OoT any% is also distinguished by the fact that the RTA any% route is not possible to TAS, since it relies on a glitch that crashes the game on N64 and only works in VC. So there is not a huge incentive to go to all the work of doing the VC route when it's unclear what the result will even be (accepted as a new category? accepted and obsoleting old any%? rejected for technical issues?). But there's also not much incentive to simply improve on the old any% TAS. Why bother when it's so much work and the outdated way to do any%? Add on top that N64 TASing is so difficult to begin with and you have a perfect storm to not want to TAS OoT any%.
Sounds like improving keylie’s Linux TAS tools ( https://github.com/clementgallet/libTAS ) then in the future TASing windows games by emulating them through TAS’d Linux is the way to go, lol
For the record, I also voted yes. A surprising and amazing improvement, and lots of cool entertainment. The choice between trading frames for entertainment while not losing any frame rules vs saving every frame possible is a stylistic one since the TAS's length ends up the same either way..
This is a very cool writeup! Looking forward to this glitch being figured out. Agreed that ‘same frame confusion’ style glitches are going to be the most likely cause. I’ve actually been playing DDP lately, practicing for a scrubby 1-ALL, but I’m no where near good enough about the game to test scoring related hypotheses, so I’ll be cheering from the sidelines.
Some thoughts:
-If Dodonpachi has sprite slots ala SMW and SM64, one of the glitches could depend on which slots are filled with what.
-Actions that could happen simultaneously to trigger the glitch: Enemy killed by shot; enemy killed by laser; enemy killed by laser aura; enemy spawns off screen; enemy spawns on screen; enemy stops being invulnerable. And all of these could depend on slot numbers if slots exist. Good thing we know it’s not related to bombing, dying or dropping chain. Picking up a powerup, bomb or star probably doesn’t matter unless they use the same slots as enemies and slots matter. Bullets use their own system so they should totally not matter. Could uncovering/picking up a bee matter at all?
-Your best shot is probably to try different hypothesis like 'if I do X and Y on the same frame instead of on separate frames, do I earn more points?' for every combination that could come up in 1-6 practice, like you said. There's likely some generic application that can be used in most stages, though that's just a guess - if it's related to the respawning turrets, then it's only possible in stages 4 and 6, for example.
Those pretty much count as the same game to me. You know what I mean. Many people asked me if I'll ever try TASing other games instead of SMB all the time, but maybe I'm just too old for other games. Besides, my quest on SMB is yet to be done.
Hey, there’s no shame in being an expert in a particular field, if that’s what you desire!
(Still waiting for that Extra Mario Bros improvement as your sig alludes to, haha)
Hmmm I don't know too much about Mario run. I just see have some points you have spent time to slow down run
I know all you there're pro with Mario run, no reason for didn't see that. I think will better if in preview video have subtitle make explain why must do that
Assuming you mean 'why are frames being sacrificed for entertainment':
There is actually no time loss. SMB1 has a 21 frame rule, meaning that except on the final stage, you can only gain or lose time in 21 frame increments. As long as you don't waste so many frames that you lose a frame rule, you can slow down a little in the name of improving entertainment.
xxNKxx wrote:
Yes, I think sacrificed for entertainment too. But example in 4-1 stage, nearly the flag, slow down to fire last enemy for entertainment, I think it's waste
In cases like this where frames seem to be wasted for no reason, in actuality the TASer was unable to reach the next frame rule, so they had a lot of frames to 'waste' without losing any actual TAS time. The next level still starts on the same frame whether they waste frames for entertainment or not, so may as well entertain.
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There was some discussion in the submission thread for MrWint's previous Warpless TAS discussing 'why don't we measure SMB1 TASes in terms of how much time is spent in each level, so that the frame rule doesn't make most improvements pointless to search for?'.
Discussion started here http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=467025#467025 and ended here http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=467171#467171 . The general consensus was that such a goal is difficult to define in a simple way (is it total time spent controlling Mario? But then there's no point in doing cool glitches like flagpole glitch since that time is no longer counted. Do we also count the time spent after the flagpole is reached? When do we stop timing it? If we stop timing when the screen goes black, then we're back to frame rules again) and would lead to a less entertaining TAS (it's more interesting to go for cool flagpole glitch style setups and entertain while optimizing frame rules).
Since the subject is not well understood by our members, I wrote a page on the topic: http://tasvideos.org/Nach/MemoryInit.html
Hopefully this should clarify any questions or doubts you've had.
Obviously what we need to do is add a 'hit the console' button to the emulator... ;)
(I had the level select trigger while I was a kid when I knocked the console by mistake. An amusing easter egg!)
Sanity check: I used jpc-rr briefly, and I remember that unlike other emulators, it doesn't use frames by default, but amount of ms that has elapsed. You should make sure that each 'frame advance' is an increment of time smaller than or equal to the game's FPS. (Some games, like Jetpack, run at 70.086 fps, see http://tasvideos.org/PlatformFramerates.html ). IIRC, you can change how much ms a 'frame advance' advances in one of the drop-down menus.
Games with a fixed FPS tend to not have a concept of subframes or care about the mid-frame timing of your inputs. (I'm sure it could happen, though. Anyone know of an example? Besides rhythm games.)
If it's not that (you really have tried every frame and it still doesn't work), it may be due to subpixels? I don't know if Crystal Caves has subpixels or not, but in some games that have them, they are not necessarily set to 0 when you land or start a jump, so previous movement in the room could affect your trajectory when you decide to jump.
I think someone made an mod to the emulator precisely to solve your problem (being able to splice input files together easily). I forget what the mod is called.
Where do I find this mythical 16EB file? For me
http://tasvideos.org/3702M.html
shows
MKV file via BitTorrent (Modern HQ) (size: 2.09 GB, length: 6:06:53)
MP4 file via BitTorrent (Compatibility) (size: 2.21 GB, length: 6:06:53)
which is substantially smaller.
I know there exists a multi-track recording script for MAME-RR/FBA-RR (so that you can pick a specific player to rerecord the inputs for, and every other player just does what they used to do without having to input it again).
Just so it's clear, feel free to TAS whatever you want, put it on youtube, do it just for fun, post about it in the appropriate game's thread on the forums, or whatever. But when it comes to actually submitting the TAS to TASVideos proper, the level of optimization must be very high, so you should be planning the whole way through to make a great TAS if this is your goal.
