Joined: 9/7/2005
Posts: 143
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Patashu wrote:
It is now possible to skip Tower of the Gods by causing it to fail to load, by segmenting the actor memory in such a way that no contiguous segment is 500kb. In-depth explanation here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDHvmmkd3-Y
Would that save time over just doing the dungeon normally? Seems like an awful lot of setup.
Dragonbane found something that could potentially be useful for the TAS, Skipping cutscenes after a loading zone:
Link to video
To do this you need to get storage and then touch a loading zone for only 1 frame to activate it, but still have control of link afterwards. Then void out within roughly 1 second and link will appear on the next map as if he voided out. The cutscene never even gets called to play because voiding out is specifically designed to not play the cutscene in any area. Otherwise you could potentially watch the same cutscene twice if you voided out in certain areas. Now, because the cutscene never gets called, the flags associated with the cutscene never get called either, so we can't do this on cutscenes that need to set certain flags like the helmaroc cutscene in ff2.
We can now skip the cutscene before puppet ganon with two recent discoveries this morning, the first is the actual cutscene skip which dragonebane found:
Link to video
Since the cutscene is never called, puppet ganon never comes out and so therefor there are no keese, however we quickly figured out how to get around that issue:
Link to video
Overall this saves about 1:30 which is pretty sick
It also closes the gap between Italian and Japanese a little bit more. If we can find a few more cutscene skips, italian may end up being faster
Overall this saves about 1:30 which is pretty sick
It also closes the gap between Italian and Japanese a little bit more. If we can find a few more cutscene skips, italian may end up being faster
Are there glitches in the italian version that aren't present in the japanese one?
MUGG wrote:
Not RTA viable I suppose.
No. Maybe segmented.
Any other cutscene skips?
The helmaroc one, but that crashes the game, since the right animation set never gets loaded.
Are there glitches in the italian version that aren't present in the japanese one?
No, but NTSC/PAL doesn't have to do the quest to get the 5th triforce chart that the japanese version has to do, which saves around 5 minutes. There is one skip that JP has over NTSC/PAL though which is the barrier cutscene skip (another instance of void warping to skip a cutscene).
On another note, there was a theory quickly formed that you could skip earth and wind temple by going into hyrule a 3rd time with the triforce at ff3 by skipping the helmaroc cutscene and then going into ganondorf's lair again to play that sequence of cutscenes since the animation set would be correct. Unsurprisingly however The Wind Waker decided to say, "Fuck You," as it turns out that the cutscene in ganondorf's lair will only ever play once even though the previous helmaroc cutscene can be played an infinite amount of times. If you enter the zone again, you simply spawn in the room with nothing happening, and savewarping will take you back to windfall island for some reason.
Another interesting thing to note is that on the NTSC/PAL versions of the game, it actually is possible to pull the master sword in Hyrule 2 due to two lines of code being removed from how the game determines what layer you're supposed to be on, the only problem is we have the wrong animation set. It is possible to skip switching animation sets by skipping the helmaroc entrance cutscene at ff2 but once again the cutscene in ganondorf's lair says "fuck you" since it's a cutscene that only works with the second animation set, and therefor crashes with animation set 1.
No, but NTSC/PAL doesn't have to do the quest to get the 5th triforce chart that the japanese version has to do, which saves around 5 minutes. There is one skip that JP has over NTSC/PAL though which is the barrier cutscene skip (another instance of void warping to skip a cutscene).
Oh yeah, I knew that at some point. Totally forgot. It has been too long since I looked into TWW. Thanks for reminding me.
On another note, there was a theory quickly formed that you could skip earth and wind temple by going into hyrule a 3rd time with the triforce at ff3 by skipping the helmaroc cutscene and then going into ganondorf's lair again to play that sequence of cutscenes since the animation set would be correct. Unsurprisingly however The Wind Waker decided to say, "Fuck You," as it turns out that the cutscene in ganondorf's lair will only ever play once even though the previous helmaroc cutscene can be played an infinite amount of times. If you enter the zone again, you simply spawn in the room with nothing happening, and savewarping will take you back to windfall island for some reason.
Another interesting thing to note is that on the NTSC/PAL versions of the game, it actually is possible to pull the master sword in Hyrule 2 due to two lines of code being removed from how the game determines what layer you're supposed to be on, the only problem is we have the wrong animation set. It is possible to skip switching animation sets by skipping the helmaroc entrance cutscene at ff2 but once again the cutscene in ganondorf's lair says "fuck you" since it's a cutscene that only works with the second animation set, and therefor crashes with animation set 1.
This game is really convoluted in it's programming. That the devs shiped it this way on a console that wasn't updateable means they must have balls of steal. There are so many failure points it's mind boggling.
Now OoT, that's a robust game. You can torture it as much as you like, it will just continue working.
This game is really convoluted in it's programming. That the devs shiped it this way on a console that wasn't updateable means they must have balls of steal. There are so many failure points it's mind boggling.
Now OoT, that's a robust game. You can torture it as much as you like, it will just continue working.
I wouldn't say they had balls of steel, I'd just say they had a budget and a deadline of steel.
It is common for games to have plenty of crashes that aren't really possible in casual play or sometimes without cheats. As long as the game runs fine for the average player, there isn't much of a reason to fix every possible failure point.
The only thing that consoles that support updates have changed is that now they might not even bother to prevent failure points that COULD happen to casual players until after release.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
But with this many failure points there is quite a high chance that you missed something in testing, that could even effect casual players.
I'm not even sure why you wouldn't put additional checks in to prevent these crashes from happening. For every cutscene that starts, check if the right animation set is loaded, if not load it. If the right animation set was loaded that doesn't really add any load times, if it wasn't it adds some load time but prevents a crash. Seems like a win-win.
the game was definitely rushed ,according to interviews and some leftover found by the hacking community,but i don't think that would explain why the coding is done the way it is,i think it's more about the way this game has a lot of backtracking in various areas,so it needs all this global variables to make sure everything is at the exact same page all the time.
TAS i'm interested:
megaman series: mmbn1 all chips, mmx3 any% psx glitched
fighting games with speed goals in general
"Lol as far as I'm aware no distinguished TASer gives a f*ck what's accepted. I certainly don't like Bizhawk but I'm glad to hear at least some TASers are picking up the better emulator" a distinguished TASer
Working on:
-OoT No RBA/WW
-Zapper 100%
_______________________________________
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Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4083
Location: The Netherlands
FitterSpace wrote:
Kurabupengin wrote:
I'm too scared to think that this is splitted... I hope it's not...
It's not. He said he was considering submitting it here but that he's almost certain it wouldn't sync on anyone else's computer. Hopefully it will.
I think it certainly would be worth a try at least.
We've gone through sync hell with previous Dolphin submissions before. Even if it probably won't sync for many people, it might just work on someone's system.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Yeah, what has he got to lose by submitting the file here? Worst case it doesn't sync for anybody, then he is at the same point where not submitting would have put him, too.
Btw. is there video yet?
I did supporting work for Trog's TAS and I also developed the tuner Dolphin build. I would certainly like to have the TAS on here, because of its extremely high quality and the unlikely chance there will ever be a better one in the near and far future. But as mentioned, there are several issues which I think will block a submission:
-Afaik Trog messes around on the file name screen and changes Link's name once or twice. Only RTA timing was considered at that point, so this would look bad and extends the TAS timing needlessly
-To skip dialog/text Trog simply turbo mashes A and B the entire time. It doesn't loose any time, but I know unnecessary button spam is looked down upon on here
-The TAS randomly desyncs even for Trog and it is unknown if any other PC can even sync it at all
-Trog uses a hack to disable fadeouts to black from door storage so the game remains visible. This is done for entertainment purposes so the viewers see whats happening since otherwise the screen would just be black for 30 seconds. Fortunately the TAS still syncs with the hack disabled, but the dump will have it
-The following rule is violated since the TAS uses a custom unofficial build for tingle tuner support: "Always make sure your movie syncs on the official releases, use interim builds on your own risk. If it syncs on some interim build , but doesn't sync on any official release, it will be rejected"
The tuner implementation is also problematic. The way it works is that a "real" GBA controller is added to Dolphin, so the game is accurately under the impression that a GBA is connected. It will send requests/commands through the link cable exactly as a real console would do it. So far so good. But since VBA-M and Dolphin dont work together well enough to create a syncable movie, the custom build takes a shortcut to provide consistency. The commands are still received at the same intervall as on a real console, but the code of Dolphin itself analyses the commands and responds to them like a GBA would do it. The connection speed thus is accurate. The knowledge about how the GBA responds to game commands was gained through dumping the message stream between a Dolphin and VBA-M connection.
Pulling the tuner out and connecting to the GBA for instance is very accurate. But the big problem here is that as JosJuice mentioned the TAS Movie file doesn't store any GBA inputs, but commands the GBA should send to the game. It's saved as an arbitrary ID designed by me and simply contains the end result e.g "d-pad up pressed" which is quite accurate, but also something like "user bought a health portion". This command gets send from the fake GBA to the game which then reacts to it (subtracts rupees, gives portion, etc.). Navigating the tingler tuner shop doesn't occur.
Second big issue is that the implementation isn't complete. For example there is an activation delay between buying an item on the shop and the GBA actually sending the command to the game to activate it. This is done so you can't for example heal yourself every 5 seconds. This is ignored on the custom build and you could use items much more often if you wanted creating situations that are unable to be re-produced on a real console. Now Trog tested every single tuner usage on a real console and paid close attention to make sure he arbitrarily respects the activation delay down to the frame and everything else. Thus everything the TAS actually does works 100% confirmed on a real console in the exact same way and time which can be easily proven as well.
Still, as legit and amazing as the TAS is coming from the most trustworthy person there is, it would need serious bending of the site rules to get through submission. Again I would like to see it on here to reach an even bigger audience, since the TAS easily deserves that for the amount of effort that went into every aspect of it and the fact there won't be a better one for a long time. Having TWW finally on here would be amazing. But rules exist for a reason and thus I wouldn't be surprised nor sad if there is no possible way this wouldn't get rejected. It will get plenty of attention elsewhere I'm sure :)
personally,i think we should accept one of these situations: have the tuner tas with its custom emulator features accepted or stimulate our TASers to make a tunerless run and simply stop considering the tuner as a need/option for any% until it's possible to replay tuner TASes
let's face it,most of the player didn't have gba and cables to use the feature and will not actually miss it,this is a speedrun luxury.
(i had the gba and cables to use it but still i wonder how fair it is to have the external helped run to be the main category instead of the one with the basic features link has acess too)
TAS i'm interested:
megaman series: mmbn1 all chips, mmx3 any% psx glitched
fighting games with speed goals in general
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
dragonbane wrote:
-Afaik Trog messes around on the file name screen and changes Link's name once or twice. Only RTA timing was considered at that point, so this would look bad and extends the TAS timing needlessly
Speed/entertainment tradeoff. As long as it's not overly long (like, a couple minutes or so), it's okay.
-To skip dialog/text Trog simply turbo mashes A and B the entire time. It doesn't loose any time, but I know unnecessary button spam is looked down upon on here
Nothing wrong with this at all, I've seen it in many TASes over my time judging here and I think it's a legitimate tactic.
-The TAS randomly desyncs even for Trog and it is unknown if any other PC can even sync it at all
All it has to do is sync for an encoder or publisher. If one of them can get it to sync, then it won't be a problem (unless it completely fails to sync during the dumping process).
-Trog uses a hack to disable fadeouts to black from door storage so the game remains visible. This is done for entertainment purposes so the viewers see whats happening since otherwise the screen would just be black for 30 seconds. Fortunately the TAS still syncs with the hack disabled, but the dump will have it
This is akin to the Sonic camhack encodes. As long as it syncs without the hack, it's absolutely fine.
-The following rule is violated since the TAS uses a custom unofficial build for tingle tuner support: "Always make sure your movie syncs on the official releases, use interim builds on your own risk. If it syncs on some interim build , but doesn't sync on any official release, it will be rejected"
We are considering (though it is absolutely not final yet) accepting it regardless, mostly under the condition that Dolphin TASes are technically always done on interim builds anyway. This would be something the Judges and Admins would have to talk about further, but I would say that it shouldn't stop the submission in case we do come to the conclusion that we can accept Dolphin builds like these.
Case in point, I would absolutely recommend he submits it. The worst that would happen is an extremely respectful rejection for a reason that might even be overturned or redacted later, allowing the movie to still be published. Either it doesn't sync for a publisher or we decide at the moment that we can't accept the Dolphin build: I feel like someone, probably Fog or RGamma, will get it to fully sync, and I also have the feeling that our audience will want to see the movie published even if it means a slight breach of the rules (which a couple of the staff are already slowly getting on board with anyway).
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Second big issue is that the implementation isn't complete. For example there is an activation delay between buying an item on the shop and the GBA actually sending the command to the game to activate it. This is done so you can't for example heal yourself every 5 seconds. This is ignored on the custom build and you could use items much more often if you wanted creating situations that are unable to be re-produced on a real console. Now Trog tested every single tuner usage on a real console and paid close attention to make sure he arbitrarily respects the activation delay down to the frame and everything else. Thus everything the TAS actually does works 100% confirmed on a real console in the exact same way and time which can be easily proven as well.
Here's something to consider. Since the game receives GBA commands via the controller port, it's actually not necessary for the player to use a GBA to send the commands. The player could provide these commands through the controller port through other means (e.g. TASLink). We allow this for Super Mario World total control TAS. The game being TASed here is Wind Waker on GameCube. The GBA hardware is not strictly required from my perspective. Perhaps strict GBA emulation could be a separate branch though if this assumption really breaks things.
Here's something to consider. Since the game receives GBA commands via the controller port, it's actually not necessary for the player to use a GBA to send the commands. The player could provide these commands through the controller port through other means (e.g. TASLink). We allow this for Super Mario World total control TAS. The game being TASed here is Wind Waker on GameCube. The GBA hardware is not strictly required from my perspective. Perhaps strict GBA emulation could be a separate branch though if this assumption really breaks things.
I think it's not quite as simple, as the game sends a program to the GBA and actually checks if it's running there. But that doesn't mean that it can't be accepted, as long as the results are reasonably close to the real thing, imo. Afterall, this is TAS of TWW, not of the tingle tuner.
