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That is pretty cool, but I hope they explain thoroughly and repeatedly what a TAS is and how the video was made. And of course they shoud give credit where credit is due. I can't really understand anything they say, so I can't tell, but I do see they didn't remove the "this is a TAS" thing from the video, which makes me think they're being honest and intelligent about this.
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What the hell - I seem to have found a new super-secret warp no one ever found before, that takes you from level 1 and straight to level 7. The only problem is that now I 'll have to do 7, 13 and 12 without boosters! I have no idea how that could be done, but it should not be slower than doing the rest of level 1, all of level 2, plus going to the warp in level 3.
(obsolete)://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1811389751/Solar%20Jetman%20-%20Hunt%20for%20the%20Golden%20Warpship%20%28U%29.fcm
Here it is, at level 7 and 20238 frames ahead (5:37), but no boosters and no timebombs. Which is a shame because now it will be next to impossible to maneuver the craft. Still, it'll be interesting to see the remaining planets completed with something that is essentially a tin can in space. I'm not sure exactly how necessary the timebombs are, maybe I'll be able to just squeeze past these giant spaceships that they were used on in the current version. Note that the boosters do not increase your max speed, only your thrust, so it should still be possible to bounce around the levels without losing too much time. If it can be done without losing about 5 and a half minutes then this is will be faster.
Edit: That was rubbish, actually, here's level 1 again, about 30 more frames shaved off, so now I'm 20264 frames ahead of the current movie. That warp is really finicky, sometimes it just decides not to appear and sometimes it does appear. Weird.
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/987780358/SJ-improvement.fcm
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Holy crap!!!! That is so helpful! Thanks so much! I was NOT expecting this. :) I'm not promising anything though, at the moment I'm just going to try to improve the first level and then go from there. The reason is because I re-watched the (current) movie recently and decided I wasn't happy with using the boosters more than absolutely necessary to gain max speed. So if I finish the movie, it probably won't be much faster, but it will look more elegant.
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Any tips on how to find memory addresses that don't want to reveal themselves? I've been toying around with the idea of trying to improve this movie, but if I were to do that, I want to watch some memory addresses while "playing". Specifically X and Y velocity if possible, so I know whether the pod is moving at max speed. But I just can't seem to find any convenient addresses with the cheat search. I can easily find the Health value and ship's orientation, but the speedometer is hard to find.
So these are the ones I could find (yes, I suck at cheat search):
00C7 - health
0374 - ship's orientation (direction)
02D9 - movement speed in the Y-plane (I *think*), but only seems to work at low speed (when reaching high speed it goes back to 0)
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If you want to see, here it is:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/152270338/lordtom-metroid-any-nitpicked.fcm
The first 26100 frames or so are obviously unchanged. I don't know how it happens, but because of some ridiculous luck, I freeze the third metroid and somehow walk right through it. I didn't even have to manipulate them at all, your movie already set it all up. This actually saves a suprisingly tiny amount of time though, since Samus goes into slow motion while airborne. I timed it with your method and this is precisely 6 frames faster.
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hero of the day wrote:
#1
Was done in all previous movies so that the crawler enemy starts heading to the right instead of the left. It would be impossible to jump over otherwise.
Ah OK, cool then, I thought it must have been something like that. I just never noticed it in any previous run.
hero of the day wrote:
#2
I agree with you on this one, but haven't spent the time to test it.
I did test it and it almost definitely saves some frames. The last pair of screenshots I posted compares the original movie (above) and my quick test-edit, both screenshots are taken on the same frame. But really, we're talking about less than 5 frames, so, you know....
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Awesome movie! I'm sorry to nitpick (couldn't help it) but I only noticed some tiny little things. Actually I noticed 4 things, but when I tried it out, it turns out only 2 might actually be valid.
Frame 19793 (~5:30). Here you stop moving forwards for one frame. It might be enemy manipulation but I just had to point it out.
Frame 26215 (~7:16). I thought it might be faster to not drop into the pit here, so I checked and it looks to me like I could save some frames by doing the morph-unmorph-jump trick (measured by the frame when the blue door ahead pops up on the screen). Of course I suck at the game, so it's possible a few more frames could be saved.
Anyway, don't get me wrong, these are tiny nitpicks and hardly worth it, the run is super well done and looks insanely optimized. Nice job!
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There's also the case where you can't get the best ending if you play on a lower difficulty. That's really the only reason my Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt movie is done with only one heart - it changes nothing else whatsoever and actually makes the movie a tiny bit slower since I can't take damage shortcuts. But if you do it on an "easier" setting, the text at the end says something like "now try a higher difficulty" instead of "w00t, you beat the game, now get a life, you nerd". (paraphrased)
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I haven't used it myself, but my friend uses something called "clonezilla" and it's supposed to be really useful. It's also free.
This seems to be it:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/clonezilla/
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I think instead of counting how many times a button is pressed, make it simple by simply counting how many times the input changes. So you would try to make a movie with the fewest number of button changes, for example in Megaman you would switch weapons at the same frame where you had to jump, thus making only 1 change instead of 2.
For the N64 stick, just count how many times the stick position changed. So if you held it at one corner for 50 frames, then moved it to the opposite corner over one frame, and held it there for 50 frames, it would count as only 1 change, since the stick only moved once. If you moved it slower over many frames, it would count as more changes. Etc.
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moozooh wrote:
Chamale wrote:
Cube 2 was written by a completely different director than the original director, and it's about something very different.
Personally, I don't think Cube 2 is much of a "take" on the original. I prefer thinking of it as a "concept demo" rather than a sequel. Maybe it helped that I watched it before the original Cube, but to me, it's a fine movie by itself. Probably because I'm a sucker for odd sci-fi concepts (even if they're just technobabble with flashy effects).
Did you see the same movie as me? Because when I watched Cube 2, I saw a badly written, badly thought out, badly executed ball of crap with some horrendous acting to boot. Everything about it was pure suck.
The original Cube, on the other hand, is absolutely fantastic.
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Raiscan wrote:
GeminiSaint wrote:
Of course, I wonder if there will still be zipping across ceilings and stuff. Hyper glitched MM9 TAS anyone? :P
Excellent idea, with just two minor drawbacks.
1. We don't have any rerecording tools for the Wii emulator.
2. We don't have a Wii emulator.
Maybe we don't need any lasers. If the game is made as an actual NES game and not just imitating one, maybe someone will be able to hack out the ROM image. Hey, we can dream. :D
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Warp wrote:
I don't really understand. Hardware was very limited back then, so games went to great lengths to try to circumvent those limits, but it was, naturally, not possible to do so in all cases.
Now those annoying limits are a *good* thing? I don't get it.
It's a work of art. These days, hardware is extremely powerful and super-cool graphics aren't very interesting anymore. The only way to be interesting in graphics these days is to use a cool graphics style. The same can be said about audio.
(I understand that some retro people might like the square and triangle wave sounds, but I don't understand how even the most consummated retro person enjoys music which breaks every time a sound effect is played.)
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adzicents wrote:
I'm surprised the phrase "When the shit hits the fan" hasn't been mentioned. Used when something has gotten out of control or blown out of proportion.
I thought it was more literal. I imagine a running fan and a lump of shit. Then the shit hits the fan and it goes everywhere. A terrible secret is revealed, or something has dire consequences, or something along those lines.
OMFG. I almost "died laughing" because of that.
Some Icelandic ones translated to English:
To get a fly in one's head - to get a wacky idea
To turn on the light bulb - to figure something out
To play chess with the pope - to take a dump
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Make sure you don't wear a Transformers T-shirt, or anything with a picture of a weapon on it. Apparently, those are now lethal. Other than that, have fun! I don't have any other suggestions.
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It was moderately interesting, but I really think this game would be better done on mode C - just do one level, but try to get the highest score possible by filling out all squares and having a ludicrous amount of crossover sections. It seems like this game is all about high scores instead of time, so a TAS should focus on that.
Edit: Something like this, only more optimized (this has lots of mistakes and the score could be much higher by getting a luckier board thus enabling more crossovers).
Edit: By the way, I didn't vote.
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Kuwaga wrote:
Doesn't that strategy where you save something like a red shell and stay in second place on purpose work anymore?
Then if a blue shell appears in like the second lap, dodge it, allow somebody to pass by and stay in second place again.
If it appears in the final lap you get the luxus of being in first place and carrying a red shell.
Not sure if this works though, as I haven't played this game yet. :p
No, because even if you had the skills to do this, every three seconds or so, someone uses a lightning, making you lose your items :(
However, I will now say that playing online is great fun. The blue shells seem to be less of a problem there. It would be nice to be able to chat with other players, but I guess Nintendo doesn't want you to hear not good words. The friends system is a complete failure though. Also, you really need a wired adapter for your Wii because according to my experience, the wireless thing is totally unreliable and full of suck.
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I seem to remember a trick where you could eat a mushroom in mid-air, then jump again once the growing animation finished. Is it possible that it could also work the other way around, i.e. hit something halfway over the gap, then jump again? It probably won't work but then hey.
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I haven't made many TASes, but of the ones I have made, I like my SNES Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt run the best. It's just so intensely fast and fluid. You're not really supposed to use the run button in it nearly so much. Normal speed is about as fast as running in most other games (okay, a little bit slower), and running in this game is very fast, plus it's almost impossible not to get hurt all the time normally (if you run).
Frame 19793 (~5:30). Here you stop moving forwards for one frame. It might be enemy manipulation but I just had to point it out.
Frame 26215 (~7:16). I thought it might be faster to not drop into the pit here, so I checked and it looks to me like I could save some frames by doing the morph-unmorph-jump trick (measured by the frame when the blue door ahead pops up on the screen). Of course I suck at the game, so it's possible a few more frames could be saved.
Anyway, don't get me wrong, these are tiny nitpicks and hardly worth it, the run is super well done and looks insanely optimized. Nice job!