Funny coincidence since I discovered you could go left literally 30 seconds ago and started thinking "hmm I wonder if this is faster? I have to test." Up until just now I had no idea so good thing you mentioned it :)
Joined: 8/15/2005
Posts: 1942
Location: Mullsjö, Sweden
I just got a 380 on Choco 5, so indeed it could be improve:).
EDIT: Tried some on the fortress too. I got 277 to the seconds room, and I lust my speed at the second last spike. So I guess I can get a 279 or something like that.
Tompa, for CI5, what time did you get into the pipe at? I'm wondering if you saved time there or at the chucks. For the chucks, I hit the one on the pipe and went a little backwards and hit the first one in the line of three but it launched me forwards (I know its still slower than not hitting it). Did you ever get run coming after the pipe? I have gotten it before the pipe. Also, for the Fortress, are you using Switch Palaces? Because it makes it much easier and lets you keep your run at the beginning. If you are using them, you can use this to get a non Switch Palace savestate, up to Castle #6.
Fabian, thats funny. Did you test out exactly how much faster going left was?
EDIT: For CI3, I tried to get 257 but I couldnt. I did the vine perfectly and it was close to a 257, but still a 256. For CI5, I get in the first pipe at 293, is this what you get Tompa?
I also tried out Castle #6 and got a 228. This was my first run of the castle but I think its a pretty solid time.
Fabian, I just thought of something for your run, sorry if you are already doing this.
Would it be faster to do the glitch that allows you to do regular flying with Yoshi in the levels where Yoshi is necessary? If it works the same as regular flying without Yoshi, it should be faster than doing the Yoshi flight the traditional way. I'm not exactly sure how the glitched fast Yoshi flight works, but even if it takes a little time to set up, it might still be faster than the traditional flight alternative. The levels VD3, VD4, Cheese Bridge Area, VoB2, VoB3, and VoB4 could all benefit from this, unless, again, the setup time is too long, but I dont remember it being too bad.
Sorry if this is late, but hopefully you can still do it on VoB2, VoB3, and VoB4 if it is actually faster. You would only need to do the flying glitch once at the beginnings of the levels, and then you could use the hop glitch to maintain the fast flying speed. Hope this helps.
Joined: 8/15/2005
Posts: 1942
Location: Mullsjö, Sweden
Yeah, I aslo got a time of 293 at the first time. But I didn't hit any chucks on my way to the goal. So that's where I saved time. And I get the P-speed at the yellow lines, jump under the first chuck, and ran under the first chuck in the line and jumped over the other two.
I tested them both and wrote down the difference, but I don't save that stuff so I can't remember exactly. I think it was in the 50-80 frame neighbourhood, so pretty significant.
Part of the reason the last few levels will be slow is becasue testing out various stuff with Yoshi is necessary. Like if at any time it's faster to start Yoshi flight, plus there's like 4 different methods for initiating Yoshi flight etc. Anyway, I'm thinking about it for these last few levels, in VoB2 it looked cool but was very slow (~60 frames). I'm guessing it will only be used in VoB3, but time will tell.
Anyway, I'm going away for about 2 days. Gl with the levels greginator.
So did you do Yoshi flight for VD3, VD4, or CBA? Was it faster for any of these levels?
Just got a 298 on Sunken Ghost Ship. I only paused once to get through a boo circle, so this time may be improvable by 1 (maybe 2) timeunits. Making videos is getting to be really annoying so right now I'm just getting the levels down, I might make vids later.
EDIT: 299 on Sunken Ghost Ship.
Fabian, that run was amazing. Congrats on winning the race and producing such an awesome run. ;)
When I went through and watched the video the second time, I decided to write down various questions I had as they came up. Sorry if some of these are stupid, it's just what popped into my head as I was watching the movie.
First some general questions that apply to the whole run:
You do a lot of kamikaze dives in this run. Doesn’t pressing forward to do these restart the fast flying oscillation and thus make you lose a bit of time, even if you come out of the kamikaze at the fastest oscillation?
At the end of many levels, you come out of a pipe and then have a short distance to the gate. Is it ever possible to save time doing medium speed hop glitch or 8/5 over these stretches? It seems like you try it some times but not others.
And now some specific level questions, in the order that the levels are done in:
1) In Castle #1, it seemed like you turned around for kind of a long time for the p-switch jump. Why didn’t you just do what JXQ did and just not turn around in the first place?
2) When getting to the first door in Castle #1, why didn’t you jump to do one hop glitch before the door?
3) In the second room of Castle #1, why did you take the fireflower? I though it was faster to avoid it.
4) It seems like you missed a few corner boosts in DS1…And maybe VD2
5) Was slowing down for that line of piranha plants at the end of VD3 absolutely necessary? It seems like they could’ve been hop glitched through if you were facing forwards.
6) I know you missed some corner boosts in Soda Lake. Why have you been missing them? Also, when you come out of the pipe at then end, you do what appears to be the hop glitch for medium running speed, but you don’t carry it through all the way to the gate, you walk the last couple of “squares.” Were you not actually doing the hopping glitch or is there another reason for walking at the end?
7) Why no 261 on SW2 (key)?
8) It seems like you fly unnecessarily high at the start of SW5 (key).
9) Fast p-ballooning on Tubular. “Allow Left+Right / Up+Down – off” was pretty clever. ;)
10) On Awesome, VIPer7 gets a 262 while you get a 261. What accounts for the 1 timeunit delay?
11) For FGH (FoI1 exit) you do a run at the very beginning without doing hop glitch or flying. Isnt this slow? You don’t do it the second time you play FGH…
12) Why didnt you get 99 lives? Or 99 gate points or 99 coins for the end? If you decided not to because VIPer7 did it, I think it wouldve been original and fitting to get 96 lives, 96 gate points, and 96 coins. ;)
Overall, this run was pretty much flawless and *very* entertaining to watch. I loved the parts where you flew through/under the floor. I also liked all the autoscrollers and the parts of levels that you hopped through (Awesome!). Definately my favorite TAS so far.
Joined: 6/25/2006
Posts: 138
Location: Fort Collins, CO
I think I can answer some of those questions. Fabian can correct me if I'm wrong.
For the kamikaze questions, it seems like Fabian went for as entertaining of a movie as possible and a couple of frames lost here and there are worth it to show jawdropping tricks. This is just what I am guessing.
I am not sure about the short distances at the ending.
3. You need the fireflower for castle 2,4,5. This room is a scroller so it is the fastest place to pick up a flower. Any other place would cause you to slow down. I thought this myself when watching but then the answer came to me and I felt pretty stupid for doubting him.
7. Fabian has made it clear before that he doesn't watch timeunits because they don't really matter for a TAS. I actually don't know why he didn't get a 261 on SW2 as it is possible but there probably is some reason.
10. I am assuming it is because he made that level "awesome" which might have caused him to slow his speed in a few places. Either that or lag at the end had something to do with it. It isn't a full timeunit delay. The number being lower barely affects the overall time.
I guess the only question I really answered was 3 and the rest were just theories.
Anyways, I loved the run and I will definitely watch it again and again.
On a sidenote I have a question for my 11 level run. I was trying to do the shell jump in YI4 and I actually got really close. One time I landed on the shell and actually heard the sound the game makes when you jump off a shell. I was caught off guard and wasn't expecting to hit it so I wasn't holding jump and didn't make it across. I am pretty sure I could have made it if I was actually paying attention. All of my other hundred attempt or so were ruined because the shell was too deep in the water. I want to know how the TAS's have the shell high enough to jump off of it? I am doing everything the same as the runs I think. I jump into the block, drop the shell, kick it then jump. I am usually above the shell but i can't reach it. It would be crazy if I could do this but it doesn't matter that much due to the time it will take to perfect it and how many runs it will ruin.
I just realized that the new 96 run is exactly 10 minutes faster than the non-tool run.
Good observations overall, you've caught many of the small (and sometimes pretty big) mistakes existing in this run. I'll go over it point by point.
First, kamikaze diving. Normally when going into diving mode you need to press -> for 20 frames. When doing fast diving, you only need to press -> for 5 frames though (overall it takes 9 frames, ->, nothing, ->, nothing, -> nothing, ->, nothing, ->, then you can start pressing <-). This does not result in timeloss the majority of the time, but sometimes 1 frame will be lost. I decided early on to ignore this once in a while and very insignificant thing.
Next about the medium running speed oscillation. This run was started in November 2005, and at that point Mario's speed wasn't completely understood. There were no memory addresses where you could watch his speed or P-meter etc, these were discovered by JXQ sometimes in.. I think april? Correct me if I'm wrong here. So anyway, in the beginning of this run I didn't take advantage of oscillating speed except for fast flying of course. I think it was right after the Donut Plains 2 levels that I finally got memory watching to work on my emulator thanks to nitsuja and Fabianx, and could start taking full advantage of the oscillation. So to answer your question, yes there are several places during the first half (approximately) where it would save a small (1-5 frames) amount of time.
1) This is not the only mistake in Yoshi's Island, but it's the only noticeable one. At that point (November/December '05) I had no intention at all to ever finish this and submit it, it was simply for fun. As a result, I didn't try hard enough here after finally getting it to work. A better execution would have saved 9 frames here, and as we learned when JXQ submitted his 11 exit, that could be further improved, although that was not an option for me at the time. The other, larger mistake in YI is the very first thing that happens, the hopping glitch in YI2. This was the first time I ever did that glitch, and I somehow screwed it up. I don't remember exactly how much time was lost here, but the end result was only 6 frames faster than not using the hopping glitch, if I recall correctly. I think it should have been like 30.
2) I should have. This was a 1 frame mistake I overlooked.
3) What skamastaG says, fastest way to pick it up and you need it for boss fights later.
4) True. Similar to the oscillation speed thing, this was not known until JXQ started working on his 11 exit run. I even remember telling JXQ when doing DS1a "flagitious and VIPer7 are somehow 2 frames faster than me at the first pipe. I can't explain why". If you recall, they did a corner boost by accident in their run :)
5) You need to run up to flying speed to get past the last lava mountain. If keeping Yoshi had not been a concern, hopping past the piranhas and then dismounting Yoshi as kind of a double jump would have been possible. But we needed Yoshi of course.
6) Same thing about corner boosts as in 4). The ending did not abuse oscillation speed (which was still not known so not a concern), I simply tried running normally and starting with a jump, and they were equally fast (which is not a surprise now that I understand how Mario's speed works better :) ), so I chose to do the jump only because running was more common in these spots.
7) The key grab was bad in this level. No excuses here, other than I hate water levels with a passion. It's unfortunate this small loss of time caused a time unit to pass, causing you to notice ;)
8) There's a limit on how far above the screen Mario can fly. Doing a normal liftoff here would have made it impossible to fly up to the key.
9) I'm sorry I couldn't use your trick. If you recall, at first I decided not to, but then I changed my mind and redid that stage, and it saved lots of time (150 frames or something? I should start writing stuff up I guess). JXQ helped me with hexediting, but it turned out lots of levels desynched and had to be redone. I was pretty low on motivation at this point (right around Forest of Illusion 2), and we decided it would be way too much work, especially considering we thought the current Tubular looked cooler. But again, I did want to use it and I tried, I changed the left+right/up+down setting but changed it back when hexediting didn't work out.
10) Here's the other big speed screwup in the run, the first being YI2. Keep in mind, at this time I didn't have memory watching to make using the right flying speed way way easier. Here, I had to start flying and release -> at 5 different consecutive frames, fly to a predetermined spot and see how long it took. In this particular level, since I had to release Y and start hopping right away, this was even more complicated than usual. Anyway, what happened was I released Y a bit too early, before the liftoff phase was complete without realising it, causing the speed values Mario oscillates between to be that of regular running (top speed 49) instead of flying (top speed 51). So after I determined fastest speed, I hopped through the level at 49 instead of 51. This was a pretty significant time loss since it's a long level, and by far the most costly mistake in the run (not counting the nonexisting Tubular hexedit), but like I've said before, hexediting wasn't working without lots of redoing other stages. Still, it's arguably the coolest level in the run :)
11) Yes this is something I'm pretty unhappy about, since it's so very noticeable. After I improved it during the second time, I sent it to JXQ for hexediting. Despite only being a few levels done after it, however, it wouldn't hexedit. The normal exit is 23 frames faster, but even if hexediting had worked out, some of that would have been lost to make it all synch.
12) I thought this was very clever of VIPer7, but also something I didn't want to replicate. It works once but it gets old. I'm not regreting this decision. Overall, you might notice I pass up several opportunities for more 1ups during the run, not because I didn't want to reach 99 (I wouldn't mind), but because I didn't think it was that important. We've all seen more than enough extra lives in SMW/SDW runs, no need to overdo it this time, I felt.
I hope this answers everything, otherwise just keep asking :)
What I would try and focus on is to jump into the water as soon as possible (first few frames) after the coin block-jump. This and to not hold B for too long at first, try just lightly tapping on it to get a short jump. Then during the second part of the jump, you can start holding B to make your jump only slightly longer. From your description it sounds like you're doing everything right, but it's a difficult trick, it really does require pretty precise timing. But yeah, jump early and jump short, that's my tips. Hope it works out.
About 10), I actually think this was a full timeunit delay, which would make it the only one in the run (what I mean is a mistake costing more than an entire time unit). Like I said in the previous response though, it had nothing to do with slowing down to keep up the awesomeness or lag, it was a speed error at the beginning of the level which added up to a lot.
skamastaG, I did some testing on YI4 and actually came pretty close to crossing the gap. I realized early on that I suck at doing it the traditional TAS way (pick up the shell, hit the star block, drop the shell, then kick it), so I came up with a new way to do it. Instead of picking up the shell and dropping it again, I just kick it right away, when I first get to it. Depending on the speed you kick it and where you jump, 3 different things can happen. These three things are all shown here, played "non-tool" (except for the savestates).
Yoshis Island 4 Tricks
Option 1: This is the very first thing you see me do in the video. For this, you kick the shell slowly and jump into the star block. When you come down, you will bounce off the shell as it is over the pipe. This really has no chance of making it, but is pretty entertaining if you cant get anything else to work.
--The second thing I do in the video is a rare mess up of this, I usually get it every time when I try.
Option 2: The third thing you see me do in the video. You kick the shell so slowly that Mario runs into it, but doesnt kill him because he's big. Ideally you jump as close as you can to the star block without hitting it, and like Fabian said, keep your jump short. This is really just an easier (and worse) way to do option 3. Comes pretty close to making it.
--The fourth thing I do is a semi-rare mess up of option 2.
Option 3: The fifth thing I do, this is really the best option. It's pretty much the exact same as option 2, but Mario doesnt get hit by the shell. This comes really close to making the gap, but is harder to do than option 2. Its not actually too hard to do though, I can get it probably 1 out of 3 tries.
Can anyone verify if it is indeed possible to make the gap using option 2 or 3? This would make it much easier than the current TAS way.
Okay, here we go again. I've thought of some more stuff. It's about corner boosting on land.
Why is it that corner boosting is only comfined to underwater? It makes sense to me that it would still work on land. SkamastaG first thought of this, and I decided to do some testing on it. I successfully got what appeared to be a small boost by jumping on the very left edge of an info block with Mario. Here is a short video (.smv). The boost is hard to see, you may need to watch the video with slowdown or frame advance. This boost is even more apparent when riding Yoshi. A good example of this is Cheese Bridge Area from Fabian's video: when Yoshi jumps on the 3 wooden platforms at the beginning he lands on the far left edge of them and appears to boost forward.
Note that the corner boost seen in the video is Mario jumping on the upper left corner of a solid surface. I'm not sure if these boosts work when Mario lands on the upper right corner of a surface, when he hits the bottom left corner of a surface from underneath, or when he hits the bottom right corner of a surface from underneath. All of these options are worth testing.
Corner boosting may also work with a cape, which would be even more handy for a run. I tried testing this out, but I couldnt ever hit a surface at just the right spot while flying. There are again four options for corner boosting while flying. I'll list them from what I believe to be most probable to giving a boost to least probable: hitting the bottom left corner of a surface from underneath (either while rising as you catch air or falling as you lose air), hitting the bottom right corner of a surface from underneath (while rising), hitting the top left corner of a surface (while rising), and hitting the top right corner of a surface (while falling). All of this is of course with "normal" flying. Note than when I use the terms left and right above, it is from the perspective when Mario is moving to the right.
Corner boosting seems to vary based on the type of surface used, some are better than others. So far, an info block has worked very well. I'd bet the "concrete" ground found in Vanilla Dome and cave/castle levels would work well too.
If anyone wants to do testing on either running corner boosts or flying corner boosts, that would be great.
EDIT: Here is the video for the corner boosting with Yoshi. As you can see, the boost is even more extreme. I do it from both the top right corner and the top left corner.
EDIT 2: I'm not exactly sure how corner boosting works, but I thought of a way that could save a lot more time than just the 1-2 frames saved during the boost. Lets say for simplicity's sake that the p-run oscillates 44-->45-->46-->45-->44, and so on. If a boost briefly incresases your speed to say 47, than you could start the hopping glitch right as this happened and maintain a speed of 47 throughout the level, which would be even faster than doing the traditional hopping glitch and keeping your speed at 46. The same thing could work for doing the boost with a cape (if this is possible). I'm not sure if the corner boost actually accelerates Mario or if Mario just "teleports" forward a bit, but if it does accelerate Mario using the boost with the hopping glitch could be a significant timesaver. Even if reaping the benefits of the boost isnt possbile if you've already started the hopping glitch, if you got a corner boost early enough in the level it would be worth it to not do the hop glitch right away so you could do the rest of the level at 47 (or even better, 48 or 49, I dont know the actual numbers).
A corner boost doesn't increase Mario's speed, it just teleports him forward.
I've noticed some corner boost-like behavior before, but I've never seen it save time (though admitedly not looked very hard for it either). Did the corner boosts you did actually save time? An easy way to check is to not do it, see at what frame an item box (or whatever, a wall etc) becomes visible on screen, then redo with the possible time saver, and see if the item box becomes visible at an earlier frame.
I'll try out the YI4 thing some time when I have time, which is not now unfortunately.
I did this, and the corner boost off the info block in YI2 did in fact save time. It saved one frame, just as a water corner boost would do. You could probably get it to save 2 frames with frame advance precision to get on the FAR left side of the box, I did it at 100% speed. Something to keep in mind if someone ever does an 11-exit (or 96-exit I guess) improvement. Or something for SDW. The 1-2 frames saved for every corner would probably add up to a lot.
Now the question is if it will work with the hop glitch. By that I mean can you get the boost while doing the hop glitch, not what I said above about keeping your speed higher than the fastest oscillation. Also, will it work with the cape?
Joined: 6/25/2006
Posts: 138
Location: Fort Collins, CO
I JUST DID THE SHELL JUMP OVER THE WATER IN YI4!!!!! I jumped short like Fabian said and it worked. It took a few tries but I finally did it. I will practice until I get it consistent. Hopefully I will be able to.
I'm not going to even attempt the jump in castle 1 as it involves many frame precise moves.
This will be so cool if I can do the jump and get a 276.
I tested YI2 with hop glitch and this trick and it didn't affect the ending frame. This "corner boosting" doesn't seem the same as the water corner boost to me. It looks as if you are being boosted up onto the platform, not to the right.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Yeah I have done a lot more corner boost testing and it appears that it only actually saves time with a Yoshi. I'm positive that it saves a frame when Yoshi is used though. Unfortuneately, I cant think of any situations where getting a Yoshi saves time to get the boosts with him, especially if you cant do it while flying. I am curious as to how much time is saved when you start out YI2 (or some other level) with a Yoshi though. Also, the boosts dont work on every corner, it depends on the surface. A good way to test the surface to see if it's good is to slowly walk off the edge with Yoshi and see how far you can get before falling. If it looks like you're standing on air before you fall, that's a good sign. I'm also curious if these boosts can be used without ruining the hop glitch.
Joined: 6/25/2006
Posts: 138
Location: Fort Collins, CO
I just found a situation where I think hitting a corner will give you a boost. You come from the left and above and as you are falling you hit the left corner of an object. I used a pipe. It is easier to practice with a cape but it should be possible with out it. Mario gets pushed forward the same way he does as with the water boosts.
I am curious as to why the supermarioworldtricks page says the underwater corner trick doesn't work with an item. I have hitten a corner in DS1 and it looks like I am pushed forward. Also, JXQ said in his comments for his 11 run that he got a corner boost in SW2 and you are holding a baby yoshi the whole time. unless he hits the pipe in the beginning(I will have to check). Do you not actually get a boost with the item?
I just checked and he does get the pipe. It looks like he gets a boost at the end when he is going down below the pipe. Is this not an actual boost?
Fabian, I have been lookling at maps a lot lately and I think I have found some more spots where you could fly through or under the ground/floor to save some time. Some of these may not be possible, but I wouldve thought a lot of the stuff done in your run wouldnt have been possible either so here goes. All the explanation is in the picture. Note that when I show an arrow going into the ground at a slope, the slope may look like this "'\_ , meaning you have to turn around to get into it. Also, all flight paths are very approximate, and in some cases the place where you leave the ground doesnt matter, it's wherever you want it to be.
Castle #5Castle #7Chocolate SecretDonut Plains 2 (key)Vanilla Dome 2Vanilla Dome 3 For the part at the end, I forgot you had a Yoshi at first, but you could initiate Yoshi flight by stomping a beetle or using the ceiling method.
Valley of Bowser 2 (key)Valley of Bowser 4
EDIT: For VD3, I thought of another way to do the end without slowing down in case flying under doesnt work or is slow. Just initiate Yoshi flight and fly over all the pirhanas up to where the black snapper things are.
Bleh I had a long answer written but then firefox crashed. I'm tired and responding tomorrow, but the short answer is no for all of these except "maybe possibly" for Castle 7. Although some of these no's aren't very confident no's, since I don't have a lot of experience with lava pool flying. I don't think any of these would be possible, although the only one I've tried (for a long time) was Castle #5.
Anyway, better answer some time tomorrow.
Yeah the ones I'd immediately rule out are Choco Sec and DP2 just because they're pretty far fetched. All the other ones deal with flying under lava (or water), and I'm not exactly sure how this works, and how possible it is. VoB4 doesnt have any flying under lava or "sequence breaks" like in CS and VD2, but it requires flying into a slope on the ceiling instead of the floor.
Joined: 6/25/2006
Posts: 138
Location: Fort Collins, CO
I realized a while ago that left+right is not possible on console and that SDA doesn't allow it because hardware modifications are required to make it possible. The controller that I used to figure out the glitch was some weird High Frequency controller that I guess lets you press l+r. I tried it on a normal controller and it didn't work.
The strangest thing just happened though. I just did the left + right trick on console using a completely legit and official SNES controller, like the ones that come with the system. I was in the cloud in SW3 and just pushed really hard on the left and right buttons with my thumbs and I saw myself jerk a little. I went to the left wall to test and sure enough I went through the wall. This proves that left+right IS possible and I might be able to use it if I do a 96 console run. It should work on any controller. I will test on different controllers(the one I was using and my friends other controller). I probably won't use it though as people will call it cheating even though I think it is a possible and legit trick. If it only worked on that high frequency controller I wouldn't use it but I got it to work on a standard controller.
If anybody wants to try it I just pushed down both buttons and wiggled it a little until I was pushed forward.