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Post subject: Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
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Having been inspired by watching some recent N64 games in progress, I've decided to try my hand at my first 64 speed run and I think this game would make a good first try. I played the hell out of this game when I was younger, and it's probably the game I know the most little glitches about. However I have a few questions, mainly: First off, would anyone be interested in this game? The SDA run is an few seconds shy of being an hour and three minutes, and after watching the first two segments I feel pretty confident I could shave it to at least under an hour at the very least (I was thinking of 50-55 minutes as a target time), so it wouldn't be a marathon to watch the whole movie in one sitting. Any knowledge of which Mupen plugins might work the best would really be helpful, I've played around with both the Jabo 1.6 and glN64 0.4.1, but don't really know which one would be better. Also, since I'll probably be doing most of this run at 30-50% speed (with random frame advances), I don't think I'll need to use the TAS input plugin, and was thinking of sticking to N-Rages Direct input 1.6 since I'm most familiar with it, but I'd welcome any recommendations. Soo... any thoughts? I'm on 5 weeks of Christmas break, so I'll have bunch of time on my hands and I think this would be a great way of doing it:) I'll see what I can come up with in the next couple days for a WIP to show, but if you have any advice I'd love it, since I'm new the the N64 side of TASing.
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First off, would anyone be interested in this game? The SDA run is an few seconds shy of being an hour and three minutes, and after watching the first two segments I feel pretty confident I could shave it to at least under an hour at the very least (I was thinking of 50-55 minutes as a target time), so it wouldn't be a marathon to watch the whole movie in one sitting.
I'd be interested in this for sure. The more n64 TASes the better, and also the game seems suited for it.
Any knowledge of which Mupen plugins might work the best would really be helpful, I've played around with both the Jabo 1.6 and glN64 0.4.1, but don't really know which one would be better. Also, since I'll probably be doing most of this run at 30-50% speed (with random frame advances), I don't think I'll need to use the TAS input plugin, and was thinking of sticking to N-Rages Direct input 1.6 since I'm most familiar with it, but I'd welcome any recommendations.
Not sure which plugins the best, but you should pick the one the looks the best graphically and runs well. Also, you should use Frame Advance all the time unless you don't want a more optimized run, and make it harder on yourself at the same time. Frame Advance is actually way easier to use despite what you may think. It just takes a little bit to get used to. Once you're used to it you'll never go back.
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The first thing you are going to want to do is get in contact with nfq- he made a TAS of this game and got 39 minutes, but never submitted, thinking it could get improved. Talking with him you might be able to get a hold of his .m64 (the link in the N64 wishlist expired) and see if he can offer help and find improvements. (I'd hate to be talking for other people, but it'd be a good idea to get in touch with him regardless.) I'm not sure how he got such a time improvement, but I guess that means don't solely use the SDA run as a reference. people will be interested in this game, especially if you do a good job on it. the only problem is that sometimes the sprites in the background do not actually show up for a while making areas look smaller than they appear. But the game is popular enough and action packed enough to be good I believe. I'm not sure about plugins, but testing out mostly the three video plugins- Jabo, gln64, and Glide64. What I do know is that the 1.2 ROM seemed to work best for nfq- he tried 1.0 and 1.1, but got the most success with 1.2. Frame Advance is way more useful than you'd think... especially if you add perfect head shot as soon as you get firing weapons. And I'd recommend the TAS input plugin even if you think you're not going to need it. It is the best N64 tool there is. And 30-50% speed- do whatever brings the best results, I remember Turok running very fast, and you'd need very precise control of his fast movement. I look foward to any work that you produce, and wish you luck!
OgreSlayeR wrote:
Also, you use Frame Advance all the time unless you don't want a more optimized run, and make it harder on yourself at the same time. Frame Advance is actually way easier to use despite what you may think. It just takes a little bit to get used to. Once you're used to it you'll never go back.
Very aptly put. Once you learn how to TAS with Frame Advance there is no looking back- it actually becomes easier and more optimized at the same time.
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Thanks for the quick responses, and I'll definitely take it all in. I've actually had quite a lot of experience with frame advance during my GBA Silent Scope (which was almost entirely done using it), but I figured that for a lot of the stuff in the earlier levels (where there isn't as much activity and a lot more running), 30% would be appropriate, but I'll just see what feels best at the time. And thanks for letting me know about nfq's run, I didn't manage to get through all the pages in the N64 wishlist to see if there were any other mention of the game. I'll definitely get in contact with him in the next couple days to see if he'd be willing to offer any help and advice.
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Do headshots actually count in this? I don't remember them being any more effective until the second game. edit: what ROM did you make that with?
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1.2 ROM, if I recall from your post way back in the N64 wishlist, correct? Anyways, in selecting the movie file it'll say if you have the right ROM or not with the CRC ID#. Also, I wanted to see that run for a while after seeing that it had expired. I'll take a look.
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after watching the first 5 levels: holy poop I would have voted yes... the platforming alone warrants acceptance
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That was pretty entertaining, it could of even been published if you submitted it. If you can top that mmbossman, I have no question that it will be published here.
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Post subject: Re: Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
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mmbossman wrote:
I don't think I'll need to use the TAS input plugin, and was thinking of sticking to N-Rages Direct input 1.6 since I'm most familiar with it.
*Alarm Bells* I would highly recommend using the TAS input plugin as it allows considerable control over movement. You can select any degree of movement maually with ease and combined with frame advance you get incredible results. Direct input only lets you move ^99 >99, etc. and not anything more accurate in a specific context such as ^46>22 for a quick turn or something. But this sounds if it could be a great run. Go for it :) I would never use anything other than TAS input, unless the game was a special exception that didn't need it (for example, my Gex run was done using direct input because it was based on a PSX title that meant he could only move in 16 directions anyway).
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Poof.
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** After watching ** Ummm... yeah, holy crap. I have no idea why you didn't submit this, since I think it easily would have been accepted, but since you didn't I think I'll take a "stab" at it. I'm glad to see you used both the water skipping and wall jumping tricks, although now that people know they're out there my run won't be as impressive;) Still, unless you're still working on a revised run nfq, I think I'll start this project up today. Oh, and I think I'll use the TAS input plugin Mukki, I think I haven't liked it as much because I've never tried to do frame by frame with it, but I'm sure it is better.
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Thanks for the compliments. mmbossman, I guess the reason I didn't submit it is simply because I don't think it's good enough. It should be possible to get below 37 minutes. I used a stupid joypad, but with a keyboard and the TAS plugin you could have more precise movements but it's hard to play with keyboard so I never remade the run. Except for that, I found a few other small improvements to my run: Two new places to use walljumps on level 3: Walljump 5 Walljump 6: From the palm tree you can jump to the top of that stone thing and fall through it instead of pushing the button and waiting for it to go down. I think it would be better to do level 5 before 4 so you can do a death warp on level 4 (saves a few seconds). If you do the death warp, you have to collect enough life forces on your way through the game (so that you can use the death warps on level 6). - Level 4: After doing the run I found that you can skip the purlin before the first key. Just jump from the right side of the gate and you'll go through it. After you've taken the first key you do the deathwarp. And at the end of the level, it would faster to kill the high priests with grenades instead of the knife. Also, when you take the last key, you can jump on the descending pillars and from that you can jump to the key, instead of going around. On level 7 this way might be a couple of seconds faster than the one I took: maybe --- If you have any questions about the run or anything just ask. When you've made some progress I'll be glad to offer help and advice.
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I'm having some problems with the TAS input plugin. Basically the major problem is that when I try to hold both the up and right C buttons (W and S on my keyboard), the program won't let me frame advance. This problem doesn't occur when I'm trying to use the up and left C buttons at the same time, and I can even use the left and right C buttons while using frame advance. But not the up and right... any idea why this might occur? Overall I'm getting a little used to the plugin, although it still has a pretty steep learning curve for me. I haven't had a lot of time to sit and play around with it, but I'll keep going, as long as someone can figure out why I can't strafe forward and right at the same time. Oh, and thanks for your permission to rerun this nfq, and for the offer to help! I'm sure I'll need it in the future:)
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mmbossman wrote:
I'm having some problems with the TAS input plugin. Basically the major problem is that when I try to hold both the up and right C buttons (W and S on my keyboard), the program won't let me frame advance. This problem doesn't occur when I'm trying to use the up and left C buttons at the same time, and I can even use the left and right C buttons while using frame advance. But not the up and right... any idea why this might occur?
Could be that your keyboard doesn't accept too many inputs at once. That, or you're pressing too many keys that are in close proximity at the same time. Try moving your Cright to F and see if it works then? What is your frame advance key?
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nfq
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mmbossman wrote:
Oh, and thanks for your permission to rerun this nfq,
You don't need to have anyones permission to run a game :P
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Zurreco, I changed around my controls a little bit, so now they are a little more intuitive for me to use. I've played around with multiple inputs, and I've found out that if I'm using down and left (or right) on both the c buttons and the analog stick, all four motions will register, and I'll still be able to use the frame advance button (the slash key above the enter button). However it seems that if I want to make some combination of the Up C button and the Up analog (and some other directional button), that's when I have problems. There are a variety of patterns I could try to duplicate, but it's not a huge deal, since I won't be using up on the analog stick too much. I'm going to assume that my keyboard just doesn't like to have some button combinations pressed at the same time, and hope that I don't come across a section of the game where I have to press 4 or 5 different buttons at once (which I doubt).
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mmbossman wrote:
I'm going to assume that my keyboard just doesn't like to have some button combinations pressed at the same time, and hope that I don't come across a section of the game where I have to press 4 or 5 different buttons at once (which I doubt).
If it does become a problem, you can either use auto-hold (if Mupen has it), or you can remap all the inputs to the same key for those few necessary frames. :)
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The TAS input plugin does have auto hold, with the popup window by clicking the check box of a button it becomes held down, and right clicking the box turns it to turbo. Really helps me for my strafing in Jet Force Gemini, and will definetly help here.
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nfq wrote:
mmbossman wrote:
Oh, and thanks for your permission to rerun this nfq,
You don't need to have anyones permission to run a game :P
Ok, permission was the wrong word... how about... your blessing:) I know competition is all well and good, but I try to avoid stealing other people's thunder.
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Bah. I get massive desync, and I think I have the right rom (1.2) and all the plugins match. Thing is it doesnt even seem to load the levels properly.
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I hope this Run will be better than the SDA run, and will avoid running SIDEWAYS, I found that rather boring.
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Run it sideways with lookdown :D
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L4yer wrote:
Poof.
What's with the edit, L4yer?
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Kitsune wrote:
I hope this Run will be better than the SDA run, and will avoid running SIDEWAYS, I found that rather boring.
Unfortunately, strafing while running is the fastest movement that Turok has, so I think it has to be in there (although running straight would make things sooo much easier to do). However I won't pull a Goldeneye and stare at textures for the whole game just to decrease lag, I think nfq did a good job at avoiding this also and let the viewer see as much of the game as possible as he flew through it, so here's hoping I can replicate/improve that aspect.
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