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Final Fantasy IX Game: Final Fantasy IX

I'm not sure if my help as WIP encoder is needed or not, but I won't be available until 3 weeks from now. Weird that it would show the length incorrectly, maybe the upload failed halfway through but it still processed? I've never had that problem. Then again, I don't use x264 for Youtube encodes, I just use a lossless codec with RLE.

Posted: 1/17/2012 12:56 PM

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antd

Joined: 3/18/2006
Posts: 971
Location: Great Britain

yes, it is needed as i will be busy for the next 3 weeks! i just noticed you are from the netherlands what a cool place

Posted: 1/17/2012 8:25 PM

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Lord_Bahamut

Joined: 9/7/2005
Posts: 144
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

antd, I wanted to thank you for taking the time to encode the WIP for this game. However, there is a bit of a sound desynchronization issue in the Youtube video. I skipped ahead to the end of disc one, basically the middle of the file, and the sound was quite a bit behind the video. It seemed like it was close to a second behind. Was this a result of Youtube's conversion, or is this desync present in your source file?

This guy are sick.

Posted: 1/17/2012 11:43 PM

Post subject: sound

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antd

Joined: 3/18/2006
Posts: 971
Location: Great Britain

the source doesn't have the problem, but it messes up once it is encoded by yt, it seems the parts of disc 2 that i've watched seem ok though

Posted: 1/21/2012 8:03 PM

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Lil_Gecko

He/Him

Player (98)

Joined: 4/7/2011
Posts: 520

Found a nice little trick to avoid the two first Mistodons battle in Alexandria. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWyAaPCr0uw 1) When you enter the trigger zone of the Mistodon, he stand up and a fight begin. However if you enter the trigger zone and exit it the next frame he stand up, but you don't have a fight. Just stay out of the trigger zone after and you can exit the place. 2) The trigger zone in the second place is very close to the exit. If you walk for one frame and then stop running on the last frame possible, you'll reach both the trigger zone and the exit at the same time. And the exit takes priority. So you avoid a mandatory fight and save a whole lotta seconds :)

Posted: 1/23/2012 12:28 AM

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Lil_Gecko

He/Him

Player (98)

Joined: 4/7/2011
Posts: 520

Ok I take back what I said. The Tetra Master Championship is definitely not a matter of a few frame. I managed to shave off about 5 seconds over the previous attempt. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT69CCjDvkw Game 1 and 3 are close to perfect but Game 2 can probably be improved by at least 1 second maybe 2. Did you manage to find something interesting Zanoab ?

Posted: 1/23/2012 12:32 AM

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DarkKobold

Skilled player (1652)

Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy

Lil_Gecko wrote:

Ok I take back what I said. The Tetra Master Championship is definitely not a matter of a few frame. I managed to shave off about 5 seconds over the previous attempt. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT69CCjDvkw Game 1 and 3 are close to perfect but Game 2 can probably be improved by at least 1 second maybe 2. Did you manage to find something interesting Zanoab ?

Wow, battles 1 and 3 are impressive. Makes me want to go back and improve FF8.

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.

Posted: 1/24/2012 2:53 AM

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Zanoab

Joined: 12/31/2009
Posts: 174

Nothing. College just started so I ran out of time. The improvement looks a lot better and cleaner. Have you done any experiments to see just how flexible the game is with hexing tetra master without causing desyncs later in the run?

Posted: 1/24/2012 6:34 AM

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Lil_Gecko

He/Him

Player (98)

Joined: 4/7/2011
Posts: 520

Yep. As I said, the RNG is frozen there. So the only thing that changes is lag frames appearing or disappearing here and there. No big deal. In the worst case scenario I'd have to redo World Map travels but that's all. PS : Reached Oeilvert. More than 3/4 of the game done. Finishing line is approaching :)

Posted: 1/30/2012 8:36 AM

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Lil_Gecko

He/Him

Player (98)

Joined: 4/7/2011
Posts: 520

Some Changes on Disc 2 : Changed Zidane's equiped Abilities in Cleyra to avoid unnecessary desequiping in Oeilvert. Made Beatrix hit Critical to kill one of the last Bandersnatch in Alexandria Castle and avoid Freya's attack. Unfortunately to make a critical I had to let the other Bandersnatch attack. This is still 30ish frames faster due to Bandersnatch being faster than Freya and give a way better RNG for the Ralvuimago (Snake) fight. Some frames are saved due to RNG manipulation being faster. 150ish frames saved in Ralvuimago thanks to this new RNG. When you're chased by Armodullahan (the big scary machine) in Fossil Roo, after you've passed the last axe, coming back to the monster will trigger its spining animation, so when you come back to the pit, you jump 50ish frames earlier than if you just ran for it. At the Black Mages Village, it's a total of about 5 seconds saved. Changes to be made : Dagger will be killed for the first visit of the Iifa Tree, Eiko for the second visit, so Zidane earn enough XP to level up to 17 at the end of the disc. That way, a random encounter can be shaved in Disc 3.

Posted: 1/30/2012 4:48 PM

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Tub

Joined: 6/25/2005
Posts: 1377

Every time you post, I'm impressed by the thoroughness of your research, and your willingness to redo large chunks of the game to save a few frames. This game is receiving a treatment and attention to detail that many games only get after several iterations. Looking forward to the results. On a semi-related note, your upcoming TAS and my discovery of the excellent Let's Play have motivated me to do some papercraft:

The arms and hands are still missing, the hat isn't glued on because I need to find a way to cram some LEDs behind his semi-transparent eyes first, and the feet won't be attached until everything else is done, but at least it's already looking a bit like a black mage :) I supersized the original model, so he's a good 40cm/17inch tall. Almost life-sized. ;)

m00

Posted: 2/12/2012 3:27 PM

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Lil_Gecko

He/Him

Player (98)

Joined: 4/7/2011
Posts: 520

Thanks Tub. This Vivi looks really nice ;) Little Update : I was working on polishing Disc 2 when I had an idea for a different strategy in Alexandria Castle. As Vivi's Blizzara is quite time consuming it would be faster to use Steiner's Counterattack. But Steiner is too weak to survive any physical damage. So to make this work, I need : - The ennemy to use a physical attack - Target Steiner - Miss - Trigger the Counter. The odds of all 4 happening is somewhat close to 0,2% but thanks to the rotating platform and the waiting period I have a whole bunch of different random numbers possible without wasting time. And I've been able to use this strategie both on Beatrix and the Black Mages. Little bonus it gave me better RNGs for the Bandersnatches so Beatrix is able to Critical twice so Freya don't have to attack. With a better RNG manipulation in Cleyra it's a total of 15 seconds saved back to Condie Petie. Here is the new Alexandria Castle part : www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2nMMSOVEuw The rest is the same for now.

Posted: 2/12/2012 6:20 PM

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Zanoab

Joined: 12/31/2009
Posts: 174

Just when I thought it could get anymore amazing, you manage to break it even more. Do you have any ideas on what characters you are going to use after Desert Palace?

Posted: 2/13/2012 2:48 PM

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Lil_Gecko

He/Him

Player (98)

Joined: 4/7/2011
Posts: 520

Well it will depend on what battles. But the main team should be the heavy hitters for the last battles so Zidane, Amarant, Freya, Steiner. Eiko and Dagger are completely useless. Vivi will be used one last time in Esto Gaza to cast Stop with his Oak Staff. Quina's Limit Glove might be useful once or twice but I'll have to recheck that. Not sure. On a side note, I check a while ago but didn't post it. Going to Oeilvert by foot is around 5 seconds faster than using Choco, unlike what I previously thought but is really annoying. As part of the Random Encounter formula is decide with the distance value and there's a long way to Oeilvert, after about 3/4 of the way the odds of a Random Encounter is close to 50% every 9 steps. So in conclusion, Choco is definitely needed in a RTS but useless in a TAS (40~45 seconds loss).

Posted: 2/13/2012 2:52 PM

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Dada

Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Nice to see you're still working on this. As soon as you finish disc 2 I suppose it might be a good idea to do another long WIP encode.

Posted: 2/27/2012 10:57 PM

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Lil_Gecko

He/Him

Player (98)

Joined: 4/7/2011
Posts: 520

EDIT : Improved the Ark fight. For those who may have watch the WIP I posted earlier, you can use savestate 1 to start at the Ark. WIP up to Desert Palace + Savestate 2 at the start of Disc 2 + Savestate 3 at the start of Disc 3 : https://rapidshare.com/files/3596697958/FF9TASWIP.rar

Posted: 3/3/2012 1:19 AM

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Lil_Gecko

He/Him

Player (98)

Joined: 4/7/2011
Posts: 520

About one hour to go ^^ Currently ~18min20s ahead of the japanese TAS. Final Time should be sub 7h40.

Posted: 3/3/2012 8:59 PM

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Wyster

Active player (302)

Joined: 9/2/2006
Posts: 504

Awesome progress ^^ Can't wait to see this run finished, even if it'll take nearly 8 hours to watch it all :P

Posted: 3/5/2012 4:12 AM

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Lil_Gecko

He/Him

Player (98)

Joined: 4/7/2011
Posts: 520

Reached Memoria. Meaning that all the hard parts to set up are done and that's an understatement to say that Nova Dragon was a pain in the ass even if it won't look like it. Just a few fights, easy to manipulate, left. I should finish this TAS before the end of the month ^^

Posted: 3/5/2012 11:13 AM

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Dada

Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Can't wait to start encoding this. :) You put a lot of effort in this run and went back to fix a whole bunch of things, so I don't doubt the final run will be really high quality.

Posted: 3/6/2012 2:19 PM

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