Posted: 8/21/2012 4:03 PM
Post subject: Hi! Presentation and some questions (FCEUX and Castlevania)
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Grincevent
Active player (309)
Joined: 8/21/2012
Posts: 429
Location: France
Hello everyone! First of all, expect some mistakes with my english, but I'll try my best ^^ Ok, I first discovered what a TAS really is thanks to "88mph", it's a broadcast on youtube (but it started on dailymotion) made by RealMyop, who has an account here, and CoeurdeVandale. These videos were litterally TASes with comments (in french), that helped a lot of people to understand what a TAS is and how it works... And it was really entertaining to watch of course. In fact, my very first encounter with a TAS was with SMB3, like a lot of people ^^ And recently I took the plunge and started TASing Castlevania. It's nothing "publication worthy", I just do it for fun. And for that I've set conditions to force myself to discover things by myself and not be tempted to just copy what is done in the published movie(s): -I'm forbidden to break any furniture in the castle, just to be nice to the owner of the place. That means no candle or wall breaking. -No enemy is killed with the whip, not counting bosses (obviously...), but some unfortunate ones die just because I jump on them. Not my fault if I sometimes need a boost in midair. This leads to some sort of pacifist, leather whip, no subweapon run. I've almost reached Death right now. It's just a test run anyway, with big mistakes in the beginning. Now some questions :) I'm using FCEUX and I'm not really sure how the bulletproof rerecording works. Yesterday a bad savestate manipulation happened and I thought that I lost an entire level worth of video, but I managed to get it back. The problem is I don't know how I did it. At first I was stuck back at the beginning of the level in my video, with an error if I tried to load my last save ("not in the same timeline"). The video file was shorter too, etc... Finally I did load my last save successfully and my video was back (longer, better...). I think it has to do with the mode I was using (read+write or read only), but I did have a hard time figuring how to get back on track with my video, so if someone can explain how it works exactly, I'd be thankful ^^ My second question is simple: how can I help this site? :) In fact I already have an idea of something that I can do, maybe... When I started my TAS, I first went to the game resources page for Castlevania, and it didn't help me at all ^^ (the random item drop algorithm can be useful, but not for my run or real beginners (like me, again ^^)) Since I think this game is quite beginner friendly, its page lacks a lot of basic tricks and information, such as memory adresses or enemy behavior (and how to manipulate them). I don't really complain because I actually had fun discovering a lot of that stuff by myself :p But I still think it lacks simple techniques and info which can be useful for future TASers. So tell me if I can help with it, not editing myself the page, but at least listing some tricks in this topic, maybe. Thanks for reading my wall of text, by the way ^^
Posted: 8/21/2012 4:13 PM
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adelikat
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Helping with Game Resources would be a huge help! I was just saying earlier how I am not happy with the amount of work being done on it. To help with it, I need you to log into the wiki portion of the site, (same login as forums). This will create a user in the wiki for me, so I can make you an editor. As for bulletproof recording, when I have more time to read your specific question, I'll give you a thorough answer for that.
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Posted: 8/21/2012 4:15 PM
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scrimpeh
Editor, Skilled player (1440)
Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 2112
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'lo and welcome to tasvideos, hope you enjoy your stay. I'm glad to see more people giving Castlevania some lifeblood. I once did a "no subweapons, no damage" run, was rejected for poor game choice (and, upon reflection, could have been improved by about 10 - 20 seconds). Regarding your questions: 1.In read-only mode, if you load a savestate, it plays back the movie up to where you stopped recording. If the savestate you're trying to load doesn't belong to the movie or is from after your current progress (which can happen if you loaded an earlier savestate beforehand), it brings up an error. In contrast, you can load any state that belongs to the movie in Read+Write mode and resume TASing. This is how you got your progress back. I recommend learning the hotkey to switch between the two, as it is really convenient to be able to switch between them quickly. 2.Oh please, do go for it. The Castlevania tricks page is horribly empty at the moment. To edit the page, you can just ask the staff to make you an editor. There's also the Castlevania thread on the forum in which you can post findings. I hope that's helpful to you.
Posted: 8/21/2012 4:27 PM
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Grincevent
Active player (309)
Joined: 8/21/2012
Posts: 429
Location: France
Thanks for the faster-than-light replies O.O There is no problem with the hotkey for read/read+write, the real problem was me not thinking about it and being confused because I wasn't able to get back my movie ;) I think it's what happened, yes. I didn't try to load my save in read+write mode, I don't know why... I tend to be overly careful with saving and loading ^^ And for the games resources, I'll log into the wiki, but I'll be a little shy to start adding a lot of things immediately. I mean, some tricks are helpful but a little vague to explain, and I'd like to have some confirmation from Castlevania experts on the tricks I can add. Finally, my english is not perfect, but I know it is still ok ^^
Posted: 8/21/2012 4:51 PM
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Derakon
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
In the future, it's recommended that you make regular backups of your movie file. It costs you almost nothing to make a backup, so if it saves you even 30 minutes' work then it was probably worth it. :) Good luck with your TASing!
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Posted: 8/21/2012 4:55 PM
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adelikat
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Go to Config -> Movie Options and check "Automatically backup movies" and FCEUX will backup for you :)
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Posted: 8/21/2012 5:02 PM
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Grincevent
Active player (309)
Joined: 8/21/2012
Posts: 429
Location: France
Thanks for the backup info :) I thought about it, precisely when I just had that problem with my video ^^', I'll do it from now on. Even if I'm almost certain that I won't destroy a video by myself, with the way I use savestates and the magical bulletproof recording (after all I didn't really lose my video, here, I just didn't understand how to get it "back"), we never know...
Posted: 8/21/2012 5:30 PM
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TASeditor
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Hi :) Welcome to tasvideos. If a savestate is not in the same timeline and bulletproof recording is enabled the movie recording normally stopps. Your movie should still be there. If your movie is shorter then, just load the states you saved last.
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Posted: 8/21/2012 6:05 PM
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Grincevent
Active player (309)
Joined: 8/21/2012
Posts: 429
Location: France
adelikat wrote:
Helping with Game Resources would be a huge help! I was just saying earlier how I am not happy with the amount of work being done on it. To help with it, I need you to log into the wiki portion of the site, (same login as forums). This will create a user in the wiki for me, so I can make you an editor.
By the way, I logged in the wiki portion as you asked. Since I'm not familiar at all with wiki editing, I'll have to read a lot before doing anything. I also need, beforehand, to sort the tricks (maybe even take screenshots to use some illustrations) and build a good presentation, well organized and clear...
Posted: 8/21/2012 6:13 PM
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adelikat
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Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3575)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
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Grincevent wrote:
adelikat wrote:
Helping with Game Resources would be a huge help! I was just saying earlier how I am not happy with the amount of work being done on it. To help with it, I need you to log into the wiki portion of the site, (same login as forums). This will create a user in the wiki for me, so I can make you an editor.
By the way, I logged in the wiki portion as you asked. Since I'm not familiar at all with wiki editing, I'll have to read a lot before doing anything. I also need, beforehand, to sort the tricks (maybe even take screenshots to use some illustrations) and build a good presentation, well organized and clear...
Ok, you can now edit game resource pages. Further reading: http://tasvideos.org/TextFormattingRules.html http://tasvideos.org/EditorGuidelines.html
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Posted: 8/21/2012 6:25 PM
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Grincevent
Active player (309)
Joined: 8/21/2012
Posts: 429
Location: France
Ok :) I'll make sure to read everything, and reread it again, and again. I think I'll move to the Castlevania topic when the editing will be on the rails, to get stuff that I forgot or didn't know about (which was not already mentioned in other places about that game - like the submissions - , because I did some research here too for my TAS ^^), or just to talk about it.
Posted: 8/25/2012 9:17 PM
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Personman
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Joined: 4/20/2008
Posts: 465
Please don't hesitate to add to a page because you are worried about your English skills! If you add some information but think that the English is not very clear, feel free to PM me or post here, and I will try my best fix up any grammar & spelling issues :)
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Posted: 8/25/2012 9:47 PM
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Grincevent
Active player (309)
Joined: 8/21/2012
Posts: 429
Location: France
Personman wrote:
Please don't hesitate to add to a page because you are worried about your English skills! If you add some information but think that the English is not very clear, feel free to PM me or post here, and I will try my best fix up any grammar & spelling issues :)
No problem. In fact I've already added a bunch of info on the page: -the "Simon's speed..." part and all the pictures/gif on the first tab -basically the entirety of the second tab (enemies) feos had the good idea to separate the page into tabs. Now I'm a little stuck because I don't have enough precise info on the other things that need to be added: more enemies and some RAM addresses (I have a couple addresses but I'd prefer to get more from the "veterans"). You already have some work to check the spelling/grammar if you want to ^^
Posted: 8/25/2012 11:40 PM
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Personman
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Joined: 4/20/2008
Posts: 465
Thanks for contributing! It was altogether not bad at all, I could understand everything fine. I cleaned up a bunch of slightly off word choices, and reworded a few things for clarity.
A warb degombs the brangy. Your gitch zanks and leils the warb.
Posted: 9/1/2012 2:18 AM
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Grincevent
Active player (309)
Joined: 8/21/2012
Posts: 429
Location: France
Just a message to say that I'm done with my Castlevania run (test run) ^^ That was fun and I discovered some nice tricks along the way. Like... Some interesting stuff about critical hits, how to jump past axe knights, or a way to run (walk is a better term...) under Dracula's second form low jumps. My first TAS is over, it was a nice journey, 13 minutes but it felt much longer, I climbed a lot of intriguing stairs, met lots of strange but fascinating monsters, and I... I... No I'm not crying! It's just some dust in my eyes... (tell me if I'm overplaying it) Ok, now I'll have to know how to make a good encode for youtube, because some friends want to see my run. I've read the encoding guide, encoder's guidelines, but that's it for tonight. I don't even know how to prevent FCEUX from pausing right at the end of the movie file :p