Posted: 5/3/2012 2:01 AM
Post subject: How to play SNES videos and other newbie questions
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TheNewTeddy
Joined: 5/3/2012
Posts: 29
Please believe me when I say I spent at least an hour trying to figure this first one out before posting.* I checked the FAQs and all the other versions of the FAQs, but could not find what I was looking for (unless I don't understand desync) I was watching this tutorial video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS75JLwJExk&feature=channel&list=UL And was quite intreguied by the button press visual representation on the screen, allowing you to see what buttons someone else has pressed. I wanted to video the video and button presses for this Chrono Trigger TAS video http://tasvideos.org/2240S.html Going here http://tasvideos.org/1285M.html I downloaded the MKV and SMV files. Eventually, after finding some CODEC files, I was able to get the MKV to play. The SMV file however... I've tried just about everything that I can find in the FAQs and anything I could come up with, but I just can not seem to get it to play. I'm wondering if someone can help me with this. Also, I have many other questions. Should I ask them all here? Or start a new thread for the bigguns? edit * Longer actually. I spent the hour prior to registering, and then continued to try. The time gap between this post and my time of registration was spent trying.
Posted: 5/3/2012 5:53 AM
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Warepire
He/Him
Editor
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2174
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
The SMV file is the input sequence that was used to beat the game like that. You need the correct version of the emulator and the ROM to play that back, in this case this is: The emulator "snes9x-1.51-rerecording-svn-r51" from Here And The ROM "Chrono Trigger (U) [!].smc", this I cannot link you to because it is against the rules. You should be able to find the information regarding which emulator and ROM to use in the Submission or the Discussion Thread (linked in the submission) for every movie. There are a couple of submissions that do not have this information, they are usually a bit of trail and error to figure out. The emulators are usually found in the Emulator section of the forum if they are not linked from the submission. The filename of the input file is different depending on the emulator that made it, movies for other system have other extensions. (I.e. N64 have M64 as the extension) I hope this answered your question, if not, I or someone else will try again. You can re-use this thread for the other questions, that should be no problem at all.
Posted: 5/3/2012 6:30 AM
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TheNewTeddy
Joined: 5/3/2012
Posts: 29
Awesome, thank you, the emulator worked. EDIT - Is there a way I can view the exact button presses? To see what was pressed and when? Curious about etiquette around here. I've been at forums that ban you for posting in a thread that has no posts for 14 days, and I've been at forums that ban you for starting identical threads even if the old one has 0 posts since 1998. I'm curious where on the spectrum these forums fall? Also, if I'm thinking about (IE just putting out feelers) doing a game, how should I go about this? Was my post in the dos forum okay? http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12828 If I have a WIP of a game, should I post it ASAP and update? Couldn't someone "steal" my ideas? Related to the above: there are a few games that are either 7 years old, or, never done, that I'm thinking about. Is there a risk if I post a WIP/Idea that I am doing the game, that someone else, IE someone who is faster and more experienced than I, could "snap" it out from "under me" How about Strategy Games? IE Romance of the Three Kingdoms. I saw a Civ TAS from the SNES and am wondering about other games like this. How about other systems? Any Atari TASes? Lastly, how do you know something is entertaining? I've searched though some approved-and-famous games that everyone seems to love that I find boring, and I found some rejected-everybody-hates-cause-its-so-boring games that I find extremely entertaining. I do have a touch of Autism so maybe that's part of it; but how could/would I know what is considered entertaining by the masses?
Posted: 5/3/2012 6:55 AM
(Edited: 5/3/2012 2:46 PM)
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Ilari
Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1142)
Joined: 5/1/2010
Posts: 1217
Rookie of 2010 New systems TASer of 2010 New systems TAS of 2010
TheNewTeddy wrote:
Curious about etiquette around here. I've been at forums that ban you for posting in a thread that has no posts for 14 days, and I've been at forums that ban you for starting identical threads even if the old one has 0 posts since 1998. I'm curious where on the spectrum these forums fall?
Post into existing thread, no matter how long since the last post.
TheNewTeddy wrote:
Also, if I'm thinking about (IE just putting out feelers) doing a game, how should I go about this? Was my post in the dos forum okay? http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12828
Seems fine.
TheNewTeddy wrote:
If I have a WIP of a game, should I post it ASAP and update? Couldn't someone "steal" my ideas?
Yes, but OTOH, if you post a WIP, others can provide feedback. First submissions are usually not too good. IIRC, only about one third get published, and of those, significant fraction are improvable by a good amount. Feedback / working with more experienced TASer should significantly increase the chances.
TheNewTeddy wrote:
How about other systems? Any Atari TASes?
AFAIK, There is no rerecording emulator that can emulate Atari yet (or at least not submittable one). Oh, and here is a listing of movie file format extensions and what emulators those are for:
  • BKM: Bizhawk (alternative extension)
  • DOF: Dosbox-rr (not accepted as it never worked reliably)
  • DSM: DeSmuME
  • DTM: Dolphin
  • FBM: Final Burn Alpha Rerecording
  • FCM: FCEU
  • FM2: FCEUX
  • FMV: Famtasia (not accepted anymore)
  • GMV: Gens rerecording.
  • GZ: openMSX (obsolete extension)
  • JRSR: JPC-RR
  • LSMV: lsnes
  • M64: Mupen64 Rerecording
  • MC2: VBjin (VBoy), Mednafen Rerecording or PCEjin (others)
  • MCM: Mednafen Rerecording
  • MMV: Dega
  • OMR: openMSX
  • PJM: PSXjin
  • PXM: PCSX-RR
  • SMV: snes9x
  • TAS: Bizhawk
  • VBM: Virtual Boy Advance Rerecording
  • VMV: VirtuaNES (not accepted anymore)
  • WTF: Hourglass
  • YMV: Yabause Rerecording
  • ZMV: zsnes
Posted: 5/3/2012 7:12 AM
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FractalFusion
Editor, Skilled player (1941)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247
Glitchy TAS of 2013 Gameboy TAS of 2013 PSX TASer of 2010
TheNewTeddy wrote:
Is there a way I can view the exact button presses? To see what was pressed and when?
In most emulators the button is period (".") by default, but you can change the key in settings.
TheNewTeddy wrote:
Lastly, how do you know something is entertaining?
I wouldn't worry too much about it. As long as you choose a game that has a definite end goal (completion of game) and it isn't a bad game, I think it's OK. However, you'll need to make a good TAS (the quality affects how people look at it). The easiest types of games to start out with are 2D platformers, but you can start with any game as long as you think it makes a good TAS.