or worse gameplay won't obsolete the previous TAS just because emulation happens to be faster).
Dimon12321
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Do you accept verification movies that were recorded from a savestate? We need to make one for Wii's Resident Evil 4, but the game occasionally goes out of sync and we think it's because Dolphin rarely misreads the input from the emulated Wii remote in some Wii games. We need to pass introductory screens with Wii Remote, plug a Gamecube controller and starting recording an input file, as described here. Also, if the problem won't be solved this way, will you accept a series of verification sub-movies where we complete several chapters, save the game progress, create a new input file and continue the walkthrough until we finish the game?
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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Several verification movies is fine as long as they only depend on in-game saves and not emulator savestates. Recording from a savestate isn't allowed, because there's no guarantee it's legitimate.
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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is faust allowed to use for submissions? bizhawk says the core is experimental and I couldn't find any mentions about core from other than release history page.
adelikat
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The core is "experimental" because we forgot to flip the flag. It's not an experimental core. However, bizhawk's definition of released != tasvideos preferred or even tasvideos allowed. As to whether it is allowed, I have no answer, there isn't much known about this core yet.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
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Thanks for answer, I have no idea how do I check accuracy myself. I'll wait until someone do that and see if it's good enough for submissions in future.
Zinfidel
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Posts: 247
Location: Washington
I was thinking about what it would take to get a playaround for PSX Ehrgeiz published on the site, figured I could ask here. I've made a few playarounds for the game, where the goals specifically are "use all of the characters moves", "get a perfect every round", and "do the previous goals as fast as possible." My goals felt pretty loose, there aren't any agreed-upon speedrunning categories for the game, and I do questionable stuff like setting the rounds-to-win to 1 to keep the movie shorter. That is all to say I never bothered to try to make it "publication worthy" as a result. The fighting game playarounds that are published on the site are all very extreme examples where the game is broken pretty badly, fast insane situations are set up, 2 players are used to make the action even more insane. I'm wondering, for a fighting game playaround, is that necessarily where the bar is set? I'm talking about TASes like Marvel vs. Capcom, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, etc. I don't think it's even possible to play Ehrgeiz at a level that is comparable to things like Marvel vs Capcom, so does that mean it's a non-starter? If it's not a non-starter, what kind of goals or constraints might make an Ehrgeiz playaround publishable? The playaround I talked about is here: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=497018#497018
Dimon12321
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feos wrote:
Several verification movies is fine as long as they only depend on in-game saves and not emulator savestates. Recording from a savestate isn't allowed, because there's no guarantee it's legitimate.
Is it fine that one or multiple movies will require specific emulator settings in order to stay synced till the end? I don't know how to explain it, but Dolphin plays the movie correctly only if you set the Internal Resolution to 1x or 2x (with the applied window auto-adjustment), but if it's 3x - the movie will desync for sure. I don't know how many special conditions I will remark if I finish the whole series of verification movies by some miracle.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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Dimon12321 wrote:
Is it fine that one or multiple movies will require specific emulator settings in order to stay synced till the end? I don't know how to explain it, but Dolphin plays the movie correctly only if you set the Internal Resolution to 1x or 2x (with the applied window auto-adjustment), but if it's 3x - the movie will desync for sure. I don't know how many special conditions I will remark if I finish the whole series of verification movies by some miracle.
Yeah it's ok.
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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Zinfidel wrote:
I was thinking about what it would take to get a playaround for PSX Ehrgeiz published on the site, figured I could ask here. I've made a few playarounds for the game, where the goals specifically are "use all of the characters moves", "get a perfect every round", and "do the previous goals as fast as possible." My goals felt pretty loose, there aren't any agreed-upon speedrunning categories for the game, and I do questionable stuff like setting the rounds-to-win to 1 to keep the movie shorter. That is all to say I never bothered to try to make it "publication worthy" as a result. The fighting game playarounds that are published on the site are all very extreme examples where the game is broken pretty badly, fast insane situations are set up, 2 players are used to make the action even more insane. I'm wondering, for a fighting game playaround, is that necessarily where the bar is set? I'm talking about TASes like Marvel vs. Capcom, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, etc. I don't think it's even possible to play Ehrgeiz at a level that is comparable to things like Marvel vs Capcom, so does that mean it's a non-starter? If it's not a non-starter, what kind of goals or constraints might make an Ehrgeiz playaround publishable? The playaround I talked about is here: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=497018#497018
Hard to give advises when it's about being considered art or not. I didn't feel much when watching that video. For a playaround to work, I think it has to look clearly superhuman/impossible even to people who're seeing this game for the first time, and also it shouldn't look like randomly hitting your opponent. Glitchfests are much easier to comprehend as superplay imo. I've written this page, but it's mostly about speed: http://tasvideos.org/TasingGuide/TASArt.html
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.
Zinfidel
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feos wrote:
Hard to give advises when it's about being considered art or not.
Very true. I think what you said about it being obviously superhuman to an audience that is naive about a game wraps up the sentiment I was trying to find. IMO Ehrgeiz doesn't have the speed or freedom necessary to achieve that kind display, TAS or not. My input in the playarounds I've done is very tight, but even then it mostly looks like a really skilled player more than a superhuman playing the game.
EZGames69
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So Strider 2 has a secret level you can unlock if you have a save file of the original Strider in the same memory card. The game actually comes with disks of both Strider 1 and 2, and by completing a game on the Strider 1 disk and saving it into the memory card, you can have access to a prologue stage. I don't know if bizhawk allows the user to load save data from other games or if this type of thing falls under sram anchoring. I also don't know if this type of case is a thing for any other PSX TAS on the site. Would something like this be allowed?
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Post subject: Battletoads Situation
Lobsterzelda
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A link to a full description of the issue can be found here: http://tasvideos.org/forum/p/499862#499862 Essentially, what I want to know is if a certain trick can be used in a Battletoads 2P Warps TAS. In the current Battletoads any% TAS, in level 3 we use a glitch to get the game into a state where it loads objects from the wrong part of memory, and then make the game load an object with a corrupted function pointer, which makes the PC eventually jump to the credits, thus beating the game. In the current Battletoads 2P Warps TAS, we use the same initial glitch to get the game into a state where it loads objects from the wrong part of memory. Then, we make the game load an object with an ID of 0X7F, which is an object normally loaded at the end of level 12, which signals to the game to load the next level (allowing us to immediately end level 3 and go to level 4). Using a newly discovered trick, we can do the same initial glitch to make the game load objects from the wrong part of memory, and then make the PC jump to the first line of code that gets executed when you touch a warp portal (which normally advances you 2 levels forwards), which in turn ends level 3 and causes level 5 to start immediately. Basically, I want to know if this glitch is too similar to what exists in the current any% TAS for it to be used in the 2P Warps TAS.
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EZGames69 wrote:
So Strider 2 has a secret level you can unlock if you have a save file of the original Strider in the same memory card. The game actually comes with disks of both Strider 1 and 2, and by completing a game on the Strider 1 disk and saving it into the memory card, you can have access to a prologue stage. I don't know if bizhawk allows the user to load save data from other games or if this type of thing falls under sram anchoring. I also don't know if this type of case is a thing for any other PSX TAS on the site. Would something like this be allowed?
When depending on other images is an intended feature, and in this case it's almost the same game, and if it's the only way to unlock that stage, we may allow it for moons as a save anchored movie. Generate the save with the first game as a verification movie, then use that save on the second game with the actual movie. Moons only tho. Unless there's a cheat code to unlock 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.
Post subject: Re: Battletoads Situation
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Lobsterzelda wrote:
Using a newly discovered trick, we can do the same initial glitch to make the game load objects from the wrong part of memory, and then make the PC jump to the first line of code that gets executed when you touch a warp portal (which normally advances you 2 levels forwards), which in turn ends level 3 and causes level 5 to start immediately. Basically, I want to know if this glitch is too similar to what exists in the current any% TAS for it to be used in the 2P Warps TAS.
Can you make the PC jump to something arbitrary then?
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.
Post subject: Re: Battletoads Situation
Lobsterzelda
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feos wrote:
Can you make the PC jump to something arbitrary then?
Yeah, pretty much.
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That means you can jump to RAM which you can manipulate heavily, making it execute data as code, eventually ACE. And you can't use ACE to simulate all categories: #4252: Masterjun's SNES Super Mario World "11 exits" in 08:07.53 We have a rule against suboptimal ACE in speedruns: http://tasvideos.org/MovieRules.html#ArbitraryCodeExecution It should become a part of fastest completion and a playaround branch (if someone wants to make that, where ACE remains optional), and in other moons-only branches it's not allowed. Full completion has some limitations on ACE as well.
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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So in Gargoyle's Quest, right before you fight the final boss, you get the choice to "become the follower" of the final boss (yeah that cliche). If you select No, the game proceeds like normal where you fight the final boss with all your weapons/magic. However, if you choose Yes, the game actually punishes you for this by forcing you to fight the boss without all your weapons/magic, essentially forcing you back to level 1. While it might seem like it's impossible to defeat the final boss, well from some testing it should still be technically possible to beat the final boss, although it would take quite a while due to the way the boss fight is set up (roughly guessing 10-15 minutes? For reference doing the fight normally wouldn't be more than 30 seconds). So I'm wondering, would choosing Yes in this case be considered "hard mode" for the boss and should it be chosen purposefully, or should No just be picked so 10-15 minutes isn't spent just doing the final boss.
Samsara
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While that sounds like an interesting TAS-only goal, it would push the movie into nonstandard goal choice territory, I.E it would have to make Moons, and I don't see 10-15 minutes of a single boss fight making it there. Repetition is explicitly one of the reasons to choose an easier difficulty as well, though I wouldn't call this a difficulty choice so much as just intentionally making the run quite a bit slower.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
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It's a bit paradoxical, because picking harder difficulty is meant to make your play more impressive, and as a result, hopefully more entertaining. But there's no way a 10-15 minute fight would look more impressive/entertaining and keep the audience more focused compared to a regular fight.
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.
Mitjitsu
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Would the bug shown here be an acceptable way to obsolete the current Cheetahmen TAS? Link to video
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MovieRules wrote:
Playing a single episode or individual game to completion, or all episodes or games, is considered game completion. Playing multiple, but not all, episodes or games is not considered completion.
In this glitch, you start playing one game, and then switch to playing another game. That is not considered completion, because the first game is not completed.
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.
Evan0512
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Joined: 10/18/2017
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Location: San Francisco
I was still planning to TAS a Game boy (original) game. Does the color version of the original Game Boy games allowed?
Planned runs: Marble Madness (Arcade, Genesis J, GG/SMS) Proposed: Ecco the Dolphin (Genesis, GG/SMS, CD: regular, camera freeze) Ecco: The Tides of Time (Genesis, GG/SMS, CD; normal mode) Mario Kart DS (all cups, all missions) In progress: Grand Poo World 3 (all exits hard mode)
Samsara
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You absolutely can TAS a GB game in GBC mode, if that's what you're asking. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Site Admin, Skilled player (1234)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11251
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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.