I was just watching the movie, Special Correspondents, but don't ask me how it is because I wouldn't know -- I didn't get more than 15 minutes into the film before I got derailed by one of the comments Ricky Gervais made to a woman in an elevator (thanks a lot, alcohol.) Specifically, he said that he had never done anything extraordinary. That got me thinking.
I have done something extraordinary. Ricky Gervais' character in the movie might not have, but I have; and so has every other published TAS author on this site. I think that, in general, most people on Earth couldn't even comprehend the idea of a TAS -- no matter how well it might be explained to them, TAS is something that has to be seen in order for new-comers to fully understand -- let alone understand how to make one themselves. For one to actually produce a quality TAS, I think, requires an uncommon level of intelligence or, at the very least, an exceptional interest in a particular game or in the very subject of TASing.
FWIW, I am basing my beliefs on the reactions of those closest to me. For example, my brother is a good guy but quite different to me in a number of ways, and on being linked to the finished product of my Sonic 3 & Knuckles ring attack his only remark was to complain that it was, "over an hour long," implying that he hadn't even watched the whole thing. Honestly, I'm still unsure whether I ought to just laugh at the irony of the whole situation (even a Sonic TAS wasn't fast enough...) or if I should be legitimately offended that my own brother couldn't be bothered to take an hour out of his life to witness the fruits of my year's worth of loving labor. But, whatever; that is what it is. At least we TASers can be thankful that in the virtual realm people -- mostly members of the real-time speedrunning community, but also mere spectators who have a keen sense of taste in what they watch online, or even just each other (fellow TASers) -- appreciate the work we do. And I still firmly believe that TAS constitutes modern -- and I mean literally modern -- art.
I'm pretty much retired from the craft at this point. I haven't actually done any TASing in quite a long time, mostly due to time constraints, and the fact that at 30 years of age my hands and fingers can no longer sustain the abuse of hours-long TAS sessions and all the frantic keystrokes that go along with that. I estimate that well over a million individual button presses went into making my TAS, and I suppose similar estimates would hold true for many other authors as well. So, for me, looking back the question is, "was it worth it?" It's kind of a tough question to answer. All those hours I spent replaying the same ten seconds of gameplay, here and there, over and over again could probably have been put to better use, theoretically. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed doing it at the time, and really the worst I can say about my time spent TASing is that it was time "well wasted."
The thing I like most of all is just this idea that in the end I've created something, that I've contributed something to "the culture;" meaning, both the TAS and Sonic the Hedgehog communities. And that's something that every TAS author can say about their games and respective communities. And that's pretty extraordinary, in my opinion, when, in the age of information where many things have already been done before, it's becoming increasingly hard to do something new or original.
I think (and please, correct me if I'm wrong) my TASing experience is unusual in that I focused entirely on a single game. I know virtually nothing about the intricacies of TASing on any platform other than Gens, or any game other than Sonic 3 & Knuckles. And yet I feel my experience working within that extremely narrow field was extensive enough as to have given me sufficient knowledge of how TASing in general works that I'm still able to discuss the subject itself. There is a quote (sorry, I couldn't find out who originally said it) that basically says, "good art doesn't follow the rules, it makes its own," and I have always taken pride that my TAS tends to follow that statement. Initially, a lot of posters in the Sonic 3 & Knuckles thread told me that a ring attack TAS wouldn't stand a chance of being published because the goal choice, as it had been defined up until that point, was too arbitrary. In a sense they were right. It takes a strict set of logical rules to make any kind of score-based TAS work, and I'm just really pleased I was able to chart out those rules for myself in a way that other members of the Sonic/TAS community deemed acceptable for the first time.
Probably the single most memorable time of the whole experience for me was during Marble Garden Zone, Act 1. My girlfriend, who I'm still with to this day, had, at the time, recently been forced to report to the local jail to serve time for a prior incident involving drinking and driving. It was a pretty sad time for me in my life, and probably much more-so for her. She had "Huber" privileges, however, which allowed her to leave jail to report to work several times a week. I was her ride to and from, and mid-way through recording MGZ I brought my laptop along for the ride so I could show her my progress. I must have spent over a month working on that one Act -- an unprecedented amount of time for me to have devoted to such a short length of the overall game at that particular point in time -- and I remember feeling pretty proud of the footage I was able to show her.
Around then I had just started listening to silly, gangsta rap music while recording. I don't normally listen to or pay much mind whatsoever to that genre but in an odd way I feel it really did help improve my "game," as it were. I don't think I would have been able to produce such an impressive MGZ1 without the aid of Biggie Smalls' (for whom my avatar is plagiarized based-upon) "somebody's gotta die," among other classics. Truly, there is nothing like sitting alone in your bedroom at 2:00 in the morning, trying to shave just a few frames off a segment of video, with Tupac in the background describing how he lives every day of his life as if he were going to die that very same day. Now that is hardcore as fuck. Even mother fucking Arthur Fonzarelli isn't that cool.
That said, at this time I'd like to take the opportunity to offer an apology to all of the special stars TASers out there. At one point in the publication thread for my own TAS, I expressed that the quality of my TAS was, overall, on-par with that of any given special star TAS. I see now that this was a very naive suggestion of me to posit. Granted, I still contend that the latter half of my TAS may well qualify for that merit; but I'd now like to acknowledge that the first half is considerably improvable. Some time after publication, WST submitted his own take on my first level of the game and improved the time by something like 6-15 in-game seconds. And it wasn't until some time after that, when I attempted (successfully) to improve his time on that same level, that I really understood just how much effort, thought, and skill goes into the types of TASes we see on the front page. And just for reference, in case anyone's interested, here's: my MGZ1;my AIZ;WST's AIZ1; and I've elected to omit my improvement of WST's AIZ1 as the video quality of my upload was so terrible it's almost not worth watching (I don't know shit about video encoding), but it should be none the less available on my channel page in case anyone really wants to see it.
Here is what I feel is the single greatest moment of the entire project:
Link to video
So, with that I think I've pretty much covered everything I have to say in retrospect. I sincerely hope this reads more like an article and not just a blog post (I fancy myself as something of a creative writer, although I'm not per-say published anywhere, yet). Maybe this is a sad and embarrassing thing to admit, but I don't have (or ever intend to have) kids, I've not attended college and other than holding a steady manual labor job for the past seven years (and being a damn good employee, at that), my Sonic TAS is probably the most significant thing I've accomplished with my life.
I'll continue lurking for the rest of today, as I've nothing else to do except drink the Best Damn Root Beer and watch the rest of that movie, Special Correspondents. In the off chance that anyone is still reading, I for one would be really interested in hearing others thoughts about TASing in retrospect, especially some of the more experienced members (like, say, Nitsuja (although I'm pretty sure he doesn't even visit here anymore)). I deliberately tried to include personal anecdotes about TASing, despite the risk of sounding more blog post-y, as I want to encourage others to share their own. So, please, feel free to share any intimate details, or brag, or stroke your own ego, as I have, as much as you want so long as you tell an honest and heart-felt story about what TASing has meant to you in your life.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Hint: adding a brief tl;dr line can make more people want to read the entire post :)
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.
Hint: adding a brief tl;dr line can make more people want to read the entire post :)
Fuck 'em! Learn to read assholes.
This is probably the Best Damn Root Beer talking. No offense intended!
Edit: changed "read" to "learn," as was originally intended. This confirms it was definitely the alcoholic soda posting.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
TheYogWog wrote:
Read to read assholes.
Write to write assholes?
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
So, for me, looking back the question is, "was it worth it?"
These replies before mine clearly show you that NO, IT WASN'T WORTH IT.
If making a TAS of a Mickey Mouse game is the only extraordinary thing I'll make in my life, I'd kill myself right now.
TheYogWog wrote:
All those hours I spent replaying the same ten seconds of gameplay, here and there, over and over again could probably have been put to better use
^This should be the tl;dr, and an important lesson for newcomers before they dive too deep into this.
You're just fucking stupid, everyone hates you, sorry to tell you the truth. no one likes you, you're someone pretentious and TASes only to be on speed game, but don't have any hope, you won't get there.
So, for me, looking back the question is, "was it worth it?"
These replies before mine clearly show you that NO, IT WASN'T WORTH IT.
Eh, I don't think so; we were having fun, perhaps until you showed up. But at the time of this post your post count is 666 so I'm kind of scared to proceed but here we go...
mz wrote:
If making a TAS of a Mickey Mouse game is the only extraordinary thing I'll make in my life, I'd kill myself right now.
Wait, are you telling me to kill myself? Harsh, man. I'm being totally honest here and this is what I get, right away? Even on TAS Videos? It's okay though. I'm not totally butt-hurt (only a little.)
Or a lot.
No seriously though just a little.
TheYogWog wrote:
All those hours I spent replaying the same ten seconds of gameplay, here and there, over and over again could probably have been put to better use
^This should be the tl;dr, and an important lesson for newcomers before they dive too deep into this.
Eh. Fair enough. To some people it's worth it; to some, it's not. I guess, in short I would say that it was, for me. I'll leave you to speculate about what that says about me and my life -- I don't really care. I think you may have a point in that new comers may be well advised to not waste their time if they have other, better things to do like going out the club or whatever.
If making a TAS of a Mickey Mouse game is the only extraordinary thing I'll make in my life, I'd kill myself right now.
Perhaps not a Mickey Mouse TAS, but some TASes make it to AGDQ and earn tens of thousands of dollars for cancer research. It's hard not to call that a significant life accomplishment.
TheYogWog wrote:
All those hours I spent replaying the same ten seconds of gameplay, here and there, over and over again could probably have been put to better use, theoretically. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed doing it at the time, and really the worst I can say about my time spent TASing is that it was time "well wasted."
There is a such thing as being too patient. There comes a point where you have to start optimizing for real-life time too. Learn to read assembly, learn to write lua scripts, learn how to find people to collab with you. This is the age of the Total Control TAS, after all. Our "modern art" now is rewriting games in real time, piping IRC chat into a Nintendo DS, and stuff like that. We've come a long way from just derping around with savestates to pull off some stunts here and there. Basically, if your TASing technique is "I'm okay with just re-doing every jump for an hour" then you're probably wasting your time.
It's your time, so it's completely up to you to decide how to spend it. The most important thing is whether you enjoyed the process and the product yourself. With all due respect, if you spent hours "replaying the same ten seconds of gameplay" only to make people think you have done something extraordinary and started to wonder "was it worth it?" just because someone doesn't like your movie, it might just be not worthy after all.
total control TAS,ram watching,scrpiting ,all the tech i don`t know because i don`t know programming really makes me feel like i`m no TASer at all.My TASing will never be as optimal and i now think about the games to TAS in terms of "do i know what it's needed to optimize this"
i also understand that TASing may not be an achievement of the sucessful normal person,but i believe all that it's done with care and attention is valuable,even if it's a useless task like a cupstacking WR or TASing.
Mastery is a value in itself,because it's made of attention and dedication to the subject.Attention and dedication are things we need in life but lack in different areas.
@yogwog,i don't like your specific TAS but i hope you take pride in your work,it's very well planned
I want all good TAS inside TASvideos, it's my motto.
TAS i'm interested:
Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS?
i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.
Joined: 4/15/2013
Posts: 331
Location: In the attic
If making a TAS of a Mickey Mouse game is the only extraordinary thing I'll make in my life, I'd kill myself right now.
No, no, no. Don't say that. That's not a very nice thing to say at all.
For me, TASing is a secret hobby of mine. My greatest accomplishment, I'd say, is that I managed to complete a full any% TAS of one of my childhood favourite games, and then come back to improve it by over a full minute. The resulting run may have been less than 20 minutes each time, but the amount of work involved was considerably more than that would suggest (gem-collecting in AotR is an absolute chore).
Now here's the sad part. I can't just go up to someone in real life and say, "Hey, I'm the guy who made the Tool Assisted Speedrun of Spyro Adventure" because they would just look at me like I'm a weirdo. But as long as the members of this esoteric community are able to appreciate what I have done, then that's good enough for me.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
TheYogWog wrote:
And I still firmly believe that TAS constitutes modern -- and I mean literally modern -- art.
Agreed.
TheYogWog wrote:
I haven't actually done any TASing in quite a long time, mostly due to time constraints, and the fact that at 30 years of age my hands and fingers can no longer sustain the abuse of hours-long TAS sessions and all the frantic keystrokes that go along with that. I estimate that well over a million individual button presses went into making my TAS, and I suppose similar estimates would hold true for many other authors as well.
Check out tastudio. You draw all the buttons with your mouse.
TheYogWog wrote:
There is a quote (sorry, I couldn't find out who originally said it) that basically says, "good art doesn't follow the rules, it makes its own,"
http://tasvideos.org/WelcomeToTASVideos.html#Why?
All in all, I wish you find interest in tasing in future. And if you do, make sure to work with partners, it helps to keep strong motivation in finding improvements and gives instant feedback about how good your latest wip was. Working alone, I fail to be so motivated in endless testing. But that might depend on the game (yes, I only truly enjoy tasing games I know since being a kid). Anyway, having a partner shows you unexpected possibilities.
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.
