Congratulations for your recently submitted TAS, Evil_3D! It was a pleasure to watch it (especially Oil Ocean 2 :O), and I'm sure whatever you do with this game is going to be even better!
By the way, now that "alternate goal" classic Sonic TASes are becoming more commonplace, I want to know if there is interest amongst the experts on making a "Glitchless" category TAS for this game, akin to Aglar's Sonic 1 "no zips" run. I think this game would benefit the most from it... but it would take the most work to do, of course.
Speedruns.com defines "Glitchless" for Sonic 1 speedruns as "no zipping, no underflow, no slope glitch and no clipping through solid floors", Zurggriff should know since he has a few RTAs submitted on that page. I think we could apply this to Sonic 3K, maybe without the "clipping through solid floors" since it is arbitrary and hard to define accurately. Zipping, underflows and the slope glitch are the causes for most broken levels, so a category without them would bring new life to classic Sonic TASing. What do you think?
Antes de una TAS:
-Malo: ¡Voy a conquistar el mundo!
-Héroe: ¡Por poco tiempo!
I have been hoping to see a 'glitchless' run as you described for the longest time. Probably when Sprintgods run first got obsoleted? Been ages since I checked up when things started to get really broken.
But yeah, it is something of a niche thing.
Edit; Wait missed that Evil 3D had posted his newest wip in here!
Excited to see this get going man. Was hoping you would move on to this post your excellent Sonic 2 run. You have improved at TAS so much in such a short time... so can't wait to see you like wise improve Yogwogs run. Looks great so far!
That Sonic 1 run had a very ambiguous goal, and the Sonic 2 run wasn't different enough from the any% to be entertaining.
The run that should be taken as a reference is this one, actually published!:
http://tasvideos.org/3378S.html
This "no zips" run by Aglar has a clearly defined goal -zipping can be defined without ambiguity- and entertains the public by showing much more of a very broken game. The goal of "no zipping, underflows or slope glitch" would certainly bring new life to TASing Sonic 3K, where almost every level is broken by one of those techniques. There are a lot of other techniques to use, with their own great entertainment value.
After the recent Knux treasure hunting runs, I'm just eager to see runs that show more of the games :P
Antes de una TAS:
-Malo: ¡Voy a conquistar el mundo!
-Héroe: ¡Por poco tiempo!
This "no zips" run by Aglar has a clearly defined goal -zipping can be defined without ambiguity- and entertains the public by showing much more of a very broken game.
True enouh: there is a piece of code that gets executed only when zipping, so it can be used as a reference. But if you add a wwatch for it, you will see that there is zipping in the "no zips" run — whenever Sonic is on the ground and hits a wall. In some cases, it is even used to gain a small speed boost — accelerating to almost a pixel/frame opposite to the wall.
This is OK for the run, which uses a definition of "zip" which is a bit more subjective: it requires you to be ejected at "high speeds".
Some glitches are more straightforward to define and can be prohibited by the run's goals: slope glitch is unambiguous (have "standing on object" bit set while not standing on an object), wheel glitch (having "stick to convex surfaces" bit set while not being inside the area of effect of the object that set it), or the "Super Sonic" OOZ glitch.
But then you encounter some grey areas: consider the FBZ1 glitch which disables zipping: you can now run through walls! And while you also get slope glitch, you could get rid of it quickly by standing on another object before leaving the bounds of the source object. You would fulfill the letter of the rule (but maybe not the spirit). But theoretically, we might find a way to trigger only the run-through-walls effect (it is a single status bit). It disables zipping, allowing you to run through walls. Should it be banned on principle?
Moreover, other things can be complained about (and have been): non-zipping terrain ejection (see GHZ2, SBZ2 and SBZ3) and sprite ejection are examples. They were called zipping in the submission thread by some; but they technically are not (different code entirely). Moreover, banning them would make the game unplayable (just by jumping into a ceiling, falling to the ground, or touching a solid sprite at any speed). You can get around this issue by requiring that Sonic must be ejected towards the side he came from.
What about the cases where you can gather enough speed to go through a thin object or terrain entirely? You don't trigger either form of ejection that way. Should these also be banned?
But what about the cases where you get past an object by scrolling it off-screen? There is no sprite ejection in this case either (you generally don't collide with off-screen objects). Ban it too?
Next you have ledge clipping (you escape being ejected) and stair clip (falling throuh terrain) which are cases of clipping throuh terrain by not triggering terrain ejection: banning one without banning the other gets arbitrary, but can be done.
But now you are banning some cases of zipping, but not others; banning some cases of no zipping but not others; banning some cases of terrain ejection, but not others; banning some cases of no terrain ejection but not others; banning some cases of sprite ejection, but not others; banning some cases of no sprite ejection but not others. You now have a mess of rules.
Ajavalo wrote:
The goal of "no zipping, underflows or slope glitch" would certainly bring new life to TASing Sonic 3K, where almost every level is broken by one of those techniques. There are a lot of other techniques to use, with their own great entertainment value.
The issue here is people wanting to do it; it takes a lot of effort to make a glitchy Sonic run; it takes a vastly greater effort to make a glitchless one. And depending on the goals of the run, it may be deemed an arbitrary goal set and be unpublishable.
Great, it will be useful for a new S+T any% TAS, but I highly doubt that I can use it for Amy — first, she cannot spindash on such a high slope angle, seconds, it needs 2P…
marzojr wrote:
The issue here is people wanting to do it; it takes a lot of effort to make a glitchy Sonic run; it takes a vastly greater effort to make a glitchless one. And depending on the goals of the run, it may be deemed an arbitrary goal set and be unpublishable.
I absolutely agree
S3&A [Amy amy%] improvement (with Evil_3D & kaan55) — currently in SPZ2
my TAS channel · If I ever come into your dream, I’ll be riding an eggship :)
At the beginning I had to understand how the trick works very well, now I think it works with all the characters, use the camera glitch so does not load the spring in the map and with a good position and speed you can enter in the terrain in that corner and then do a level warp, very smart Tee-N-Tee.
Joined: 10/6/2011
Posts: 1697
Location: RU · ID · AM
Evil_3D wrote:
At the beginning I had to understand how the trick works very well, now I think it works with all the characters, use the camera glitch so does not load the spring in the map and with a good position and speed you can enter in the terrain in that corner and then do a level warp, very smart Tee-N-Tee.
I’d be double glad if you tried that for Amy alone while I’m a bit busy working :)
S3&A [Amy amy%] improvement (with Evil_3D & kaan55) — currently in SPZ2
my TAS channel · If I ever come into your dream, I’ll be riding an eggship :)
Thanks for the elaborate response, Marzojr! I knew about most of the tricks you mentioned; the exception is the one that disables zipping in FBZ1, I didn't know such a thing was possible! :O After all these years I'm still learning new things about this game!
The glitches and tricks that only skip small sections -falling through a floor to a level just below, for example- should be fine, my goal is determining which ones allow for breaking entire levels. personal opinions fall into the matter, which makes things even harder.
By the way, I wish you all luck with the Knuckles any%, it should be top priority since the Tails% was made in 2014. I'd love to help, but my experience with TAS is near 0. I'll see if I get to it in the near future.
Antes de una TAS:
-Malo: ¡Voy a conquistar el mundo!
-Héroe: ¡Por poco tiempo!
Joined: 10/6/2011
Posts: 1697
Location: RU · ID · AM
Ajavalo wrote:
By the way, I wish you all luck with the Knuckles any%, it should be top priority since the Tails% was made in 2014. I'd love to help, but my experience with TAS is near 0. I'll see if I get to it in the near future.
Thank you, the work is in progress and we do our best to finish it as soon as possible, but it’s an extremely huge project.
S3&A [Amy amy%] improvement (with Evil_3D & kaan55) — currently in SPZ2
my TAS channel · If I ever come into your dream, I’ll be riding an eggship :)
Looks good :), but some things will be much better let me give you some tips
Knuckles TAS tips wrote:
Wall climbing: Starting on the wall use: Right; (A^)(>)(>)(>)(A)(A)() -> repeat. This is nearly always the fastest way to climb single walls, in left side change the (>) to (<).
Braking on objects: (B)(<)(<)(<>)(<v)(vA) (6 frames) - (255)(127)(1)(128)(0)(spindash) (6 frames), is the fastest way to braking on Objects if you don't have "128, 256, 384, 512, etc." speed.
And in the level: at the begining you can move in the air and activate the butterflies and climb a bit faster, later you can fall directly in the switch and do the door trick, with this tips i'm sure we can finish Mushroom hill 1 in 38/39 maybe.
At the final of MHZ1 Knuckles need to do some specific movement to unblock the wall in MHZ2 and continue to the boss area, I'm not very sure how this works well, maybe WST or Marzojr can explain if they read this.
Looks good :), but some things will be much better let me give you some tips
Ha! The fact you're the one giving the tips out now, when it feel like yesterday you were on the receiving end of them, really highlights how you've come out of nowhere to become such a good TAS'er as you are.
Hope 2017 is full of lots of new 'evil3Ds' joining the site.
Looks good :), but some things will be much better let me give you some tips
Ha! The fact you're the one giving the tips out now, when it feel like yesterday you were on the receiving end of them, really highlights how you've come out of nowhere to become such a good TAS'er as you are.
Hope 2017 is full of lots of new 'evil3Ds' joining the site.
Thanks, It will be my pleasure to share my experience with them :)
So, back to the topic I did it a test run in LBZ1 for the Knuckles any%
Knuckles - Launch Base 1 in 0:36.43
