Table of Contents

General Emulator Information

• Emulator: Citra
  • Version Used for Movie Creation: Custom Fork Built Off of Canary 2007
  • Version Used for Dump: Nightly 1747 (01/19/2022)
• Required Emulator Settings:
  • System -> Language -> English
  • System -> CPU Clock Speed: 100%
  • Audio -> Emulation -> HLE (fast)
• Recommended Emulator Settings
  • Graphics -> Advanced -> Enable Hardware Renderer
  • Graphics -> Advanced -> Enable Hardware Shader
  • Graphics -> Advanced -> Accurate Multiplication
• Full List of My Settings

Citra Accuracy and Movie Creation Discussion

Emulator Requirements

Movie Files

Re-recording

Emulation Quality

Emulation Stability

• Although I cannot guarantee that this movie will sync on future version of Citra, I am certain that it will sync with a every version of Citra since Nightly 1652 which was released on December 5, 2020 based on my testing. Hopefully this will continue as the emulator continues to be updated.
• System hardware, operating system, and other environmental changes do not seem to affect emulation stability, accuracy, or the ability to sync this movie based on my testing.
• Due to Citra being open source and the code being publicly available, I would imagine that the emulator will still be around indefinitely.

Movie Authenticity

• Movie files on Citra can currently only be played from power-on. This makes tampering with when movies begin impossible currently.
• Citra movie files store the player's input, not the emulation results. Because of this, only the input and the game are required to reproduce the playing session.
• The movie file will display the time of the full movie in seconds as well as the author and re-record count prior to playing the movie.
• The movie file indicates the length of the movie by storing the number of times the emulator polls for control stick inputs throughout the movie in the movie metadata. This number can then be converted into seconds by dividing it by 234. This number is derived using the base clock speed of the arm processor that the 3DS is based on. This input count value can be found by opening the movie file in a hex editor and locating the 4 bytes starting at 0x54, meaning that access to Citra or a game file are not necessary to verify the length of movies. This value is store in little endian, so you need to read the last byte starting at 0x57 first. If this value is edited so that it no longer matches the actual number of input polls recorded, Citra will give an error upon attempting to play the movie, as the length indicated in the metadata does not does not match the actual length of the movie.

Other Movie Information

• The number of rerecords and the author are stored as metadata in the movie file and are displayed prior to playing the movie.
• All information contained within the movie file are parseable and can technically be interpreted without access to the game or the emulator. In order prevent dominating this description with documenting the movie file format, I am linking a separate pastebin that goes into thorough detail on the file format. Suffice to say, the file format is documented and understood.

Accessibility

• Citra is available for Windows, Linux, and MacOS. Specifically, this movie has been tested on each of these operating systems and is confirmed to sync based on my testing.
• The source code for Citra is readily available and can be customized for by anyone with the skills to do so.

Possible to Make AVI

• It is possible to dump movie files as an AVI on Citra. Likewise, lossless video codecs are natively available for dumping on all operating systems.
• Citra has proper audio/video sync. If the host computer is not fast enough to render at 100% speed, it is still possible to force the emulator to render all frames without skipping or duplicating frames.
• The amount of audio stream generated per each video frame is consistent regardless of system load.

Citra Shortcomings

Frame Count Display

Savestates

Lack of Input Plugin

Movie Playback

Dumping

• The resolution change is simple. This game looks way better with an upscaled resolution. In fact, I'd say it actually looks quite gorgeous. For me, personally, this enhanced the entertainment and quality of the final dump.

• Next, the custom textures. One of the downsides of using higher internal resolutions in Citra is that a few UI textures in this game start to develop some ugly lines around them. The worst offenders are UI textures that are symmetrical and are therefore implemented by mirroring half of the texture for each side. These types of textures, as shown in the images below, develop very noticeable lines down the middle of them where the two mirrored symmetrical halves meet. To solve this visual issue, I dumped the game textures and located all of the textures related to the UI that would appear in this movie. I then took these textures and upscaled them by 8x with no filtering. That means that these textures should have basically no visual differences from their originals, they're just bigger with a higher internal resolution. I must reiterate to make sure I am understood, though; these upscaled textures have absolutely no filtering or interpolation. When compared side by side to the original textures used by the game at scale, it should be very difficult to tell them apart. Moreover, as stated before, these custom textures do not cause syncing issues and solve what I find to be a very distracting visual issue. It should also be noted that the addition of these custom textures prevents a known issue where UI elements are not visible, specifically items and inventory within the pause menus. Normally, this can be resolved by enabling Accurate Multiplication in the Advanced tab of Citra's graphics configuration, but this does the job just as well. This is why I have made this change despite the TASVideos [MovieRules#:~:text=Cosmetic%20hacks%20are%20not%20allowed%20by%20themselves.|Movie Rules] stating, "Cosmetic hacks are not allowed by themselves." The custom textures used may be provided upon request.

    Menus prior to texture replacement 

    Menus after texture replacement 

Emulation Viability Conclusion

Movie Execution Description

General Movie Information

• TAS Timing = 23:31.286
• RTA Timing = 23:19.055
• Frame Count = 84439
• Rerecord Count = 18959
• Frame Rate = 59.83122493939037 frames per second
• Input Poll Count (used to find TAS Time) = 330241

Objective

Route Description

Kokiri Forest

Path to Zelda

• Because Link only needs to make it to the Hyrule Market before night, there is potentially time to kill in Hyrule Field. It is actually possible to grab a Deku Nut drop by rolling into a tree in the southern forest in Hyrule Field. because the movement time needed to collect the Deku Nuts would already be spent waiting for the Pocket Egg to hatch later, this would be the best time to collect Deku Nuts. However, I ended up finding that it was faster to skip Deku Nuts altogether as they would only be useful in one instance later on.

• Movement through Hyrule Market is a few frames faster at night due to less NPCs obstructing Link's path. This can be visualized in the comparison images below. During the day, Link needs to keep some distance from these NCPs to avoid speaking to them. I could have waited outside Hyrule Market for it to turn night to take advantage of this small time saver. However, this would have required me to wait approximately 24 additional seconds in Hyrule Field. Moving to Talon perfectly without waiting will get Link there approximately 20 seconds early. Because of this, there is not enough time to wait for night to enter the market and still make it to Talon on time. In order to make this potential timesave possible, I would have to find a way to save roughly 4 seconds during all of my movement used throughout the Hyrule Castle grounds. Try as I might, I was not able to accomplish this.

• In order to make Malon appear in the Hyrule Castle grounds, the player has to reload the area once. The two easiest ways to do this are to simply leave and reenter the area using the Hyrule Market loading zone or to get caught by one of the castle guards. Getting caught by the guard ends up being a little faster over leaving and reentering due to less loading occurring. Remember, I am trying to reduce the amount of time that in game time of day is not passing so even though it takes longer to walk to the nearest guard, get caught, then run toward Malon than it does to quickly leave and reenter the area, as long as I can make it to Talon before day all that matters is time of day. There is, however, a method to reload the area that is faster than either of these, specifically around 2 seconds faster than getting caught. This is by reloading the area by triggering a void out. This method will skip the textbox you have to clear from getting caught and the extra loading zone needed to leave and reenter. This method requires getting out of bounds to fall off the map and is far more difficult than the other two routes. In order to get out of bounds, I have to utilize a collision oddity that can be found in several places throughout this game known as an invisible seam. An invisible seam is created when there is a vertical wall located somewhere below Link. Usually these occur in places where two planes meet on the ground Link is standing on but this is not always necessary. That being said, this technique is very situational. You will see these utilized several times throughout this movie, but that does not mean this can be done anywhere. Invisible seams only exist at very specific locations and are often very hard to find/discover. These invisible seams are incredibly small and incredibly steep. Think of it as if Link is walking perpendicularly on top of a razor thin wall. A tightrope of sorts, but also an invisible tightrope. It is possible to get on top of one of these seams by walking very slowly above the position where it is located, usually in a very specific direction, or sometimes by performing a spin attack in a specific position. The invisible seam here is very difficult to locate without the use of a spin attack, and even though a spin attack is slower by a few frames, I will need to wait for morning later anyways. Once I get on the seam, I need to strafe to the side at a very specific angle at basically the slowest speed possible in order to "climb" this seam. Minor changes in angle or moving too fast will cause Link to abruptly fall. All invisible seams have a limit to how high up they go, so they cannot be used to gain infinite height based on the community's current understanding. However, in this particular location, it does give Link enough height in order to sidehop on top of the out of bounds wall. From here it is possible to walk to the edge of the map, fall, and void out, reloading the area.

Path to Magic

Path to Farore's Wind

Setting a Farore's Wind Warp Point

Deku Tree

RTA Record Comparison

Possible Improvements

• The majority of improvements that could likely be made to this movie are probably simply due to coming up with more creative movement in several areas. I feel that I did a very good job exploring and timing many different options, but OoT and OoT3D are so complex by nature that there's always a feeling that there's a better way that you just haven't thought of yet. In the case of this movie, I feel this would be minimal, mostly because I feel very confident in my extensive knowledge of the possibilities this game presents.

• The biggest improvements that I feel could be made are on the 3 invisible seams that this route has to climb towards the end of the run (the first two in at Hyrule Castle do not waste time if they aren't optimal). I do not think I can realistically make any of these seam climbs faster without proper memory viewer functionality. I cannot overstate how precise and complicated these seams are to TAS. Not to mention, the understanding that the community has concerning these seams is still very much lacking. In particular, the video below is ridiculously precise to pull off. I spent about two weeks just attempting to quickly get onto that seam, and this is the best thing I could come up with. With a faster setup, this could save a few frames over talking to the Kakariko guard to open the gate.

• A few frames could probably be saved if Link had time to make it through the Hyrule Market at night time. This would require all of the Hyrule Field and Hyrule Castle movement to be done substantially faster though.

• On Death Mountain Trail, I believe that it would save time to FESS to the left of the rolling Goron before entering Goron City. I tried for a pretty long time to make this happen, but I'm just not sure it's possible. This would likely be a very small timesave if it saves time at all.

Other Notes

• This run also completes the game without opening any doors, as defined in this submission, which qualifies as Any% No Doors. Challenge runs which aim to complete different categories of Ocarina of Time 3D and its N64 counterpart without opening any doors have been being theorized, routed, TASed, and speedran for years now, so it's very cool that the fastest Any% completion of this game also fits this challenge criteria.

• This run does not collect any rupees throughout its duration.

• I originally thought this movie met the requirements to be considered low%, as many key item are not obtained in this movie. However, upon publicly premiering this TAS, I was informed that it is possible to skip collecting Deku Sticks and the Kokiri Emerald (which is collected upon doing the wrong warp at the end) if the Master Sword is obtained instead. This lowers the number of items needed to complete the game by 1. The full list of items collected in this movies that count toward the community's definition for low% is as follows:
  • Kokiri Sword
  • Fairy Ocarina
  • Weird Egg
  • Cucco
  • Zelda's Letter
  • Zelda's Lullaby
  • Deku Stick
  • Magic
  • Farore's Wind
  • Kokiri Emerald

Run Creation and Special Thanks

• SwordlessLink, homerfunky, omgatree, Bloobiebla, thewayfaringfox, and MrGrunz for creating high quality TAS's in the past. I used just about every available Ocarina of Time N64 TAS as a reference at some point or another
• Kaztalek for helping me film the intro video and for motivating me to never accept mediocrity.
• Samplename_ for giving me encouragement, answering some minor TASing questions, and watching my WIPs
• NEVERDOORS for inspiring me with their very high-quality movies, especially their Ocarina of Time N64 All Dungeons No Doors TAS, as well as by answering a few questions I had throughout the making of this movie. They also proofread all of my author notes here, which was immensely helpful, and I am very grateful for it.
• Pal62 for helping me learn more about a trick that unfortunately did not end up being faster in this TAS and for pushing the limits of what an Any% speedruns looks like RTA. I was constantly referencing his any% record throughout the creation of this movie.
• Gamestabled, Erinexplosives, PurplePhoton for watching my WIPs as I excitedly explained why I thought certain segments are cool.
• Yashichi, Psymarth, and Lioncache for also watching my WIPs and for helping me get started with better understanding some of the Citra and TASVidoes source code.
• CasualPokePlayer, adelikat, and anyone else from the TASVideos team who assisted me in adding 3DS support to TASVideos. I fumbled a lot here, so this submission likely would not be possible without the help they gave me.
• zfg1 for streaming the premier of this TAS. I put a substantial amount of work into the presentation of this TAS, so using his stream as a platform was an incredible way to show off Citra TASing to viewers for the first time ever.
• Gymnast86 for being Gymnast86

Suggested Screenshots

• Frame Count = 68428
• Input Count = 267622

• Frame Count = 76809
• Input Count = 300400

• Frame Count = 79374
• Input Count = 310431