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EEssentia wrote:
Preferably one shouldn't even upscale.
I don't really like watching GBA runs in 1/20th of my monitor: http://imgur.com/Mnxme (This claims to be 1x window size, so I'm assuming that's roughly representing the system with no upscaling on my monitor.)
The first post in this thread shows a few different filter options: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10326 I assume most media players, once enlarged, would perform some sort of point resizing on a non-upscaled video of that small resolution, but as those pictures show, that may or may not be preferable. Semantically, I could say that a viewer's eyes will better interpret the pixels to a smooth image when the video is small as compared to when the video is large and point resized, so maybe some additional smoothing should be implemented through upscaling filters to better approximate an actual enlarged image of what the viewer interprets the small image as.
Assuming everyone is talking about encoding TASes from the emulator, (which I'm not sure was actually 100% implied by the topic creator), There is really no need to preserve the run naturally, as the run can be recreated from the input file at any time.
It's a bit of a matter of preference; one could argue all day about what actually looks better.
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Jungon wrote:
but I really need to learn this 'dance with the music' technique, how can I perform rhythm moves if frame advance has no music at all? @__@
Klmz mentioned trial and error, which I assume implies something like picking a beat and playing the movie back to determine if you need to edit the movie to move earlier or later. I usually do it a bit differently though. To eliminate the need for switching between read only and playback, I usually just mash savestates and pause while on normal speed to try to isolate the sound of the beat that I am looking for and determine the exact frame it is on. Then once I've determined this, I really only need to put in the input once. I'm sure both ways have their pros and cons, but it is tedious business for sure.
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Given no sliding and no pogo jumping, your run is very good, Hotarubi. Looks like I have to fix the last boss in stage 1. :P Thanks for posting your run for comparison.
The run requires SNES9x 1.51 if anyone else wants to view it.
EDIT: As displayed in Hotarubi's run, killing Stage 1 Boss 2 low on the screen saved 270 frames :) This puts me 1009 frames = 16.81 seconds ahead of Hotarubi's run.
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This is a very well executed run, for sure. :)
Will this movie play back with any 100% memory card file or just the particular one posted on gamefaqs?
If the answer is that it will only play back with that particular file, I'm not sure that a start from a gamefaqs sram state is reliable enough to publish here since we have no verification that the state itself wasn't hacked and that the game is in a legal natural state of randomness at the start.
If it can be confirmed that this will play with any 100% memory card file, my vote is yes.
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Would someone mind combining the topics linked in the first post?
I've completed stage 1 of a new run. This is about as frame perfect as I was able to manage, including some pretty substantial lag management at the bosses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIcn6-7wJ4Y
(SNES9x 1.43) http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/636169749/Stage%202%20scene.smv
I am about 21 seconds ahead of Pavocado's run. I am also 1677 frames = 27.95 seconds ahead of OmnipotentEntity's run. Comparing to OmnipotentEntity's run, ~642 = 10.7 seconds of those frames were not gained in boss fights. 5 seconds or more can be attributed to a new trick we've been calling "pogo jumping" which created a new route, but frames were saved in every single room due to sliding optimization.
AniMeowzerz helped with the route early on and pointed out the trick to slash to start the sliding animation earlier upon landing. Coolkid found the pogo jumping trick. I've developed a fairly lengthy script to observe positions and velocities, if anyone is interested, PM me.
There will be two deaths utilized in the run in levels 3 and 5. A death in level 1 is possible to save around 10 frames, but we do not have a third life to spare. Pogo jumping can be utilized to perform the level 2 midboss skip, saving significant time (and making it reasonable on console). A major skip is in store for stage 4, but I won't reveal it at this time. Currently I should have maximum star power available at the point when the spin is received in stage 5 due to the stars gained from deaths, so I am not worried about stars until then.
EDIT: Some random pieces of information. In mid-air your speed is only effected every other frame by a direction. This means you can turn around for camera manipulation. This has been used in a couple places to save frames on enemies spawning, and has future uses as well. When you stab your sword into the ground, it will only "plink" against the ground every 3 frames. This leads to a 3 frame rule in some cases when needing to pogo jump. I saved 3 more frames by facing the opposite direction while grabbing the level 1 powerup. They hexed right in. I'm not going to repost the level 1 video.
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I was going to say that there was no way that the wireframe battle wasn't sped up, but I didn't remember that there was a gravity change in that level. That was dumb of me.
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It's hard to say whether technical quality should reflect how well the game itself was massacred, or if it should be a measure of the technical precision of this run as compared to all other runs on this site. (Use megaman 1 just as an example.)
You could say either of the following
1: This run absolutely destroys the game beyond anything I could fathom and annihilates the previously published run, 10/10
2: This run shows great technical precision but can't compare to (the pure game engine destruction in Mega Man 1), 9/10
At the end of the day it's just an arbitrary number open to interpretation.
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I don't really like the fact that everything is artificially sped up. Everything seems better when it's twice as fast and put to catchy music. Unfortunately it sort of jades the technical quality. It is much harder to tell if it is a good execution or if you're just being faked into thinking it is good.
EDIT: I'm dumb, disregard the first sentence; see my next post.
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Comicalflop wrote:
There's been talk on IRC for this getting submitted... thoughts?
Shine, shine, shine, shine, shine, (down throw or up smash.)
The traversal levels were pretty good, the battles didn't really sway me though. There was a lot of repetition.
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Deign wrote:
So what if it is for a 2-d game?
Regarding SDW, it's easy to point to the (debatably) best popular hack on the site and say that all future hacks should be like this. I'm just trying to address the fact that it is somewhat ridiculous to expect people to hack N64 games in the same way NES and SNES games have been hacked, due to the added complexity of the game engine. I actually thought the aesthetics were fine, and I find it unrealistic to compare textures on 3-D objects to a few 2-D pixelated mario boxes.
If we want to speak for the (not aesthetic portion of) level design, I agree that a strong case is not made for this run because so much of it skipped in such a similar fashion to the 0 star run.
So if we say we want to reject this run because it does not make a good case for the hack to be accepted, then we accept a 100% run later, do we still reject future any% submissions? It just seems that if the categories had been submitted on the opposite order, that the outcome may be different. Should we take that into consideration or not? Obviously there is no correct answer.
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Personally, I am not particularly impressed by most of the hacks that currently exist on the site. We currently have 3 separate hacks of Super Mario Bros by the way, and every single hack on the site is a 2-D game. Given that this is a 3-D hack I am currently under the opinion that this is actually pretty well done. Why do others think this is a bad hack? Can anyone show me a hack of any 3-D console game from around this era (N64, Playstation, etc.) that meets the standards you guys are expecting?
Could someone try to make the argument why this hack could've been done better without an unreasonable extra ten thousand more hours of labor. I feel like either many people in this thread have an unreasonable expectation for the potential of 3-D hacks, or I am unaware of the potential of 3-D hacks.
I echo the sentiments that a 0-star run probably doesn't show off enough of the game to provide an accurate depiction of the hack's potential. Even if the hack is good enough, should the 0 star run of it be published? I don't know. To my knowledge, we've never really published a 100% run without also allowing the corresponding (somewhat entertaining and well defined) any% run.
The run itself seems done well enough that I would vote to publish it were it not a hack. The game being a hack, I don't really know what standards or precedents to compare it to.
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Along that line, I think it would surface pretty quickly from an insider that this hypothetical scenario was occurring. I am pretty confident the Internet would be somehow informed of any individually compromising data farming by google or any other large company for that matter. I wouldn't put it past the U.S. government to subpoena google for information on you, however. You obviously risk some privacy in using the internet. Personally I would be more wary of any given ISP than google though.
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Young Link and Jigglypuff battles were good. I tend to agree with the sentiments that targets and race to the finish should be done for time. Trophies you can probably show off. In the early matches you were just abusing the computer player's terrible directional influence, which isn't really impressive to me to be honest.
I've been pretty critical of smash bros TASes in the past because they are really hard to categorize, and even if we assume they are playarounds, they show off a whole 4% of the characters or something. Beyond that, it is very hard to make beating on cpus more entertaining than a well coordinated TAS 2 player match in my opinion.
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Well deserved credit to everyone who had a hand in planning and executing this run. This run has been almost 3 years in the making by my count, from the time major improvements were first started. It was definitely well worth the wait.
In my opinion this is now one of the best runs submitted to the site. Cutscenes and eggs aside, this is absolutely action packed. My favorite new part was probably the entrance to Great Bay Temple and the ensuing nonsense that followed. I also had a good laugh after the Goht fight.
Congratulations on completing the run, MrGrunz.
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Wikipedia: "A 32-bit version of Mega Man X3 was released on the PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and the PC in various countries. This version was included on the North American Mega Man X Collection in 2006."
That version indeed has remixed music. (He's on anniversary collection.)
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"He didn't choose to use our timing convention, and even though he clearly stated how it was timed, we should ridicule him because our arbitrary way of timing things is better and his posted time will make us look bad because it isn't represented in the same fashion."
How reasonable.
If he had written "Thanks to Bloobiebla for certain sections" would it all be okay, or would you still be mad because the OoT team's glory is stolen? The language barrier seems to make it difficult for you to have any understanding of his motivations, so instead you just continue to bash him.
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I searched out of bounds with a fairly high resolution of 400,000. This is probably twice as high as necessary
local Resolution = 400000
local MaxC = 4294967295
local DistOut = 4260000000
local DistWide = 170000000
local Quad1MaxX = DistWide
local Quad1MinX = 1
local Quad1MaxY = MaxC
local Quad1MinY = DistOut
local Quad2MaxX = MaxC
local Quad2MinX = DistOut
local Quad2MaxY = MaxC
local Quad2MinY = DistOut
local Quad3MaxX = MaxC
local Quad3MinX = DistOut
local Quad3MaxY = DistWide
local Quad3MinY = 1
(I searched from X of 0 to 170 and Y of 4260 to 4294 for quadrant one, and then similarly for quadrant 2 and 3.)
Door Exit Coordinates, Which Room is this, Number of occurrences
3670016 40370176 Room 3 Exit 1931
27787264 40370435 Room 7 Entrance 200
7864320 7340032 Outside 729
24641536 3473408 Room 7 Exit 104
99090432 8912896 Room 5 Left Exit 584
47644672 6029312 Room 3 Entrance 443
45613056 37224448 Room 2 Entrance 310
120061952 8912896 Room 5 Right Exit 180
86507520 29884416 Room 8.5 Entrance 69
109576192 18350080 Room 5 Entrance 657
109576192 34078720 Room 8 Left Exit 293
3604480 31260672 Room 9 Entrance 177
64487424 9961472 Room 6 Entrance 75
80216064 6815744 Room 1 Exit 191
4718592 3670016 Room 4 Exit 84
48758784 9961472 Room 5.5 Entrance 95
I recorded all the off-map coordinates, but as there are many occurrences I don't feel it would be worthwhile to post them. Since the resolution is so high, each door occurrence is recorded probably roughly 10-20 times.
I found 16 places doors lead to in Sol Sanctum. I would say with about 90% certainty that this is complete. It is possible that a door I found is unreachable in all cases due to obstacles in the way, but there are multiple occurrences of each door. Certain doors are much much more common than others.
Here is the list of places that doors lead to.
SOL SANCTUM:
Save Retreat Glitch can lead to:
Outside
Room 1 Exit
Room 2 Entrance
Room 3 Entrance
Room 3 Exit
Room 4 Exit
Room 5 Entrance
Room 5 Left Exit
Room 5 Right Exit
Room 5.5 Entrance
Room 6 Entrance
Room 7 Entrance
Room 7 Exit
Room 8 Left Exit
Room 8.5 Entrance
Room 9 Entrance
Room 9 was the best door I found originally. I labeled it previously as Sol Sanctum Door 1: 30, 4282.
Normal Retreat Glitch locations:
Room 3 Entrance to Room 1 Entrance
Room 3 Exit to Room 1 Entrance
Room 7 Entrance to Room 1 Entrance
Room 7 Exit to Room 1 Entrance
Room 9 Entrance to Room 1 Entrance
Room 9 Exit to Room 1 Entrance
Sol Sanctum is pretty much solved under the current knowledge as far as I am concerned. Enter room 3, save retreat glitch, find an off map door to room 9, complete the dungeon as normal.
------------------------------
GOMA CAVE:
Area refers to a new area of a room accessed. Area 3 is the only one you would enter twice in a normal path. Areas are defined with respect to the first cave entrance regardless of which side you entered to cave on.
Save Retreat Glitch can lead to:
ENTRANCE POINT "GOMA CAVE ENTRANCE"
13107200 12058624 Goma Cave Outside Vault Side 67
5767168 12058883 Room 2 Entrance 56
38273024 12058883 Area 5 Exit 82 (Up by Mars Djinni)
10092544 22937600 Area 7 Entrance 884 (Last Room)
12189696 31064064 Vale Room Outside 568
ENTRANCE POINT BILIBIN SIDE:
?
Normal Retreat Glitch locations:
ENTRANCE POINT "GOMA CAVE ENTRANCE"
Area 2 Entrance to Room 1 Entrance
Area 2 Exit to Room 1 Entrance
Area 3 Entrance to Room 1 Entrance
Area 3 Exit (to area 4) to Room 1 Entrance
Area 4 Entrance to Room 1 Entrance
Area 3 Exit (to area 5) to Room 1 Entrance
Area 5 Entrance to Room 1 Entrance
Area 5 Exit to Room 1 Entrance
Area 7 Entrance to Outside Vault Side
Area 7 Exit to Room 2 Entrance
ENTRANCE POINT BILIBIN SIDE:
Area 6 Exit to 11 9 off map ********
Area 6 Entrance to 11 9 off map ******
Area 5 Exit to Area 7 Exit
Area 5 Entrance to Area 7 Exit
Area 4 Entrance to Area 7 Exit
Area 3 Exit (to area 5) to Area 7 Exit
Area 3 Exit (to area 4) to Area 7 Exit
Area 3 Entrance to Area 7 Exit
Area 2 Exit to Area 7 Exit
Area 2 Entrance to Area 7 Exit
Area 1 Exit to Outside Bilibin Side
Area 1 Entrance to Area 6 Exit
---------------------
BILIBIN CAVE:
Save Retreat Glitch can lead to:
ENTRANCE POINT "BILIBIN CAVE ENTRANCE"
22413312 16646144 Bilibin Cave Entrance 556
20447232 34340864 Room 2 Top Level South 67
7864320 30932992 Room 2 Entrance 172
28835840 8912896 Outside Growth Entrance 1171
35127296 27918336 Before Reveal Door (By Elven Rapier) 62
52953088 16252928 Inside Reveal Door 109
ENTRANCE POINT IMIL SIDE (These doors are in the same off-map positions)
25690112 13107200 Room 1 Exit 538
22544384 11534336 Room 2 Top Level North 71
2147483648 65536 Outside Imil Side 166
56098816 8126464 Reveal Room North Side 1161
(No Corresponding Door Here?)
56098816 41418752 Inside Treasure room (Water of Life, Vial) 109
Normal Retreat Glitch locations:
ENTRANCE POINT "BILIBIN CAVE ENTRANCE"
Room 2 Entrance to Bilibin Cave Entrance
Room 2 Exit to Room 2 Entrance
ENTRANCE POINT IMIL SIDE
Room 1 Exit to Outside Imil Side
Room 1 Entrance to Room 1 Exit
----------------------
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I think you have to choose between in-game time and real time. As I've said previously I think both categories have their merits and both are most likely publishable. You really can't categorize a run halfway in the middle. You won't please the entire audience in either extreme case though. I'd rather see an in-game time run personally, but you should do whichever you prefer.
