Post subject: Submitting a TASrun slower than the current fastest?
Joined: 7/27/2010
Posts: 42
So, would they deny submission if you went to submit a tas run that was slower than the current fastest run of that game? For example, I am currently in the process of making a speed run of Megaman X3. It's a no damage speed run, but it's turning out a little slower (About 5 or 10 seconds) than FractalFusion's run. Because he's pro. And I'm not. xD Thanks in advance.
Player (146)
Joined: 7/16/2009
Posts: 686
Read the rules. Under the chapter "The movie must be good" it is clearly stated that:
A speed-oriented movie must beat all existing records If your movie is going to beat something, be sure it beats it. If your tool-assisted movie is slower than the non-tool-assisted world record of the game you play, your movie will be rejected. This only matters if the goals are directly comparable between the TAS and unassisted record, though. Do your research! Look for the existing unassisted speedrun records. Look for previous TAS movies in the submission queue or on the forums. Check places such as YouTube or nicovideo for TAS movies (or speedruns). Failure to beat existing movies will result in a rejection.
So unless your "no damage" is the main goal of the run (3rd line), your run will be rejected (last line).
Player (117)
Joined: 5/13/2009
Posts: 700
Location: suffern, ny
No damage runs seldom get accepted, but if a Contra Pacifist run, which is slower do to the fact they they rarely shoot, got accepted, you never know. I would post it in a forum FIRST, BEFORE you submit it. This might give you some insight into whether or not it will get published.
[19:16] <scrimpy> silly portuguese [19:16] <scrimpy> it's like spanish, only less cool
Post subject: Re: Submitting a TASrun slower than the current fastest?
Banned User
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
Epsilon wrote:
So, would they deny submission if you went to submit a tas run that was slower than the current fastest run of that game?
In general, a movie which is slower than the existing fastest movie will be accepted only if it has a sensible and rational secondary goal which explains why it's slower (such goals being typically things like 100% completion or using a suboptimal playable character). A run in such a different category will be accepted only if the goal choice is sensible and adds to the entertainment value. In general, the amount of different TASing categories for a single game will tend to be minimized in order to avoid clutter, so there should be a really good reason for the goal choice. It's better to consult the community before spending the time in creating such a run and then have it rejected.
Joined: 7/27/2010
Posts: 42
Oh yeah, I don't know how to post it to the forums before actually attempting to submit it. I started last night, though I should be done sometime tomorrow. MAYBE even later today. (It's 10:12 am for me) It's a run of Megaman X3, and I take no damage throughout the game. I do all the fancy tricks, such as climbing through ladders without actually grabbing onto them. Same as FractalFusion. I rapid fire most of the time. I basically in general use frames cues. Which, if you're confused on that, means I go by the number of frame as a signal to move or do something. I heard it can take months to do a TAS. Wow. That same run that FractalFusion did took him 2 and a half months (I think) And I'm hopefully going to be done tomorrow. Anyway, could anyone tell me how to post it to the forums before submitting it?
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Sounds to me like you're making a test run, not a full-blown TAS. There's a reason why it took FractalFusion so long to make his TAS: he spent a long time optimizing everything he could. If you compare the number of rerecords he used to the number you've used, you should have a rough idea of how much more time he's spending on optimizing each segment of the game. Anyway, you can post your run on Microstorage for others to look at. Good luck!
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Joined: 7/27/2010
Posts: 42
Oh well. Do you guys wanna see the test run then? xD So... Once it's on Microstorage, then what? I think I tried that before with my Zero boss fight.
Editor, Expert player (2071)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3282
I'd like to see it. Microstorage gives you a link. Just post it here. If you lost it, upload it again.
Joined: 7/27/2010
Posts: 42
Cool! I'll do that as soon as I finish it. P.S. On an unrelated note, if I make a savestate during a movie, and then I turn off the emulator, and then I turn it back on again and record, and then load the savestate, will it load the whole recorded movie? Or am I gonna have to do it all over again? 'Cuz I would... Rather like to turn my computer off tonight.
Former player
Joined: 11/13/2005
Posts: 1587
Epsilon wrote:
Cool! I'll do that as soon as I finish it. P.S. On an unrelated note, if I make a savestate during a movie, and then I turn off the emulator, and then I turn it back on again and record, and then load the savestate, will it load the whole recorded movie? Or am I gonna have to do it all over again? 'Cuz I would... Rather like to turn my computer off tonight.
It will load the whole movie. TASers keeping their computers turned on for several months or even years would be a major energy consumption problem in the world :)
Joined: 7/27/2010
Posts: 42
Brushy wrote:
Epsilon wrote:
Cool! I'll do that as soon as I finish it. P.S. On an unrelated note, if I make a savestate during a movie, and then I turn off the emulator, and then I turn it back on again and record, and then load the savestate, will it load the whole recorded movie? Or am I gonna have to do it all over again? 'Cuz I would... Rather like to turn my computer off tonight.
It will load the whole movie. TASers keeping their computers turned on for several months or even years would be a major energy consumption problem in the world :)
I lol'd. So far, I'm in the middle of Tunnel Rhino's stage. It's 9:30 minutes long. 34183 frames. Rerecord count: 961. What's rerecord?
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
Epsilon wrote:
What's rerecord?
It's the number of times you've loaded a savestate over the course of creating your run, i.e. the number of times you've resumed recording from an intermediate point in your run. It's largely a 'just for fun' statistic, but many people take it as a measure of how much time and effort has been put into the run.
Joined: 7/27/2010
Posts: 42
sgrunt wrote:
Epsilon wrote:
What's rerecord?
It's the number of times you've loaded a savestate over the course of creating your run, i.e. the number of times you've resumed recording from an intermediate point in your run. It's largely a 'just for fun' statistic, but many people take it as a measure of how much time and effort has been put into the run.
I see. Thanks.
Noxxa
They/Them
Moderator, Expert player (4107)
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4089
Location: The Netherlands
Could you post your current progress here now?
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.
Joined: 7/27/2010
Posts: 42
I could. If you could wait for me to finish the current stage I'm on. I should be done with that reeeeally soon. But I'd hate to just post my progress and have it cut off in the middle of a stage when you're watching it.
Joined: 7/27/2010
Posts: 42
NitroGenesis
He/Him
Editor, Experienced player (556)
Joined: 12/24/2009
Posts: 1873
Um, that is the correct link. You just click on the link button below like this:
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Joined: 7/27/2010
Posts: 42
Lol, okay. but if I click it, it just downloads it. Sorry, I must be frustrating.
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Everything's working as intended. You gave us the link to the Microstorage page, we can go there and download your SMV file, and then can watch the run. :)
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Player (117)
Joined: 5/13/2009
Posts: 700
Location: suffern, ny
down load it, the go to the emulator hit file, movie play, then play the movie. obviously you need to put the file in a folder and load from that folder, but that is all you need to do.
[19:16] <scrimpy> silly portuguese [19:16] <scrimpy> it's like spanish, only less cool
Joined: 7/27/2010
Posts: 42
Oh good. I'll remember the steps from now on. This game takes so long frame by frame. Argh. Oh yeah, I apparently only saved the video itself from to the half of the stage. So when I continued, I forgot to record. And thus, when I got to the boss, and saved it, it only saved a state, not the movie. Aw well. At least now I don't have to take an unavoidable hit. Sorry for the bad playing.
Noxxa
They/Them
Moderator, Expert player (4107)
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4089
Location: The Netherlands
Alright, I've watched it. It's definitely not bad for a first TAS, but there are a few suboptimal parts:
  • Wall jumping up vertical shafts seemed slow in general. I'm pretty sure X could wall jump faster.
  • You didn't use dashed uncharged shots + fully charged shots against the intro boss (unlike FractalFusion's run), which I'm pretty sure is faster.
  • It may just be me, but I think there are more places you could abuse ice superspeed than you did.
  • On Blizzard Buffalo's boss battle, you didn't move away from him to shoot the uncharged shot faster and thus charge faster.
  • I noticed a few places where you dash down a pit, rather than dashjump prior to falling down, so you fall down faster. I'm not entirely sure, but I believe that is faster here.
  • You beat Toxic Seahorse in three rounds of Frost Shield rapid fire, the published run in two.
  • I noticed you dashing on conveyor belts that move against you, slowing you down. I'm pretty sure dashjumping over then is faster.
Also, the category is rather trivial. I recommend you don't submit it, as it would most likely be rejected. Feel free to post the run in the Mega Man X3 thread, though.
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.
Joined: 7/27/2010
Posts: 42
I wasn't gonna submit it. But thanks for the criticism. There's a lot of things you listed that I knew I could've done better (Hopefully) with a little more practice. Particularly the mini-boss in Toxic Seahorse. Unlike FractalFusion, I didn't make the last few hits delayed so that I could get over by the door to reduce* time. Honestly, that part is just hard to do. There's a few things to keep track of. I'll try to keep the run going. And fix a few things with the test run along the way. And polish it up before I make an actual run with it. *Said increase rather than reduce.
Joined: 7/27/2010
Posts: 42
I think I'll remove my plan to speedrun without getting hit. There seems to be too many things it's helpful for (Oddly enough). But at least I found out how to jump through a ladder. I didn't when I first started the run. :D
Joined: 7/27/2010
Posts: 42
I guess I'll move over to the MMX3 forum, then.