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It has happened a few times in the past, but to host both it requires editing the database manually, as there's no interface for this kind of thing. What if the Gens version is just kept in userfiles for whenever Nach is around to add the file to the pub? Though I'll need to wait for him to even agree to do it here. Before it's published it can't have both files, and I'd really prefer encoding this on hawk.
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So if we call the currently branchless movie "in bounds" that wouldn't be enough? The main questions seems to be, are there major glitches (avoided there and used here) not related to OoB at all?
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Does it make any difference which kid you play as?
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LOL at the video ending. I suspected that to be the case, okay.
With this problem out of the way, the one that still bothers me is how the secondary player and his nitro is used. Should I point out actual timestamps where it looks strange, or you already have the answer?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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If no improvement checks are gonna happen anymore, I'll just accept it, and while the main encodes are being made, you'd have the time to improve the script if you want, for secondary encodes. While the secondary encodes with the script aren't required, they'd be extremely nice to have anyway, to help more people appreciate what's up, like the camhack encodes for Sonic. The version without cam display could be used I think, unless you want to refine it even more.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Yeah if it's too much of a hassle to make the camera display work, just drop that bit.
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fmp wrote:
Try this
EDIT: may have mucked up the colors a bit, but whatever.
Doesn't seem to work correctly on the overworld.
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I'm watching with the script right now, and it'd be nice to see where on the map the currently shown screen position is. Like another moving rectangle that covers the currently displayed piece of the map (my script above shows that as a blue rect for example).
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There's an interesting question how we should branch this movie. On one hand, it uses a secondary game mode available from the start, which we usually label. On the other hand, that mode was explicitly designed for speedrunning, and it makes the most sense to use it for speed oriented playthroughs.
However, when we decide if anything even needs a branch label at all, we ask ourselves if that mode alone could be the only difference between 2 branches published alongside each other. At this point, it's highly unlikely that we will have speed oriented movies of this game playing these 2 modes and having no other difference. Just like with game versions, there has to be significant gameplay difference, or a specific trick unique to one release. If the main mode has something like a game breaking glitch not available in the speedrun mode, it could be published separately. But it'd be labeled according to the glitch, not to the mode. If the same glitch is then found in the speedrun mode, and it's yet again faster than in the main mode, the main mode run would be obsoleted.
So far it doesn't sound like the game mode can ever be a defining factor for a branch for this game. Which means that we shouldn't put it in branches.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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TheProJamer wrote:
How entertaining must an edutainment game be to qualify for Moons? Are there any published runs of edutainment games that have qualified?
I don't remember any educational games in Moons. And it's hard to tell how entertaining it should be, just look at some Moons movies and see what gameplay challenges they have to offer to provide for an entertaining movie. I just don't know if a strictly educational game could even be entertaining enough for Moons while still being primarily educational. I think it has to be not-that-educational-really to be Moons worthy, which would make it vaultable as well anyway.
EDIT:
There's an option to make a movie that's not primarily speed oriented though, like [1734] DS Brain Age "playaround" by Ryuto in 06:33.66. It seems to be an educational game, and speedrunning it is questionable, but the movie was done in contradiction to what the game is even about, and to what fastest completion is about, and it was hugely entertaining.
Jenetrix wrote:
So, in a hypothetical scenario:
Would a game made using GameMakerStudio that doesn't have an official linux port, but can use the stock GMS runner for Linux without any issues be accepted to the site? Even though its "technically" modifying the game/assets? Or would one be better off waiting for an official linux port of that game? Just trying to gauge where the line in the sand for acceptance would be in this scenario.
If it's not an official release of the game, it won't be acceptable. What is a GMS runner though? Does it mean you load the game as a source and it replays it for you as a developer? If you can replay the official game release that way, it might be allowed, but any program that has to be explicitly launched by libTAS to run a game (like running emulators in libTAS) doesn't have movie rules for it yet. We're planning to define them soon, but for each such program will have to ensure absolute legitimacy of how the game is being played, which might be hard for your case. Your best bet is asking for a Linux release of the game.
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If it was released in Brazil, it doesn't mean it wasn't released in Europe, where you run PAL games on PAL consoles at PAL speed. So was that game released in Europe? Or was the Brazil release explicitly chosen for something?
Otherwise, Brazil is a PAL-M territory, so it didn't have 50fps. And it wasn't compatible with true PAL signal:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL-M#Compatibility
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Wow I find this absolutely awesome!
I find awesome lua scripts extra awesome in general, especially when they're used for heavily glitched footage, like Super Metroid camhack. For instance, this is what I made some years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtdTwaxW9eU
I just find the very concept of looking deep into the game amusing, and scripts like yours showcase this hidden side of TASing, adding more superplay value to the movie.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
I'm not sure if we can capture lua dialogs to AVI, most likely not. Can this map be drawn on top of the game screen, with a little shade maybe? Or in extended bizhawk screen, with client.SetClientExtraPadding(int left, int top, int right, int bottom)?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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I checked a few bosses and this movie loses tons of time to the current publication:
Link to video
This isn't inherent to this movie's goal, is it? Just sloppy play and failing to beat an existing record?
Levels are also way longer btw.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Okay, now about the movie itself.
While this run is much better than the previous submission, it still looks like you mostly played it regularly with a few retries, instead of optimizing every action to gain you as much time as possible.
The most obvious thing is driving in the middle or in the outer side of a curve instead of trying to cut the overall distance you travel.
For every turn, you should aim to move on the innermost side as close to the grass/ground as possible, until you start losing speed (green line). If the turn is too sharp and you can't keep near the innermost side all the time, at least touch it while turning as much as you can (orange line). If you just move in the middle or on the outermost side, you simply travel more distance, losing time (red line). I tried to do this all the time in my test movies, and I clearly see you're not doing it here. Maybe it doesn't matter due to limitations of this game? I might check that. Also when you brake to allow your car to turn more sharply, you're losing speed, so for every turn that you can't clear as orange, you have to find balance between braking and releasing the X button.
Then, judging by the rerecord count, you haven't optimized every gear shift to gain you as much speed as possible.
Also in some places it looked like you could still bump the main player car with some nitro, but you just kept standing still or driving slowly, wasting nitro on nothing or not using it at all. You mention that sometimes you have to waste the fuel for the race to end, and you don't have time to bump your opponent, but it feels like this hasn't been tested too hard.
Overall I like how this movie turned out, and improvement of several minutes tells quite clearly that the strats are way better this time around, but the problems I mentioned still stick out as sub-optimal.
The reason I'm suggesting bizhawk is that you have a tool that's incredibly useful for tight optimization, as well as for movies with several players acting independently - TAStudio. It also allows you to edit your past input as much as needed, while not erasing the future events, like usual rerecording does. So if you stick to just old-school "savestates only" approach, and you aren't too good at it, you will always end up with sub-optimal movies that can be beaten easily with just better tools.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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It is more accurate, but you said it's to slow for you.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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While checking for improvements I found these values for position and put them into a script. This game reuses the position addresses for something else within the same frame whenever someone is watching you, and it's not possible to show the real coordinates during that time using the mGBA core, but here's the script just because I have it.
Download Barbie.lua
Language: lua
while true do
x = memory.read_s16_le(0x7b50, "IWRAM")
y = memory.read_s16_le(0x7b52, "IWRAM")
gui.text(100, 100, string.format("%d\n%d", x, y))
emu.frameadvance()
end
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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That script is just for one game, you don't have to use bizhawk for its tases because it's unlikely they would be submittable. For projects you actually plan to submit, lsnes is an option, but please consider bizhawk with snes9x core as well.
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Evil_3D wrote:
Third, it's a shame to see how the work of Archanfel is smearing only for use gens. These nonsense situations make me think on still in this community and simply quit or work off the site.
Archanfel wrote:
So TASVideos is just a good place to share my works with people who also have interest in superhuman playing. If they are no more welcome here, i can simply stop submit them.
We absolutely cannot let TASers quit the site over a note in a movie description. Reaching this point means that we all have had a lot of misconceptions about things, and likely about one another.
Evil_3D and Archanfel, please do not quit the site over this argument, it will be resolved in a proper way, I've done it before, I'll do it now. I will edit this post with more insights ASAP, this was just the most important announcement I needed to make.
First of all, we should look back to what actually caused this.
Lately, emulation accuracy has become a huge trend, a good one! The very fact that we've seen Arbitrary Code Execution executed on an authentic console has been my dream ever since dwangoAC started considering running his first TASBlock. Then it actually happened, and TASBlocks became a highlight of a GDQ event, and a lot of people were introduced to TASing.
Recently, with the help from Alyosha and lots of other amazing people, we took emulator accuracy to even higher levels, and the site has officially acknowledged accuracy to console as one of our goals, this is why we can now host 2 versions of a movie right in the publication module: the one that's been published originally, and the one that resyncs all the events to run on console too.
Endless bugs in old and bad emulators, like PCSX, Mupen, all the plugin insanity, taught us: if we want the TAS community to move forward, we eagerly need good emulators. And sometimes it requires to let go of the old and bad ones. That way we banned some really bad ones, in favor of better replacements that are so much easier to work with. And we know sometimes they are slow.
But it is important to remember, that if the site has not banned some emulator, its use should not be oppressed. The very fact that we still allow it comes from unpleasant reality: there's no real replacement, and it doesn't matter which part of it is so unique and dear to someone.
Emulators that are not banned for submissions, are allowed for use.
Now, there is of course emulator preference. People who can afford running good emulators with no sacrifices may be called lucky. Others often have to give up on something they are used to. And some others outright can not work in the new emulators productively. This is important. We want TAS authors to be comfortable, because this lets them focus on creativity and hard work rather than on fighting with the workflow all the time. The latter is dangerous, because it may demotivate someone from creating a masterpiece. Of course you can't demotivate a true geek, but on the other hand, why should we be making people's lives harder in the first place? Just let them do the job the way they want, and the way we allow, as long as the result is good and they're happy!
So what do we do with emulator preferences? If we simply yell at people who don't have (or don't provide) bullet-proof reasons for using an older emulator, it really helps no one. Encouraging doesn't work that way. When someone beats up you for writing with the left hand, it doesn't make you really want to switch over. We should keep in mind that there are different situations that should be handled differently.
If someone simply doesn't know what to use, better, newer, and more accurate emulators are the default choice. If someone can't really decide, we may try to help them decide, but only by hearing out their needs. If someone can't use a better one, it's still their right not to use that, as long as the old one is still accepted. Finally, if using a newer emu is possible, but not as pleasant, come on, just leave them alone! Disagree with them and still acknowledge this is their right.
So how do we handle this and similar movie descriptions? I'm convinced things like missing music, graphics, cutscenes, other major bugs that stick out, may be mentioned in the description. Minor bugs should not be mentioned, because people may miss them entirely if they're not veterans of the scene, as DrBaldhead put it, and such a note only confuses people and hints them to try to spot those bugs they would otherwise miss, distracting from the TAS qualities of the movie.
As a Starman, I can see everyone's rating, which is reported on the Staff page. I won't be discussing rates people marked as private/hidden, and I encourage people to rate the actual contents of the movie regardless of personal issues behind it, yet at the same time, I disagree with the current rating system altogether, and I really think it should not be taken to seriously. I rated the movie too, the way I feel about it. I also see why using Gens might have upset people in this one case, which probably killed the entertainment factor for them. That still doesn't mean ratings should be used as a revenge really.
Officially, we do not mind people giving crazy rating to things. We care about having their input in the first place, so we should be glad we have this data at all. But when we make a decision about tiers and stuff, we judge outlier rates as noise. So please, no worries about rates that look unfair. Community as a whole gives this movie 7.3 for entertainment, and it's still fairly recent. And please don't mind the outliers.
All in all, considering the above notes on emulation glitch borderline that we want to announce, as well as the confusion caused by this note here, I'll remove it. Because the glitch is not as blatant, obvious, and damaging as missing music, visuals, or cutscenes.
Opinions?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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I got a new PC, so if anyone is able to backport ffmpeg dumping to this fork, I want to try encoding it. I will likely never find time on backporting it.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Post the script.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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I lean towareds Axiom Verge personally.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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I went with "best ending" for now. Maybe if someone who has spare time feels like looking deeper into this movie to check what it actually accomplishes, but not me.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
For every turn, you should aim to move on the innermost side as close to the grass/ground as possible, until you start losing speed (green line). If the turn is too sharp and you can't keep near the innermost side all the time, at least touch it while turning as much as you can (orange line). If you just move in the middle or on the outermost side, you simply travel more distance, losing time (red line). I tried to do this all the time in my test movies, and I clearly see you're not doing it here. Maybe it doesn't matter due to limitations of this game? I might check that. Also when you brake to allow your car to turn more sharply, you're losing speed, so for every turn that you can't clear as orange, you have to find balance between braking and releasing the X button.
Then, judging by the rerecord count, you haven't optimized every gear shift to gain you as much speed as possible.
Also in some places it looked like you could still bump the main player car with some nitro, but you just kept standing still or driving slowly, wasting nitro on nothing or not using it at all. You mention that sometimes you have to waste the fuel for the race to end, and you don't have time to bump your opponent, but it feels like this hasn't been tested too hard.
Overall I like how this movie turned out, and improvement of several minutes tells quite clearly that the strats are way better this time around, but the problems I mentioned still stick out as sub-optimal.
The reason I'm suggesting bizhawk is that you have a tool that's incredibly useful for tight optimization, as well as for movies with several players acting independently - TAStudio. It also allows you to edit your past input as much as needed, while not erasing the future events, like usual rerecording does. So if you stick to just old-school "savestates only" approach, and you aren't too good at it, you will always end up with sub-optimal movies that can be beaten easily with just better tools.
