Posts for Comicalflop

Posted: 9/7/2007 3:07 AM

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Comicalflop

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Go through walls Can be handy, and maybe the method can be used in different settings

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Posted: 9/6/2007 1:28 AM

Post subject: eh, removing the chart

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Comicalflop

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Pressing pause can be beneficial for real time players. I know Veysey used it in 4-02 in Toadly Raw and during the dash events. It really does seem strange that it calculates it 1/60th of a second exact. I know for example that Mario Kart 64 has the timer increase by 0.033" a frame (only 0.03" change is visible), so that in the 30 FPS game after 3 frames 0.10" has gone by (the last visual timer change is 0.04".) I have made 1 frame improvements in MM that have both gained 0.02" on the timer or 0.01"; most of the time 1 frame saved equates to 0.02", but if that was the case then 60 frames would equal 1.2 seconds, which is inaccurate because the game is 60 FPS. So like MK64 it should have the timer increase by 0.01667" each frame, where two of those frames it increases visually by 0.02", and one frame it visually changes by 0.01". Hrmph. I suppose we'll figure it out. Until then, good luck address while hunting while I learn how to Hex-edit, hunt for more strategies and techniques with the other MM speedrunners.

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Posted: 9/5/2007 7:16 PM

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Comicalflop

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Remember, Saturn said he got his 49"15 not from perfect frame counts, since he said his was 3 frames slower. I know there is an incredibly good reason for this, but once Ridley scoots off, why not stay in the lower right corner of the room, then arm pump over and hop up, then when you land start arm pumping again to go through the newly opened door (for more momentum/acceleration/what have you) rather than simply wait at the door and then start running? Also, Taco: someone has gotten 49"15, which is driving everyone else mad trying to at least match it. That's a good motivator.

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Posted: 9/5/2007 6:35 PM

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Comicalflop

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Very nice (and quickly found, kudos.) However, the only thing is that it seems to be merely a frame count that is not affected by lag (which is helpful, but not what I was looking for). When the screen is paused, and during cutscenes, and when selecting levels, the in-game time is not supposed to change at all, yet this address is increasing by 1 each frame whenever the game is running. A more accurate frame count if you will. (I will add this address though, since it should be useful.) What you found is similar to what Deign had found in that it increases by 1 each frame... except his didn't start increasing until 1-01 started, but then halfway through 1-02 it stopped completely. This game tracks in-game time by hundredths of a second, so the in-game timer should be increasing by 0.01666667" a frame, since the game runs at 60 FPS and 100/60 = 1.666667. What I need is an address that only increases when the in-game timer is increasing, and very helpful if that address resets once a stage is done. This in particular is what I am most looking for, as it gives me the absolute best way of comparing to Nitsuja's levels and to test routes/strats. if you can find one that does that, I'll be most appreciative.

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Posted: 9/5/2007 4:54 PM

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Comicalflop

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Which is ironic, since your submitted run desynched for me after Link grabbed the sword and tried crawling through the tunnel. (your newest .m64 I was able to watch fully however.) I'm uncertain I can be of as much help as you need if we can't watch each other's .m64's all the time consistently.

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Posted: 9/5/2007 4:41 PM

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Comicalflop

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Yeah, lag doesn't update the in-game time unfairly, same as with Super Metroid and other games. I used this to my advantage in 1-03 I think, where I tested one route that saved 3 real time frames and lost 0.09" on the timer (the left frame counter isn't too accurate to begin with anyways, I use the input counter for measurements), as compared to what I did which increased lag. While you're at it, could you find the RAM address (or addresses, if each stage has its own separate timer address) for in-game time? Deign found one that sort of conked out halfway through 1-02 and ended up being more inaccurate than I thought. (I use MHS Tool for watching btw) In terms of lag, if I can avoid it without wasting in-game time I probably will do so, especially since lag slows things done and ruins entertainment a little bit. I lagged things up a bit in 1-08, but it was for Marina to do some impressive maneuvers so I'm keeping it. Some things are just naturally laggy like Western World and one of the world 2 levels, so that I can't help. Removing lag is not going to be a chief goal of mine in general, but I probably won't purposefully lag up the game like all hell just to lower the time slightly.

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Posted: 9/5/2007 11:41 AM

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Comicalflop

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ohhhhhhhhhhhhh. Ok now. Well I retract most of my statements then. "At this point, this game needs either a GOOD run of Fastest time, that was more towards what your (U) version was like (especially for some fights like Pikachu. btw I will not go into a huge debate, but IMO fastest time still has a chance of being accepted at this site, despite far too many sucky submissions. But that video was not it the caliber it needed) that makes as many entertainment tradeoffs as possible and has no mistakes, or a BtT/BtP runthrough of the 8 main characters (as Zurreco, Baxter, and others have mentioned.)" This still stands. I think you should go back to some of the stages that could be improved to match his time, and keep on trekkin'.

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Posted: 9/5/2007 3:05 AM

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Comicalflop

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The entire run is based on in-game time. The first 9 stages all improve the in-game time shown. A few times I've made real time frame sacrifices for in-game frame sacrifices (lag, or something else.) At one point, I was 54 real time frames behind, and 57 in-game time frames ahead. (I forget what count I'm at now, but I *have* to be ahead by real time frames now as well. I've gained so much time.) For 1-10, there is just not enough inside the level to make me gain any time. I wall clipped a few times, and boost grabbed most of the stage, but no gain. I was gaining a pixel or two and some sub pixels, but I think that's the absolute limit. DeHackEd was able to hex one of Nitsuja's stages onto mine. I think this game is incredibly hex friendly, because so much of it is in-game time based and not frame based, so that I can redo levels as needed. (I just need to learn hex editing so I don't bug DeHackEd too much.)

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Posted: 9/5/2007 2:43 AM

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Comicalflop

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You made major mistakes on both DK and Metal Mario. I KNOW that they can be 5 seconds or slower both. You threw in some new stuff I hadn't seen, uet removed some old stuff that worked well. At this point, this game needs either a GOOD run of Fastest time, that was more towards what your (U) version was like (especially for some fights like Pikachu. btw I will not go into a huge debate, but IMO fastest time still has a chance of being accepted at this site, despite far too many sucky submissions. But that video was not it the caliber it needed) that makes as many entertainment tradeoffs as possible and has no mistakes, or a BtT/BtP runthrough of the 8 main characters (as Zurreco, Baxter, and others have mentioned.)

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Posted: 9/5/2007 2:26 AM

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Comicalflop

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I'd sacrifice a little time to do Ganon in 3 cycles rather than 10, dunno about you. Edit: Dashiznawz, ok, I watched it. I believe that my kokiri forest run is still faster. I highly suggest you watch the .m64 that I posted somewhere to see what I do. Comparatively, you did closer to what Guano did in his v2. Do note, that by the time I entered Deku Tree I was over 6 seconds faster than that version. This is usually not something myself or others say often, but let the rerecord numbers give you a good gauge. You spent 250ish to get to the sword... I had over 2,000 by the time I got there, because I tested many other routes, fixed desynchs and got it as frame optimal as possible, and had perfect angles for everything. My entire Kokiri Forest was 6,000+. My thinking is that maybe at most half a second or a full second can be shaved by the time Deku Tree is reached. Perhaps you can accomplish that, but it will take a lot of copying what I did because I know what I did was very optimal. Some things you did wrong: -I think I'm some frames faster when leaving Link's house. I had perfect angles there too. -when getting the first rupee, you don't go in a straight line to it. You need to, as soon as you round the corner to backwalk to it, then backflip up onto the hill. -I backflipped over the fences when going straight backwards. I then backflip onto the last, and sidehop to the get the 6 rupees in the air. -sidehopping is faster than normal jumping off of an edge. keep that in mind. -Had I been able to watch all of your submitted TAS I could make far more suggestions as you go along. I'll try to get that to work.

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Posted: 9/5/2007 2:15 AM

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Comicalflop

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One last, final WIP for the masses. Phew! World 1 done. Me making tangible progress? Who'd have think it! Every stage beats the previous TAS time, except for the last. Phooey. Enjoy. Now I'm going to go eat me some lava. And then snow after that. Then rocks. And then finally some metal.

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Posted: 9/5/2007 12:50 AM

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Comicalflop

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Yes. Manual can mean "done by yourself" and in this case done with your own bombs, since there's nothing else to SS off of.

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Posted: 9/5/2007 12:37 AM

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Comicalflop

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DaShiznawz wrote:

Ok understand I am still not a very good TASer but I am trying to get better and that is why I am posting my first WIP for this game. I am sorry it took longer than I said it would but I am TASing three games currently and this being the hardest to do I kind of slacked but I promise I will try to work more. Please tell me anything I can do to make this more optimized. Thanks for helping me. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1730214943/OoT%20v2.m64

I'll take a look at it when I can. Showing WIPs is the right start to optimization. And for all things sacred, don't try to do 3 or more TASes at once like I tend to do (but really shouldn't.) It's not healthy. ZFG: "I found something that might save some time in the ganon battle!After the castle crashing cutscene, use a manual superslide to the ganon cutscene and if you hold R through the whole cutscene, you realize that ganon never actualy knocked your sword out :D and it will only take 3-4 hits with the master sword to get him down which would save some good time over the deku nuts mothod." This sounds really good.

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Posted: 9/5/2007 12:29 AM

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Comicalflop

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DDRKhat wrote:

If you could just explain how to go through the loops, it would be alot nicer than having to watch a recording and trying to figure it out. Then again I am guessing it will be something to do with typical Sonic Psychics, moving too fast for the clipping to register, so you ignore the solidity?

I have no idea. That could be it. When I showed them to Upthorn he was able to deduce what was going on better than I.

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Posted: 9/4/2007 10:20 PM

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Comicalflop

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Here's some .gmv's of going through the loop-de-loops: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1623936454/Sonic%201%20Megamix%20v3%20testing.gmv http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/986529954/Sonic%201%20Megamix.gmv http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1381262760/Sonic%201%20Megamix%20v3.gmv

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Posted: 9/4/2007 12:48 PM

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Comicalflop

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megaflips are very handy indeed Should also be doable in Jabu Jabu, possibly to cross the broken bridge in Gerudo, etc.

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Posted: 9/4/2007 2:58 AM

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Comicalflop

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Twelvepack wrote:

Dont you hate it when that 1 was a judge?

"adelikat: This is an entertaining movie that got nice voting results. However, it is has too many improvements to justify publication. You have stated that 1-2 minutes could be saved and mmbossman seems to be confirming it. However, I do "accept" the game as suitable for TASing. I look forward to an improved version." Try reading the reasons for rejecting sometime.

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Posted: 9/4/2007 2:35 AM

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Comicalflop

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"Good luck with the floor, James." LOL! That was fast and pure awesome.

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Posted: 9/2/2007 10:51 PM

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Comicalflop

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From my experience, nothing looks good once youtube has gotten its grubby encoding hands on it. I wouldn't bother. some suggestions: x264 and 320x240 might want to look into multiple passes that publishable avis are made with What I did for my very short SSB individual stages was encode full frames compressed, then convert that movie file to .wmv format. It got them to be of extremely high file size .avi's (in the GB range), then once converted to .wmv they became low file high quality movies. and youtube seemed to not screw up the quality too bad.

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Posted: 9/1/2007 8:39 PM
(Edited: 9/5/2007 2:16 AM)

Post subject: demo WIP of 1-08 present

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Comicalflop

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I just tested it and it seems to work just fine. Recording, replaying, whatever, it doesn't affect synch at all. I may switch to using recording the gln64 4.1.1 in the chance that I need it to see certain textures, like the math questions, etc. But for the meantime I'll just use Jabo's (also since when encoding movies it goes very, very, very slow and freezes things up when i try to use the 4.1.1.) In the sub text I can probably say that the recommended plugin to watch is with the gln64, but that it was recorded with Jabo's and works fine either way. A published avi should probably be made with the enhanced gln64, but for me it was a very aggravating experience with encoding. But the publishers will deal with that one I guess.

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Posted: 9/1/2007 7:48 PM

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Comicalflop

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Actually yeah that sounds kind of cool. You wouldn't need to re-rate movies that become published, but it does mean that you still need 40+posts to make any kind of rating on any movie period.

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Posted: 9/1/2007 7:43 PM
(Edited: 9/1/2007 7:46 PM)

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Comicalflop

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I'm of the opinion that both questions- was this entertaining and was this technically precise- should be in the submission discussion. Published Movies are given ratings for both of these qualities, I think submissions should look at both too.

Bisqwit wrote:

The person who votes in the poll is not a judge. They are usually able to say how they liked the movie, but they are not able to determine what is good for the site and what is not.

Unfortunately, many members are stuck up enough to act this way. I won't say names. Raiscan's question might need some refinement, but the content of that phrasing is what I'm in favor for.

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Posted: 9/1/2007 7:22 PM

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Comicalflop

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I dunno. But I just found that the input frame counters is the more accurate counter which I should be watching, which increments by two's because the game reads it like this: frame input 1 A 2 A 3 4 5 C> 6 C> 7 S 8 S 9 10 In real time frames (the left counter) I am 54 frames behind Nitsuja, but by the input frame counter (the right one incrementing by 2) I am 57 ahead.

nitsuja wrote:

I think I've gotten as far as I'm able/willing to in modifying the glN64 plugin. The result is that - the indoor textures in Mischief Makers wrap correctly - the boulder in level 4-1 of Mischief Makers is visible - the plugin reclaims texture memory at a reasonable rate (based on time of last use) - very old video cards should get more accurate results than before (on all games) I'll make the plugin available now in case someone wants to try it out: plugin dll (mirror) source code (mirror) EDIT: But don't use this for games besides Mischief Makers. I haven't tried it on a lot of them so chances are good that it makes the graphics worse in some other game(s).

Is this going to be a problem? Should I have used this plugin to start with? Do I have to redo to implement this (which I hope to all god that I don't have to do, I just had hex help to complete stage 1-06 the way I wanted it to), or will recording in Jabo's 1.6 still make it watchable with this new one? If I don't have to redo and can keep using 1.6 then that's great, but if it's worth it to use this one, lemme know now.

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Posted: 9/1/2007 7:10 AM

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Comicalflop

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I am ahead of Nitsuja, both in frame count* and in in-game time. I've so far beaten 5 of his times, even in ones I thought were incredibly unimproveable, like 1-01, and 1-04. *I'm behind by roughly 1 second so far in frames. The frame counts for this game is weird. Not only can lag do weird things (I once saved 3 frames from lag, and the in-game timer went up by 0.09") but the input counter is higher than the real-time counter. What is even stranger is that in recording mode I might do something at, say, frame #12354, and then when I watch the run in read-only that action might happen at frame #12370, and when I go back to recording mode, I will get to that action at frame #12370. Frames are being inserted in some places for strange reasons, and yet the in-game times I'm achieving are not changing at all. And everything still synchs up fine, but I still don't know what the deal is. In the end, because the run is aiming for overall fastest in-game time completion, I'm not going to worry about it, since it's not screwing up the times. It would seem that what Nitsuja wanted most- 1) nothing new to be discovered anymore and 2) memory watching- has been achieved, which is why I'm working on it. I know it's not a good karma thing for me in particular to say, but I really want this one fully completed, I hope that I can beat if not match every TAS time that Nitsuja had made, blow the 4th and 5th worlds' real time records out of the water, that I can do this game justice, and to (fingers crossed) submit the entire movie as a very worthy N64 addition to the site.

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Posted: 9/1/2007 1:05 AM
(Edited: 9/1/2007 4:58 AM)

Post subject: WIP, .m64 updated

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Comicalflop

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It's gotta be those triangles. I get into those all the time, plus: they have upwards ejection routines, as well as ejection routines that place you inside other blocks. Hopefully I can learn how to make MHS create tile maps of all the stages so that I can scour each level for triangle blocks. A few people have requested a WIP, Here's one (youtube) to satiate appetites, completing stage 1-05. Edit: 1-05 is now 18.67". I'm going to retry 1-06 and see if I don't have that same problem with having to wait 30 frames. Link above is updated, download that for the latest 0.20" improvement.

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