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Well, we finally got GHZ1 done... I am about 15 frames faster than Randil's run. So, I started putting levels together.
http://www.trueserve.org/~true/tas/somari-wip1-z-tomz1-true.fm2
There's only a couple of glitches up to MZ1, and most of the rest are in Labyrinth Zone... any thoughts on this so far?
EDIT because nobody seems to care enough for a bump: done with the main inputfile up to syz2 so far. My syz2 didn't sync at all, and my syz3 also loses sync at an area although I might be able to get it back for most of the run. Labyrinth zone almost certainly won't sync and that's the most annoying zone due to how slow it is and orbinaut / spike timings.
HOPEFULLY, this run will be submitted in a week or two. I'll edit again when I get done with syz3 with a WIP if anyone posts showing interest.
EDIT 2: Done with syz3, now only Labyrinth and Star Light. My LZ1 run does not sync at all with the current run so I have to rerun the act... as this level takes the most play effort in the game and is also one of the longest, it'll be a while :(
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Re: Star Light Zone, I can probably get 2 or 3 hits in per round, but I haven't TASed it yet. I am thinking of a method that'll probably work, especially since I have the timer variables to make it really easy :)
EDIT: I can get 2 hits/round. http://www.trueserve.org/~true/tas/somari-slz3-wip1-true.fm2http://www.trueserve.org/~true/tas/somari-slz3-wip1-true.avi
Bosses in this game take either 9 or 11 hits... even Labyrinth zone sets 11 hits even though Robotnik explodes himself without being hit (although not in my TAS, I just skip right past him).
Re: glitches, there's quite a few. Look at the mz1 TAS for an example, and the end of the lz1 TAS, or even the lz3 TAS where I skip Robotnik completely :)
Re: stitching, not a huge deal - most can just have the affected segments rerun and the rest stitched together. Enemies have 3 positioning / shooting types in this game - based on Somari's location only, based on the global frame counter, and based on some unknown counter that doesn't match this counter. Level starts and ends are all based on this global 60 frame counter, but some enemies aren't. Not as huge of a deal as Flygon states but it means I can't just concatenate most already run levels.
EDIT: The unknown one seems to be based on the main 60 frame timer that a lot of stuff is based on. I think it is an alternating flag that toggles each time 60 frames is read. So far, stitching levels together seems to have a 50/50 chance of working...
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mmbossman wrote:
This type of decision is the essence of what drives away promising TASers.
On the contrary - I am working on one TAS now and will probably start on a couple more, and any time I can, I'll make them look as "sloppy" as possible, whatever that means. The sloppier, the better.
As has been stated, maybe there's a problem with that rule when an inferior run can stay published, a superior run can get rejected, and a far superior run is possibly a year or more in the future. But no, the rules are words of your deity!
How many judges does it make it now that don't like this decision? Welcome to NachVideos.
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The facts, however, that
* an inferior run is what is currently now visible to the public
* it is unknown the wait time before a significantly superior run is available
* an old but recently submitted run that beats it by a fair amount of time and does show off new tricks
mean that this is rejected? And that's natural here? Looks "sloppy?" All of the other improvements thrown away, because it "looks sloppy?"
Hm...
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Got the lz1 wip done, don't know how improvable it is yet...I can't find any more.
Found a nice hole where I got into the wall in MZ1 and was able to zip and skip about a fourth of the level (framewise).
See here: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1891198735/somari-mz1-wip3-true.fm2
(avi http://www.trueserve.org/~true/tas/somari-mz1-wip3-true.avi)
Edit 20100102: Updates:
mz1, syz2, syz3 also done and looking pretty good. Most, if not all, syz walls can't be zipped through (you can get into them but you won't go anywhere). syz3 boss won't spawn on the left side and I don't know why - waiting for Flygon's WIP of the level to see if he only does it the second time around (I think that is the pattern).
Edit 20100103:
Add lz3 to the list. There doesn't seem to be a way of going without air - the fastest I can go up without triggering Robotnik still needs another second or so of time. But I did find a nice glitch due to the forced autoscrolling that lets me skip the Robotnik destruction animation (this still technically happens) and him flying away (this does not happen) and lets me position myself right on top of the capsule. WIP AVIs and inputfiles can be found here: http://www.trueserve.org/~true/tas/
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The "1 frame behind" issue is because of needing info from two frames ago and not putting an already done check in, causing lots of overwrites and changes. I can fix this later - for now I just know to hit a button a frame earlier than shown. Part laziness, part inexperience (not a Lua fan).
Edit: just fixed it.
Also the elapsed time display is broken; I'll figure out why later.
Also, my lz1 wip is almost done... got it done then found a 1 second time saver at the very beginning of the level as well as fixing all the one or two-frame things that I couldn't see as easily without data.
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There was a problem with the person playing the game, not the game itself. :) (There was some programming oversight... if you don't take the obvious path, the boss won't trigger. It isn't an engine problem as Flygon hints towards, although the engine is shit.)
Flygon didn't want to write this, but I made the observation that while you do not accelerate left/right while jumping, there are actual ways to do so - such as hitting rings and badniks. X speed won't increase to values over normal run speed so it's only really useful when still accelerating, having a badnik in the way and needing to get over it, and rings nearby. Labyrinth zone can use this a lot.
The pixel speeds are wrong in Randil's script above. When I get done (or give up) with the hitboxes, I'll post my script which has accurate (though one frame behind) speed. It also has accurate speed in the water... max X speed in water is 2px/frame.
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andymac wrote:
Swordless link: Stay civilised and keep posts on topic. I'm not a mod or anything, but I don't think anyone looks higher on you if you bully people.
I happen to agree with him, and don't see how what he said is in any way "uncivilized". People will talk and talk about accomplishments and such but not work collaboratively, or openly keep secrets ("I can do something to save X frames, but I'm not telling!"). If they want to do that, that is their prerogative - but TASing has historically gone from one-man operations to open, transparent and collaborative work. Those of us seeing it go backwards (usually for nothing more than a feeling of self-importance by the author(s)) tend to cringe with this reversal. I don't agree with the "surprise" piece - as many people won't watch this until it is published, I don't see the point in keeping it away from people who can critique and help, but again that's the decision of the runner. So long as I don't read "We found a new trick and we aren't telling anyone!" BS, and the runner keeps quiet until the run is done, good luck.
sonicpacker wrote:
On topic: I don't blame them for not releasing WIPs. Say they do 4 stars in 1 week. The next week, people will expect 8 stars to be done. People would expect work to get done at a certain speed.
Plenty of runs go without expected new WIPs... look at all of mm3's megaman runs... they're good enough to post now but there still isn't anything new. I don't expect anything, and I don't think many others do either (want and expecting are different). If others do, tough crap, learn to have realistic expectations.
I'm not a big Mario fan, but some of the newer glitches look like they'll be fun to see in upcoming runs. Things like the Treasure of the Ocean Cave warp are neat :)
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Perhaps. I was also emulating a shift register but as I said, I wasn't seeing all the clock pulses so I just let the real shift register handle the load.
I have a proper board made up now. Might need one or two more parts but otherwise it's ready for me to write code. I brought home my scope this weekend, but I forgot my programmer...
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This project is on hold for at least a couple weeks.
I'm going to make up a proper board... I'll be using the original NES shift register that I removed from my otherwise useless controller :) By then, hopefully stress will be reduced and I'll bring my scope home from work for testing. This is such a simple project, it really should be done in less than an hour, and I already spent a good part of a weekend with barely any good results.
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I think it's just my real life stress taking its toll on me. I don't have my scope handy while working on this project, so I can't quite see / compare what is going on...but it looked like I was getting at most half of the clock pulses.
Anyway, re-wrote stuff to be very bare and have Mario jump every X frames and run forward. He beat the first level a few times :) but I can't seem to get it to do the same run after powering off cold for a few minutes. I think I am not seeing every latch pulse, but without a scope and the ability to see response time, I can't really know why. Running the PIC at 12 MIPS shouldn't have this happen.
It's likely just the major stress right now in my life - just after I started this major things happened. I haven't even worked on the firmware I am supposed to be working on at work.
The TAS input part is easy... getting it to play reliable, reproducible games is the hard part. :(
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Update:
Got a prototype working... sort of. Non-ideal conditions, but meh. I am trying to just see all the latch pulses right now and I only get about one every 3-5 frames back to the PIC. Until I hook up my scope, I can't really see what is going on...
Mario himself is jumping and pausing and stuff, likely due to noise on the data line. Anyone know if this should be pulled up / down? I've only been able to interpret either leave it alone or pull up, but until I get latch / clock reading properly, I'm not overly concerned about data.
I'm probably missing something really easy - stress in my life is affecting my work. I mean, the main code part on the PIC is ~30 lines... if there are mistakes, I should have found them by now...
Shorting clock and latch does fun stuff :)
Edit: Might know what is wrong... hopefully I'll have time to work on it tonight.
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I got an SMB cart. $15, sigh.
Still dealing with a lot of issues...such as sabotage to my motorcycle. Almost killed me today. I am dealing with a lot of things like this recently. Once I get some time between work and sorting out stuff from moving and fixing my bike, I'll get a prototype going.
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I've run into some extremely serious real life issues... I won't have time for this for another week or two. I have an NES (my pick between a top loader and a front loader) and a controller to tear apart, but still no standard SMB cart. Any ideas?
Edit: video will obviously be made of the unit running, working or not. Would you rather see the classic front loader or is the top loader ok?
I am also going to try some videogame stores since some of them have an oldass games pile. They'll probably want $5 for the game but meh.
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I have the working PIC, just need to finish the PC side of the code. I have a USB bootloader on this thing so I shouldn't need ICSP anymore...I hope.
I had no free debug boards, but dozens of spare PIC18LF2550s and no breadboard and no $$$ so I had to do what nobody should ever replicate:
I didn't find out that I had extra PDIP sockets until after I was about 3/4 of the way done.
Just need to hook up an NES connector to it :)
Edit: whoops, forgot to attach my decoupling cap...it's there now :)
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I'd be working concurrently with a PIC, but I don't have an NES, a controller or a kart. I can get this working in a night if someone can provide a resource to pick this stuff up in Vegas...
PS - I am flat broke for a while - I have all the parts to make this other than the stuff described above :( So good luck RyanC, hopefully I can hack one of these eventually...
Edit: _might_ have a real NES this weekend... no kart though. I also have no spare EEPROMs so I'll go the easy route and make this host-based - the PIC will basically be a USB-powered smart shift register :)
I didn't find out that I had extra PDIP sockets until after I was about 3/4 of the way done.
Just need to hook up an NES connector to it :)
Edit: whoops, forgot to attach my decoupling cap...it's there now :)