On this site, we make perfect movies, and then we beat them. Of course, if we can beat them, they weren’t perfect in the first place, but who would have known?
This submission beats the published Rockman movie by about 48 seconds (2887 frames). It breaks down to these improvements:
  • Elecman: 88 frames
    • New glitch-techniques (~20 frames)
    • New playing-techniques (~58 frames)
    • Better precision (~10 frames)
  • Iceman: 64 frames
    • Water scene (better precision): ~35 frames
    • Lift scene (better precision): ~20 frames
    • Tunnel (better precision): ~10 frames
  • Fireman: 697 frames
    • Better precision
    • New glitch-techniques (MAJOR)
  • Bombman: 884 frames
    • New glitch-techniques (MAJOR)
    • Better precision
    • Less refills
  • Gutsman: 42 frames
    • New playing-techniques (beginning, refill approach)
    • Better precision
  • Cutman: 454 frames
    • New glitch-techniques (MAJOR)
  • Wily1: 82 frames
    • New playing-techniques (~20 frames gained at refill, ~30 frames gained at the Boss)
    • Better precision
  • Wily2: 184 frames
    • New glitch-techniques (~60 frames)
    • Better precision (~40 frames)
    • New refill strategy (~60 frames)
  • Wily3: 84 frames
    • New glitch-technique
  • Wily4: about 280 frames
    • New playing-techniques (most notably, the Wily fight is very different)
Most of the new strategies come from finalfighter. Some came from Morimoto. Huge thanks to both of them. A few were discovered by AngerFist and Bisqwit during the making of the movie.
The precision of the making of this movie was greatly improved from the past. What most influenced that outcome, was an emulator feature, an FCEU extension, that shows the following things each frame:
  • Position and speed of Rockman (X, Y) at subpixel precision
    • This allowed to make optimizations that weren't immediately visible, but only affected in the long run
    • It also helped solve many mysteries of the game that were previously without answers
  • Positions and ages of each Magnet Beam
    • Combined with the data collected at Rockman Data, this allowed to predict exactly where and when to place each beam
  • Indicator of boss and enemy hits
    • This saved a lot of trial&error work.
Other software that were written for the tasks specialized for this game:
  • BisqBot, a rerecording robot, was used to manipulate the weapon refills and to fight the Wily3 boss.
  • A C++ program was made to predict the randomness needed to make Bombman act in a certain way at Wily4.
A lot of wall-passing / wrapping / zipping techniques are used in this movie. And this “a lot” means... adjectives are not enough to describe it. It has became increasingly difficult for even an expert player to comprehend what is going on in this movie. In a few situations, what appears on the screen is not what happens in the game. For example, Rockman may appear to pass through a spike unharmed or jump from air. In such situations, he’s usually temporarily inhabiting the “next screen” that is different from the one being displayed. Except, when he really actually hits a spike and still survives (this happens in Bombman stage).
The foundation of all of the techniques used in this movie are explained at Rockman Tricks, but the applications are myriad and complicated. There currently exists no documentary of those applications, but if you keep asking, something like that may be built in the progress of answering your questions.
If you are interested in the source code of the programs/tools mentioned in this post, ask Bisqwit.

EDIT: This submission was originally submitted as a Rockman movie, but as I tried out how it works in USA Mega Man, and noticed it desyncs in the last battle, I tried to make a compatible USA version movie on the side of the Japanese version. However, the USA version movie ended up being faster (due to no particular reason), so I’m actually replacing the old submission with this new one.
If played on Japanese version, it desyncs in the second part of the last fight. Use the USA version.


JXQ
Experienced player (761)
Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132
Heh, I read that post, but not carefully, and somehow figured it was a program you wrote to mimic the behavior of the beams for some testing purpose. Anyway, thanks!
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Fihlvein
He/Him
Joined: 7/28/2004
Posts: 135
Location: Finland Realms
It's lovely to see how you made the before two of most boring battles with elecman and megaman clone very stylish this time. That's the type of details in tool-assisted runs that I just love to see. Here it was executed fantastically. It's such a shame that many players tend to forget the main thing: the more boring something will look, the more important it is to make it look exciting, one way or another.
Joined: 1/23/2006
Posts: 352
Location: Germany
Hm, you used that one frame of movement before the refights to get closer to Gutsman but you didn't use it for the other refights to give your projectiles less distance to travel (opting for shooting instead), would that have made no difference?
Player (150)
Joined: 11/27/2004
Posts: 688
Location: WA State, USA
I voted meh because the movie was mehga AWESOME. There is no doubt that this movie rocks the socks of everybody here... >.> Actually, the votes weren't symmetrical and I have OCD.
Nach wrote:
I also used to wake up every morning, open my curtains, and see the twin towers. And then one day, wasn't able to anymore, I'll never forget that.
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
KDR_11k wrote:
Hm, you used that one frame of movement before the refights to get closer to Gutsman but you didn't use it for the other refights to give your projectiles less distance to travel (opting for shooting instead), would that have made no difference?
It would have costed time getting back into the teleporter. (The teleporter contains an invisible wall during the fight.)
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
To those who are interested, I've mirrored the file on the Internet Archive along with three re-encodes (at normal quality, which is comparable to Bisqwit's encode, which is 26 MB, low quality, which is 16 MB, and high quality, which is 134 MB). It can be found here: http://www.archive.org/details/megaman-tasv8-bisqwit-angerfist
Former player
Joined: 3/30/2004
Posts: 1354
Location: Heather's imagination
Omega wrote:
To those who are interested, I've mirrored the file on the Internet Archive along with three re-encodes
Do these versions contain the same subtitles and the same solid Magnet Beams?
someone is out there who will like you. take off your mask so they can find you faster. I support the new Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun.
Player (36)
Joined: 9/11/2004
Posts: 2630
This will go sub-16 before it's over and done with. Yes. I have no friggin clue how. But it will.
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day, Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Banned User
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
Omega wrote:
To those who are interested, I've mirrored the file on the Internet Archive along with three re-encodes (at normal quality, which is comparable to Bisqwit's encode, which is 26 MB, low quality, which is 16 MB, and high quality, which is 134 MB).
May I ask why? I really can't even begin to imagine what the heck would be the advantage in making a "low-quality" version of the video which is 16MB compared to the 32MB of the original. I can't begin to imagine how in the modern world it would be so much advantageous to download just 16MB compared to 32MB. I could understand it if it was 160MB vs. 320MB, but with such low filesizes I just don't get it. Also, what the heck is it with a whopping 134MB file?!? What the heck for?!? Who would be so crazy to download a 134MB file when the original 32MB file is so much smaller and which image quality is superb? (Of course there will be people downloading that, assuming that the 32MB file probably looks like crap, when it really doesn't. That doesn't make it ok, thought. You are just making people waste their bandwidth and disk space.) I, too, am also wondering the same as a previous poster: Do these videos have the proper texts explaining the nature of the videos? Why mirror them anyways? The more people download them from somewhere else, the less seeds the original torrent will have.
Player (206)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
This must be the work of torrent haters!
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Sir_VG
He/Him
Player (40)
Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 1913
Location: Floating Tower
Why mirror them anyways? The more people download them from somewhere else, the less seeds the original torrent will have.
And there are some connections that can't do torrents that would download from elsewhere anyways. Stupid work proxies. ;_;
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
Joined: 11/11/2004
Posts: 400
Location: ::1
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
This must be the work of torrent haters!
I think you just summed up the Internet Archive quite perfectly in one sentence. :)
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
Warp wrote:
Why mirror them anyways? The more people download them from somewhere else, the less seeds the original torrent will have.
More choices, better availability. But I second your question about the different quality versions.
Joined: 7/5/2004
Posts: 46
Awesome job. This is exactly how a run should be done (if the voting poles were still open I would votes yes). Only thing I dislike is the descriptions are biased due to the fact the person who made the video also runs the site. If I was a runner I wouldn't like to see a "TODO: Describe this movie" on any of my runs. Thats just insulting (not trying to come off on an offensive tone). I appologize if your not pleased with my post, but thats how I feel.
Editor, Expert player (2071)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3282
Runs lack descriptions when they are not well-known. There may be a bias, but it is about run interest and not about the author running the site. If the author wants a description, the suggested description can be written in the submission text. If you want to see a description for a game that has "TODO: Describe this movie", bother me or another editor until we write the movie description.
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
Indeed. I can't write good descriptions for movie of games that I know next to nothing about. You don't want to read a description says something like: "A platform game beaten in 9 minutes and 4 seconds.".
Emulator Coder
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
TouchOdeath wrote:
Only thing I dislike is the descriptions are biased due to the fact the person who made the video also runs the site. If I was a runner I wouldn't like to see a "TODO: Describe this movie" on any of my runs. Thats just insulting (not trying to come off on an offensive tone).
If you have a good description, feel free to post it in the thread for that particular movie. An editor will put it in the movie. There is no relation to the owner of the site with the description. If the runner is also an editor, then they generally modify the text as they want. Non editor runners are free to give a description / better description, or provide different screenshots if they so desire.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Player (206)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Bisqwit wrote:
You don't want to read a description says something like: "A platform game beaten in 9 minutes and 4 seconds.".
Sometimes that's all it needs!
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 7/5/2004
Posts: 46
Thanks for the positive feedback, I feel much better now that I know how it works (its good logic).
Post subject: Visual commentary of Cutman stage
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
JXQ wrote:
Nice work guys. Watching the memory could be the next big thing to hit TASing since frame advance.
And so it has :) The Cutman stage is probably the most confusing stage of this movie. I created this illustration that explains precisely where Megaman is going and why. Besides the fact that it looks cool, it should help understanding the Cutman stage of this movie better! https://files.tasvideos.org/bisqwit/rockman1tas-cutman-explained.png The image is 3329×2145 pixels wide and tall. It has comments written all over it explaining various pieces of the puzzle.
SXL
Joined: 2/7/2005
Posts: 571
very interesting, even though the time I spent watching the previous (avi) versions taught me already most of it, it might not be intuitive for everybody. great work Bisqwit, I can hardly imagine how much time you spent on this. just one thing : it's "fell", not "falled"... just kidding, kudos ninja sensei !
I never sleep, 'cause sleep is the cousin of death - NAS
Site Admin, Skilled player (1250)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11469
Location: Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg
Sorry I missed your post. Added. Also we updated our encoding workflow.
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.
Joined: 9/4/2021
Posts: 45
Location: Japan
Thank you for adding! I confirm the new flow.