I am glad that people have realized how entertaining shmup TAS' can be. Hopefully we see more in the future, especially if arcade TAS'ing was ever allowed on the site. This gets a yes!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, shmups.com has gotten to you moozooh.

Haha. :D I'm not saying euroshmups are anything bad, though, they are often very fun to play casually. But in truth, I'd just rather see something like Psyvariar or DDP or anything Touhou been TASed, just because there is so much more detail to the actual gameplay process than in a game like UN Squadron; as in: getting 100% kills and not getting hit is something not really impossible for a human to achieve, while perfect chaining, powergrazing in ridiculous spots and weaving through really thick bullet patterns usually is.

Hopefully we see more in the future, especially if arcade TAS'ing was ever allowed on the site.

The future is basicallly here now :) If someone could just address these issues by Bisqwit, then we are more or less ready to go!

I would love to do an arcade shmup TAS. Those games typically have tons more action with no lag along with gobs of eye-candy. If the Final Burn Alpha emulator bugs get ironed out, I'd like to tackle one. What are some of you guys favorite arcade shmups? The ones I'm familiar with are the Gradius and Raiden series. moozooh, I took a look on youtube of Psyvariar and Touhou.. games look pretty cool :)

There are some that'd make for fantastic TAS's. The ones that come to mind quickest are Ikaruga, Radiant Silvergun, any of the Strikers 1945 games, and any of the Raiden Fighters games. As for Touhou...though they'd be great TAS's, I have no idea how you'd implement input recording/playback and all that good stuff into a Windows game.

As for Touhou...though they'd be great TAS's, I have no idea how you'd implement input recording/playback and all that good stuff into a Windows game.

In fact, there is both a way to slow it down to frame-by-frame advance and a way to take/load a snapshot of the entire memory space occupied by the game, possible to script the actions and read the memory values, and provided the recording engine is built into the games themselves, it IS possible to create a full-fledged TAS of them — but the amount of effort needed to do it certainly isn't going to be worth it. As such, there won't be any real TASing for them in the foreseeable future, although I'd die to see perfect bullet stream grazing in stages like this.

What are some of you guys favorite arcade shmups?

Well, I assume not everything counted as "favorite" would make a TAS entertaining to someone other than a fan of the game, or at least the genre… In fact most games likely wouldn't due to their well-known inherent features. It must allow: 1) to clearly differentiate between realtime and tool-assisted play (meaning it should have risk/reward-oriented score scaling, and inherent impossibility of a "perfect" result), 2) to show something relevant for this game in particular (as in, the TAS should probably obliterate the unassisted high score standards instead of being just a playaround or an as fast as possible run). I've been thinking of that recently, and I'm looking out for the games that would fit well. Out of the titles I've played personally, DoDonPachi and GigaWing are well-emulated and have good entertainment potential (there already are some sub-par TASes available for them actually, which you might want to check), several SDA residents I've asked also name Raiden Fighters Jet (I guess I need to consult with Twiddle on this matter) and some of the other titles developed by Cave (Dangun Feveron, Progear, etc.). The exact goals for each of them are yet to be discussed, and probably belong to a separate topic.

The coolest parts of arcade TAS' would be putting restrictions or just aiming for entertainment. Obviously, one option you'd need to consider is to shoot for high score if you did an arcade TAS as well. This could get VERY challenging VERY quickly. Some options for good looking TAS': Donpachi - one of the original and most famous manic shmups of all time, only problem is there are two loops, but second loop does include suicide bullets and more enemies. Dodonpachi - 2 loops, but its one of the greatest (if not the greatest) shmups of all time. People might complain about repetativeness of the loops, but this game is popular enough that it is worth it. Battle Garegga - Max out the rank (look up what rank is if you don't know) and it would be ridiculous. Also one of the greatest (if not the greatest) shmups of all time according to people (not me). Mars Matrix: Well emulated, would be very tough to TAS for score Dragon Blaze: Lots of insanity in this game Some options that I think would be nearly impossible to TAS would be things like progear, dangun feveron, or giga wing. I just cannot imagine how difficult it could become trying to maximize the score and still be entertaining, or not overabuse the reflect shield in giga wing.

I think Radiant Silvergun would be a good TAS because of the challenge which would arise from trying to chain through the whole game. (Explanation: RS has three colors of enemy; red, blue, and yellow. Killing enemies of the same color consecutively rewards you with score bonuses, which get progressively larger the longer you hold the chain.)

Radiant Silvergun should definitely aim for speed, though, since max score would imply long sequences of milking, which isn't fun at all to watch. I'd go with max chain, max boss break rate, and fastest speed as priority hierarchy for such a run. Boss break isn't going to take long with a nicely upgraded radiant sword. However, it's worth noting that RSG has one of the slowest moving crafts in history, which doesn't contribute well to entertainment in a TAS.

Encoding...

This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [1003] SNES U.N. Squadron by georgexi in 18:33.27

Encoding seems to have been a bit muddled again. Worked perfectly in VLC...but anything else---not at all. (MPC, GOMPlayer, etc) Video was pretty cool though, congrats!

It refused to play when I tried to play it in WinAmp 5. When I checked it out in a hex editor, my suspicions were confirmed: This movie suffers from exactly the same error as ccfreak2k's .AVI for xipo's Adventures of Bayou Billy TAS (encoded with joint stereo instead of mono.) To fix it, open it in a hex editor and change entry 0x12a from 02 to 01.

I thought SNES runs were supposed to be encoded with stereo sound, unless it's the same problem that once was experienced by Maza (mono stream with stereo header, or something along those lines).

Well the thing is, what joint stereo does is make the left and right channels have the same data. If you're encoding in joint stereo you might as well be encoding in mono.

Eh, no, joint stereo doesn't change the amount of sound channels, it changes their content (from dual mono to mid+side), increasing the compressibility. It's a losslessly reversible process.

Unless someone higher-up protests, I will make available a fixed AVI via HTTP. Note, however, that this will prevent you from seeding the AVI as the torrent will try to "correct" the byte.

Oh wait nevermind, it seems the M/S version is, indeed, the most common type.

It refused to play when I tried to play it in WinAmp 5. When I checked it out in a hex editor, my suspicions were confirmed: This movie suffers from exactly the same error as ccfreak2k's .AVI for xipo's Adventures of Bayou Billy TAS (encoded with joint stereo instead of mono.) To fix it, open it in a hex editor and change entry 0x12a from 02 to 01.

Yeah. That made it play perfectly, Green. Thanks much! (I use Media Player Classic, myself, so I was a bit surprised when it refused to play, but I could slide to anywhere in the movie anyway.) Edit: No, it didn't make it play perfectly. It made it play the left side of the audio alone, but in mono. :(

Has a fixed AVI been posted? The sound doesnt work on mine either :/ I'm thinking about posting a copy on YouTube too.

I still object to the second paragraph. Why do we need to know or care? How do we even know its true? Why is it a good thing? The time taken to create a movie does not equal effort or a better run in general. We should avoid trying to promote authors over movies

---- On the 2.5-years-working-on-TAS issue, how do we know that most of those 2.5 years were well-spent? How do we know that the author didn't just TAS for one month, abandon it for >2 years, and come back and finish it? In the author's own words, georgexi "worked on it on and off but didn't get around to completing until recently". In any case, rerecord count is yet more important than TAS project time. Also, the phrase "longest-term projects to date" seems to imply that these projects were planned for the long term, which is never the case.

Wow, I really loved this video. Maybe UN Squadron isn't the most frantic shmup ever made, but the use of resources and creativity to show off really made up for it. I wish there were more runs like this, because after a while, some of the cut and dry speed runs that don't really put entertainment value as the top priority aren't as fun to watch. This was fun to watch. Kudos, George. And I logged in for the first time in like six months just to tell you that. :3

It's a piece of trivial information. No one NEEDS trivia, but it's fun to know. We know it is true from his early WIPs. No one is "promoting the author over the movie". What the hell is it with you AKA that the 5-year old inside you needs to constantly make sure that no one is needlessly praised, at least if it's not you? About the 2,5 years: who cares how he spent it? Who cares if he did the first level in one day in 2004 and then finished the rest in a week in 2007? What the HELL does it matter? It's still a project that took 2,5 years to finish: a 2,5 year project. I changed the word long-term to long, so I hope you're happy now.

It's a piece of trivial information. No one NEEDS trivia, but it's fun to know. We know it is true from his early WIPs. No one is "promoting the author over the movie". What the hell is it with you AKA that the 5-year old inside you needs to constantly make sure that no one is needlessly praised, at least if it's not you? About the 2,5 years: who cares how he spent it? Who cares if he did the first level in one day in 2004 and then finished the rest in a week in 2007? What the HELL does it matter? It's still a project that took 2,5 years to finish: a 2,5 year project. I changed the word long-term to long, so I hope you're happy now.

Talk about self destruction...