Posts for Comicalflop


Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
What's this whole business of teaching whomever how to time travel and whatnot? That's a picture of my car, I know how to drive it and go through time thank you very much.
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
Yay frame war, yay cool authors giving us another good submission. However, I feel the great care that needs to be taken in controlling the camera in this game took a HUGE plunge. What the heck happened? I found myself disagreeing with every camera angle in the entire run. The first half of going into the castle and the first bowser level, the camera was zoomed in too close. In general, having the camera panned out in levels is better because you can get a better picture of mario in relation to his environment. Also, the angle wasn't too good, in that it was far more difficult to see objects/platforms that were approaching. Aesthetically, I always feel it best to take either a behind or diagonal-behind camera angle to get a clear picture of the environment that Mario is approaching. The camera angles inside the castle were mostly fine. First bowser stage, having it zoomed in close and sideways was bad. The change for the BLJ was fine, but then you chose a bad angle for getting to the pipe. The second bowser stage was done zoomed out to start. Good. It was at a sideways angle. Bad. It maintained this angle throughout the entire time. Mega bad! Again, I will repeat, getting some sense of what platform is coming next helps viewers get an orientation of where in the level they are. The pole glitch had a bad angle; you couldn't see anything that was going on. And then comes the biggest camera mistake of the whole run; on the outside of the brick area, just before the pipe, the camera was on the other side of the wall! you can't see mario at all! no one is going to know what the heck he's doing; only someone who watched a previous submission will know what is going on. In a run, going offscreen might be cool to show the author knows what he's doing (like in sonic advance 2 or SDW 120 exit); in a 3D game where you can control the camera, it is essential that you have a "director's sense" of what camera angle to use to best show what is going on. At the top of the spiral staircase, is there really no way after the first jump to increase your speed without bumping into the door? 3rd Bowser stage, again zoomed out sideways angle is still not doing it. You dived behind the gray box at the beginning (the more we see of Mario, the better). at a shortcut, he was hidden by more platforms. At the windy section, having mario come towards the camera didn't look good. man, I haven't had this many camera complaints about super mario 64 submissions in a while. But at this iteration of the 0 star run, I would expect the camera use to be up to snuff, especially because avoiding the lag in bowser boards the sub level is no longer needed.
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
You need one of these babies first though:
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
I'm not so hot about the new system. Most con reasons stated previously I agree with, and suddenly it may be hard to get a very quick statistical number of the % of yes/meh/no votes. Having to read through the entire thread just to get a sense of the viewer's reactions is not cool. Let's compare with politics. The entire system is, for the most part anomynous voting; in that you don't need to write an essay on why you vote for your politician. However, many people do dedicate themselves to politics and write, talk, and discuss why they like so and so. When the polls are taken, you have the stats to look at, and you also have the huge multitude of people who talked about the politician through the media. However, if you force everyone to give a "why are you voting for this politician" essay on every voting ballot, there would be a huge drop of voting, because the majority of people who go out to vote probably don't want to waste time explaining why they voted what they did; they just want to remain a number among the statistics. Whatever happens with keeping or removing the system, I think being able to change what you vote needs to be implemented. Pressing the wrong button by mistake or changing your opinion does happen, and should be made possible.
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
Zurreco wrote:
Maybe you should rush the improvement, assuming you want this run posted that badly.
I'm not saying the improvement SHOULD be rushed to get this published. I'm saying the publication of this movie shouldn't be contingent on another run's completion. And, in fact, no movie ever should.
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
upthorn wrote:
For what it's worth, if I were a judge, the course of action I would take is to accept this and delay publication until Guano's is obsoleted.
The problem is that the new run that would obsolete Guano's is far from completion. That'd be an incredible amount of time for it to be delayed.
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
Sami wrote:
I can use that trick inside FP Christmastree.
I actually watched all of Marshmallow's run, and in the remaining levels you can use the pole zipping trick practically everywhere. About every stage onwards from Freezy peak until the end has lots of long ladder-rails or poles that you can jump and zip up. I'll be expecting a ton of zippy action in the rest of the TAS ;-)
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
Much like Goldeneye, but better. Or the opposite of Blast Corps. Anyways, I was asking because there was a very long period where the game ran at 30 FPS, in a segment that I did not recall having as much lag from any previous WIP. I was asking about the fastest gold card because in your WIP you enter the stage and do the 100% themed gold cards first. Are you going to get the fastest card next? If you are, I recommend to do what BoMF and woodendoorknob did and do the fastest time card first, because showing the fastest route first then the more impressive 100% route has better flow. A fast completion followed by a full completion I personally think is more entertaining, rather than doing a stage fully and then redoing just to collect the last gold card. (this is not counting those stages where it's possible to grab all gold cards in one go.) Also, I'd like to reiterate that the vast majority of the runs on the site probably have a method for resetting that will skip the intro, and very few do. The ones that do, everyone can still watch. I think on an emulator where the final movie won't work for everybody, you should shoot for maximum viewer capability, and include a savestate in the submission so that people can skip it if they so choose.
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
alden wrote:
Frankly I'd be suspicious if no one voted no -- that people are too scared to state their opinions.
To be honest, I was beyond suspicious until no/meh votes started to show up. Any discussion/submission of OoT always leads to a split divide between people that like it and people that hate it; it was almost relieving to see some opposing views show up, because I had this conspiracy theory that someone was traveling through the internet and assassinating anyone who didn't like it. (dramatic representation)
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
The shirt lift brings all the girls to the yard.
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
The problem with the record reset mupen is that in Linux, the reset command forces the emulator to close (so DeHackEd tells me.) That's many viewers/encoders who miss out, and the emulator patch itself hasn't been accepted at the site yet. Generally, runs that use a reset to skip the intro are few and far between. I know of two: DKC3 (all of the recent versions of snes9x have record reset fully working) and Gunstar Super Heroes (the game itself allows a button press sequence, much like NES up+a on 2nd controller, to reset without using the rest feature of the emulator- even though VBA itself has soft reset.) I recommend that you don't use resetting, and include the savestate in the submission. Most people know how to load savestates. Rules wise, you'd be making a full run with an emulator that is not accepted at the site. How much faster is your WIP? Did you get the fastest time gold card and the other cards (the hidden ones + 30 enemies) in one go? I noticed lot of lag; can you maybe experiment with the angle and distance of the camera to try and reduce lag?
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
You could look at the frame number of each black screen transition, and create a table to see where the frames saved were. Most likely yes vote. Good to see a frame war over this run. With a movie so short, any improvement is a worthy improvement.
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
Swordless Link wrote:
If I were to vote on this run, my vote would be heavily influenced by the fact that it was made by these people, and since voting on a run based on the author is against site rules (or at least, frowned upon), I just refrained from voting altogether.
It IS a rule. Some people just choose NOT to follow it. So good for you for being a trooper.
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
I love it when I'm right :-) How is the name entering faster? I'm confused, you skipped the first M, then it came back? what does the R button do? I'm confused....
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
MUGG wrote:
Also, it seems the player didn't put much effort into this. He made it soon after his first submission, the re-record count isn't as high as I think should have been. In the Yoshi stage, the player even misses a Forward Aerial, if I remind correctly...
Yes, because rerecords should be how we judge a movie. For one, Blaze mentioned he did a lot of testing with this game. I don't think many rerecords needed to be used for that purpose here. iirc, Blaze is a SSB player. Someone who knows the game doesn't need to use as many rerecords. This is a playaround, not a "shave every frame possible" type run. This has the right amount of effort I would expect. Nico has finished two SSB runs in a night's work before. When antD last showed me hisWIP, it barely had 700 rerecords, because as he said "he knows what needs testing and what doesn't." My own run took only a week, but that's only because every time I finished a stage, I wouldn't start the next stage at the drop of a hat, and I'm a slow worker. My point is that the run is not rushed/of bad quality. Many of the maneuvers are pulled off very well, it has some good luck manipulation, and the simple fact is that when time does not become a factor, there is not as much stress towards making sure each enemy is being killed on the first frame possible. He even wasted time to lump enemies together to kill them at the same time! On the 3 parts where he did make time matter- the BtT, BtP, and Master hand- he did those with very good quality.
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
Explosions kick ass. Especially considering that this is a first-of-a-kind movie, I'd go ahead and make frame sacrifices to increase the entertainment.
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
I couldn't improve Phoenix Gamma because he can't be dealt damage until he hits the wall after his charge attack. I saved exactly 1 second in Inner Struggle, and I don't think I'll be saving time in Final Fight, but I have to redo all of it anyways thanks to a desynch. I don't understand your second question. Edit: 5-07 and 5-08 are improved, be sure to grab the new submission file.
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
As is the ingrained habit of working on this movie, I have thought of 3 possible improvements for the (thankully) last 3 stages. I would like to set the publication of this to delayed for the time being, while I attempt to improve 5-06, 5-07, and 5-08. If I manage to get improvements from these stages, I will hex it in and email Bisqwit to update the submission with the new .m64, rather than cancel and re submit.
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
MUGG wrote:
It takes 17 frames for 0.5 of my HP to vanish in both the score counting at the end of each level as well as when an enemy is damaging me.
I wonder though, if it is not possible to take more damage, since it seems to boost you
Now that you mentioned it, it's indeed possible to damage boost at the barrels in level 2. That would have saved at least 30 frames. >_< You can't damage boost anywhere else in the game though, besides the weird spike things in level 5 which I did. Well, putting that on the possible improvement section...
A sub 4 minute run and you don't want to redo to save those frames? I don't know if I agree with that, a run this short I would improve it and replace the movie file.
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
Yeah, I just figured out my recording problems. I didn't think to try recording BEFORE the ROM was loaded. Dear lord. Here is a test .pxm I made, using the PSX v 002, and Mooby CDR 2.8 as graphics plugin. I went through the menus optimally, then noodled around to experiment with the frame timings of the moves. At frame 5,087, the Input becomes locked at <^ Square button, and I run into the laser grid without meaning to. I believe you can see the input display not showing a desynch; during recording, both frame counters would be red. Edit: replaying the movie using sound makes it desynch (I was using no sound for recording.) Should I record WITH sound?
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
The input freeze occurs with Silent Bomber. I was using Mooby CDR 2.8, if that makes any difference. I'm pretty sure I could reproduce it, assuming nothing changes because it was happening like every 2 or so minutes I was playing. (Assuming I can start recording, I can show an example.) For all emulators, in order to record a movie first you load the ROM, then go to movie->record. Unless I'm missing something, loading the ROM in PSX makes it impossible to go to the movie->record option. Also, having a menu while the game is paused is immensely helpful for many other things, such as replaying a new movie, changing settings/configurations mid game if needed, etc. I use F for frame advance, and D for pause in every rerecording emulator I use. I have one of the buttons on my USB controller linked to F and one button for D, so that I can frame advance and pause while holding my controller. I don't want to mess around changing all of my configurations for all of my emulators just to accommodate for this one emulator, and I'm 100% unused to either \ or SPACE for frame advancing. Edit: woopsie daisies, I solved the recording problem.
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
I've encountered 3 very annoying things. One is a bug, one is a request for customizing all hotkeys, and the other is a feature that frankly makes recording impossible (unless I'm missing something.) 1. During play, every so often the input becomes frozen, making whatever input you were pressing become locked for a few seconds so if you were moving in a direction, you continue to go that way without being able to stop. The emulator notices this, it causes the red lag counter to increase as frames where you can't press anything, and the normal frame counter is also red indicating input won't work. This is a very bad thing; during recording it would suck to encounter a 10 second period where the input is locked. Not conducive to making optimal movies. 2. When a ROM is loaded, the menu on the top (file, emulator, configuration, help) disappears. It is essential to use this menu in order to record/replay movies, since nowhere has a shortcut been shown to automatically start movie recording/replay. 3. Please, for the love of god, include a way to customize all hotkeys. I cannot work with P as pause and SPACE as frame advance. Besides that, the game I've been testing works great. Playing with no sound is no fun, but besides the input lock I haven't encountered any problems.
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
However, before you do that, just know: -the game is not unknown, many people have requested it, it's just that not everyone has finished watching it because it's a long run and there's 3+ very popular runs in the workbench it's competing with. -it has some fast paced actions. It might not be sonic advance 2, but if pace was the only factor, we wouldn't have as many NES runs. -2 members, Zurreco and Pekopon, worked on the game. Both of them have a good sense of choosing good games to pick. This wasn't a bad game to pick at all, you just made many errors that would have been solved if you had posted WIPs in the threads and got feedback. -As a first TAS, you've only gotten 2 no votes (from people experienced enough to notice the major mistakes) and 7 yes votes from people who overlooked the precision and liked the run. While it stands that the precision of the movie is nowhere near acceptable, you made 77% of viewers appreciate the movie. I'm sorry I'm always throwing lengthy posts your way. In the end, yes canceling it rather than it getting rejected is better. No judge wants to have to make the call of rejecting a movie that most people are enjoying despite its apparent flaws.
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
I think the run shows poor planning in addition to some poor precision. Also, I do not personally think the game is fully entertaining (although I think it's entertaining enough for the site) because it's long, has many pauses in the action from cutscenes, transitions, and wastes time making you learn the game. The speed is nothing impressive, the jumping isn't particularly note worthy, and the only 2 things that seem cool are: spamming the level 1 drill to cut through things faster, and the bouncing sequence breaks Pekopon has demonstrated (which were obviously not here.) More problems: -Uses the J ROM because couldn't find the U ROM; this is inexcusable. Many cutscenes and stopping during the action to get information on how to play the game sucks even more when you can't even read it. No time is saved by using the J ROM, not even because texts scroll faster. IF the run was of high quality, I could see the rule being overridden so that it could be published, but since it's so improvable I think not (I don't think it should be rejected just because of ROM choice, same reason why it shouldn't be rejected because of ROM choice if it was a good run.) A new run made with the U ROM is the best scenario. -Misses MANY shortcuts that Pekopon has been posting about publicly in the thread and youtube account. I got the feeling that no research was done into the game's routes/sequence breaks, and was completed blindly. This is most evident by: "Buy things:Thanks to the game,I didn't collect the chips on purpose but I still got 263 chips after finishing the stage 4-2.I realized I had to buy the bettery until I almost got to the end of stage 5-1 so I had to go back to play this stage again...The battery makes the HP double and running into the bombs is so cool." Replaying an entire stage because of poor route planning is not what this site is about. That may be acceptable in a long run in SDA where you make a route mistake, but most definitely not acceptable here. You should make a test run first to structure the fastest route, then work on the movie that will be submitted. That way, you don't have mistakes like that. -Poor luck manipulation with enemies, as you mentioned. -Boss fights were ok and seemed to show some understanding of boss fight techniques (such as getting hit to be invulnerable and get the next hit on the boss quickly), but again not bothering with luck manipulation could make the bosses faster if their actions are controlled more. -The fact that you found a new trick at the end for faster movement I sympathize with, since it's something many of us have to deal with, but it's a trick that would save a lot of time as you mention and I'm sure that an entire redo of this run should be made, using the U ROM, being more precise, testing different routes, searching for the most optimal way to progress past enemies/obstacles, and using Pekopon's shortcuts. -The general precision, i.e. when you're playing/boosting along and such, at face value seemed ok. I didn't see blatant use of turbo for movement, only for dialogue, and the actions did kind of blend together as a TAS should in that you didn't miss the first frame to move and such. But, as you mentioned you didn't do the fastest methods of traveling, nor I bet test different routes/strategies per room. I'm guessing, a run this long made with so few rerecords, you kept the first result you got, not bothering to beat the result. A TAS should be about systematically beating your own (or someone else's) progress until potential perfection is achieved. Pekopon is right in that this can be improved, and I think by a lot based on how many shortcuts were missed and in playing one stage twice. I don't think on a playing precision level this was atrocious; as a first timer, I think you did pretty well for general movement, and especially with spam drilling. I highly recommend you redo, because accepting this movie as it is would be against the site's goals. As it stands, I vote no. I would vote yes on on a new run if all of the problems were addressed. If the task of redoing the whole thing is daunting turtle, I recommend asking around the forums to see if anyone with some experience wants to do the run with you. Many people have requested seeing this, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone offered to help. The forums are also a great place for showing WIPs (works in progress), where we can judge the movie every time you release progress so that we can point out mistakes or make suggestions so that you can fix them there, then proceed to the next point, rather than have us all point out the flaws when it's submitted.
Homepage ☣ Retired
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
I don't know exactly, but I think that the overworld is one giant map, and the dungeons are separate maps that are not connected to each other (i.e. when playing only your current dungeon is loaded.)
Homepage ☣ Retired