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https://youtu.be/dEYpaVCnxksUser movie #25928348005634406
Levels are surprisingly easy when they're not complete garbage! This took less than 3 hours, but was delayed for a while due to some work on Brain Age.
Notes (read after watching):
- I skip the second checkpoint of the level. This basically makes it so almonst no enemies appear until I get to a cutscene. This saves around 50 seconds just from lag management.
- The jump to get out of bounds is very tricky.. I land on a corner then back up in out of bounds land.
- From there, I get on the railing on a house and back in bounds.
- I use the far end of the bridge to do a bridge boost.
- There is no way to land on the second rooftop after the first jump: it's 3 non-lag frames short. Just jumping on the edge and going back up is faster.
- Landing on the corner of the house is tricky.
- I long jump into the downwards slope, back into a corner and into the windmill. This saves around 5 seconds from not having to get the ladder.
- Optimising the last bridge boost was bvery tricky.. I had to land on a pixel-perfect edge to reset my height and not die from the fall. This allows me to not die and preserve the bridge boost speed.
- Walking up walls is a casual and intended mechanic. All you have to do is hold a direction on the wall, and bam, wallwalking! This only works when a upward slope is next to a wall, and is in three places in the entire game: the two sides of this wall, and a house wall early on in the level.
- In the garden, everything that's not a road is a wall.
- In the waterfall, I clip myself up to the first little wall. The high leap I make lands on the very corner of the wall, which resets the high leap animation and acts like I'm doing two high leaps.
- The cutscene where Altair talks to Ayman doens't trigger until you land onto the ground, and I use this opportunity to land into Ayman before brutally torturing him.
- The assisination cutscene is just casual.. nothing differs from the usual minigame.
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KnucklesMaster368 wrote:
I'm starting a warpless walkathon, or should it be warpless?
Seconding warpless.. Walkathon is a cool goal for SMB1, but makes no sense everywhere else.
I also suggest adressing the points raised up in the thread.
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<xy2_> is brain age becoming the shittiest image editing tool in existence?
<micro500> xy2_: pretty much
Here are what the first 5 questions look like..
Note that I've done two sets of inputs for this. The first one is with 10-20 frames pauses at the end of each image to help viewers see what's going on; the second one is the normal input (as fast as possible).
Tell which one you like best, are pauses needed, should they be longer, etc.
PausesLink to videoNo pauseshttps://youtu.be/d1z9MvqIJP4
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Link to videoA paladin tries to reproduce Altair's out-of-bounds prowess
User movie #25841230561670252
So yeah, this is the buildup of these past weeks, the Tyre Sewer. This level is unneedlessly long and really broken, except the end trigger this time in is killing an enemy, so it can't be broken with non-walkable void, walkable void or a simple out of bounds.
This level is dumpster tier for one very specific reason: this game has an entity table. There are two problems with this:
- one, entities don't despawn when they are off screen, causing the game to load a ridiculous number of objects off screen and have ridiculous loading times
- two, when this table is full, subsequent entities/enemies don't spawn.
Now, try to count the number of wooden boxes and snakes in this level (and add to that the three hidden out of bounds!!) Given that these are entities, we have right off the bat 45 something unremovable entities. The table can handle around 64 entities.. and it is going to get filled very quick and not allow for the last enemy we need to spawn.
Our only option is to kill enemies. In total, we need to kill 20 enemies for the needed one to spawn. As such, this route is extremely complex and easily the hardest level in the game to TAS.
How do I kill these enemies without a sword? Lots of routeplanning and creativity.
This level takes easily for a newcomer around 40 minutes. I bring it down to 5 minutes (which is still about half the time of every current other level in the TAS..)
Notes (read after watching):
- Walljumping to the left is faster, since the left wall is closer.
- The leap of faith is executed.
- I use the first wooden box, killing 2 enemies. Wooden boxes will zip enemies through the floor when dropped on them, instant killing them. This fact is used for most of the level.
- Walking on the edge avoids damage from snakes.
- I boost off the small bridge part for extra speed.
- Pressing down on these spikes allows you to walk on them, for some reason.
- I get the wooden box (again). We'ill be carrying it throughout half of the level.
- I position myself to kill 2 (4) enemies with one drop. Doing one drop and a little bit of setup is always faster than two drops; it saves a little shy of 175 frames for each, depending on lag.
- Again, enemy manipulation to kill 2 (6) enemies with one drop. Enemy manipulation is strictly based on your position and if you are in the process of an animation or not.
- I wait here at the fire, it's faster than taking the detour. Even glitching through the fire is slower, since you have to pick up the box again.
- I kill the archer (7) here, since he's the most easily accesible enemies. Killing him here is always faster than killing the left archer in the fort, which is why I chose him.
- I move the wooden box over to the platform..
-.. then drop it back onto a bridge. You can't walk on bridges with a wooden box.
- I take the heal. The heal levelup animation normally is very long, but by being in the process of another animation (such as holding a box) you skip it.
- I drop the box and use it as a platform to get over the fire.
- I kill (8) the top archer, then execute the retard skip on the bottom one. This allows me to get the bottom archer to draw his sword and chase me.
- This also baits a knight in the process, and I get them into good position and kill two (10) enemies with one drop again. This is much faster than doing two drops.
- I get in the fort. The main puzzle in the fort here is having to drop metal boxes from the top floor to drop them here. Hovewer, the main timesaver is just using the wooden box to trigger the buttons. The interaction between wooden boxes and buttons wasn't coded properly, which means you don't have to let the box stay on the button (which is normally required.) As such, this skips this huge and long puzzle, saving a little over 2.5 minutes.
- Getting archers to shoot me to drop the box is faster than dropping it itself: it allows me to gain control of Altaïr earlier. I do this with the left fort archer.
- I execute the voodoo fort swordsman glitch with the wooden box to keep him from chasing me. This allows me to keep the swordsman in place and set him up in the right place for my box route.
- I get an archer to shoot me again to trigger the second button.
- I kill (11) the swordsman I set up earlier. The old route would have killed the archer first before going to the top floor; but I do the reverse here aka kill the swordsman then aggro the archer.
- Aggroing the right archer allows him to avoid shooting me.
- I get to the top floor, and instantanely hang down to trigger the checkpoint. This is only useful to trigger the checkpoint.
- The archer I aggroed earlier starts following me, as I pick up the box and make my way to the third button.
- Finally, at the fourth button, the archer is in a good position, and I can both kill (12) him and trigger the button, saving one drop.
- I leave the box here.. For the rest of this level, the enemies will be killed with fire. How fire works is that archers will shoot red arrows on oil when you stand on oil. Fire also damages enemies.
- I do an setup for the fire that is more twisted than a snake and kills 4 (16) enemies in a record time. This was very hard to plan for, as movement is based on your position and when the archer shoots. The archer shoots are consistent (happen at exactly the same interval every time) but based on at which time you enter.
- I trigger the bridge from below and bridge boost my way to the oil room.
- The route here is using 2 fires to light the topmost and middle oil, killing 2 (18) swordsmen.
- Afterwards, I bait both the top and bottom swordsman. This is the fastest route, due to the position of the torch stock. It also allows me to get into a better position post-kill.
- I kill two (20) last swordsmen annd make my way forward. At this point, I have killed all the needed enemies to progress.
- A double jump is done into the net. There is no way to double jump into later parts of the net, because you will grab onto the wood instead and be unable to progress. Skipping the net would save well over 15 seconds, but it's short of impossible. You can get on the of the cage, but you don't have enough standing ground to high leap up to the archer.
- I manipulate the paladin here for a funny end result..
- I trigger the graves faster than an new iPhone release here, causing the cutscenes to overlap. Since there is 3 seconds between the grave triggering and the cutscene being there, I can trigger graves while being in a cutscene if done frame perfectly, which I use for the second and third grave.
- This enemy gets stuck in the platform and I taunt him a bit.
- Since we killed 20 enemies, Roland spawns. Note that in a normal DS, this runs at about 5 fps (same here) and usually has textures randomly disapearing (a cool side effect.)
- I make my way to the left platform and climb up, while setting up an high leap by jumping near the wall. This allows me to grab the platform.
- I let Roland catch up by waiting a bit. If you go too early, Roland isn't teleported up and you end up trying to kill a peasant version of Roland.
- As in the other assasinations cutscene, just being near to Roland skips the 1080p 60fps HD 3D cinematic high quality assasination cutscene, saving over 7 seconds and using the normal assasination animation instead.
- Since our entity list is full, the caged guy hasn't spawned and we end up talking to an empty cage, which was apparently Roland's most prized possesion.
- After triggering the cage cutscene, I have a bit of time before the level fades, which I use to showoff the paladin which got stuck into the wall and some types of jumps.
We finally get the daggers, an alternative form of combat. The pace of this TAS is gonna be much quicker to be done for now on, now that Tyre Sewer is out of the way, and you're gonna be seeing complete levels much quicker.
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The route works!
Long, long days of torture, rerouting and redoing have finally come to an end; and the reign of terror of Tyre Sewer is finally over.
A big milestone has been reached, and with Tyre Sewer, the hardest and most mechanical level in the entire game crossed off, this TAS can finally advance at a reasonable pace.
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Welcome to TASVideos, CatlyNat!
After watching the full movie, although this movie wasn't very optimised, I'm going to expand on scrimpeh's reply: in the technical side, your movie is impressive for a first movie, and your attitude is very cool. You can use the userfiles to submit your WIPs, and I hope seeing a completed TAS from you in the future.
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ALAKTORN wrote:
[16:49:47] ALAKTORN: I can see some of my input is still in the run
[16:50:27] ALAKTORN: can you post about it?
[..]
[21:41:55] ALAKTORN: just make a post saying my input was used and see what they reply
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Congratulations Alan and Bryz, you sexy beasts. This is the TAS the Super Monkey Ball community deserves.
E7, E24, EX3 and M1 were some of the sickest strats humanity knows (I lost my face after E24.) Voting Yes and recomending for Stars.
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Link to video
The current progress fully encoded. It is 49928 frames long; but over 11011 frames of loading screens were supercut, leading to a 39817 frame long movie.
Out of these 49928 frames, 37218 were lag frames. and 12710 were not. That's a ratio of around 74,543342% lag frames in the movie!
It had 16485 rerecords at the time of making, making for a 19,8/s rerecord count, or 46,2/s if we disregard lag frames.
I wrote all these meaningless statistics while waiting for the upload.
Read up on the resources page if you wonder what the tricks mean.
Level by level comments:Alep Town
- The fastest form of movement and keeping your momentum is jumping.
- I'm forced to wait a bit to execute the red house skip, jumping over a cutscene.
- I do three bridge boosts, leaving me over to the south side of the level. This is faster than doing the palm tree skip.
- Pickpocketing is lol. The tutorial is annoying: you have to light certain spots. The actual minigame is just dragging the key.
Alep Plains
- Because of the positioning of the stairs and the wierd collision of the plain, there is no other option than to grab the staircase.
- All spikes are an instant kill.
- The second bridge boost is used to jump over the first set of spike, and a well planned high leap jumps over the second.
- The fallen bridge otu of bounds is executed.
- The wierd diagonal jump after the pit is to get back up on the ground without wasting time.
- The sword use is the only tutorial which forces you to use the sword. The rest of the run is swordless; hence the category of this run.
Pillaged Town
- A high leap is executed to go up to the poor house, then the poor house skip is done.
- I still have to go and trigger the cutscene to kill this guy.
- The other 'minigame', assasination, is speed up by missing as many hits as possible.
- I go on the side of the house here to trigger the checkpoint, then fall into the haybale.
- The red orb tutorial skip is executed by triggering the dialogue at the same time Altair gets his first red orb; the events overlap.
Levantine Base
- Jumping off after this cutscene skips half of this small level.
- Alternating between A and touchscreen here is faster than skipping the cutscene with B. This happens in another instance, with the Fajera OOB cutscene.
Damascus
- The pits of tar slow you down massively; you can't jump, and are forced to run with A instead. This is very slow, so I just jump over them.
- The four bridge boosts here were the hardest to optimise in the entire run; the first two set up the last two, and the last two are devilish. Lots of work were put here to fall exactly on the edge without hanging off it.
- The outpost skip was also very hard. It took a long time to find that sweet spot that was walkable on for one frame, before allowing us to walk without hanging off the wall, again.
- Killing the guy by going near him instead of being far away from him does not trigger the cinematic HD 1080p 60fps scene, saving over 12 seconds.
- I skip a checkpoint with a diagonal jump: it convenientely appears back.
Lowend Street
- The first part of this level was supposed to be hard platforming on the roofs, but they just put a ladder at the end, so alright.
- This guy has to be killed with a metal box. Thankfully, he doens't need to be killed. This allows us to not touch a metal box (ew) for the superior wooden boxes that we'ill use in Tyre Sewer when it's done.
- The heroic leap skip is executed here and skips two checkpoints.
- You can grapple whatever way you want, as long as you're far away: I hump the grapple a bit.
- The second grapple looks extremely impressive and is frame perfect.
- The terrain leading up here is very wierd.
- I wait near the guy I have to kill. I could walk up to him, but that's slow, and this option looks funnier.
- I have to get the heal here to survive the fall.
- During the chase, Misbas will stop following you if you get too far away, reducing lag.
- When I reach the final trigger, I have a little bit of time to set me up in an impressive way.
Tamir's Domain
- I skip a lot of checkpoint here. Each green arrow is equal to one checkpoint.. and there's a lot when the level finishes.
- The escape after killing Tamir can be done faster, but the guard's dialogue prevents the 'I should go back to Rafiq' dialogue.
Circus
lol
Outside Circus
- Smashing the wooden platform causes Fajera's AI to never be able to progress. She never appears again, and Altaïr ends up talking to nearby oxygen.
- The crumbled rock skip was hard to do, but is executed without even slowing down.
- I go immediatly right and do the arch walljump skip, skipping a whole section of careful platforming.
- Here is the most impressive and slick-looking grapple in the entire run. I need to land on grabbing an edge, to trigger the checkpoint and finish the level. This grapple also skips a cutscene
- Since Fajera was left behind, she doens't appear in the cutscene.
- The level ends once the door is open, but you have time to play around.
Sewer
- A diagonal jump skips a checkpoint.
- Another diagonal jump skips another checkpoint.
- Grabbing the bridge from below warps you upwards, skipping a platform.
- Rolling on the water currents stops them from pushing me.
- A one frame jump is executed into the corner of the top out of bounds: this allows me to execute a high leap instantanely and fall.
- I go to the left to trigger an enemy to follow me and fall into the void. Watch the touchscreen!
- I have a little bit of waiting time before the red orb comes to heal me, but I jump at the last frame possible.
- A double jump here allows me to go into unwalkable void. Woooooooooooooooooooooooooo
- Like the cutscene in Levantine Base, this one is faster to skip by alternating A and touchscreen.
Tyre
- The basilica skip is done at the start.
- I trigger the cutscene here.
- This pit skip is among the hardest in the game. A backwards right jump allows me to angle myself for a high leap while looking funny, and the high leap warps me on the bridge.
- The teacher skip is done by walking on the far north of the platform.
- I could go on the bridges here, but it's slower and would make me miss the cycle.
- Hugging the wall here allows me to not get knocked back.
- Since I skipped a cutscene, the bridge doens't exist. Cool bridge. It's collision is still solid, though, so that is used.
- A wierd jump here is forced to be made; jumping in any other way is death.
- I crouch for one frame on the well. This allows me to start running instantanely. This trick can only be used when you crouch on slanted platforms, and so far its only use is here.
Please heavily critique this. There are one or two parts where I can save some time, and movement I may have overlooked or don't know about. This game is not hex-friendly due to its insane lag, but it will definitely be done in a v2 TAS.
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https://youtu.be/4JhZ4OlFhGs
Thanks to this exciting new skip that saves about 7 seconds, the new route is now completely irrelevant, and this level has to be redone, again.This also means the new route will kill exactly the possible number of enemies possible, now that we're killing one less.
This also means we're taking the 100 blue orb upgrade in this level because of bad RNG. This shoudln't be too bad, as it will allow us to basically go out of bounds really easily (since max damage you can take is 5 bars, and 100 blue orb health upgrade raises it to 6), but the heal might be invaluable later on. All in all, this means health is going to get tight.
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Masterjun wrote:
micro500 wrote:
Is that a good font? Is the drawing too slow? I wanted it to be slow and precise as if a robot was drawing it.
Looks perfect to me! Slow drawing means that the audience has time to look at the top screen to see the actual question. It's a good start I think.
Also, I have something else I want to throw in here. This could be used instead of actually getting a wrong answer:
Link to video
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An idea inspired by feos came to me: reproducing the top screen in negative colors.
After working out the details, I suggest reproducing the first question (or the first two questions, if it fits within the birthday screen) in white into black within the last birthday screen and have these two questions be the two first in the x100 seed. There was a lack of ideas when coming for the birthday screen, but reproducing this is only doable with a 2x2 pen, which only the birthday and name screen has.
I've drawn a little example picture (on the x20/x100 field:)
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A short update..
Long investigation, long rerouting, long testing. I came to the conclusion that I actually needed to kill 7 extra enemies than in the current route. This makes it very tight: this is exactly the possible number of enemies I can kill swordless minus one.
This means I now know exactly how this level works and I've acquired meaningful knowledge about how the game handles units in the time. I'm finalising this level with the new new new new new new new new new new new new new route, although if it decides to not work I'm going to be punching a wall for a while; it's going to be more entertaining and less hard than TASing this level.
The number of rerecords has doubled from this level alone (16485 > 32304 and counting!) and I'm sure going to be glad when we get rid of it.
A paladin tries to reproduce Altair's out-of-bounds prowess
The route works!