Topic by jlun2

Posted: 3/11/2011 10:00 AM

Post subject: Jurassic Park

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jlun2

Skilled player (1737)

Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4979
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"

There's a port of this on Gameboy, but its laggy and monochrome so I chosed this version. It's slightly longer, but has color and is less laggy. I don't know if this is a bad game choice, so I made a TAS of the entire game just to show the game. ~~Here it is.~~ Joking aside, I haven't really TASed this game yet, only the first level. Jumping is key as landing is 2x faster than walking. So here's how it looks like! Any opinions?

LLCoolDave wrote:

Posted: 10/16/2011 3:38 PM

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jlun2

Skilled player (1737)

Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4979
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"

As promised, here's a continuation of the previous WIP. The main improvements from the rejected run include: * Different Egg order * Doesn't Auto-fire during the canoeing stage * Takes advantage of the fact that the boss takes only 31 HITS to kill; type of bullet doesn't matter * Takes advantage of the bullet spawn during boss. So far, 1316 frames(00:21.93s) ahead.

LLCoolDave wrote:

Posted: 10/16/2011 4:24 PM

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feos

Site Admin, Skilled player (1250)

Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11473
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg

Oh wow, please don't stop!

Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.

Posted: 10/16/2011 5:38 PM

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YoungJ1997lol

He/Him

Player (9)

Joined: 7/4/2011
Posts: 550
Location: U.S.A.

feos wrote:

keep going, boy, keep going!

So yea, how's it going? Currently TASing: Nothing

Posted: 2/10/2012 9:08 PM

Post subject: Jurassic Park

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kylelyk

Joined: 8/13/2010
Posts: 9

Hey All! I have been a lurker for a while and I decided to make a TAS. After reading pretty much all of the HOW-TO pages, I downloaded Fceux. I currently have the 2.1.6 version which is not yet released because I love TASedit and the version in 2.1.5 was driving me insane. I have part of the first level TASed of Jurrasic Park so I could get used to TASedit and the game mechanics. I have link a folder containing compressed movie file fm3 file: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BzYN4VRJkm_CMzU3YjJmNGUtOWQ2Zi00ODk0LTk1ZjItYWM4NTAyY2IzNGUw Right now it is not very optimized and I have a few ideas about better paths and movement. A few things I have questions about: How do I find glitches? I found some particularities in movement, but nothing that allows me to go faster. Is there documentation on TASedit in the newest version of 2.1.6? I haven't been able to figure exactly how branches work and I think I'm missing out on a tool that will speed up my optimization process. How do I find the memory address of the RNG? Do I have to go into assembly? Is luck manipulation just pressing keys at certain times without slowing down that will change the spawning of enemies? Is there a way to view things that are off of the screen but are held in memory? Is there a way to highlight certain sprites when they are not visible for easier movement when the character is covered? Also, could people give me feedback or tips about my movie and about TASing in general? On another note: I am so glad that TASedit was improved, I hated the savestates and writing down frames so I could remember them. I hope that I can get better at TASing in the future and I wish you all happy TASing! -kylelyk

Posted: 2/10/2012 10:27 PM

Post subject: Re: Jurassic Park

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AnS

Emulator Coder, Experienced player (727)

Joined: 2/23/2006
Posts: 682

Hi kylelyk! Please call it "TAS Editor" since now, thank you.

kylelyk wrote:

When you want to share TAS Editor projects, use File->Save Compact and uncheck Greenzone, then file size will be much smaller. Do note that right now not many people can watch your project file, since FCEUX 2.1.6 isn't officially released yet. You're jumping the gun. Better just Export your project to FM2 file and upload it to the Microstorage.

kylelyk wrote:

Experiment with the game a lot. Spend weeks and months trying to find anomalities and loopholes in the game rules. Explore different combinations of ingame events. Be creative and don't be lazy. That's all.

kylelyk wrote:

The documentation is being written right now. It's going slowly, but I really hope it can be published this month. There will be very detailed "Beginner's Guide". It's gonna be long read. As for Branches, they work like savestates - you can save current condition of your movie to any slot, then you can restore it anytime. Bookmarks-Branches aren't really that important in TAS Editor, first you should learn to optimize input efficiently. This may take some time.

Posted: 2/10/2012 10:46 PM

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goofydylan8

Experienced player (520)

Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359

Hello. Welcome to the world of TAS'ing. I am relatively new too so don't take all of this as gospel but here is what I can answer for you. First off, there is already a forum topic for NES Jurassic Park posted here. jlun2 currently is working on a run of this game as well, but hasn't posted a WIP for about 4 months. He is very active on the site so if you wanted to continue on this movie and posted in that thread I am sure he would help you if you had questions. Up to the point that you end the movie he is around 650 frames, about 11 seconds, ahead. Now for your other questions: You find glitches just through experimentation and trying to find ways to get the movie to end faster. Not every game has obvious glitches, and in many cases the glitches do not improve the movie. I also use fceux 2.1.6 and as it is not released they haven't released the documentation yet. It has an expected release any week now and when it is officially released the documentation will be included. There isn't really a tool that speeds up the process any faster than TAS Editor can. It really is about trying varying strategies until you find the fastest path. To find memory addresses you use Ram Search and Ram Watch listed under the tools header in fceux. How to use this portion of the program can be found here. That is a basic definition of luck manipulation, meaning that it is doing things slightly different to get more favorable results. A more thorough definition can be found here. There isn't a way to necessarily view the things that are off screen but you can keep track of these details through the ram watch and if you really want to try you can get into lua scripting which can help display pertinent information on screen. Good luck with TAS'ing and even though you are a little behind just keep trying. My first movie attempt ended up being about 15 minutes slower than a current run but I have gotten better.

Posted: 2/11/2012 6:05 AM

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feos

Site Admin, Skilled player (1250)

Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11473
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg

If a sprite is behind the background, just switch the BG layer off. Config - Display - Graphics: BG (uncheck).

Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.

Posted: 2/11/2012 7:37 PM

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jlun2

Skilled player (1737)

Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4979
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"

Here's my Wip from a topic of the same name. Good luck! Also, just curious, since I never used TASEdit before, how is it like? Is it the same as TASing with Programmer's Notepad? Finally, about the glitches. I have no clue, since usually, I find them by accident. =P

LLCoolDave wrote:

Posted: 2/11/2012 8:45 PM

Quote

feos

Site Admin, Skilled player (1250)

Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11473
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg

Link to video

Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.

Posted: 2/12/2012 9:52 PM

Post subject: Thanks everyone

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kylelyk

Joined: 8/13/2010
Posts: 9

First off I want to say thanks for letting me know about the WIP Thread already created. I'll smack myself for that one. All of your input has been helpful and I have decided that I would like to take things slower and improve my skills before attempting a TAS for myself. I have already been to many of this sites tutorial pages, so I am asking for a good game suggestion to practice TASing. I like TAS Editor a lot because its more intuitive and easier for me to see the input on screen so any NES game suggestions would be appreciated. BTW I don't really want to try out Super Mario Bros. like almost everyone else has when they first started.

Posted: 2/20/2012 3:55 PM

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kylelyk

Joined: 8/13/2010
Posts: 9

First off, I want to say I am sorry for the duplicate post on Jurassic Park. Secondly, I don't know if I should reply to this post about my WIP on Jurassic Park. Thirdly, I am not sure if people take it the wrong way when a lurker decides to compete with a veteran over a game. That said, here is my WIP that improves 57 frames and saves 5 bullets on jlun2's latest WIP only going to the 4900 frame mark, which is a 670 frame improvement on my last run. Can someone give me some input on whether I'm going about TASing all wrong? Thanks, -kylelyk

Posted: 2/20/2012 4:13 PM

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feos

Site Admin, Skilled player (1250)

Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11473
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg

Nothing is perfect, and competing WIPs always results in a better run, so, just don't stop working and sharing! Maybe both of you could come up with timesavers, maybe both would provide input for the future run, maybe one would stay more as an adviser. The thing that there are veteran TASers means only that they have an idea of what can appear possible and enough patience to test everything many times. If you have more patience and more ideas, nothing prevents you from becoming an expert TASer too. The main tip from me is redoing your own run level by level several times over, to make sure no timesaver is lost. Sometimes you even can find shortcuts in unexpected circumstances! Good luck!

Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.

Posted: 10/12/2012 9:53 PM

Quote

jlun2

Skilled player (1737)

Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4979
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"

I've managed to redo the entire first 2 levels, but with more explosions and an almost complete disregard for ammo conservation. WIP Since the WIP posted by kylelyk desyncs when using this emulator patch, I had to hop around 3 revisions of FCEUX to ensure this run syncs on all of the main ones. :P Edit: Oh, and the WIP also disregards lag, since for some reason, lag only disables input; you continue to move during a lag frame.

LLCoolDave wrote:

Posted: 10/12/2012 10:03 PM

Quote

feos

Site Admin, Skilled player (1250)

Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11473
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg

Very good!

Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.

Posted: 10/13/2012 8:57 AM

Quote

jlun2

Skilled player (1737)

Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4979
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"

Addresses and other crap: -Positions X. Pos (Pixel) - 00AB (1 byte unsigned) X. Pos (Area) - 00BD (1 byte unsigned) X. Cam - 007B (2 bytes unsigned) Y. Pos (Pixel) - 00CF (1 byte unsigned) Y. Pos (Area) - 00E1 (1 byte unsigned) Y. Cam -007D (2 bytes unsigned) *Notes: To find the current position (for lua scripts), convert both "pixel" and "area" values to hex, and combine them together starting with the "area". Then convert back to decimal. There are also no sub-pixels in this game. -Health Player - 04E8 (1 byte unsigned) Enemy - 04E9 - 04F9 (1 byte unsigned) *Notes: Player/Escort - 255 HP (Shared) Chompy - 2 HP Raptor - 4 HP Shooter - 4 HP T-Rex - 31/60? HP (All ammo does 1 damage) Spined dino - 100 HP (Kills you in one hit; Killing them gives 0 points. WTF?) -Gun Current - 0584 (1 byte signed) Yellow Ammo - 0585 (1 byte signed) Orange Ammo - 0586 (1 byte signed) Green Ammo - 0587 (1 byte signed) Grey Ammo - 0588 (1 byte signed) *Notes: Yellow - 1 HP Orange - 1 HP x3 (Laggy) Green - 2 HP Grey - 6 HP

LLCoolDave wrote:

Posted: 10/13/2012 1:34 PM

Quote

feos

Site Admin, Skilled player (1250)

Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11473
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg

Link to video

Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.

Posted: 10/16/2012 6:17 PM

Quote

jlun2

Skilled player (1737)

Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4979
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"

3rd level completed. I'm going to have to do some planning, since I've never TASed up to this stage.

LLCoolDave wrote:

Posted: 11/11/2012 5:45 PM

Quote

kylelyk

Joined: 8/13/2010
Posts: 9

Here is my WIP back from August. I started college this fall and I didn't even want to think about TASing until break. Some things I've observed: Red ammo is laggy but can reach eggs that take longer with normal bullets. Much of the ammo can cost frames to get so every bullet must be spent wisely. I've also spent some time stitching together maps of every level before I TAS so I am then really familiar with the map. Enjoy! -kylelyk

Posted: 11/13/2012 2:10 AM

Quote

jlun2

Skilled player (1737)

Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4979
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"

kylelyk wrote:

Nice WIP, but since you get 40 ammo by the 3rd stage, wouldn't it be better to shoot a whole bunch of dinos at the first 2 stages, enter the T-Rex battle with no ammo, and then pick up the ammo there? That'll make it (slightly) more exciting and you'll get more points. I've noticed there are parts where you've somehow destroyed the egg further than my WIP. How'd you do that? An example would be the egg behind the second building in the first stage. Also, since you've made some maps, do you know any location where you might get some red bullets without loosing time after the third stage? Since the red bullet comes in 3's, it drastically shortens the second T-Rex battle, where it needs to be hit by 60 bullets of any kind. Finally, your WIP desyncs in certain revisions of Fceux, but whatever.

LLCoolDave wrote:

Posted: 11/13/2012 5:00 AM

Quote

kylelyk

Joined: 8/13/2010
Posts: 9

Yah, I won't be able to see where I can waste some ammo until I see how the rest of the levels pan out. I will try to minimize the ammo I get that is out of the way to save the frames, but right now I don't spend ammo unless it saves lag or is required. I saw the few frames you saved by getting the egg right in the path last on the forest level. Good Job - I was having a hard time eliminating the wait to collect the pass card. With getting the eggs further, I used the maps to see where I needed to be in order to hit them off screen. Then I looked at the RAM to see at what value do the eggs not hit and then get closer until it does. There are a few places where, when reviewing the movie from the start, I realized that they were un-optimized. So I'll tackle them after I finished the "WIP". As for Red ammo, I'll have to review the maps, and the possibility that some ammo might be hidden and not included in them. But the major ammo planning will be later. With the rotating red ammo, some frames can be saved when shooting eggs but I see your point on killing the T-Rex earlier. The ammo left over from this should be used to destroy the eggs with the most frames to gain, which will take a while to determine and documented. The desyncs are probably from the various versions that I used to make it (since I've been using the newest version that keeps adding improvements to TAS Editor) so the version will definitely need to be considered for these WIP's. If you want, maybe you could see if there's a faster way around the dumb bouncing rocks. I tried everything I could think of and it was faster to go completely around. It really gave me a headache and I don't think I properly went through all the possibilities. Other Info: firing/cycling ammo on landing frame will fire two bullets/cycle two ammo types at the same time firing frame before lag frame will fire two bullets at the same time Moving the same amount left then right same amount produces a different result with a spitter (spit doesn't hit me) I am posting as much info as I have so that maybe we can split up some of the more monotonous work to squeeze out every last frame.

Posted: 11/13/2012 5:24 AM

Quote

jlun2

Skilled player (1737)

Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4979
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"

kylelyk wrote:

That's what I did too, but the egg wouldn't spawn until I went closer, losing the frames I saved earlier. Something must have happened to make your egg spawn earlier.

LLCoolDave wrote:

Posted: 11/13/2012 7:42 PM

Post subject: Jurassic park wip1: YouTube

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antd

Joined: 3/18/2006
Posts: 971
Location: Great Britain

kylelyk wrote:

Link to video

Posted: 1/27/2013 9:01 AM

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feos

Site Admin, Skilled player (1250)

Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11473
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg

Bump for the threads merging. Any good news for your adepts, jlun?

Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.

Posted: 1/27/2013 9:40 AM

Quote

Toothache

Active player (279)

Joined: 4/30/2009
Posts: 791

Liking the new WIP, gives me incentive to go to the GB version and work on that again :-)

Forum NES Games Jurassic Park Game: Jurassic Park

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NES Games

Jurassic Park Game: Jurassic Park