Table of contents
Summary
This is a quick summary of what to know when submitting to the site. Further information is available below this summary if needed.
- Verify that your movie works. Do not submit movies that even you can't view!
- Make sure your movie is a finished, optimized product. TASVideos is an archive and a records site, not a leaderboard.
- You are considered the expert on your movie and game. It is highly recommended, though not required, to explain your movie in your submission text as much as possible and to answer questions posed in your submission's forum thread.
- We recognize and understand that this may not be possible for some submitters due to time constraints, language barriers, and/or other obstructions. Do as much as you're comfortable with, and we will accommodate.
- If you feel your movie might not be acceptable, consult the movie rules and the guidelines for detailed information.
- Note that any game, version, and branch may be submitted at any time, regardless of whether or not there's a prior entry on the site. All game and run information is manually catalogged to the site upon submission or publication, so there may not be any information about a particular game or game version until we have received a submission for it.
- If you intend to submit multiple movies, please do not submit them all at once. This can be seen as spamming, and your submission privileges may be temporarily removed to prevent that.
- If you find improvements to your movie or wish for the input file to be updated, upload the new version to Userfiles and ask a Judge to replace the file instead of re-submitting the new file.
- Once you are logged in and ready to submit, head over to the Submit Movie page and fill out all relevant details.
Movie file
Our Emulator Resources and Platforms pages list all allowable input file formats. The site does not recognize any input file not on those lists, and as such they cannot be submitted. Please contact us if you have an input file format that you want to be supported!
Your movie file must be compressed into a ZIP file before sending. We do not accept any other compression formats! The ZIP file must only include the movie file. Make sure the movie file in the ZIP has no subdirectories in its path, even if the ZIP program you use saves subdirectories by default. The path should be empty.
Author(s)
The TASVideos username(s) of the author(s). Hit the
+ button to add multiple authors.
External Authors
This field is for author that don't have a TASVideos account. Separated with comma for multiple authors.
Game version and name
Please write the official name of the game. For example, if you are submitting a movie for the game Super Mario Bros., write
Super Mario Bros.. Do not write Super Mario, SMB, Mario, or Mario Bros., since the names may be confused with other titles. If the game has a Japanese title (or other non-Latin writing system), write the most well-known romanization. For instance, Japanese titles are written using Wāpuro rōmaji.
If the game has multiple revisions, please indicate the revision too. For example:
USA r0 or USA r1. If you don't know the version, use the most appropriate option.
If your game, version, or revision does not have an entry on the site, you may still submit it. The relevant information will be catalogged from your submission.
Branch name
This is the category of the run you are submitting. Examples of branches include "100%", "playaround", and "game end glitch". Fastest completion (known as "any%") runs do not need to be branched.
Any branch may be submitted, though it is recommended to use names that are short, easy to understand, and consistent with other branch names.
ROM filename
The ROM filename is important in verifying your submission. Ideally, it should be the Good Tools ROM set name, as it gives all of the necessary information about the game, the version, and the ROM dump. Example:
Final Fantasy III (U) (V1.0) [!].smc
Emulator and version
List the emulator you used, as well as the version. The version is important, as newer or older versions of emulators can affect your movie's sync.
Encode embedded link
If you have a video encode of your run, you can put its link here. If you have several videos, see below for how to add them to the wiki text.
Comments and Explanations
This is where you explain your submission. These comments are extremely helpful for both the Judges and the community to understand your run, so please fill them in as much as you possibly can. The submission page includes a "Prefill Submission Comments" button that provides a basic outline you can work off of.
The submission text uses a special text formatting system. Use * for bullet lists, ! for headings and put an empty line between each of your paragraphs. Do not begin lines with spaces.
The most important information to include is as follows. Omitting this information may lead to a more difficult judgement process:
- Which emulator did you use? Include the version as well!
- Which emulator settings? Please list every individual emulation setting which you have modified (does not apply to Dolphin users, see note below).
- A checksum of your ROM or ISO (SHA1 recommended).
- Which BIOS did you use? (Region and revision)
- If your movie needs some setup (e.g. prepare a memory card) to sync, provide a link to the verification movie.
- Not applicable for all systems.
- For GameCube and Wii submissions: Dolphin comes with free dsp_*.bin files required for DSP LLE emulation; did you use these or the console ones (i.e. did you have to download the two dsp_*.bin files yourself from a non-Dolphin site)?
It is also highly recommended that you include the following information, as it significantly helps the Judges and the community to understand your game and your submission:
- If you have a video of your movie uploaded to YouTube, use this module to include it!
- Do you use warps or passwords? What kind of programming errors or glitches do you abuse in the game? Do you take hits? Do you use death? Do you save and restart in the middle of the movie?
- What are your aims? Fastest possible? Maximum score? 100% kills? 100% items? How do you achieve these aims?
- A brief description of your game helps people unfamiliar with it to understand your movie.
- If your movie is an improvement to an existing movie, please mention which movie it improves upon, how big the improvement is, and describe the improvements.
- Any information that helped you during the making of the run, such as Lua scripts and memory addresses.
- Subtitles and/or commentary, if you have them, are highly beneficial.
- You may also include a suggestion for a publication description and a suggestion for a publication screenshot.
There is a preview function, so you can make sure your comments look as you intended. For any changes that need to be made, you can edit (bottom of page, click "Edit") the text after submitting.
If you're a non-native English speaker, you can ask someone to help you translate from your native language.
Troubleshooting
You need to be logged in to submit movies. The login procedure is explained at the login page. After you've logged in, go here to submit.
Submissions may take some time to go through. Please wait after clicking Submit, as you may end up submitting several duplicate submissions by clicking it multiple times.
After submitting the movie
Your movie will appear in a few places:
- The submission list
- The discussion forums.
When you submit a movie, a topic will automatically be created for your submission, allowing the community to comment on it. You are highly encouraged to follow the discussion and answer questions that may come up after submitting the movie. If you click “watch this topic for replies” at the page showing the discussion of the movie, the site will automatically e-mail you a notification when someone comments on your movie.
A Judge will claim your movie and start looking into it, setting it to one of the following statuses:
- New (ready for judging) ― The submission is unclaimed.
- Judging Underway ― The submission has been claimed by a Judge.
- Delayed ― The submission needs more time to be judged. This is often used at the submitter's request, for example if they are implementing improvements into their submission.
- Needs More Info ― The judge cannot make a decision until important information is provided.
- Canceled ― The author has withdrawn the submission, or a judge has prematurely rejected the movie. Movies canceled by the author can only be uncanceled by the same author.
- Rejected ― The movie was not considered good enough to be published. A rejection reason will be provided. Some rejected movies gets a spot on the GruefoodDelight page.
- Publication Underway ― The movie has been accepted and is currently being encoded.
- Published ― The movie has been accepted and the official encode has been made.
Judges are human beings with lives, and may not always be available to process submissions. Please be patient if it is taking some time for your submission to be claimed or judged.
If a submission is accepted, it will be accepted to one of three Classes. One can find out more information about these three classes in the Class page and in the Movie Rules.
Updating the submission file
If you later notice that your movie needs some minor changes, such as a new shortcut that is easy to incorporate, or a few more frames of input to reach the actual ending, you can request the submission file to be updated without having to cancel and submit a new movie. Upload your updated movie to Userfiles and make a post in your submission's discussion thread, announcing your improvement and linking to the userfile you've uploaded. Uploading to other file hosting sites is also allowed. For major changes, please cancel your submission and submit again.
It is useful to elaborate on what your new movie has in it and why you want the submission to be updated. This operation requires a staff member to personally update your submission, so it may take a bit of time while it is being verified (regarding sync and other things). Alternatively you can send a private message to a judge or a senior, containing your userfile link and all the notes about it, but public posts are preferred.
Final Words
All submissions are considered for publication, and we have standards for our publications that we hold each submission to. Please be mindful and accepting of critique on your submissions, and stay civil during discussions. Our intent is always to help you improve your skills, not to dissuade you from ever TASing again. We have Userfiles, the forum, and a Discord server that you can use to share your TAS projects without submitting them for judgement.
Users who flagrantly abuse the submission mechanism, such as by spamming several runs in a very short time, will have their submission privileges revoked at the discretion of the administration, and may be banned from the site entirely if their abuse warrants it.