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The vampire bat and medusa are down :)
I managed to get the bat to come at me earlier.
And it may disappoint you, scrimpeh, but the fight against medusa looks less like a "whipping dance" because of the critical hit abuse this time :p
Stage 5 took me a looooooot of tries and comparisons to have the best outcome with the damage boost on the medusa head. If I remember correctly, jumping left or just up are the same, time wise, but I jump left anyway ^^
Big improvement with the crushing pillars, too, less than 10 frames of "waiting" near the candles before going in and passing in one go (after the 1st pillar goes up).
But after these, I have to give up on the damage boost with the bat, obviously; it forces some nice jumps to avoid the bone pillars and their fireballs instead.
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Voted yes despite the fact that there is surely ways to optimize it, but it involves different routes or some glitches (I'm talking big optimization, here). And it looks polished, there are nice tricks, shortcuts... Everything is here to keep the entertainment going.
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Well... I'm at it again to improve the run from the beginning :p
I didn't kill the bat with a damage boost and took the stairs to the extra screen, and now I'm at the first boss.
It's already at least a visual improvement, since I don't get hit at all and gain time compared to my test run (but I lose more time in the end because of the extra screen to go through, which is unavoidable if I want to respect the pacifist rule).
Now I need YOU (as many "you" as possible ^^) to tell me what I should do or not do in the run, according to the "pacifist/minimalist" rule.
I'm reposting the rules here:
-I don't break anything (no candles or walls)
-I don't kill enemies except bosses, I don't hit them either, even if they survive the hit.
-I don't pick up items (they sometimes can be dropped by projectiles for example)
So, tell me what you expect from that kind of run.
I've decided to still use the whip to perform a trick which saves time when landing from too high (because it's a nice trick, I think, +1 for entertainment in my book).
Do you think I'm allowed to use the whip "just for the show" too? Maybe feinting an attack on an enemy or something like that, just for an example.
Is it acceptable to destroy some projectiles if it saves time? Both for the bosses and in the levels. Example: the bones thrown by skeletons; I don't know if it is possible, but there is a chance that I can be able to jump over a skeleton while destroying a bone to save time.
That's all I can think about right now. I'm waiting for your suggestions ;)
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STBM wrote:
J'ai uploadé la vidéo sur l'hex editing. J'ai tout dit sur le sujet ?
Aussi, je vais avoir besoin d'aide pour le LUA scripting... J'ai jamais manié ce langage, et je suppose que comme tout les langages de script il y a des documentations particulières pour chaque émulateur... Donc si quelqu'un connaissait un bon tuto pour le LUA et les docs pour les émulateurs, juste assez pour développer un script pour son TAS quoi, qu'il le dise s'il vous plaît :)
Hop ^^
D'abord la vidéo:
En fait je savais même pas que c'était "ça" qui s'appelait "hex editing", faut dire que j'ai pas vraiment fait de recherches sur le sujet (j'imaginais que ça avait à voir avec du bidouillage de la RAM ou chaispasquoi :p). Ca doit être à cause du mot "hex", rapport à hexadecimal, alors qu'en fait dans l'exemple on tripatouille juste du texte.
Le terme devait s'appliquer aux versions plus anciennes des émulateurs (ou les plus récents aussi, je sais pas du tout, c'est dire mon ignorance) où les fichiers movie n'étaient pas aussi faciles à bidouiller, peut-être. Bref, j'en sais rien et c'est pas important...
Retour à la vidéo. Je trouve que c'est assez parlant, mais comme je connaissais déjà cet "outil", je ne suis pas le mieux placé pour juger.
Toujours de la bonne musique relaxante au piano en fond, j'aime bien (morceaux bien choisis en plus, je parle pour toutes tes vidéos) alors ne change rien ^^
Juste un mini bémol mais c'est pour pinailler: on dirait que tu as repris ta façon de parler "par rafales" ^^. Mais je n'ai pas eu de problème à comprendre, c'est ok, pas la peine de tout refaire juste pour ça.
Ensuite, le LUA...
Là je peux pas aider. J'ai testé bien sûr, mais c'était vraiment basique: lire des adresses dans la RAM pour afficher des trucs à l'écran façon HUD, c'est à dire que ça ne m'aidait pas plus que de lire simplement les valeurs dans le ram watch. Pour ça j'ai juste lu les bouts d'infos trouvés sur ce site et copié quelques formules en modifiant ce qu'il fallait, bof quoi. Au final j'ai lâché ça, je préfère la jouer "à l'ancienne" avec le RAM watch (en plus j'ai l'impression que ça faisait un peu ramer mon petit PC tout vieux).
En tout cas, comme intro pour le LUA, je pense que c'est bien de préciser qu'il est recommandé d'avoir quelques connaissances en programmation pour commencer, sinon ça peut être compliqué de se lancer (c'est un contexte particulier, on contrôle l'émulateur et tout avec ça...).
Je pense que si tu ne trouves vraiment pas de source d'info complète, ou aussi que c'est trop compliqué/long à expliquer (moi j'en aurais pas le courage ^^), c'est une partie qui peut être sautée, voire juste évoquée mais sans explications plus précises. Perso, je déconseillerais à un débutant de se lancer dans le LUA scripting et d'essayer d'en dépendre pour son 1er TAS.
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Mr. Kelly R. Flewin wrote:
Grincevent, this was a really well done run and I am glad you're willing to go back and improve this.
Though I would love to know how you seemingly OHKO'd the first boss! That was intense!
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Thank you, and I don't know when (or maybe if) I'll start redoing this run.
The OHKO on the big bat is due to a well known, but not well documented, glitch.
It's what can be called a "critical hit".
There are conditions to trigger it:
-hit the enemy at the exact same frame that you are hit yourself (by anything, not only the boss, it can be another enemy or a projectile)
-you must be hit from behind. At least it's how you make it work every time, but I've encountered some sort of exception: In the video you can see a bandage hitting me when I attack a mummy, this bandage comes from behind... But hits me from the front (I'm thrown backwards to the left).
Anyway, when the conditions are met, there is a critical hit: a lot more damage than usual, enough to kill the first boss in one hit.
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Derakon wrote:
Grincevent wrote:
The big problem is that I can't avoid killing at least 1 bat, in the best scenario possible. It happens in stage 10: I use a bat to go over the ceiling, but if I take the lower route, there will be a bat in the way, and I don't think I can avoid killing it.
Ah, yes, I'd forgotten that bit. Well, there it's unavoidable, as you said, so killing one bat is necessary. Like killing the bosses is necessary. But the bat in stage 1 should still live.
Ravens die too when they hit me...
(and don't tell anybody, but I killed a snake in the medusa fight :p)
Snakes and fireballs and mummy wraps and so on ought to be killable during boss fights.
So you think I should avoid at all cost any contact with these enemies if I redo a run? And the category of the run isn't too arbitrary to be submitted?
Personally I think the run could be submitted. It feels very different from the existing run -- that run is all about throwing around as many subweapons as possible to rack up a huge score while slaughtering the enemies; this run is about sneaking through the castle and assassinating the guys in charge while leaving the peons alive. :)
Especially, if you can find some way in stage 10 to avoid killing a bat, then that removes any ambiguity about the "pacifist" aspect. But even if you absolutely have to kill a bat I think it could still work.
Ok, if I redo it, I'll try really hard at that part to let the bat live. I wonder if I can manipulate a merman to jump at the right spot and replace the bat as a platform, but I'm quite sure it's impossible. So, taking the lower route, it will be about timing the bat spawning and all, if possible, too...
The ravens will be my nightmare I think. I still don't know how they work, and if they use the RNG, as I suspect, they will be a torture. I'm really not good at luck manipulation, my method is the brute force approach ^^ (just trying different things until I find one that works well enough).
feos wrote:
Loved the jump race with goblins.
It was jut the fastest way to go, I thought it was too long and boring, but I'm glad you liked it :)
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- The encode is just fine, you can see everything clearly. Youtube caps the framerate to 30fps either way, there's little you can do about that.
- Why didn't you jump into the entrance right at stage1? It saves quite a few frames and is done in the published run.
- I think you could've manipulated the Vampire Bat to attack you quicker.
- In Stage 5, would it be faster to jump left for the damage boost instead of straight upwards? Not sure whether Medusa heads move faster than you.
- In Stage 6, you can avoid waiting for the third ceiling stomper by not scrolling the camera as far so early. Just hang back at the candles for a while, you should be able to pass through just fine later.
- I really like the whip fighting against Medusa. In my own "no subweapons/no damage" run, I had to do the same, it looks very nifty.
- Nice hunchback manipulation. I also like the damage boosts, they are all executed very well.
- I like how you act around the ravens and skull cannons, though sometimes, I do wonder whether you could go faster. The RNG is very rigid around these parts though.
- Nice Mummy Fight again. I do wonder whether you could have gotten more hits on both of them at once (or used the damage to do a 'critical hit'). I honestly am not sure myself.
- Frankenstein Fight was great, nice critical hits.
- Outside of boss fights, you never use the whip. THis made the one time where you do use it to break your fall very jarring. I think it should be left out for consistency's sake, even if it costs a few frames.
- Dying to restock on life was very unexpected and surprisingly nice. Great idea!
- Drac Fight was done very well, too.
Thanks for the feedback :)
All the possible improvements that you listed are... possible. For me it's obvious that these parts can be done faster.
For example, just the door in stage 1 where I should have jumped in; at the time I was still like: "Hum, ok, that's how frame advance works... Let's go to the next screen.". I wasn't even trying to do a perfect run ^^
I didn't know how to manipulate the vampire bat either (in fact I still don't know, I never tried it), and I was only focused on trying to do a critical...
Medusa heads move faster than the player, so that's an other improvement to note for stage 5.
Against Medusa, critical hits are painfully absent in my run, that's another part where some time could have been saved. But maybe it would be less entertaining to watch.
All the parts with ravens are certainly improvable, too. Again, maybe at the cost of entertainment, but I'm not sure.
For the mummies, I didn't try it, but there is, perhaps, a way to do a critical to both at the same time when I'm surrounded.
It depends on how this glitch works. When you get hit and do a critical, in fact the attack goes both ways, as if you were whipping right and left at the same time. It's really interesting.
@Derakon:
The big problem is that I can't avoid killing at least 1 bat, in the best scenario possible. It happens in stage 10: I use a bat to go over the ceiling, but if I take the lower route, there will be a bat in the way, and I don't think I can avoid killing it.
Ravens die too when they hit me...
(and don't tell anybody, but I killed a snake in the medusa fight :p)
So you think I should avoid at all cost any contact with these enemies if I redo a run? And the category of the run isn't too arbitrary to be submitted?
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Derakon wrote:
I would call that category "minimalist pacifist", personally. Though the fact that bats die (?) when you jump into them is a bit problematic for the "pacifist" angle, though.
Congrats on finishing your first TAS! I'm not set up to watch it, alas, so I can't provide feedback.
I've already uploaded an encode (quite a poor encode) on youtube so I had to find at least a simple name for the category, which happened to be "minimal destruction"...
If you don't mind the framerate which is far from optimal, or even good (arrg when Simon is blinking :p), here it is:
Link to video
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STBM wrote:
I re-made the 9 emblems with what I learned and saved 00:32:31 (new time : 20:25:50 ).
And I just discovered that rolling+jumping at the same time goes as fast as dashing (the only drawback is that you can't turn...). Not sure if that would save time before, but I'm going to continue with that in my head :)
If rolling + jumping is as fast as dashing, maybe you can use it just for entertainment, some variety in the moves, or maybe jumping to the music, something like that ^^
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I'm done with my test run for my very first TAS (yay!).
To make it interesting for me, I used these rules:
-never attack enemies, except in boss battles ^^
-no mindless destroying of innocent candles or walls. In fact it is "no furniture destroying at all".
-interdiction to pick up items (since they can still spawn when I jump on bats or when some boss's projectiles are destroyed)
So I'm stuck with the leather whip and no subweapons.
I have no intention of submitting an optimized run of it; I couldn't even find a fitting category name and I doubt it would have a chance of being accepted. Long story short: it was just for entertainment and learning how to TAS :)
I'm now uploading it to youtube, but since I'm a newbie about encoding, I can't guarantee a good result.
But if anyone wants to see it anyway, the .fm2 file is available here.
Please be indulgent, there are huuuuge mistakes in the beginning. I was learning along the way so it gets better later.
There is still a lot of room for improvement. Some parts are quite boring, too, where I could have injected a little dose of entertainment.
Edit: I used the USA PRG1 version.
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Just a message to say that I'm done with my Castlevania run (test run) ^^
That was fun and I discovered some nice tricks along the way.
Like... Some interesting stuff about critical hits, how to jump past axe knights, or a way to run (walk is a better term...) under Dracula's second form low jumps.
My first TAS is over, it was a nice journey, 13 minutes but it felt much longer, I climbed a lot of intriguing stairs, met lots of strange but fascinating monsters, and I... I... No I'm not crying! It's just some dust in my eyes...
(tell me if I'm overplaying it)
Ok, now I'll have to know how to make a good encode for youtube, because some friends want to see my run. I've read the encoding guide, encoder's guidelines, but that's it for tonight. I don't even know how to prevent FCEUX from pausing right at the end of the movie file :p
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STBM wrote:
Je sais, mais ca semble être juste un énorme pavé n'invitant pas à lire :(
SInon, j'ai updaté la vidéo sur le frame advance/save state/Recording, je laisse celle là ou je remet l'autre ? (ou alors il faut que j'en refasse une ?)
La nouvelle vidéo est mieux je trouve, bien mieux. On peut dire que ça traîne en longueur sur la fin mais ça permet de voir plus longtemps l'utilisation du frame advance et du rerecord.
Sympa les petites musiques de fond aussi, bien relaxant ^^
C'est mieux que d'entendre le son du jeu pendant le frame advance et les rerecord (ce qui n'est pas très agréable à l'oreille à cause des reprises, des ralentissements, etc...).
Niveau défauts? Hum... Le volume toujours un peu faible et... Arg! Une faute dans le texte final!!! :p
("Pas mal, mais j'ai faisT mieux", bon c'est pas un drame non plus ^^)
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Dur de trouver une autre façon de parler des règles du TAS. Après tout c'est des règles, des recommandations, etc... Je vois pas trop comment illustrer avec des images par exemple.
Je vais essayer d'y réfléchir un peu plus quand je ferai la correction. De toute façon, ce passage est assez indépendant du reste du guide, donc c'est toujours possible d'y apporter des changements, même en dernière minute.
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Bien les vidéos :)
Et c'est sympa de montrer "en live" quelle utilité a le ram watch, particulièrement avec l'exemple de la vitesse dans Mario World. C'était le bon schéma: rechercher, observer, puis utiliser.
En plus le volume a été monté pour cette 2e vidéo par rapport à la première, parfait ^^ (j'avais oublié de te signaler ce défaut en PM :p)
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Pour le RAM watch (surtout le RAM search en fait ^^), un truc classique à trouver c'est par exemple la valeur des HP d'un boss ou du perso principal (ou des pokémon, ouais). C'est facile et l'utilité me semble plus "flagrante" pour un pur débutant... Même si c'est pas vrai ^^. Par exemple dans SMB la vitesse est bien plus cruciale que la vie de Bowser/Koopa.
Tiens, je vais raconter mon expérience perso en tant que débutant, le choix de mon 1er jeu à TASer.
Bon, je savais déjà assez bien fouiller la RAM, sans forcément savoir quelles valeurs étaient plus intéressantes à trouver que d'autres.
J'ai regardé les vidéos d'adelikat où il utilise SMB.
Quand il s'est mis à expliquer les subpixels (et surtout les "sub-subpixels", la décimale de la vitesse, quoi) et comment s'en servir pour optimiser à fond la run, je me suis dit que Mario ça risquait d'être un peu galère pour moi comme jeu pour débuter. Ouaip, un peu flemmard, j'avais pas envie de trop me focaliser sur toutes ces valeurs pendant que j'apprenais le reste des outils en jouant :p
C'est pour ça que j'ai choisi Castlevania, qui a une physique bien plus simple, tout en ayant des techniques amusantes à essayer. En plus il est plus court :D
Enfin, y'a plus compliqué que Mario quand même dans le genre "action", rien que les Sonic m'ont l'air bien plus difficiles à TASer, juste pour prendre un exemple.
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Personman wrote:
Please don't hesitate to add to a page because you are worried about your English skills! If you add some information but think that the English is not very clear, feel free to PM me or post here, and I will try my best fix up any grammar & spelling issues :)
No problem.
In fact I've already added a bunch of info on the page:
-the "Simon's speed..." part and all the pictures/gif on the first tab
-basically the entirety of the second tab (enemies)
feos had the good idea to separate the page into tabs.
Now I'm a little stuck because I don't have enough precise info on the other things that need to be added: more enemies and some RAM addresses (I have a couple addresses but I'd prefer to get more from the "veterans").
You already have some work to check the spelling/grammar if you want to ^^
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Ok.
Pour les efforts, pas besoin d'en faire des tonnes, corriger les fautes classiques ça va vite. En fait, ce qui est le plus important c'est les tournures, parce qu'après, si j'en trouve qui ne sont pas géniales, je te proposerai une autre tournure et tu devras voir si elle te convient... En gros ça te fera du boulot en plus, à toi aussi ^^
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STBM wrote:
Merci beaucoup ! :D Je veux bien que tu m'aides au niveau de la correction, j'ai du pas mal faire de é/er/ez comme erreur oui... Pas que je me relis pas, mais je suis depuis pas mal de temps maintenant dans une institution anglaise et j'ai vraiment plus l'habitude d'écrire de long truc en francais :P
Pas de souci ;)
De quelle façon tu veux que je te renvoie les corrections par contre?
Déjà, par PM ou en postant ici? (ou ailleurs, genre MSN, etc...)
Ensuite, je corrige mais en montrant d'une certaine façon ce qui a été changé, en laissant des notes en cas de changement de tournure de phrase (rare je pense), etc? Ou juste en te donnant le résultat tout prêt en texte?
C'est toi le chef ^^
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Whoa, gros boulot, chapeau. Une fois fini, ça va beaucoup aider les fans francophones (et anglophobes ^^) de TAS à démarrer.
Comme c'est parti, je le vois même bien finir dans le wiki sur une page spécifique, vu l'utilité que ça peut avoir pour les nouveaux (et les anciens qui n'auront pas à tout réexpliquer en français à chaque question posée ici).
Par contre, je peux me proposer pour jouer au correcteur, parce que sans vouloir te vexer, y'a pas mal de fautes, surtout de grammaire/conjugaison :p
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Salut.
Déjà, je peux pas aider pour la conversion vidéo, simplement parce que j'ai encore jamais essayé, avec aucun émulateur ^^
Pour ce qui est de fouiller la ram pour y trouver les "bonnes adresses", je viens de chercher avec google si il existait un tuto en français quelque part (recherché pour plusieurs émulateurs connus...), et je suis revenu super bredouille.
C'est dur à expliquer comme ça sans en écrire des pages.
Disons que le principe général c'est de comparer les valeurs contenues dans la ram du jeu en éliminant au fur et à mesure celles qui ne correspondent pas à nos critères.
Exemple: je veux la valeur des HP d'un boss.
J'arrive contre ce boss en jouant normalement, je fais une pause et je lance l'outil pour chercher dans la ram. Ensuite je fais un peu "avancer" le jeu, je re-stoppe puis je demande à l'outil de vérifier les valeurs qui ont changé, ou pas. Disons que si j'ai frappé le boss entre temps, je cherche des valeurs qui ont baissé, sinon je cherche celles qui n'ont pas changé... Et on répète ça jusqu'à trouver l'adresse qui est la bonne, par élimination.
Mon explication est un gros résumé, essaie peut-être de voir des vidéos d'explication ou des articles, en anglais, là dessus maintenant que tu as ces infos, ça sera peut-être plus clair.
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I've added what I knew about bats and medusa heads, the hunchback is next on my list.
After that, it will be harder because all the info I have about the other enemies is quite vague. Example: "the skeledragons seem to move randomly, but I managed to alter this randomness by "losing" some frames on my way to one of them", not really precise... I have the same kind of stuff for the mummies, the skeletons, the birds... but nothing really good.
So if anybody can share some knowledge about any type of enemy, it will be welcome :)
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Hi to all Castlevania fans!
I've just started adding some info in this game resources page on the wiki: http://tasvideos.org/GameResources/NES/Castlevania.html
I'm not done yet, I still have to talk about enemy behavior and manipulation, add some ram adresses, and maybe other small things.
I'm here to see if someone wants to help with it. You can point out typos or tell me how to rephrase some things in a better way, you can also share tricks and basically all the info that you think needs to be in the wiki. And you can tell me if some info is simply wrong, too ^^
For example, since I'm doing a TAS (my first TAS, just to learn and have fun) where I don't use subweapons, I can't help with them.
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Ok :)
I'll make sure to read everything, and reread it again, and again.
I think I'll move to the Castlevania topic when the editing will be on the rails, to get stuff that I forgot or didn't know about (which was not already mentioned in other places about that game - like the submissions - , because I did some research here too for my TAS ^^), or just to talk about it.
(yes, I like Okami ^^)