Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
Bisqwit wrote:
― A sampling of the special stars is randomly picked once every few minutes to be showcased on the front page.
― The general rule is, anything listed in this category – special stars – should be worth watching for most of the audience, new and old alike.
Personally i think it's a great idea as I'm relatively new to the site and haven't seen many of the better movies yet.
As for the voting, i agree that a small panel (or just Bisqwit) sounds like a good idea, you don't want some random member of the community just voting one of their own submissions in simply because its their's. Also i feel that entertainment and the 'wow factor' (a.k.a. NOWAIOMGWTF JUST HAPPENED??) should be the most important things to consider when working out whether a movie is worth the special stars or not.
I love glitchy TAS's :P
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
Ok, I looked through the WIP and some of the strategies, magma dam etc, look really good. Oh, and the shortcuts you found in mazone were exceptional :P
Also i now know that it is definately possible to get the phone in Fog Route without losing health or wasting any time, (might lose a frame or two lining him up for the gap but nothing worth wasting life over).
And finally, here is a WIP including the Nitros fight:
http://rapidshare.com/files/162722130/killedfirstnitros.m64.html
I worked out that 8220 is pretty much the maximum score possible, in fact i did a test fight and only got 8210. In the WIP i redid it and got 8220. I'm pretty sure Nitros is hit on the first frame possible every time, so i don't think there is any real improvement to be had. What i really want to know is, should i go for this style where i try to do something different most times, or should i try something else? I'm fine with redoing the fight if its not up to your expectations, its kinda hard to judge your own work in terms of entertainment so hopefully i can get some feedback!
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
Thanks so much for all you've done so far to help Kirkq!
Also, tips for keeping it entertaining are appreciated, because some of the segments (Most of World 3 area 3 for example) have the potential to be really boring . .
I've done up to the end of dragon road now, and i will be working on the first Nitros battle shortly.
By the way, stopping at the pillar was unavoidable, i tested it, and i think that there is no way to improve on it. The fire resistant vest is necessary as it saves 12 frames overall (even with the pause considered).
One more thing,
Can i actually see the WIP by any chance?
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
I'm assuming that when you go to Playback Movie, there is a way to then load a save state and have the input know where to go to?
I'm sure the author's of >1 hour movies didn't watch it from the start each time they went about making a change.
So how is it possible?
What i know is that you save a state somewhere in the movie the previous time it is viewed, but then whenever i load the state while it is playing back it deletes all of the input past a certain point.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
Kirby Canvas Curse would be in my opinion a very entertaining game to TAS at some point, and as soon as we have a DS emulator capable of making a TAS of this game on, i will give it a shot.
It mainly features the touch screen, and it would be interesting to see if any glitches could be found for it (it would also just be plain cool watching the touch screen get tapped with perfect precision up to 15 times a second :)
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
Shame, DeSmuME is still looking far from finished too. But it looks like it is open source so hopefully we will be TASing DS games soon.
Anyway, i have a different game in mind for doing a run of when we have a working DS emulator.
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
Mario Kart DS will be a very entertaining game to TAS, thanks to glitches like Prolonged Rocket Boosting (PRB). Basically, if you keep the kart at maximum speed (doing mini turbo's faster than humanly possible) then the kart can go over any terrain.
The are a few shortcuts on some levels that have been discovered too.
But first things first, we need a reliable DS emulator!
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
Kirkq wrote:
That's what I was saying, when it does the final tally it goes up one level at a time. 1,1,3,1,1,5 goes up 1-2-5-6-7-12 I'm pretty sure.
Oh, my bad :P
Kirkq wrote:
Confliction A: If you take damage in Fog Route, you HAVE to grab an extra heart somewhere. I think the optimal choice is either
1: Don't take damage in fog route, or
2: Take damage in Fog Route, grab the heart in Rock n' Road.
That's going to be a close call, it might be better to do option 2, because i don't think you really have to go out of your way for that health.
And another thought, how many blue crystals did you collect during the run, ie. is there enough to bring total health to 5? or would that be unreasonable?
Kirkq wrote:
Magma Lake/Magma Dam - End these with 3 health having visited only one restoration area like in my Test Run that I'll get you eventually.
Only one?
Nice.
Kirkq wrote:
Crysta Hole - One Heart (4)
Death Road - Bomb the first bomb over the portal without taking damage, for the second portal jump in and take damage. Take one damage (3) Grab the heart at the end of the level. One Heart (4)
Float Zone - Take three damage (1), One Heart (2), Take one damage (1)
After this point you will not need to grab any hearts that are off path for the rest of the run.
Okay, this is the bit which has confused me. In death road, im quite sure that you don't need to take damage, you can just land on the edge of each portal. (I'll check that when i reach it)
As for float zone, are you taking damage to get out of the bubbles or something?
Nevermind, i'll wait for the test WIP so i can see for myself.
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
Kirkq wrote:
I finished my Test WIP completely. It is approximately 58 minutes long.
Good stuff, i figured there would have to be some sort of manipulation for bosses like the one in lava (forgot its name) but ill wait for your notes and vid before i offer my opinions on stuff like that. Ill have a bit of time in between studying to continue working on getting through world one so i'll get on with it as much as i can, its mainly the other four worlds i haven't worked anything out for yet.
The 2xNatia fight is going to be a bit of a pain to work out, i think . . .
Kirkq wrote:
ThMrksman wrote:
Another thing to consider is that if i scored higher then 3 then that would bring the total world score to over 25, meaning it would (in theory) take longer when the score is added up at the end of the world.
I'm not sure why "higher than 3" has any significance unless I myself am also missing something. I do know, however, that scores are tallied by level and not per point. For example, 1 + 1 + 1 takes as long as 1 + 3 + 1 to tally.
After each level has been counted up there is a number at the bottom of the screen that counts up like 5,10,15,20,25,etc. so in theory getting a four on hole lake would push the total score up to 26 for the world, meaning it will go on for an extra count. It might take the same time anyway regardless of this, but just in case.
I'm glad you think hole lake was ok :P
And FYI i saved another 12 frames in hole lake by not taking damage until the last frame possible.
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
bkDJ wrote:
It's like people don't look at links or read the thread and just want to post repeating other people and asking things that have been answered. It sure is a good thing people in this community are cheerful and helpful and openminded!
ThMrksman wrote:
And on the topic of breaking into the moat door, is it possible to BLJ inside the castle wall and enter the door from the other side?
I feel like such an idiot now :P
Thanks for your help though!
And i'll try to get a better understanding of the topic before posting arrogantly like that again . .
*walks away ashamed*
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
Kirkq wrote:
I just found something SO AMAZING in world 4 that I'm going to stop publicly posting Test WIPs. ^_^ Of course I'll send it to ThMrksman when I'm finished.
Can't wait to see it! XD
Kirkq wrote:
ThMrksman wrote:
it might be possible to pass the level Aqua Tank (i think its called that) faster by jumping into a certain enemy while holding a bomb, flinging the bomb up into the air and hitting the tank.
I could find no monster anywhere remotely near enough to make this happen. I bomb the tank in midair jumping from the top back left platform.
Hmm, nevermind, it was just an idea, by the way did you know the shortcut at the very start of that level? I'll show you later on if you missed it.
Kirkq wrote:
Be sure to grab at least 1 firepower, 2 if you can do it without slowing down.
Honestly I wonder if it is worth considering staying low on firepower. I don't think so, but I will review this later.
I can get one of them, but the other will cost about 10 frames to get, which doesn't seem worthwhile when there is one early on in world two which in theory can be aquired without any loss of time. Here's a link to the .m64 with hole lake done.
http://rapidshare.com/files/159532528/ThMrksmanBHEROTASWIPuptoredcave.m64.html
Would you consider this up to scratch in terms of entertainment? I could redo it and try to hit more of the purple things, but it might not be feasible while travelling at full speed, also the torpedoes seem to have a mind of their own. Another thing to consider is that if i scored higher then 3 then that would bring the total world score to over 25, meaning it would (in theory) take longer when the score is added up at the end of the world. Of course i might be wrong about this.
I'm fine with redoing it, i'll be redoing red cave anyway (i think i might be able to lose a few more frames)
Also thanks for your support Comicalflop!
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
Basically, either krohn7master will make a .m64 showing the glitch and someone will start making a new 0 star run, or he wont, and nothing will happen.
And on the topic of breaking into the moat door, is it possible to BLJ inside the castle wall and enter the door from the other side? I only think it would really be possible if there is a side BLJ or something that has been so far missed that is on the ground level. Which to everyone's knowledge there isnt . .
And now i will shutup and avoid posting on this thread and hopefully other people like me who have nothing much to contribute to the discussion will follow suit :P
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
I've just been looking at hole lake, and i think that as long as A is held down, the speed isnt actually affected. I tested this, first going straight, then going left and right erratically and then going in a spiral, and i always got past the reeds on the same frame. Could someone check this for me?
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
Kirkq wrote:
Are you turbofiring buttons at the beginning or just holding them extra frames? If you are you turbofiring, you should stop.
I'm holding them extra frames and as far as I'm aware, its optimal. I also worked out how to make sure to select each level on the first possible frame, so that is all fine too.
Kirkq wrote:
Sky Room - Before the conveyor before the tower you could have adjusted your jump height to land at the very beginning of the conveyor to have the higher velocity for a slightly longer amount of time. The bombing of the crate exceeded my expectations.
Its a good point, but im just so glad that i managed to pull of the trick at the crate that i wouldn't want to go back for what might be less than 5 frames. The crate trick was not easy. But i will watch out for that in the future.
Kirkq wrote:
I need to figure out our health situation still. I'm halfway through world 3 and it is still dependent on damage we take beginning in world 1. World 3 has the fire levels with the "health restoration units". I found a good strategy to only have to visit one, but it is highly dependent on how much health we have before, and how much health we need after.
Aren't there two levels where you gradually lose health? Also i was thinking (but i haven't tested it) that it might be possible to pass the level Aqua Tank (i think its called that) faster by jumping into a certain enemy while holding a bomb, flinging the bomb up into the air and hitting the tank. So that might be a point of health there.
Also what is your opinion on the dual level choices in world three?
I was thinking Death Road instead of Death Garden
and Crysta Hole instead of Emerald Tube.
And Captain Forehead, the health restoration units take a long time to gain up health in, it would be preferable to use them as little as possible.
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
I've redone up to (and including) sky room to the point where im very happy with it, its over 9 seconds faster than my first WIP now.
I've put it up on Rapidshare at this link:
http://rapidshare.com/files/158639535/BHEROTASuptoskyroombyThMrksman.m64.html
Hopefully we can leave that there and call it done and move on to area 2.
I'll get started on that ASAP, but obviously i don't have too much spare time just now.
I found a small timesaver in sky room around the crate :P
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
I think you'll find that most videos on youtube have negative comments on them. As long as it's labelled as TAS or tool-assisted in the title, then i don't see the problem. Sure you might have the odd CHEATER!!11 comment but honestly, who cares? I hope this idea goes ahead.
Besides, it was watching the SM64 1star TAS on youtube that made me interested in TASing inthe first place :P
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
Kirkq wrote:
I tested jumping from the left half of the level, and taking two damage to get to the right half vs. going through the tree warp, around the left side and taking 1 water damage boost. Doing semi-optimized tests, it appears that going through the warp is extremely close or possibly actually faster. If I had to guess I'd say the warp is faster by a quarter of a second. I'm also at 2 health at the beginning of this level so this is the better option.
I took 1 damage in Fog Route to grab the remote between the two bombs without stopping. I'm not sure if this is necessary or not.
I'll see if i can grab the remote without losing health. If i can, i'll test the two jumps in the water route vs the one jump in the water route.
Kirkq wrote:
If you go to Water Slider you have to fight an extra manta ray. If you can beat him without him pushing you back at all you will gain a second over my best trial, which still leaves the waterway path about 1-2 seconds faster. If you can manage to bomb jump up to the last platform in Water Slider this would make it the better path, but I don't think it can be done.
I mistook waterway for a different course. Now that i see what your on about and how you can do that jump over the gap in the middle i can see what you mean. Waterway it is :P
Some other things on your route testing WIP that i saw:
-i redid hyper room and managed to throw a bomb like you did and run through without losing speed and it saved at least 20 frames, so good find there
-ill need to retest the hole lake level and work out exactly how many frames it will cost to get the firepower/health, they may be worth grabbing (bombs are obviously worth getting)
-the bomb jump in red cave looks awesome :P
-Nitros got pwned. Do you think the score of 8220 that you got on the first nitros battle should be repeatable on W2 and W4 nitros's? Because in the second one you only ended up with 8210. Were both optimal or just the first?
-fog route was as i expected, great rock on the other hand was very cleverly done, ill use that path as a guide for my run
-Endol fight looked pretty optimal to me, was funny when you stopped him from firing the lightning ball.
-the routes for Dark Prison and the other key crystal collecting level in area 3 blew me away, high entertainment value there
-thats all i can think of for now, but thanks for making that!
About my latest WIP, i've only redone the first two levels so far but saved 34 more frames on each. (thats 134 frames total compared to my first WIP at the end of level 2, over 2 seconds) I'll pick up the pace with making it soon!
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
Captain Forehead wrote:
Heh, I just found out that on the sky room on the second conveyor, it will be faster if you jump onto that yellow fence then onto the tower where you get your card key. If your starting over, that's a good thing for you. Well, you can't rush these movies.
Yea, im starting over, but hopefully for the last time, i mean im expecting that even once ive finished world one i might have to occasionally go back a few levels and redo them a few times, but hopefully this is the last time i start from scratch (well, 30 seconds in).
By the way, what yellow fence?
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
Kirkq wrote:
Once I can upload my Test WIP I'd recommend you redo Area 1 one final time and I think we can call it done. Hopefully with our combined efforts there won't be a need to go back and redo for routing errors in future Areas. Minor stuff can be overlooked later, but this is still so early in the run.
I'm up to World 2 Area 2 on my test run.
Things to note:
- We do NOT get health back between worlds.
- Firepower is not going to make the Nitros or Endol fight any faster.
- Dragon Road was fairly easy to route. I just stay at the top of the level and keep moving to the right.
- I found a couple interesting paths in Great Rock/Fog Route.
- If going perfectly straight in water levels is fastest you may as well just go straight. Water levels are extremely boring as is, so we may as well just get it over with quickly.
- In world 2 area 1 Erars Lake we get two free health which brings us back to maximum at that point. (You don't need the health in Bubble Hole.)
- I tested the Waterway and Water Slider paths. Waterway seems to be faster by a solid 2-3 seconds when you consider the extra manta ray fight in Erars Lake.
Wow, important stuff there
-in fog route you should be able to skip the last tenth(or so) of the course by jumping off forward at a certain point, you probably knew that. But i would like to see what you've done in great rock.
-point taken with water levels but i will try to blow up as much as i can along the way (and avoid using more bombs than i have to, that looked horrible wasting bombs in my first WIP)
-in world 2 area 1 level 1(groog hills?) its a load faster to use up two health points flying through the water to the exit so health might be an issue then
-and are you certain that waterway is faster? water slider was used in the SDA run and ive always seen it as the faster course by a long way, on the other hand, if you're sure, then waterway it is :P
I'll get around to redoing area 1 as soon as i can, but i have a lot of homework/study etc. to do so please be patient, i might not get much time these next few weeks but ill see how i go
and when can i see the Test WIP?
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
Kirkq wrote:
An accounting of stuff in my WIP I do different that you may have missed. (I'd recommend you watch it at some point.)
Battle Room: Shortly after the booster if you jump onto the trampoline to the far ledge, you will save a little bit of time by not having to move upwards.
Hyper Room: I bombed the wall panel like I suspected quite cleanly, it's far better than your previous video. I stay on the conveyor as long as possible and jump to like the third stair because my forward velocity is maintained longer.
Secret Room: Only what I previously mentioned.
Sky Room: To avoid the first conveyor completely, jump down and right and land on the small ledge. (jumping from the yellow side rail.) To avoid the second conveyor jump to the platform over the hole and jump and grab the yellow side railing and climb up.
-I then short jump from the top platform onto the beginning of the conveyor. I run on the conveyor until I get to the knives, run along parallel to the knives and jump from the highest point to the side of the tower and climb up. (I think this is faster, it might not be.)
-I could not manage to bomb the crate from the trampoline with a level 2 firepower. It could be done with a level 3 firepower, but this is too far out of the way to be worth it (the only possibility is in hyper room.)
-I tried jumping and damaging myself from the platform directly left of the exit onto the exit platform and I got extremely close. I spent probably half an hour trying to make a perfect jump and I could not make it with what appeared to be flawless jumps.
I'd recommend you look at my WIP for a better idea of what I did when I can upload it.
Blue Cave: Straightforward obviously.
Hole Lake: I would get up to 4 bombs and 3 firepower here if it doesn't lose time. You may be able to get the 4th firepower in the pillar without losing time, but I couldn't manage to (didn't try very long.).
Red Cave: I managed to make the jump from the platform to the exit by throwing a bomb at the wall and damage boosting to the platform.
Damn, looks like I'm going to have to redo the whole thing again :(
At least it sounds like a few seconds worth of improvement, but if i find a minor error in battle room once ive finished world one (for example), then i don't see another redo happening.
With hyper room im still doubting whether it would be faster to bomb through those things near the start when jumping over them is so quick. I agree about the jump from the second conveyor belt though, thats the main timesaver i found on my second run.
As for sky room, it might not save time to skip the first conveyor belt but i'll check that, however the shortcut near the knives (look like skewers or something to me) does sound like it would save time.
I think it might be worth doing some slight speed/entertainment tradeoffs in Hole Lake, although that would depend on whether much time is lost, at least i think picking up an extra firepower would be acceptable as it would make Nitros much easier.
I had a feeling that the red cave thing would need a damage boost if it was possible at all, thanks for working that out.
Oh and i found another timesaver, dropping a bomb/throwing a bomb/jumping while running into the exit saves about 3-4 frames.
Also could you have a look at Dragon Road for me? Dark wood is obvious and easy but Dragon road might have a fair few different routes, also look for possibilities of damage boosting in that level, because that is an easy health to pick up at the end.
I've got exams coming up so not much time to work on it, but ill work on it whenever i can find the time
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
Ive already redone up to the end of Sky Room now, and im quite confident that it is really close to optimal, ive saved 272 frames total compared to the first WIP, 141 of which were saved in sky room. I'll upload it onto youtube after ive gone up to the end of dragon road, because i have a feeling that that might be a difficult course to optimise
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
Ok, so i have been playing through a certain N64 game that runs at 60fps and i want to know how to work out the real time that the run has taken as opposed to the frame count.
On the bottom left of Mupen64 it has this: (numbers are just an example)
231/6992 (233/6000)
I'm assuming that you have to divide one of the four numbers by 60 to find out the time, but i don't know which one, can someone please tell me?
Thanks