Post subject: Video: Tool Assisted Speedrun Lecture
Joined: 7/18/2008
Posts: 54
Location: france
Hi everyone! Recently with Coeurdevandale (88 mph co-presenter) and Rayas we worked on a lecture explaning the TAS. We made it in some France video game festivals. It has been welcome quite well by the audience and we always had good comments about it. I know that doing it only in french won't make sense here, so I decided to record a special version in english. I'm already sorry for my english (annd my grrreat haccent). Still I think it might interest a lot of people here. Some others may just check if what I'm telling is right. I'm not has good in english has I am in French so they may be some approximations or stuff I forgot. You can of course leave your comments about it, if I can I'll do one in live in english and share it with you, it's better when you can hear the audience reacting to the videos. Also for french speakers: the french version is coming soon from the recording we made in Rennes during the Stunfest. What you'll find in this video: -What's a speedrun? -What's mean Tool assisted? -The objectives / philosophy of TASing -The History of TASing -How TAS are made? -Showing and explaining the tools -The spirit os TASing -The different types of TAS -From the TASpeedrun to the TASuperplay The total video is 1 hour and 03 minutes and it can be find here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG_9r038Qoc Thanks for reading/watching See you soon Realmyop
Joined: 11/22/2004
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Le Tool Assisted Speedrun. This sounds very interesting, I'm going to give this a listen tomorrow evening. :) I guess you know TASes have reached a certain pop culture status when people start giving lectures on the subject.
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Just finished watching it. Nothing stands out as blatantly wrong, but if I was forced to nitpick... I'd like to have heard a bit more about the Doom origins. Bisqwit's site wasn't the only one dedicated to TAS videos, but it is the one which survived and thrived. There's several versions of Super Demo World, so you should specify "SDW: The Legend Continues". Even though the original version is much less known. For the any% and low% runs, you show two different games (Super Metroid vs Metroid Fusion). That seems wrong if you want to compare the various styles. MF 0% vs 100% would probably be the better choice, since the low% SuperMetroid run glitches the the game very badly.
Joined: 7/18/2008
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DeHackED: "I'd like to have heard a bit more about the Doom origins." -Coeurdevandale knows better than me the Doom origins and he's speaking more about that in the french version. "Bisqwit's site wasn't the only one dedicated to TAS videos, but it is the one which survived and thrived." -I know that Bisqwit's site was not the inly one dedicated to TAS videos, but we didn't want to give to much informations that you could not track back. Also I never really knew them. "There's several versions of Super Demo World, so you should specify "SDW: The Legend Continues". Even though the original version is much less known." -Super Demo World, I will make the notice. "For the any% and low% runs, you show two different games (Super Metroid vs Metroid Fusion). That seems wrong if you want to compare the various styles. MF 0% vs 100% would probably be the better choice, since the low% SuperMetroid run glitches the the game very badly." -I don't really get it... You would like me to use the same game's submissions? Here I took an 100 % and a 0 % to explain the objectives variations. I'm not talking of the any%.
Mitjitsu
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One thing I'd like to mention is when you talk about the future of TASing. You mention how people will try to create new categories like completing 8 unrelated games across different platforms using one controller (words to that effect). When its much more obvious to mention newer consoles becoming TASable e.g. Wii, 3DS.
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Mitjitsu wrote:
One thing I'd like to mention is when you talk about the future of TASing. You mention how people will try to create new categories like completing 8 unrelated games across different platforms using one controller (words to that effect). When its much more obvious to mention newer consoles becoming TASable e.g. Wii, 3DS.
The multiplatform TAS emulator is being developed. That is our nearest future. [/spoiler]
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 hope you like people being picky. If you don't, ignore this post. A few small nitpicks. You seem to have the basic gist of the community down pretty well, but some of the specifics are a bit off. The main goal of the site is to have entertaining runs. You kind of touch on that a bit, but I think it could be pushed a little more. Tool assisted runs are meant to entertain and surprise the viewer. It's the philosophy which causes the speed vs. entertainment debate that happens every once in a while. Also, see this category Alternate goals are usually chosen with this idea in mind. When an alternate goal is picked, it's usually because it would be slower, but the goal has entertainment value in itself. The 2 player run of Chip and Dale is faster and thus not a good example. A better one might be Nightmare on Elm Street, where the run is slower, but more players is more entertaining. A list of runs where using more players is actually slower, but the choice was made for entertainment purposes (There may be more). You used Gradius as an example of a no damage run. That's actually not a good example because the nature of the game actually forces you to take no damage (otherwise you die). You should look for a movie where taking damage saves time, but the author decided not to do it (those are becoming increasingly rare). For different characters, I would have used [976] NES Super Mario Bros. 2 "warps, princess only" by adelikat in 08:29.57 as an example. Princess Peach is not the fastest character, but she changes the gameplay significantly, which is why we made a separate category for her. Speaking of Street Fighter II, you say that those runs are as fast as possible. They're not, and intentionally so. A fastest possible would be too repetitive. One category I love (and it can replace one of your other categories) is glitch avoidance runs. If people decide a glitch makes a run too boring, repetitive, or breaks the game too much, runners make another movie that doesn't use that glitch. These often lead to much more interesting runs than fastest possible. Here's a list. (This really needs to be kept track of better) There are others where glitches were found, but the unglitched run is still available on the site. I didn't include those because they were cases where the original author was unaware of said glitches, but they also might count as demonstrations of the concept. The presentation is well put together and would probably turn many people on to the idea of tool assisted speedrunning. I thought the videos were well integrated and it covered many good points. It's kind of sad that the video of Rayas TASing seemed to stop halfway through, though.
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feos wrote:
The multiplatform TAS emulator is being developed. That is out nearest future.
"The"? Mednafen could do that already in 2009.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 7/18/2008
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@Mitjitsu: "One thing I'd like to mention is when you talk about the future of TASing. You mention how people will try to create new categories like completing 8 unrelated games across different platforms using one controller (words to that effect). When its much more obvious to mention newer consoles becoming TASable e.g. Wii, 3DS." I decided to talk about new ideas that could be nice to do new entertaining runs. It's not that much the technicals aspect I waned to put upfront. Anyway you're right, I'm usually talking about the retro-gaming thing but I forgot to talk about that in this video. I'm usually saying that TASing is not only retro gaming. I'm explaining the emulators problems ( Resources consumption, accuracy ) And always speak about the newest console can be TASed if there is a good emulator running it. @arkiandruski: "The main goal of the site is to have entertaining runs. You kind of touch on that a bit, but I think it could be pushed a little more. Tool assisted runs are meant to entertain and surprise the viewer. It's the philosophy which causes the speed vs. entertainment debate that happens every once in a while." I agree, I'm talking about it in the philosophy part "le faire avec la classe, un objectif secondaire? " I'm also usually more talking about that. And I can tell you when there are some people in the audience you perfectly get the "entertainement" . "Alternate goals are usually chosen with this idea in mind. When an alternate goal is picked, it's usually because it would be slower, but the goal has entertainment value in itself. The 2 player run of Chip and Dale is faster and thus not a good example. A better one might be Nightmare on Elm Street, where the run is slower, but more players is more entertaining. A list of runs where using more players is actually slower, but the choice was made for entertainment purposes (There may be more). " Good idea, I'll change that when I'll have time. "You used Gradius as an example of a no damage run. That's actually not a good example because the nature of the game actually forces you to take no damage (otherwise you die). You should look for a movie where taking damage saves time, but the author decided not to do it (those are becoming increasingly rare). " With Coeurdevabndale we were even thinking removing this part. "For different characters, I would have used [976] NES Super Mario Bros 2 (USA) "princess only" in 8:29.56 by adelikat as an example. Princess Peach is not the fastest character, but she changes the gameplay significantly, which is why we made a separate category for her. " Like it, I'll change that too. "Speaking of Street Fighter II, you say that those runs are as fast as possible. They're not, and intentionally so. A fastest possible would be too repetitive. " I know, I also tell that often. Here of course, I forgot. I need my Coeurdevandale to not forget anything. "One category I love (and it can replace one of your other categories) is glitch avoidance runs. If people decide a glitch makes a run too boring, repetitive, or breaks the game too much, runners make another movie that doesn't use that glitch. These often lead to much more interesting runs than fastest possible. Here's a list. (This really needs to be kept track of better) There are others where glitches were found, but the unglitched run is still available on the site. I didn't include those because they were cases where the original author was unaware of said glitches, but they also might count as demonstrations of the concept." Thinking of that to replace the "no damage" run. "The presentation is well put together and would probably turn many people on to the idea of tool assisted speedrunning. I thought the videos were well integrated and it covered many good points. It's kind of sad that the video of Rayas TASing seemed to stop halfway through, though." Thanks, I usually leave the whole video of Rayas running. With the audience we're also replying to their questions. I've been a little too fast here... It would have been long to see it till the end. Thanks for your help, and the beginning of the lecture, I'll put a new thing. Made by Coeurdevandale, Rayas, Realmyop and helped by the TASvideos community :-p
Mitjitsu
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arkiandruski wrote:
I hope you like people being picky. If you don't, ignore this post. A few small nitpicks. You seem to have the basic gist of the community down pretty well, but some of the specifics are a bit off. The main goal of the site is to have entertaining runs. You kind of touch on that a bit, but I think it could be pushed a little more.
I know the main goals of TASing has been discussed to death in various different threads over the years, but I'd like to point out the goal of TASing is to demonstrate Tool-Assistance. Entertainment is purely a byproduct. I think RealMyop conveyed this aspect pretty well in his video.
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RealMyop: Can you deliver the english text of your lecture? I want to translate it and voice in russian.
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.
Synahel
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No one nitpicked about failing TASing the end of the first level of SMW. Phew! Thanks for the feedback everyone! EDIT: Didn't see he removed the end of the making-of, so you don't see it. Phew again!
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Cool that you did a movie in english, I liked it :).
Joined: 7/18/2008
Posts: 54
Location: france
Here the french version :-) http://www.nesblog.com/article-conference-sur-le-tool-assisted-speedrun-73879586.html @feos: Sorry the lecture is only written in french... I can't provide you a english text for it. If you're ready to do subtitles of the english version I'll be happy to put your sub on the video.
Post subject: Re: Video: Tool Assisted Speedrun Lecture
Joined: 12/27/2007
Posts: 50
Location: UK
RealMyop wrote:
I'm already sorry for my english (annd my grrreat haccent).
LMAO. I'm gonna watch it just for this :)