thanks, I didn't know someone had done all that already :)
I'll have to wait about 5 weeks before I can give this a try though, as I have a uni project to do currently.
This may be interesting:
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/ahudson/
This is the winner from a programming contest a couple years ago, where the challenge was to develop the fastest route for a race, given simple car physics.
Although I would suggest F-Zero as a better candidate for a bot-assisted run. Its physics are simpler and there's no item system to complicate things.
This may be interesting:
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/ahudson/
This is the winner from a programming contest a couple years ago, where the challenge was to develop the fastest route for a race, given simple car physics.
Although I would suggest F-Zero as a better candidate for a bot-assisted run. Its physics are simpler and there's no item system to complicate things.
Good link. MK is more complex though, as obstacles may come and go, and move dynamically.
I'd prefer to do Mario Kart as F-Zero is less interesting, and I don't think the items would make MK much tougher.
my thoughts at the moment (could really do with a wiki):
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
use the US rom (it goes faster+better frame rate): "Super Mario Kart (U) [!].smc"
time-zones should all be quadralaterals
work out the 'frames-to-cross' and check what routes are possible by playing it through first at 25% speed.
change the time zones (route that the bot optimises) slightly for each lap to make sure it gets a power up each lap, and to alter the strategy when it can get several power ups in one lap
prune duplicates (orientation, position, height) (use hashing), unless this one has more coins or is going faster than the duplicate was
prune those that don't make it to the next time-zone in time
prune those which have their speed go to 0 or negative (eg if they hit something).
prune those that leave the time-zone (without advancing to the next).
prune those that fall into deep water/lava/off the edge or hit a mushroom/banana skin/invincible mario or luigi, or that 'spin out'.
if by going straight it would miss the next time-zone, must turn towards it
in time-zones marked (by hand) as 'straights' it cannot let go of accelerate, and cannot hop (unless that area is marked as hopping allowed - eg just before some shallow water)
Could change the input only every other frame (to decrease the search space). Then do another run, but with input changes every frame, using narrower time-zones closely fitting the route of the previous run.
I've drawn some route ideas, which assume it's on 150cc (faster+more shortcuts) and luck can be manipulated to get the power up of choice, here (9 downloads per hour limit, so if it doesn't work try later). Note that I just scribbled these over someone elses maps, so they have his writing on them too (originals avaliable here).
Remember you can't get stars when you're in 1st place, and you can't get feathers on Doughnut Plains or Mario Circuit.
I'm no MK expert, so suggestions on different routes/shortcuts are welcome (anyone know any secret jumps?)
thanks Guybrush :)
I made a little crappy TAS of MK 150cc just now, by playing at 40% speed and reloading often... I've got some new ideas for routes now (I'll update the zip file eventually).
Also, I think that rather than making it just single player as fast as possible, it would be amusing to make it 2 player; one controlled by the bot racing as fast as possible, the other controlled frame-by-frame by hand, with the aim of qualifying each round but coming 8th overall.
This is theoretically possible:
the bot would get 9 points for coming 1st each round: 5*9 = 45
five of the other karts can come second in a round = 6 points each
and one of the other karts can come third twice = 3 * 2 = 6 points
the kart controlled frame-by-frame would come 4th each round: 5 * 1 = 5 = the lowest overall score
I've seen it; but he only did it on the Flower Cup courses, and he didn't have to let one player come first each time.
I've changed my mind though, there'd just be too much going on on the screen to keep track of.
Here's a screenshot from my 30%-speed trial run. I'm going so fast (and sliding slalom-like) Lakitu gets confused and says I'm going backwards:
Getting closer to when I may actually have some time to work on this.
The old routes I posted were crap, these should be better
I'm pretty sure a lot of the most impressive shortcut jumps are only possible on 150cc mode, so I won't bother making this TAS unless I can do it in 150cc mode (which will mean getting an exception made for this run to start from a RAM).
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Huffers wrote:
I'm pretty sure a lot of the most impressive shortcut jumps are only possible on 150cc mode, so I won't bother making this TAS unless I can do it in 150cc mode (which will mean getting an exception made for this run to start from a RAM).
Do it in 150cc mode(we've said we want a 150cc mode TAS for a long time now), exception granted, now go!
Nitrogenesis wrote:
Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!
Arc wrote:
I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.
natt wrote:
I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it
Cooljay wrote:
Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P
I looked at the files, and there are better shortcuts than what you've drawn for most of them.
The following of the courses you posted have different routes/more abusive SCs:
BC1
BC2
The insane jump on BC3 is possible.
CI1
CI2
DP3
GV1
GV2
KB1 (you should use Mushrooms/Feathers to skip water. but this will be all Water SC.
KB2
MC2
MC4
RR
Assuming you're using the NTSC version.
In a different topic on this subject, I have posted a link to a page with a clip showing better routes, and earlier in this topic I list the courses that allow for finish line tricks, in one form or another.
An emulated run shouldn't need slowdown to pass difficult areas.
There's an offroad boosting technique you might not know about. It concerns delaying or creating boost and releasing it to go over an offroad surface without slowdown. There's also the concept of long-boosting, which involves using a Mushroom, crashing into a wall, and releasing the gas for a much prolonged boost. I don't know the exact mechanics behind it, myself.
I don't want to sound harsh, but if these are the routes you were planning to use, there is a chance people will be able to beat your times using a console.
Send me a PM if you like.
There is also a 150cc. records site with videos, etc. (Maintained by SeB), where you can see techniques routes and whatnot.
http://smkgp150cc.free.fr/
Andreas
I'm pretty sure a lot of the most impressive shortcut jumps are only possible on 150cc mode, so I won't bother making this TAS unless I can do it in 150cc mode (which will mean getting an exception made for this run to start from a RAM).
Do it in 150cc mode(we've said we want a 150cc mode TAS for a long time now), exception granted, now go!
smashing :)
A Runnelid wrote:
I don't want to sound harsh, but if these are the routes you were planning to use, there is a chance people will be able to beat your times using a console.
Thanks for the advice :)
Not harsh at all, the reason I put the routes up wasn't so much because I thought they were great, but because I thought I needed a starting point to get some suggestions/criticism as I had no idea,
I'll take a look at that site and your other forum post then update my planned routes.
I've improved the routes, new versions here. Any comments/criticism will be appreciated.
I've got some higher quality map png files ripped from the game now, but I'm still using the old crap ones for the moment
Note that many of these routes are crazy - but I want this run to be as glitched-out and manic as possible. A glitch free run can come later
The RAM I'll use is here. This is a empty/new ram on which I just completed the 100cc tracks myself.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Coming in last place overall in the tournament.
This is actually quite tricky, as you get disqualified if you come less than 4th on any of the races.
EDIT:
I've made a RAM map for Super Mario Kart :D
Here's a FAQ on GameFAQs called, ironically, "How To Lose".
http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/snes/file/super_mario_kart_lose.txt
Basically, you have to place 4th in all courses, AND somehow mainuplate the CPU to gain just enough points overall to place you in 8th at the end.
The author of the FAQ claims that getting 6th overall might be impossible, so trying to get 8th overall? Think about it. XD
such a video has already been posted, can't remember where though. tas probably, so yeah, doing it in real time should be very hard, but the result itself, the playing, do not look very impressive.
I never sleep, 'cause sleep is the cousin of death - NAS
Veteran Super Mario Kart player Hue Lee has posted a video of a Mushroom Cup 8th place finish console performance. It is linked from his profile on the below time trial page, if I'm not mistaken.
http://www.mariokart64.com/smk
Huffers: I will take a second look at these routes you have posted, but you seem to have covered most all of what I had in mind.
Andreas
just an update, I've wired up a stub of the bot to snes9x.
The stub successfully creates input, reads Mario Kart's variables, and saves/loads game states to/from arrays.
Now I'm ready to start working out the quadralaterals and the 'meat' of the bot.
just an update, I've wired up a stub of the bot to snes9x.
The stub successfully creates input, reads Mario Kart's variables, and saves/loads game states to/from arrays.
Now I'm ready to start working out the quadralaterals and the 'meat' of the bot.
Just working out the shortest path for each level won't do much especially if there is CPU interaction.
It would work for time-trials, though :). You could eliminate most of the computations by "hardcoding" the track width, length coordinates. Instead of taking a million years, it would only take about 100 ;).
Or are you just going to be using the bot for short segments? Like bisqbot?
Actually, I'm quite interested to see some of the pseudocode you have. I probably won't understand any of it, but I'm mainly interested in how you managed to interact with SNES9x remotely? Did you call some DLLs? Viewing fmod.dll just gave me a bunch of sound/music functions...
just an update, I've wired up a stub of the bot to snes9x.
The stub successfully creates input, reads Mario Kart's variables, and saves/loads game states to/from arrays.
Now I'm ready to start working out the quadralaterals and the 'meat' of the bot.
Just working out the shortest path for each level won't do much especially if there is CPU interaction.
It would work for time-trials, though :). You could eliminate most of the computations by "hardcoding" the track width, length coordinates. Instead of taking a million years, it would only take about 100 ;).
Or are you just going to be using the bot for short segments? Like bisqbot?
Actually, I'm quite interested to see some of the pseudocode you have. I probably won't understand any of it, but I'm mainly interested in how you managed to interact with SNES9x remotely? Did you call some DLLs? Viewing fmod.dll just gave me a bunch of sound/music functions...
I'm going to use the bot for the whole of the track, from just after accelerate is pressed to get a turbo-start, until it hits the finish line.
I got around the problem of calling snes9x remotely by... not calling it remotely! I've hacked in code to call my bot in the bit where snes9x checks for keyboard input.
