Super Mario 64, the classic platformer from 1996, stars that Italian red plumber dude, named Mario. So he gets an invitation to have a one night stand eat a cake that Princess Peach has baked for him. So, like any fat Italian man would, he jumps in a green tube and heads to the castle - and so the journey begins. Once Mario arrives, he realizes that there is no cake and there will be no cake. The princess wants him to lose some weight, and she has hired Bowser to be a fitness trainer for Mario. The plan is to motivate him with cake and make him to run around the castle for "power stars," but Mario, just as any fat Italian would, skips all of that, loses no weight and demands cake.
Game Objectives
Emulator used: Mupen64 0.5 Re-Recording v8
Aims for fastest time
Uses game-breaking glitches
Comments
This TAS originated when sonicpacker saved 2 frames on the Bowser in the Sky BLJ after being inspired by Mickey's amazingly optimized beginning. Following that, ToT found a trick for Bowser in the Dark World where Mario falls off the ledge after the diving section with high speed which saved 1 frame. ToT managed to improve the BLJ speed which allowed Snark to barely squeeze out a second frame by using the falling trick a second time on the same ledge. The first frame of improvement in Bowser in the Fire Sea came from Mickey and Snark using a slightly different method of getting to the pole. Mickey then asked sonicpacker to redo the wall kicking section because he's spent more time with it in the past. In the process of trying to tie the previous run, sonicpacker saved one more frame due to better speed/angle/position. After playing around with a new wall kicking strategy, (combined with a diving method after the pole glitch found by sonicpacker) Snark completely obliterated the old BitFS, beating it by a total of 29 frames. Shortly afterwards, Kyman found another improvement at the end of BitFS that uses a glitchy wall kick on the pipe. It saves 15 frames up to the pipe grab, but loses 1 on the butt-slide due to Mario's position. Overall, we saved 47 frames and are very happy with the resulting run.
Tricks Used in this Run
0-Input BLJ
When you have no input on the analog in between the "A" button presses for a BLJ, your speed will not decrease, thus exponentially increasing the speed at the end result of the BLJs.
Pause BLJ
Normally, you can only press the "A" button fifteen times per second because the game runs at thirty frames per second. If you had thirty continuous "A" frames, you'd just be holding "A" down, not tapping it. However, if you pause while pressing the "A" button, you are given an opportunity on the next frame to release the "A" button. You can follow that by repressing it when it's not paused (therefore letting you BLJ the equivalent of thirty times "per second"). This is useful when you need more speed to travel a long distance. It isn't as helpful as it seems as it takes three extra frames to do a Pause BLJ. In order to save time you need the extra speed to save at least 3 frames.
Forward Jump Kick Trick
While Mario is recovering after a forward movement (dive, long jump, etc.), you can hold the "A" button prior to landing, and on the frame you land, press the "B" button with the analog stick at ^54 or less (on the TAS Input Plugin), you will do a jump kick. The trick is that it maintains all of the same speed from before the landing. You can also apply this when moving backwards (such as after a BLJ), by holding "A" before you are in the running animation, and then pressing "B." This causes Mario to do a jump kick and retain the same speed. This is useful for crossing long gaps and covering large distances.
Slide Kicking
This has been found to be the best method of forward movement over a long distance, because unlike the jump kick, you can do it repeatedly without losing speed.
Punch Trick
Instead of running for one frame when accelerating from a stop, you press the "B" button with no analog input, which gives you a starting speed of 10 instead of roughly 8.
Forward Speed Conversion
After triggering text, Mario is in a frozen state with his speed stuck at what it was while activating the text. When the text is read, you have the ability to do many things. One trick we can do with this is to press "C^" (upper C button) and "Z" at the same frame and hold a specific direction to get forward speed (as opposed to backwards speed which we originally used to activate the text). This is useful because forward speed can be used for things like getting to high places, such as the endless stair case. If you don‘t use Z with C^, your options are limited, because you only move forwards or backwards in a state that will not let Mario jump.
Instant Jump Kick Trick
This trick allows you to jump kick on the very first frame that Mario has input. This also is enables you to choose an angle for Mario to travel. You do this by holding A for at least one frame before Mario can move, then push B and the direction you want to go on the first frame of input.
Hyper-Speed Wall Kicking (HSWK)
Mario's speed increases infinitely while airborne with the analog held forward. If he wallkicks on the first possible frame, he doesn't lose any speed.
Glitchy Wall Kick (GWK)
If you combine certain Mario angles with certain wall angles, sometimes you can make Mario kick off of a wall in the opposite direction that he's supposed to.
Mickey and I are trying to as I'm typing this. Oddly, the same thing happened in the first 0 Star I was involved with. I remember I had improved the spiral stairs section and hex edited it onto the existing .m64, and for some reason it lost a VI as well. I tried playing with the camera and other input, but nothing was working. I'm not really sure what causes this. There might be some weird frame rule, but we'll keep trying.
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
Apparently Snark was able to combine one of my ideas to use a diving method after the pole part with his new wall kicking strategy and save ANOTHER frame. He's trying to save one more and also fixing the camera angles. I likely won't have an .m64 until late tonight (maybe 11PM - 12PM my time zone?), so the new YouTube encode needs delayed once again.
Mickey and I are trying to as I'm typing this. Oddly, the same thing happened in the first 0 Star I was involved with. I remember I had improved the spiral stairs section and hex edited it onto the existing .m64, and for some reason it lost a VI as well. I tried playing with the camera and other input, but nothing was working. I'm not really sure what causes this. There might be some weird frame rule, but we'll keep trying.
That lost VI may be a result of a hex editing error, but idk anything about Mupen TASing. Really the only way to confirm it is to create a new .m64 from the beginning and manually input all the commands until you see if that lost VI occurs, but that's a lot of work. :p
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
SoulCal wrote:
sonicpacker wrote:
Mickey and I are trying to as I'm typing this. Oddly, the same thing happened in the first 0 Star I was involved with. I remember I had improved the spiral stairs section and hex edited it onto the existing .m64, and for some reason it lost a VI as well. I tried playing with the camera and other input, but nothing was working. I'm not really sure what causes this. There might be some weird frame rule, but we'll keep trying.
That lost VI may be a result of a hex editing error, but idk anything about Mupen TASing. Really the only way to confirm it is to create a new .m64 from the beginning and manually input all the commands until you see if that lost VI occurs, but that's a lot of work. :p
I already know it's not from hexing. It's simply a frame rule. There's no real way to save it except by losing time.
At this rate, I'm thinking we should just leave SM64 on the workbench indefinitely.
(joking)
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
DarkKobold wrote:
At this rate, I'm thinking we should just leave SM64 on the workbench indefinitely.
(joking)
Haha, you never can tell with this game.
Anyway, for some reason, when I tried hex editing the new BitFS (20"87) onto the official .m64, it made the spiral stairs desync. I'm not exactly sure why, but instead of redoing it, I went ahead and used the spiral stairs input from the currently published run (I'm the one that TASed that part, so it's my input anyway). Since they tie each other, it doesn't really matter which is used. Here's the currently final .m64. The time is 5'02"716667, meaning 5'02"72. If someone with the power to do so could update the submission file, we'd appreciate it. I'll go ahead and update the submission text to match what we now have as well.
Here's the currently final .m64. The time is 5'02"716667, meaning 5'02"72. If someone with the power to do so could update the submission file, we'd appreciate it. I'll go ahead and update the submission text to match what we now have as well.
I wish I had a copy of mario64 to console verify this at the same time it is submitted. :,(
Here is a temporary video of the improvement that I found... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu_Oe4SF7xU
This uses a GWK to save a wallkick and ends up saving 15 frames (so far) and as of right now, the final time would be 5:02.22.
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
Kyman wrote:
...ends up saving 15 frames (so far)...
Explanation:
[17:47] <sonicpacker> i think this is improvable though
[17:47] <sonicpacker> not this part
[17:47] <sonicpacker> but
[17:47] <sonicpacker> snark purposely killed height so he could do that double wall kick
[17:47] <Kyman> yeah
Here is a temporary video of the improvement that I found... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu_Oe4SF7xU
This uses a GWK to save a wallkick and ends up saving 15 frames (so far) and as of right now, the final time would be 5:02.22.
So, you found nearly triple the number of frames that inspired this submission.
....
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Here is a temporary video of the improvement that I found... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu_Oe4SF7xU
This uses a GWK to save a wallkick and ends up saving 15 frames (so far) and as of right now, the final time would be 5:02.22.
So, you found nearly triple the number of frames that inspired this submission.
....
Only using 300 rerecords, and about 10 minutes of my time.
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
Kyman wrote:
DarkKobold wrote:
Kyman wrote:
Here is a temporary video of the improvement that I found... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu_Oe4SF7xU
This uses a GWK to save a wallkick and ends up saving 15 frames (so far) and as of right now, the final time would be 5:02.22.
So, you found nearly triple the number of frames that inspired this submission.
....
Only using 300 rerecords, and about 10 minutes of my time.
Without snark's new wall kicking strategy, this wouldn't have saved. ;)
Here is a temporary video of the improvement that I found... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu_Oe4SF7xU
This uses a GWK to save a wallkick and ends up saving 15 frames (so far) and as of right now, the final time would be 5:02.22.
So, you found nearly triple the number of frames that inspired this submission.
....
Only using 300 rerecords, and about 10 minutes of my time.
Without snark's new wall kicking strategy, this wouldn't have saved. ;)
I shouldn't of even pulled off that GWK in the first place, pure luck that I found it.
Not complaining though, anything closer to sub 5 is always good for me.
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
Kyman wrote:
sonicpacker wrote:
Kyman wrote:
DarkKobold wrote:
Kyman wrote:
Here is a temporary video of the improvement that I found... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu_Oe4SF7xU
This uses a GWK to save a wallkick and ends up saving 15 frames (so far) and as of right now, the final time would be 5:02.22.
So, you found nearly triple the number of frames that inspired this submission.
....
Only using 300 rerecords, and about 10 minutes of my time.
Without snark's new wall kicking strategy, this wouldn't have saved. ;)
I shouldn't of even pulled off that GWK in the first place, pure luck that I found it.
Not complaining though, anything closer to sub 5 is always good for me.
Hey bro, I feel the same way. I wasn't taking anything away from you. Just pointing out that it was a team effort! In fact, we'd like to include you as an author if you're okay with that.
Hey bro, I feel the same way. I wasn't taking anything away from you. Just pointing out that it was a team effort! In fact, we'd like to include you as an author if you're okay with that.
Here is a temporary video of the improvement that I found... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu_Oe4SF7xU
This uses a GWK to save a wallkick and ends up saving 15 frames (so far) and as of right now, the final time would be 5:02.22.
Can these "glitched wall kicks" be used elsewhere to potentially save more time?
Not sure this would really represent the improvements, but I like it anyway.
Also, great job saving all those frames! The time is getting so close to sub 5 minutes now!
;)
