Posted: 1/13/2015 7:38 PM
Post subject: Hi everyone! I'm new and would like to do a TAS playthrough
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MasterRambo
He/Him
Joined: 1/13/2015
Posts: 4
Location: United States
(Sorry for the long post. Please bare with me since I'm new) Introduction: Hi, my username is MasterRambo. I just registered and am excited to get started to do my first TAS work gameplay. I would like to tell what I do and who I am but that's irrelevant to this topic that I'm typing about. I've read most of the FAQ's and Newcomer topics on the forums so forgive me if I ask a question that's already been answered in these topics. I've pretty much captured enough information to get started and navigating around this website :) Although I'm new to this website and creating a tasvideo-approved video, I'm not new to TAS videos in general. I've made some very simple "save-states" and "slow-frame" tas videos in the past and viewed a tremendous amount of TAS videos. But I'm still a newb to all this so bare with me. Game I want to TAS: The game I would like to TAS is an infamous N64 shooter game called "Sarge's Heroes" developed by "3DO" primarily for the Nintendo 64 (also made for the PC, PS, and Dreamcast) in the United States. Overall it's a sandbox 3rd-person shooter with small objectives and rescue missions. It involves passing through obstacles and shooting your way out of missions. There are no boss (or any major fights) in this game. It's pretty linear and you keep going straight w/o any backtracking. It was my childhood video game and I absolutely loved every single second of it. I don't know how many of you heard or even played this game. Unfortunately I've searched all around for a TAS of this particular game and found no results. To the best of my knowledge (correct me if I'm wrong) but no one is working on this particular game at the moment. A brief overview of the game can be found in its wiki page HERE. Questions and Concerns: 1) Is this game eligible to TAS and to be published into this website? note: I've played this game in "Project 64" emulator and it ran well. Of course it was the NTSC version and it was a good ROM. 2) If not, there are other games that I played similar to the game mentioned above. Can any of these also be considered to be TAS'ed and published?: a) Sarge's Heroes 2 b) Battle Tanx: Global Assault 3) If so, what emulator would you recommend using? I've viewed the recommended emulators in the tas page but I would like to double-check with you guys just in case you guys recommend another/different emulator. 4) Have any of you guys actually heard or played this game before? I'm just curious to see how popular this game is. note: if there is someone who actually played this game and liked it as much as I did, then may I ask them to work and collaborate with me? Working alone to find glitches and the fastest route possible will be a challenge for me. Well, that's all I have for now. Again, sorry for the long post and I'm looking forward to your responses with this game!
Posted: 1/13/2015 8:00 PM
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Samsara
She/They
Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2239)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
Hey, welcome to the forums. Hope you stick around for a while! I suggest checking to see whether or not the game runs in Bizhawk, as that's the recommended N64 emulator for the site. If it works, then by all means go ahead and start a run! If there isn't already a thread in the N64 Games forum, then start a thread and post your progress frequently to get feedback from the rest of the community. There's a place for every game on the site, even ones that might not be considered entertaining by everyone. What we look for is technical quality more than anything, so if you put a lot of work into optimizing a run then it'll definitely be published.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family. Now infrequently posting on Bluesky
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 1/13/2015 8:08 PM
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Dimon12321
He/Him
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (596)
Joined: 4/5/2014
Posts: 1223
Location: Romania
You made so difficult choice for a newcomer: you want to start your TASing hobby with a 3D shooter game. Every shooter for N64 should be a tool-assisted speedrun, i.e. aims for the fastest time. Project 64 is not accepted on TASVideos, so you should download Bizhawk emulator! Unfortunately, there is no so much emulators for different suggestions, Mupen 64 has bad emulation and very few TAS tools. To start with, you should read everything in Movie Making spoiler there to know the basic knowledge about TAS making. Remember, only high-quality movie have chance to get published on TASVideos.org. Every movie must be done frame-by-frame which takes much time, not some days fastly in slow motion! I didn't find Battle Tanx entertaining for TASing. I had a movie with a short WIP, but deleted. Good luck!
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
Posted: 1/13/2015 10:40 PM
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MasterRambo
He/Him
Joined: 1/13/2015
Posts: 4
Location: United States
Thank you guys for all of your information. I know TAS'ing 3D shooter games can be very difficult and tedious at times. However, I will review the requirements and slowly practice first. My first priority is to meet all the technical demands prior to starting a TAS. Then I will make an armature, practice, preTAS, or prerun to get used to the level layouts and goals. Afterwards I will start the run level-by-levels, one at a time. At this point I don't care if it takes me 1 year to complete this TAS, I just want to have an established TAS record of this game since no one else has. Like I said before, I have a strong passion for this particular game so I will be fine taking 3-4 hours to complete a 10 second run :) Anyone else who has more tips and tutorials pls don't hesitate to post them. I want to learn as much as you guys do :D
Posted: 1/14/2015 6:30 PM
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Samsara
She/They
Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2239)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
One of the best tips I can honestly give is this: After you complete a practice run, watch it multiple times looking for improvements, since you're bound to find quite a few, and write them down somewhere (Notepad or a spreadsheet) with the frame time and as detailed of an explanation as you can give yourself on how that section can be improved. Once you feel as though you've gotten a fair number of improvements, start the next run... And once you finish that run, look for improvements again. Doing this helps in quite a few ways: With each run you do, you become more familiar with the emulator and the TASing process as a whole, so your future runs will become more efficient as you learn your way around the tools as well as becoming more optimized since you'll know more about what you're doing. Alongside becoming more familiar with the emulator, you become more familiar with the game itself, and you have more of a chance of finding new speed tricks or glitches that can shave even more time off of future runs. The other best tip I can give is just echoing what I previously wrote: Post WIPs to your userfiles and get advice from the community by posting in the game's thread (look for a previous one before you start a new one). Different people will catch different improvements: You'll find some on your own, someone else may find some small frame optimizations, someone else may find a brand new glitch that shaves off a good 10 seconds over the course of the run... Even people who don't know the game all that well can help just by asking questions and getting you to think about things you may not have considered otherwise. As long as you have the patience to stick around in the community, you'll get better in no time.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family. Now infrequently posting on Bluesky
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 1/14/2015 7:12 PM
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MasterRambo
He/Him
Joined: 1/13/2015
Posts: 4
Location: United States
Many thanks Samsara I'll keep that in mind. Also, one more thing, is there any tutorials, videos, or links you can direct me on how to start using bizhack emulator. I'm pretty sure there are some in the forums but since I'm not familiar with this website yet, I get pretty lost and confused XD. Sorry for the constant noob questions :P
Posted: 1/14/2015 7:50 PM
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creaothceann
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Editor
Joined: 4/7/2005
Posts: 1874
Location: Germany
Just do try it.
Posted: 1/15/2015 12:34 AM
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MasterRambo
He/Him
Joined: 1/13/2015
Posts: 4
Location: United States
creaothceann wrote:
Just do try it.
I think I'll do it. I'll figure out how to work this emulator. like they say: "repetition is the mother of all learning" :)