Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
YouTube description for the above video wrote:
Also, each of the Rangers has a special ability.
Red: Longer punch range
Blue: Slidekick (Down+Y)
Pink: Doublejump (B again in midair)
Yellow: Fastest running speed
Green: Slow fall (Hold B in midair)
Multi-character games (SMB 2!) are so awesome. :D I wonder which one is best! Probably Yellow, but what if there are skips requiring Pink or movement glitches requiring Blue? Very interesting.
Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
If you read the "Basics" section of this FAQ, it explains this:
marshmallow wrote:
-Story Mode-
Story Mode is what you would call the 1 player part, well actually
everything is 1 player but that's beside the point. Each world is
represented by a page in a six page book, the book being the game of
course. Each page has 4 levels, regular 2D, side-scrolling fun. You can
only play 1 level per page in one game. So an entire game is six levels,
pretty short you must admit.
At the first page you can select any of the four levels, after that it
takes a Star Fox 64 like path. In each level there are hearts, if you
collect one you can pick one more stage in the next page. Collect all
three in a world and you can select from any of the four levels in the
next page. When you first buy YS (like I did) I would suggest going to
all of the levels because then you can play them all in Trial Mode
(we're getting to that soon). I try to avoid Story Mode because of the
terrible singing (you'll see) and the fact you can only play six levels
per game. This is why I usually only play....
-Trial Mode-
In this mode you can play any levels you have completed in Story Mode.
Try playing them all in a row, whew! Doesn't seem so short now does it?
=) There are 24 levels in all, and that should be your goal. What the
creators intended this to be is a mode to get High Scores. You can do
that, but I usually play this all of the time because there's absolutely
NO singing, sucky endings, dumb level branching, or crazy pop up books!
Amazing, isn't it? :)
It definitely sounds like playing every level in Trial Mode while finding all the hearts would make most entertaining "100%" TAS! That requires SRAM, but it would be most fun to watch for me, anyway.
Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
I save the time position on every frame I'm completely satisfied with. If I ever see that something is going to go wrong, I redub (aka rerecord). I only need (and can only store) 1 saved time point. (Worms Armageddon doesn't save the state. It just redubs the entire input to a new replay on each "load" and runs as fast as it can until the saved point, at which point it pauses. This ends up being nearly instant anyway.)
With Worms Armageddon's tools with trajectory mapping while roping, this is a successful strategy since I can see what will happen in the future if I continue on my current path until the next corner.
I'm not sure how it would be with console TASing, but I'm sure with the right tools (like jump trajectory mapping) implemented via lua scripts etc, the strategy would be the same.
If I ever have a mistake before my saved time point, I have to manually run the replay through again and advance to the point I want to take control again. This isn't very common though.
Joined: 6/25/2007
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Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
I've saved huge (>9GB) working Lagarith AVI files with VirtualDub before. I'm also using the 64-bit version of VirtualDub anyway. It's Mupen's fault for not having support for huge AVI files and not segmenting the AVI automatically. There's a version which is hacked to segment automatically, but it's not the same as the version which is hacked to support resetting in input movies. Segmenting the AVI manually works.
Joined: 6/25/2007
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Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
I made a temporary unofficial encode. Dailymotion transcoded it to make it look worse and decided to desync the audio slightly. The audio is synced in my local video. I couldn't get any version of Glide Napalm to run without crashing, so the minor texture errors inherent to the working Glide version posted by Comicalflop are still present.
However, despite all the BS, hopefully this video will let more people see this great run. :)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xifhme_comicalflop-s-yoshi-s-story-tas-in-11-00-23_videogames
By the way, to get the AVI dump from Mupen without Mupen corrupting it at 4GB, after each emulator reset, I pressed Pause (the keyboard key), stopped AVI recording, and started it again with a new filename (part1, part2, etc.).
Joined: 6/25/2007
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Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
I Frapsed the first level. Glide crashed after the emulator reset (part of the input) while Fraps was recording. I'm currently encoding said Fraps recording of the first level. I haven't worked through my logged conversation with Grunt to learn about removing duplicate frames or anything like that, so don't expect anything fancy. I'll post when it's done.
I may work on a full encode after that, but I still couldn't get any versions of Glide Napalm to run without crashing immediately. This means the texture errors inherent to the older version of Glide would still be present in the full encode.
Mupen really is a pain! I guess it's better than nothing though.
Joined: 6/25/2007
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Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
I got the run to work in Mupen with the versions you outlined with no trouble.
I was also able to record short avi clips after I worked around the black avi bug Mupen has in Vista by disabling visual themes and desktop composition in the compatibility settings. However, if the file hits 4GB (which it did with Lagarith and Huffyuv), it fails and MPC sees it as noise (and plays audio noise) and VirtualDub crashes with an out-of-bounds error immediately. I assume this is something 32-bit related. This is a Mupen AVI recording bug. It should just make more segments like Fraps does.
I can record the first few levels or something if someone would like. I could also Fraps it but that's a pretty bad idea with fixed-framerate applications, though that may just be with applications whose logic framerate is different from their video framerate (like Worms Armageddon; 50 fps @ 60Hz (or whatever refresh rate the video driver tells it)).
Anyway, I have owned this game in Japanese since I got my N64. Back then, I had no idea what to do since I don't know Japanese. I was used to SMW and SMW2-YI, so I would run through the levels endlessly until the level mysteriously ended. At some point, I figured out that it was getting the fruits that was beating the levels. Also, I was mystified that beating one level beat that whole zone. It didn't make sense. I recently played Yoshi's Story again and got almost to the end; to the last area.
This experience makes me appreciate the awesomeness of this TAS. I had no idea before I saw the SDA run a couple weeks ago that you could get a powerup that turns all the enemies into watermelons. The movement in this TAS is clever. I especially like the jump glitch (or funny mechanic) you abused so much in the cloud level.
Edit: Actually, the problem might be with the resetting. It's reinitializing the video. With Fraps running, this crashes Glide64. It may have a similar issue with Mupen's avi recording feature. I now have a Fraps recording of the first level.
Joined: 6/25/2007
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Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Now that I've gone back and watched both TASes back to back (well, for as long as I could stand; ~10 minutes for the Rayman TAS), I think the GBC Rayman TAS is much more interesting and entertaining than this. I think it's just the bad music and low visibility I didn't like in GBC Rayman. The TAS is quite technically sound.
Some parts of this Banishing Racer TAS seemed unoptimized to my haven't-played-this-game eye. There were times when you delayed boosting for no apparent reason, like at 1:25. It seemed like you could have boosted much earlier and then jumped mid-boost. Boosting didn't seem to affect when you could jump anywhere else, so why delay there?
Also, in the autoscrolling flying level with spikes, you played really lazily. Sometimes you just let the screen push you instead of doing anything, for example. It seemed like there was a lot more cool-timing and close-call stuff you could have done with the spikes. Actually, that seems to hold true throughout the whole run. You stayed in the same spot for a really long time in the first flying section and lazily killed the birds as they flew by instead of playing with them. That seemed really weak to me.
I think if played with more fervor, a TAS of this game could look really cool.
Joined: 6/25/2007
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Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
I love this game's audio and visuals. I've only seen this TAS twice and already the game's sounds and music seem nostalgic and beautiful.
The auto-scrolling parts look unassisted to me. I saw tons of missed shots and normal movement, as if it wasn't being played in frame advance. While this doesn't bother me since it doesn't subtract from the apparent speed optimization of the TAS (my main factor in voting), I wanted to point it out.
Yes vote!
Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
RadioKJ wrote:
Lex wrote:
Maybe you should consider what other people not TAS-overloaded would think after seeing this movie.
We (who have seen many TASs) have our opinions, you (who have not)
For the record, please don't assume. I've been visiting this site since 2005 and have seen hundreds upon hundreds of TASes. I've done plenty of tool-assisted speed-running myself. I also seem to generally find things more interesting than other people. I guess my personality is just like that.
It seems that voters become biased by the weighty words of those they respect. I have seen some strange mob mentality recently. I, myself, was biased by such a mob mentality in the recent 0-star thread, so I know it can happen to anyone. As long as judges continue to act with discipline and an absence of bias like adelikat did recently, I have no problem with the whole voting system. Nach pointed out that he would consider factors outside his personal opinion while judging, instilling more faith in me regarding his competence as a judge. As long as adelikat and Nach are judging these, I won't squabble about people's opinions from now on.
However, I encourage everyone to consider whether they're voting because of what they actually felt during the run or what's been said in the thread/IRC. If one is voting because of what they actually felt during the run, I have no problem with that.
Joined: 6/25/2007
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Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Nach wrote:
Lex wrote:
Someone asked me "What entertainment?" The main source of entertainment was in the hilarity of the game not noticing the nonsense that was going on and considering him 100% correct. How did you not get that? I don't understand.
We've already seen this hilarity, we get it, the game is confused, great.
So, yes, you've seen too many TASes by now and are no longer entertained by what makes them entertaining to people who haven't seen TASes. Notice the 56 likes and 0 dislikes on YouTube? Maybe you should consider what other people not TAS-overloaded would think after seeing this movie.
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Someone asked me "What entertainment?" The main source of entertainment was in the hilarity of the game not noticing the nonsense that was going on and considering him 100 correct. How did you not get that? I don't understand.
I have a feeling some people have seen too many TASes by now and are no longer entertained by them in general.
Joined: 6/25/2007
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Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
The playstyle looks human. Besides, it's always the same pattern, as he said himself. Some players can get a groove going and do something like this for an hour. I'm not saying your theory of it being a TAS is wrong. I'm just presenting the idea that it's possible that it's not tool-assisted; playing the devil's advocate. It does seem insane / extremely unlikely to me that any human could pull off the gameplay in the sixth part of that run, especially without a single death.
Stella, considered the best Atari 2600 emulator from a quick Google search, has a fully-featured debugger for Atari 2600 games. I just got Stella to try it out, but I don't understand how to run the game in the debugger so it didn't go very well. This may be the key to whatever this guy may have done to make those videos.
Also, vmware workstation and vmware player have playback-syncing recording capabilities. They are also possible keys to the magic door of TASing Atari 2600 games.
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As a possible variation on WinTASer, you could just go with "WinTAS" since that sounds a little more professional, is shorter, and is self-explanatory.
Joined: 6/25/2007
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Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Mukki wrote:
What would be more interesting is if lua could be used to keep track of when a rerecord is used on a frame. Then, on playback, the viewer could see which areas required the most rerecords to optimise. (Though it would probably get quite messy when the count is very dense.)
Even better than that is the technology used for quantum Mario.
Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
If you're on Windows:
AutoHotKey probably works for this. Make use of its amazing .chm help file to figure out how to use it. You can make its binds work in only FCEUX and do a ton of other stuff after you learn its extremely simple language.
If AutoHotKey doesn't work, you can rebind keys at the OS level with KeyTweak. It has a newbie-friendly interface with a raw rebinding feature set.
If those solutions don't suit you, the on-screen keyboard application in Vista/7 is found in Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Ease of Access -> On-Screen Keyboard or by typing "On-Screen Keyboard" in the text box at the bottom of the start menu.
Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
nitsuja wrote:
One more time... does everyone still like the name "Hourglass"? The main thing I didn't like about that name was how ubiquitous a word it is (hard to search for, and there must be programs already called that). Right now it's still called winTASer, which I don't think is such a bad name really, but I could see it switching to Hourglass, or something else if anyone has any new ideas on the name.
I really like "winTASer". It's self-explanatory and since there's no real naming competition here, there's no reason not to use a self-explanatory name.
Great work so far! Back when this thread started, I followed for a while and then went semi-absent from TASes. Now that I've come back to see this progress you've made, I'm extremely excited.
Also, please test VVVVVV!
Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Truncated wrote:
In Canada I'm not sure how it works, feel free to teach me.
Canadians in Ontario (where I live) must study French or English (the opposite of their full-time education language immersion choice) starting from the third grade of school. I'll make a visual layout of the school years assuming the child is in English-based education in Ontario (the most populace province in Canada; also where I'm from).
pre-school <-- This is not compulsory, but most busy parents choose to send their kids.
kindergarten <-- Education is compulsory starting now, at 4 or 5 years old depending on birth date. Primary school starts here.
grade 1
grade 2
grade 3 <-- French must be taught starting now.
grade 4
grade 5
grade 6
grade 7 <-- Junior high school starts here. French remains compulsory.
grade 8
grade 9 <-- High school starts here. French is no longer strictly compulsory, but as the credit system enters effect, French is grouped with some other courses as a choice for a compulsory credit. Most students pick French in their first year as an "easy credit".
grade 10
grade 11
grade 12
post-secondary <-- The student is on their own. Education is no longer compulsory.
You have been taught!
