This is a TAS of Super Monkey Ball Expert mode, playing all the way through the Expert, Expert Extra and Master levels.
For comparison, the best known non-TAS time for this category is 16:09 (RTA timing) by MilesSMB (as of 03/14)
- Emulator used: Dolphin 4.0.2 64-bit
- Aims for fastest completion time
- Warp goals are used to skip levels
- Death is used to complete bonus stages faster
byrz:
I started this project thanks to Barhunga, he asked if I want to TAS this game (knowing I'm TASing SMB2) and I decided to give it a try. Right in the beginning keylie joined the project too and the progress was really fast all the way to the end. I probably wouldn't have been able to do this without the huge effort from keylie and diddykong14 and the support from Barhunga, for keeping me sane. I had a really great time TASing this game, probably the best time I will have for a long while. It's a bit sad it's over now, I will really miss working with these people. :( Anyway, it feels very unreal I was able to handle a project like this (two of them at the same time, actually) and get it finished.
keylie:
I started to work on this TAS after seeing Nahoc’s amazing WIPs and the great potential this game has for TAS. After doing a few stages, however, I realised how hard TASing this game was, mainly because of manipulating collisions. Also, the level of optimisation on the human-made ILs was very high, it was difficult to beat the WR times on many stages.
Anyway, the TASers from SMB2 came to this game, and everything was much easier to handle. byrz did an amazing job to coordinate the TAS, by providing savestates and grabbing WR times and videos in a nice spreadsheet. I had issues with desyncs because I used the 32-bit version of Dolphin, and the movie file made to work on the 64-bit version, so the savestates were really useful.
Individual Levels
| Level | Time left | Non-TAS IL WR | Comment |
|---|
| E1 | 28.35 | 28.35 | Actually not easy |
| E2 | 26.45 | 26.40 | .43 was thought to be really optimized. :o |
| E5 | 58.06 | 58.05 | All previous TASes had .05 in this stage but we got .06 accidentally on real time |
| E6 | 55.73 | 55.35 | The trick is going as early as possible |
| E7 | 51.05 | 47.40 | One of the most popular levels, we improved the TAS record by 3 frames |
| E8 | 27.01 | 27.00 | Pretty simple |
| E9 | 55.75 | 55.66 | Nice improvement |
| E10 | 27.46 | - | Nothing special |
| E11 | 23.46 | 23.06 | This time was achieved twice due to a desync issue the first time... |
| E12 | 55.63 | 54.63 | Really nice |
| E13 | 57.41 | 57.36 | This strat ended up 2 frames faster |
| E14 | 57.35 | 57.28 | Nice bumper abuse |
| E15 | 28.38 | 28.38 | Fun way to goal |
| E16 | 27.85 | 27.83 | Going left in the start is much faster |
| E17 | 27.91 | 27.90 | Requires a precise bumper hit |
| E18 | 21.83 | 21.75 | Really painful to optimize but we did okay |
| E19 | 57.60 | 57.58 | Yay, saved a frame |
| E20 | 27.85 | - | Getting over this way is extremely hard |
| E21 | 56.23 | 56.23 | Zigzagging in the wire is faster in this case |
| E22 | 54.66 | 54.63 | Barely made it into the last letter but it ended up nice |
| E23 | 27.91 | 27.91 | Annoying level |
| E24 | 43.01 | 35.93 | We performed a new extremely hard strat that saved several seconds :) |
| E25 | 24.70 | 24.63 | Slightly altered the record strat |
| E26 | 27.33 | 27.33 | A simple falling stage |
| E27 | 27.00 | 27.00 | Seems pretty optimized |
| E28 | 56.58 | 56.53 | Wow, nice time save in such a simple stage |
| E29 | 55.01 | 54.98 | Yay, got the 55 |
| E30 | 57.65 | - | Nothing special |
| E31 | 28.38 | 28.36 | Nice one frame cut |
| E32 | 47.56 | 46.43 | Grinding for longer in the first curve is slower |
| E33 | 27.83 | 27.76 | Cool optimization |
| E34 | 26.91 | 26.91 | Annoying level |
| E35 | 56.16 | 56.16 | Even more annoying level |
| E36 | 26.38 | 26.16 | Whoa, didn’t expect that time |
| E37 | 27.26 | 27.26 | Simple |
| E38 | 27.58 | 27.56 | It took a long time to reach the human record |
| E39 | 26.45 | 26.38 | Really simple and nice improvement |
| E40 | 27.00 | 27.00 | This time is surprisingly hard to achieve |
| E41 | 28.18 | 28.16 | Wow, improved a frame in such a short stage |
| E42 | 58.63 | 58.63 | Not as easy as it looks |
| E45 | 23.88 | 23.65 | Buggy camera makes it look like we slowed down :( |
| E46 | 23.73 | 23.41 | Looks pretty cool |
| E48 | 26.03 | 25.51 | Got 25.85 with a much cooler strat but whatever |
| E49 | 28.48 | 28.46 | Wow, didn’t expect to save a frame here |
| E50 | 25.36 | 24.35 | Found a new strat, one of the coolest in the TAS |
| EX1 | 26.00 | 25.96 | Cool, got 26 |
| EX2 | 26.76 | 26.75 | Simple and short level |
| EX3 | 26.71 | 26.71 | Too bad earlier cycle wasn’t possible :( |
| EX4 | 27.56 | 27.43 | Wow, how did we improve 8 frames? :o |
| EX5 | 27.01 | 27.00 | Nice 1 frame save |
| EX6 | 25.76 | 25.76 | Yeah |
| EX7 | 23.55 | 23.48 | Annoying level to optimize the beginning |
| EX8 | 27.68 | 27.68 | Really annoying |
| EX9 | 21.48 | 21.31 | Altered the strat and saved a nice amount of time |
| EX10 | 26.76 | 26.71 | Glitch goal! |
| M1 | 47.56 | 46.45 | Wow, somehow saved a second :o |
| M2 | 58.46 | 58.46 | Simple master strage |
| M3 | 54.41 | 54.41 | Another simple master stage |
| M4 | 54.05 | 53.08 | Abused the horrible collision of this stage for a new strat :) |
| M5 | 57.55 | 57.50 | Nice time |
| M6 | 58.71 | 58.71 | The easiest time to achieve in the run |
| M7 | 58.56 | 58.56 | Annoying level |
| M8 | 57.50 | 57.38 | Improvised a new strat in 5 minutes |
| M9 | 58.23 | 58.13 | Nice and smooth |
| M10 | 57.08 | 57.03 | Cool time |
Known improvements:
E50: ~0.5 seconds is lost in the transition out of this level. It is caused by the monkey getting between the goal posts again after already finishing the stage. This resets the transition animation and loses time. This was discovered too late.
EX7: byrz has done 23.58 (2 frames better) TAS of this stage after the movie was finished.
Note:
The amount of rerecords in the .dtm file is 30-50% smaller than the real amount of rerecords done during the project.
Ilari: Changed time from 13:01.067 to 13:10.783 and cleared the alert.
Nahoc: Claimed for judging...
Nahoc: Accepting for publication.