Posts for Huffers

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Posted: 6/3/2006 9:08 PM
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Huffers
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 3/23/2006
Posts: 211
An american dwarf speed-beating-up a series of gigantic foreign stereotypes? I like it! ;-)
do not forget to *ENJOY THE SAUCE*
Posted: 5/17/2006 1:33 AM
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Huffers
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 3/23/2006
Posts: 211
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
8th overall has also been done on a console.
I've seen it; but he only did it on the Flower Cup courses, and he didn't have to let one player come first each time. I've changed my mind though, there'd just be too much going on on the screen to keep track of. Here's a screenshot from my 30%-speed trial run. I'm going so fast (and sliding slalom-like) Lakitu gets confused and says I'm going backwards:
do not forget to *ENJOY THE SAUCE*
Posted: 5/16/2006 11:47 PM
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Huffers
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 3/23/2006
Posts: 211
what a hassle. Why do changes to the Windows version not affect the X11 port? Sounds like the snes9x project could do with some refactoring. The wine version works for me, but with no game-pad (the game-pad works in the Linux version). And why are the keyboard shortcuts different on the Windows and Linux versions?
do not forget to *ENJOY THE SAUCE*
Posted: 5/16/2006 5:21 AM
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Huffers
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 3/23/2006
Posts: 211
thanks Guybrush :) I made a little crappy TAS of MK 150cc just now, by playing at 40% speed and reloading often... I've got some new ideas for routes now (I'll update the zip file eventually). Also, I think that rather than making it just single player as fast as possible, it would be amusing to make it 2 player; one controlled by the bot racing as fast as possible, the other controlled frame-by-frame by hand, with the aim of qualifying each round but coming 8th overall. This is theoretically possible: the bot would get 9 points for coming 1st each round: 5*9 = 45 five of the other karts can come second in a round = 6 points each and one of the other karts can come third twice = 3 * 2 = 6 points the kart controlled frame-by-frame would come 4th each round: 5 * 1 = 5 = the lowest overall score
do not forget to *ENJOY THE SAUCE*
Posted: 5/15/2006 6:22 PM
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Huffers
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 3/23/2006
Posts: 211
I've drawn some route ideas, which assume it's on 150cc (faster+more shortcuts) and luck can be manipulated to get the power up of choice, here (9 downloads per hour limit, so if it doesn't work try later). Note that I just scribbled these over someone elses maps, so they have his writing on them too (originals avaliable here). Remember you can't get stars when you're in 1st place, and you can't get feathers on Doughnut Plains or Mario Circuit. I'm no MK expert, so suggestions on different routes/shortcuts are welcome (anyone know any secret jumps?)
do not forget to *ENJOY THE SAUCE*
Posted: 5/15/2006 12:55 AM
(Edited: 5/16/2006 6:30 AM)
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Huffers
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 3/23/2006
Posts: 211
Luke wrote:
This may be interesting: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/ahudson/ This is the winner from a programming contest a couple years ago, where the challenge was to develop the fastest route for a race, given simple car physics. Although I would suggest F-Zero as a better candidate for a bot-assisted run. Its physics are simpler and there's no item system to complicate things.
Good link. MK is more complex though, as obstacles may come and go, and move dynamically. I'd prefer to do Mario Kart as F-Zero is less interesting, and I don't think the items would make MK much tougher. my thoughts at the moment (could really do with a wiki): ----------------------------------------------------------------------- use the US rom (it goes faster+better frame rate): "Super Mario Kart (U) [!].smc" time-zones should all be quadralaterals work out the 'frames-to-cross' and check what routes are possible by playing it through first at 25% speed. change the time zones (route that the bot optimises) slightly for each lap to make sure it gets a power up each lap, and to alter the strategy when it can get several power ups in one lap prune duplicates (orientation, position, height) (use hashing), unless this one has more coins or is going faster than the duplicate was prune those that don't make it to the next time-zone in time prune those which have their speed go to 0 or negative (eg if they hit something). prune those that leave the time-zone (without advancing to the next). prune those that fall into deep water/lava/off the edge or hit a mushroom/banana skin/invincible mario or luigi, or that 'spin out'. if by going straight it would miss the next time-zone, must turn towards it in time-zones marked (by hand) as 'straights' it cannot let go of accelerate, and cannot hop (unless that area is marked as hopping allowed - eg just before some shallow water) Could change the input only every other frame (to decrease the search space). Then do another run, but with input changes every frame, using narrower time-zones closely fitting the route of the previous run.
do not forget to *ENJOY THE SAUCE*
Posted: 5/14/2006 10:10 PM
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Huffers
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 3/23/2006
Posts: 211
Dan_ wrote:
This could probably help you quite a bit.
thanks, I didn't know someone had done all that already :) I'll have to wait about 5 weeks before I can give this a try though, as I have a uni project to do currently.
do not forget to *ENJOY THE SAUCE*
Posted: 5/14/2006 8:33 PM
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Huffers
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 3/23/2006
Posts: 211
posting on an ancient thread... but a speedrun for mario kart doesn't seem to have emerged and I have an idea of how to make one. I don't have time to make it now, but might in the Summer, these are my ideas at the moment:
    Find out in the RAM where the: (speed, position, facing, height, vertical speed, number of coins) for the player-kart are stored. Divide the map into 'time-zones' each with a 'frames-to-cross' roughly along the route by hand: Then have a bot brute force search (breadth first) all the input combinations, with some pruning. Prune a 'search node' if:
      the kart in one of the other search nodes got to the next time zone less than 'frames-to-cross' frames ago -- prune out slow ones the kart in another search node had roughly the same (speed, position, facing, height, vertical speed) currently or in some frame this lap, as these are sorta duplicates. Also, if the kart in the other search node and this one got to the same place at about the same frame, prune the one with less coins.
    Choosing which power up to get can be done by hand, and a 'zone' similar to the 'time-zones' should be made, within which the bot can use the power up.
On a powerful computer left running for a week or so, this may produce good results. What do people think? Am I crazy? ;-)
do not forget to *ENJOY THE SAUCE*
Posted: 4/28/2006 9:13 PM
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Huffers
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 3/23/2006
Posts: 211
still lots of suicides :) plus you threw a skeleton to it's doom -- that improved the movie for me :)
do not forget to *ENJOY THE SAUCE*
Posted: 4/28/2006 3:38 PM
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Huffers
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 3/23/2006
Posts: 211
fantastic :) thanks IdeaMagnate I couldn't work out how to turn frameskip off - so I ended up editing the source code :P Who needs command line options!
do not forget to *ENJOY THE SAUCE*
Posted: 3/23/2006 4:19 PM
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Huffers
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 3/23/2006
Posts: 211
TAS's are more like open source software than conventional speedruns, and when you improve an open-source program you don't take all the previous contributors off of the credits. It looks to me (a random lurker) that this run was a collaborative effort by SleepZ, Phil and DonamerDragon, etc.
do not forget to *ENJOY THE SAUCE*
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