Cool! If you're going to be fully serious about this, and never give up until it's done, you and I definitely need to chat so I can help you out with anything and everything.
SDA run
This single segment run (I still can't believe he did it only dying twice) is going to be your bread and butter for most tricks and route. Route wise, there's hardly any improvements at all, except for ending up with exactly 550 Lums.
Precautions
-depending on how much effort you're going to put into optimization, as a 3D game, this is going to be tough. Rayman does not walk in a straight line unless the tilt is perfectly ^99. because of the camera, holding the analog at one angle will make Rayman run in an arc towards his destination. I did this in my old TAS; you should try not to.
-The camera is annoying. As with any 3D TAS, be sure to use the camera function to let the audience see as much of rayman as possible. I cannot stress this enough.
-N64 Exp Pak = desynchs. Now I don't know how good your computer is, but SwordlessLink has a killer computer and experiences very few desynchs with majora's mask. When TASing this game, I got like, 20 or so desynchs when playing for 10ish minutes. If you don't experience desynchs, you're set, but if you do, it's going to require a lot of patience.
-try to spam the A button during cutscenes, sometimes this skips the end of it (like the very first cutscene when you rescue the teensy).
-Plan all 550 Lums perfectly.
-Do not miss any murfy text skips.
Some Mechanics:
-Only jump when you need to. You lose a very small amount of speed when you jump, and his roll at the end is the same speed as running.
-For obvious reasons, hover for as little as possible.
-When sliding down slippery slopes, jump as much as possible, and jump off the end for the extra boost.
-When throwing objects, try to fire as soon as possible, you'll start running faster.
-On climbable walls, jump frantically.
-When riding the snake, hold Z to crouch more.
-Try to jump off of edges, it gives you a speed/distance boost.
-There's a huge amount of going through walls bugs and glitches. See if, with rerecords, you can find new ones. I can help you with the mechanics of how to go through walls and floors, and perhaps we can experiment and try to find new places to do it.
Tricks Manocheese missed:
-Sanctuary of Water and Ice orb skip
-Cave of Bad Dreams boss trick
-Whale Bay lamp jump
-Foutch skip
-Tomb of the Ancients switch skip, death warp, Clark 2 cycle battle
-Iron Mountains jump over fence
-Precipice; make cannonballs kill elite pirate
Do you have AIM or some other way to communicate live?