Post by EEssentia

Posted: 5/19/2015 12:42 PM

Post subject: Re: TASBot block set for Saturday 8-1 @ 2:00 PM EST

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GoddessMaria

She/Her

Reviewer, Experienced player (862)

Joined: 5/29/2009
Posts: 518
Location: Hell...

feos wrote:

endrift wrote:
That said, I do have an interest in bringing along my GBPP if I can make it to SGDQ, and having already verified Sonic Advance...that might make for an interesting accompaniment. I should be able to tell very soon if I can go.
WOULD BE SUPERB!!!

Current projects: failing at life

Posted: 5/19/2015 12:45 PM

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scrimpeh

Editor, Skilled player (1438)

Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 2108

I concur.

Posted: 5/19/2015 2:14 PM

Post subject: Re: TASBot block set for Saturday 8-1 @ 2:00 PM EST

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andypanther

Any

Former player

Joined: 6/30/2010
Posts: 1107
Location: Zurich, Switzerland

GoddessMaria15 wrote:

feos wrote:
endrift wrote:
That said, I do have an interest in bringing along my GBPP if I can make it to SGDQ, and having already verified Sonic Advance...that might make for an interesting accompaniment. I should be able to tell very soon if I can go.
WOULD BE SUPERB!!!

Current project: Gex 3 any% Paused: Gex 64 any% There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.

Posted: 5/20/2015 12:38 AM

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endrift

Any

Emulator Coder

Joined: 12/14/2014
Posts: 161

Looks like my potential rooming plans to try and reduce the cost of me going fell through :/ So unless I can dig up another roommate, or a few hundred extra dollars (D:) I don't think I'll be able to justify going.

Posted: 5/20/2015 4:15 AM

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dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (907)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1014

endrift wrote:

Looks like my potential rooming plans to try and reduce the cost of me going fell through :/ So unless I can dig up another roommate, or a few hundred extra dollars (D:) I don't think I'll be able to justify going.

Definitely post on the SDA thread at: https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/sgdq_2015_roommate_thread.__booking_deadline_july_6th..html Oddly, I think you can even post without creating an account. I will be staying Thursday night through Saturday and at this point my wife (asassyknitter) will not be able to accompany me so perhaps that might work too. I am sure there's a solution one way or another...

I was laid off in May 2023 and became too ill to work this year and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD is stalled. I'm dwangoAC, TASVideos Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; when healthy, I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 5/20/2015 2:01 PM

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EEssentia

Joined: 4/13/2009
Posts: 431

It used to be the case that guest posting was allowed, but it is not any more. So you have to get an account. But still, posting there is a good idea to hook up with someone to reduce costs for all involved. Let's hope you can get there and have a great time. Would be a shame if you missed out due to unfortunate circumstances.

Posted: 5/20/2015 9:30 PM

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endrift

Any

Emulator Coder

Joined: 12/14/2014
Posts: 161

I'm a bit paranoid about rooming with random strangers, especially when that involves flying out to a city I don't know for a gaming-related convention. Especially considering my brand, of, uh, uniqueness, sometimes doesn't play nice with people who aren't quite as progressive as my friends. I'd want to room with someone who I feel like I can trust, at least at some level, which is a hard thing to get from someone I've never talked to.

Posted: 5/20/2015 9:42 PM

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dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (907)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1014

endrift wrote:

I'm a bit paranoid about rooming with random strangers, especially when that involves flying out to a city I don't know for a gaming-related convention.

Totally understandable. Unless there's a real necessity I'm planning on getting a room all to my own, although for slightly different motivations. :) (For one thing, I end up sleeping at really strange times every single time I go to a GDQ...) I hope you can make it but if you can't I've already prepared everyone to not expect console verification. If I *do* do console verification, it will be done with a split-screen setup where I have the intended encode / emulator output in one screen and the console verification on the other. Ikaruga is entirely excluded here, but I'm toying with the idea of doing it with Mega Man and I'm intrigued by the possibility of doing it with Sonic Advance. I don't have the requisite hardware for Sonic Advance (I only have a GC with no GB Player) so if you can't make it I'm going to assume it won't happen, and if only one of the runs is being console verified it's probably not worth doing it at all. That was a bit rambly, but all I'm trying to say is that if I can get both Mega Man and Sonic Advance console verifiable I can easily explain why it's impossible to do the same with Ikaruga due to disc read mechanics and it would probably be received better.

I was laid off in May 2023 and became too ill to work this year and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD is stalled. I'm dwangoAC, TASVideos Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; when healthy, I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 5/21/2015 7:20 AM

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Warp

Banned User

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

While of course you can never know, nevertheless the average speedrun aficionado doesn't seem like the bigoted type to me. Of course you should always be cautious with your valuables (ie. never leave your wallet and other valuables unattended where strangers could have access to them), but other than that I would estimate that any risks are pretty low. I'd say you are more likely to be assaulted when walking on the street than being harassed, mistreated or robbed by any roommates in this event.

Posted: 6/3/2015 5:25 PM

Post subject: Game research and familiarity

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dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (907)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1014

A couple of weeks ago I played through Ikaruga (the Steam version) with free play mode enabled, because the game is just that ridiculously difficult without it and I wanted to see what was past stage 2. Then I replayed some of the leaderboard high score runs of Ikaruga to see what near-perfect human play looked like, and finally I re-watched the TAS and saw how crazy different the strategies are. I am actively looking for someone to help with couch commentary for Ikaruga. This weekend I played through Mega Man (with rewind support) with my son, then we watched the three-way race of Mega Man from AGDQ 2015, then we watched the TAS. Playing it gave me a really good perspective of how difficult the game can be in casual play (my son, who is 8, commented that it's "crazy hard!" which amused me :). Watching the three-way race again was useful for seeing how unforgiving the game can be during a realtime run due to the level of difficulty of performing some of the skips. Re-watching the TAS, I could immediately identify how different the strategy was from realtime runs and I'm convinced that there will be ample opportunity for entertaining commentary. I have cleartonic on board for couch commentary. I've started on Sonic Advance but haven't finished yet. Out of all the games, this one is my son's favorite and he's been playing it a lot over the past couple of days. The other two games are just a bit too hard for him. :) I'll be going through the same exercise as I did with the other two, completing the games myself and then reviewing the human runs and re-watching the TAS. I have Kirbymastah on board for couch commentary. I'll start my first stab at rehearsing the hour-long block sometime next week, and the hope is to have the couch commentators available so we can do a rehearsal as well. I've registered for SGDQ, booked the hotel room for Thursday through Sunday, and booked a flight for the same (more details in off-topic at some point). I'm additionally attempting to organize pinball machines for the event, which is taking a bit of thought on the best approach. I'll continue to post updates here, especially as we get closer and the rehearsals get to the point where I might actually want an audience watching. :) Thanks in advance for any suggestions or comments, and thanks again to all who helped get this far!

I was laid off in May 2023 and became too ill to work this year and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD is stalled. I'm dwangoAC, TASVideos Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; when healthy, I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 6/8/2015 3:22 PM

Post subject: Good progress

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dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (907)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1014

I've completed a playthrough of Sonic Advance and re-watched the TAS, and I've watched the Tails realtime run from SDA. I'm more or less satisfied with the initial round of research I've done on the three games and I feel like I can start "commentary routeplanning", i.e. the order I'm going to talk about TAS things and with which games, with the goal of highlighting each example I talk about using the best example available from the three games with some sense of escalating difficulty as the hour progresses. I've more or less set up the environment I'll be using. For the time being, my plan is to run Rockman (Mega Man) inside FCEUX in Linux in full-screen and only casually mention the emulator by name, instead focusing on techniques common to all emulators (albeit perhaps with a Lua script to show off rewind and possibly memory value displaying on screen to show what other tools are available). My slant is decidedly toward helping realtime runners practice their games, so I'll be using an Xbox 360 controller with buttons mapped to frame advance, rewind, and savestate management. I've been looking for ways to use BizHawk in Linux, just because - none of the runs are for that emulator but I've always wanted to get that working. For the time being, native compiling is still not possible and my initial experiments using Crossover (WINE) didn't succeed potentially because I put it in a Windows 7 bottle but regardless I haven't yet found a good solution. So, I cheated and ran it in VMWare Workstation, which worked well enough. I hope to revisit getting BizHawk compiled natively at some point in the future. I'm happy to report that my trip expenses have been covered, for which I'm most thankful. I'll start streaming sometime soon, potentially this week, so everyone can see how things are progressing. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Thanks!

I was laid off in May 2023 and became too ill to work this year and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD is stalled. I'm dwangoAC, TASVideos Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; when healthy, I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 6/8/2015 3:44 PM

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feos

Site Admin, Skilled player (1250)

Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg

Just congratulations! I'm seeing what this is actually becoming, not what laymen like me would expect from running TASes on emulators, but a well-prepared educational (and entertaining) session!

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: 6/12/2015 1:43 AM

Post subject: Console verification confirmed, schedule is tight but doable

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dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (907)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1014

As of now, endrift is confirmed to be going and there will definitely be console verification for Sonic Advance. From previous conversations endrift made it clear that being on the couch wasn't at all interesting but said I could borrow the replay device, so I'll be presenting that on my own and giving credit to endrift. Additionally, I've put in a donation incentive to show [2601] NES Mega Man "game end glitch" by pirohiko & finalfighter in 00:32.11 immediately after Mega Man. I have effectively ~45 minutes of running time on the TAS's and ~15 minutes of extra wiggle room outside of when the TAS's are playing back, so anything that takes extra time during those 15 minutes is extremely tight. I'll have to ensure everything is as smooth as possible on transitions from game to game, and the console verification setup is at the forefront of my mind as a potential time risk. Because it is a single game, my hope is to have everything set up ahead of time, possibly by putting it on the PC table and pre-confirming video. We'll have to see how that pans out when we get there. Meanwhile, I've started practicing what Megaman would look like by setting up FCEUX in Linux with scripts pre-configured and buttons mapped so I can demonstrate TAS techniques using both a keyboard and a controller. I've been looking for ideas for glitches I can show off in Rockman but at a bare minimum I'll be showing off item manipulation and things like frame precision at the start screen (I will be memorizing the exact frames that I need to hit start on and demonstrating how to work through finding that frame manually). I don't yet have a working stream set up, but I have increased my bandwidth at home so I can start streaming as dwangoAC on Twitch. As soon as I get a solid patch of things to show on stream and get streaming up I'll announce it here, as I need a "crowd" to practice on. I think that's it for now other than a quick note that I'm still working on the sidelines to get pinball machines at the event and a pin for the grand prize. I'll keep everyone up to date as best I can as things progress.

I was laid off in May 2023 and became too ill to work this year and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD is stalled. I'm dwangoAC, TASVideos Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; when healthy, I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 6/15/2015 6:52 AM

Post subject: First live stream = way too long, practice needed

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dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (907)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1014

I set up my first Twitch stream in Linux and demonstrated my complete lack of preparation in front of 4-5 viewers, who watched patiently for a good 45 minutes while I delt with microphone issues, button mapping issues, FCEUX issues, and my own lack of skill at TAS'ing. You'd think I'd be faster at it by now. :) To rephrase, this was a dry run at seeing what talking about tool-assisted techinques and ideas would lok like, and even after I got most of the technical issues worked out it still took me far too long to explain the basiscs of item drops. I'll be tightening things up a bit so I can quickly go thorugh "this is the first frame you can start the game - TAS's are about perfection, so unless you're manipulating something you always start as soon as you can". I want to be able to smoothly demonstrate item drops, so I need to find the level that has an easily hit enemy relatively early in the level that can be easily manipulated in various ways, preferably both in movement and in the item drop. One of the things I set up was my Xbox 360 controller connected using Antimicro to map to keyboard keys to allow me to control frame advance and all gamepad functions from the controller. This worked well, but it was awkward trying to show it to my laptop's camera, so if I decide to do that for the marathon I may have to make a special request for a controller cam (and if I do that, I need to make that special request earlier rather than later). I think it's worth showing things using a controller as most realtime runners would likely be more familiar with that method but I suppose I'd be just fine with keyboard as well. I'm still dealing with some FCEUX issues which I've detailed in the emulator development forum but I have some time to potentially work through those issues and I may have other workarounds if Linux FCEUX doesn't make it in time, so I'm not too worried there. What I am concerned about is I haven't even started on prep work for commentary on Sonic Advance or Ikaruga, so I'll be getting to that soonish. Thanks again to everyone for the support and feel free to send comments or constructive criticism my way - I figure the more input I get the better this will turn out. More updates soon

I was laid off in May 2023 and became too ill to work this year and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD is stalled. I'm dwangoAC, TASVideos Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; when healthy, I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 6/22/2015 8:02 PM

Post subject: Second live stream results, some notes

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dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (907)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1014

The first live stream suffered from a bad microphone situation, so I invested in a USB headset (it's not comofortable but it does have a good mic, so that's a start). The second stream attempt was still lightly attended, which was for the best as I was still hacking around a few things. I did get the emulator into a sensible place by hacking the code a bit to advance one frame every 160 ms the button is held down, which is long enough I can successfully press it for just one frame but not so long it's unusuable. I'm still hoping for some improvements prior to the marathon if things go well. I learned a few technical things about Rockman I'll detail in this paragraph. There are 8 frames of lag with the first frame of input at frame 9 (hitting start to get past the title screen). Frame 142 is the first frame input is accepted on the level accept screen, and it seems like the best method of advancing to Bombman is left wait left wait left wait select, but I need to confirm this. At Bombman stage, frame 768 is the first frame that responds to input (namely, the start button), so I start holding right there and jump at frame 809, holding jump and right until frame 827 and firing on frame 828. After that point, there are a couple of different item drops that are obtainbale depending on what directions are pressed. My goal is to take the information I've learned above and practice going through those steps as fast as possible, as in, practically speedrunning TAS'ing by memorizing the button presses so I can fluidly explain what's going on as quickly as possible. I want to get to the point described above of firing at the first enemy on the Bombman level and demonstrate luck manipulation by forcing the enemy to give me different drops. From there, I'll replay the short segment to demonstrate the level of perfection and show how a few minutes of realtime human effort ends up being a very short segment, highlighting how TAS'ers and realtime runners use different skills to do things "quickly". From there I'll need to quickly transition to Sonic Advance, which could be a bit tricky as I won't have an opportunity to test the hardware board until I arrive on Thrusday night. I'll hammer out how to synchronize the realtime run and the camhack run - perhaps endrift has an idea on how we might trigger this, knowing that there are a different number of lag frames on the console variant (I won't be able to get it frame perfect, but I'm hoping to get somewhat close, so perhaps simply doing a 3-2-1-go countdown is fine). I now have a verified Ikaruga commentator, so I have couch commentary for all three runs at this point. We'll see how the couch rounds out at the event. Progress every week is a good thing - more to come.

I was laid off in May 2023 and became too ill to work this year and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD is stalled. I'm dwangoAC, TASVideos Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; when healthy, I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 6/22/2015 8:13 PM

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EEssentia

Joined: 4/13/2009
Posts: 431

Well, I'd say a good headset or headphones is required for a great deal of things. Myself, I tend to just use one of those mics to tuck to your shirt because finding a some good headphones is a challenge in itself, not to mention finding a good headset with a good mic. I was bloody lucky I found the ones I have now that I've used for a couple of years... I have yet to find a replacement for when the time comes. So by separating them, it becomes a good deal easier, I think. Anyway, good to hear you're making progress, and good luck with the rest of the practice!

Posted: 6/23/2015 12:57 AM

Post subject: Re: Second live stream results, some notes

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endrift

Any

Emulator Coder

Joined: 12/14/2014
Posts: 161

dwangoAC wrote:

From there I'll need to quickly transition to Sonic Advance, which could be a bit tricky as I won't have an opportunity to test the hardware board until I arrive on Thrusday night. I'll hammer out how to synchronize the realtime run and the camhack run - perhaps endrift has an idea on how we might trigger this, knowing that there are a different number of lag frames on the console variant (I won't be able to get it frame perfect, but I'm hoping to get somewhat close, so perhaps simply doing a 3-2-1-go countdown is fine).

The computer that's playing back input knows when a certain frame is being replayed. It could start the emulator at a certain time, but I'm not sure VBA-rr is scriptable enough to let us do this easily. I can try to ask someone who knows VBA-rr better? Also, I could probably pop up some weekend before SGDQ to try and help preparations. I have a few weekends left. E] Looks like I'm going to have to write some code to do the unpause, and beyond that writing a trigger module doesn't look too bad.

Posted: 6/23/2015 10:33 PM

Post subject: Re: Second live stream results, some notes

Quote

dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (907)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1014

endrift wrote:

E] Looks like I'm going to have to write some code to do the unpause, and beyond that writing a trigger module doesn't look too bad.

Don't go too out of your way to make this happen, it's a way higher priority for replay to be consistent and reliable than it is to have them synchronized exactly. I will likely set it up so that the audio of only one of the runs is played back, which should be sufficient. If this is something you *want* to do, I definitely won't stop you, because I think it'd be cool. :) Thanks!

I was laid off in May 2023 and became too ill to work this year and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD is stalled. I'm dwangoAC, TASVideos Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; when healthy, I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 7/18/2015 4:47 PM

Post subject: Progress is still being made, mostly on the race

Quote

dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (907)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1014

It's been a while so it's time for a status update. First, the majority of my preparation time as of late has been devoted to the speed TAS race, and I'm very happy to say that I've identified the NES game that will be used for the contest. It took me a long time to find something that could be freely distributed and is of an appropriate length but I've found a fantastic choice that's fun to TAS and can be completed in the right amount of time. I've cleared the contest with GDQ staff as well as TASVideos staff and I can now announce that the contest will start at the end of Ikaruga and will run for a bit more than 4 hours through the end of Super Mario 64 (I'll give grace and officially stop submissions after the last player has completed the game). Because there's always long setup time for the Super Metroid race I'll likely make an official announcement between Super Mario 64 and the start of the Super Metroid that the race has ended with some statistics about the number of entries, probably re-explaining what the race was about as viewership will be near its highest. I'll announce that the winning result will be shown after the Super Metroid race concludes. During Super Metroid I'll encode it as a WebM format that the GDQ tech crew can directly play inside a stream layout view; it has yet to be determined if I'll be doing a single video or a race between the top two entrants or if Tompa's video will be guaranteed to be shown or not (it hasn't been promoted that way yet and I want to confirm with Tompa that he's avaialble and with the tech crew that there is layout space). Technical info: To ensure that TASVideos.org doesn't crash, Nach will be switching the site to static mode. We're still working on a submission handling method but I've determined a memory address in the target game that goes to a specific value when the game has been completed which we can use to automatically judge submissions with a script. The first pass will accept but silently discard movies longer than a known very sloppy completion time and the second pass will verify movies using a Lua script, hopefully in both BizHawk and FCEUX to allow both emulators to be used. I hope to encode the two fastest movies and play them back as a race which also allows some wiggle room in case emulation differences between the two emulators becomes the determining factor in game completion time. There's still more work to be done on this front and I'm more than willing to get some help from some volunteers. In non-race related news, I'll be contacting the couch commentators to organize stream practices this week. It will be far easier to practice on-site but I'm hoping to at least make a Google Hangouts style introduction and walk through each game at least once prior to the event. I did a practice run through explaining TASing with Rockman in front of a live audience at a recent NBLUG.org meeting and I took over 10 minutes so I still have some trimming to do to condense it down to less than 5 minutes. I still need to practice transitioning between games but I suspect that will have to happen after I'm at the event to be able to get a sense of how long some of the transitions will take. Things I need help with if people are willing: - I need a high-quality encode of the camhack version of Sonic Advance in WebM format, either by transcoding an existing video file or re-dumping it - I need help with Lua scripting to automate the speed TAS race judging - I need a volunteer who is reputable and can keep a secret well to run through the target game to provide feedback on their experience so I can be better prepared for how people other than myself will approach the game; this person will have my thanks but unfortunately will be restricted from participating in the actual event for hopefully obvious reasons :) - EVERYONE: If you have the ability to promote SGDQ in general, please go to http://imgur.com/a/dWcAZ and post the promotional images on web properties you have control over; TASVideos will display the banner a week or so prior to the event pending me prodding Nach a bit That's it for now - more updates as they become available, and feel free to ask questions as they always seem to help me sharpen what I need to be focusing on. Thanks!

I was laid off in May 2023 and became too ill to work this year and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD is stalled. I'm dwangoAC, TASVideos Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; when healthy, I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 7/19/2015 10:51 AM

Post subject: Re: Progress is still being made, mostly on the race

Quote

feos

Site Admin, Skilled player (1250)

Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg

dwangoAC wrote:

- I need a high-quality encode of the camhack version of Sonic Advance in WebM format, either by transcoding an existing video file or re-dumping it - I need help with Lua scripting to automate the speed TAS race judging - I need a volunteer who is reputable and can keep a secret well to run through the target game to provide feedback on their experience so I can be better prepared for how people other than myself will approach the game; this person will have my thanks but unfortunately will be restricted from participating in the actual event for hopefully obvious reasons :)

- What resolution? - Let me try. - Let me try, but it'll have lower priority than the above 2.

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: 7/19/2015 3:28 PM

Post subject: Re: Progress is still being made, mostly on the race

Quote

dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (907)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1014

Some updates - Aktan is helping out with the encodes, which have shifted somewhat over the last 24 hours as we discussed with CoolMatty and ironed out what was needed and we're still ironing out things like whether subtitles are needed. Solarplex is helping me work out what it will take to judge submissions automatically in BizHawk; we now know that importing an .fm2 from FCEUX into BizHawk only requires adding a single frame to allow it to sync so we can do all automated judging in BizHawk.

feos wrote:

- What resolution? - Let me try. - Let me try, but it'll have lower priority than the above 2.

Feos, you're welcome to assist with the first two tasks with Aktan and Solarplex respectively. If you'd like to be a beta tester for the contest and be willing to be excluded from participating please contact me privately. Thanks!

I was laid off in May 2023 and became too ill to work this year and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD is stalled. I'm dwangoAC, TASVideos Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; when healthy, I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 7/24/2015 3:22 PM

Post subject: Encodes ready, auto-judging Lua ready, need upload page

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dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (907)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1014

Aktan has created an amazing encode for Sonic Advance that is absolutely fantastic. After discussing with RGamma and Aktan I'll use the Modern HQ encode of Ikaruga - I was originally worried it was too muddy but I was coming from an unfair bias of having played Ikaruga on Steam and I'm now convinced that the encode is faithful to the Game Cube graphics. This means I now have all of the encodes I need. Solarplex has made substantial progress on an auto-judging Lua script for the speed TASing competition but I haven't had the same success in finding a volunteer to write an upload page. In brief, I need someone to write a simple upload page for use on TASVideos.org during the competition that takes only BizHawk and FCEUX movie files (preferably unzipped) and places them in a location that Solarplex's script can read, i.e. a simple folder structure. The same page will need some introductory text that I will provide as well as allow downloading the legally redistributable ROM file of the target game. I did another live run-through of demonstrating TASing tools using Mega Man in front of a live audience, this time with a coffee social group at a local Petaluma workspace. The audience was primarily not video game players and I ran over by a minute so I need to keep practicing. The 5 minute limit is going to be very tight for this, but I just can't spare any more time out of the setup time. Endrift will be coming up this weekend to do a runthrough of the console verification of Sonic Advance and we'll practice synchronizing the encode from Aktan and the console verification playback. Thanks, Endrift! The remaining areas of concern I have are that I really don't have a great grip on some of the things I should be talking about with the commentators. I've reached out to each of the couch commentators but haven't received a response just yet as most are busy preparing for the event as well, so practice for that will have to take place once I arrive. I'm concerned that I won't have enough time to fully comprehend some of the tricks used in Mega Man and Sonic Advance, and even for Ikaruga I'll need to find the right balance in talking about the difficulty of running the game with the couch commentator and splitting away to explain the speed TASing race. I want to do the best job I can and these are the areas that I know still need work. Thanks to everyone for all of the support - more updates as they become available.

I was laid off in May 2023 and became too ill to work this year and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD is stalled. I'm dwangoAC, TASVideos Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; when healthy, I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 7/28/2015 3:37 PM

Post subject: During SGDQ / pre-attendance update

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dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (907)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1014

I haven't left for SGDQ yet (my flight arrives in MN on Thursday) and I'm still wrapping up some loose ends. Endrift came over and we successfully console verified Sonic Advance on my laptop while simultaneously playing back the high quality encode Aktan made of the camhack. Endrift has primarily been watching the Game Cube version and commented that the camhack was like a behind-the-scenes view. We won't be able to easily synchronize the start times of the two videos but we'll do the best we can. I have some volunteers to get the static site for the competition ready, namely RGamma and Raiscan, hopefully we can get everything to a point where it's copacetic for Nach. I tried promoting the speed TAS'ing competition with a $50 donation comment but the comment wasn't read - I'll try again a couple of times this week to get the word out. Others are welcome to do the same in their donation comments but don't include URL's, it would appear a bot auto-rejects comments. At this exact moment I'm most concerned that I still don't fully understand some of the glitches going on in the runs I'm supposed to be commenting on (especially how the NMI bit works with the glitched Mega Man ending) and I anticipate doing some last-minute research while at SGDQ as well as practice sessions with the other commentators of each game. I have not yet practiced Sonic Advance commentary or Ikaruga commentary, and Ikaruga is the period where I'll be explaining the race, so I need to make sure I balance the time there correctly. This will likely be my last pre-SGDQ attendance update - I'll try to get one more in before Saturday after I make it to the event. Thanks for the support, all!

I was laid off in May 2023 and became too ill to work this year and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD is stalled. I'm dwangoAC, TASVideos Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; when healthy, I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 7/28/2015 4:21 PM

Post subject: Re: During SGDQ / pre-attendance update

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feos

Site Admin, Skilled player (1250)

Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg

dwangoAC wrote:

At this exact moment I'm most concerned that I still don't fully understand some of the glitches going on in the runs I'm supposed to be commenting on (especially how the NMI bit works with the glitched Mega Man ending)

I'll read the google translated version of this super detailed explanation. http://ch.nicovideo.jp/TASVideos/blomaga/ar529967 Will see if I need help of people speaking real Japanese.

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.

Forum Site TASVideos involvement at SGDQ 2015 (preparation phase)

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TASVideos involvement at SGDQ 2015 (preparation phase)