this probably is a case of moving the thread to the newbie section.
My first language is not English, so please excuse myself if I write something wrong. I'll do my best do write as cleary as I can, so cope with me here =)
(ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ
Moved this topic to the Newbie Corner.
To SonicGenesis:
It's not encouraged to start a new topic on subjects that already have a topic (in this case, the subject is Sonic 3 & Knuckles). I decided to move this to Newbie Corner just this once, but in the future please use existing topics. Thanks.
After quite a few tries, a random input generator and a brute forcer later, I put the TAS aside for a while due to RL stuff. Now I am back, and I mean business :-)
I still couldn't pull of the spindash in Flying Battery 1, so I went for a different approach: backtracking! It was so successful that even the mighty Knuckles in the 100% run was left eating dust.
All told, Flying Battery 1 clocks 0:56::16 -- this is 12 seconds 6 frames faster than the any% run and 4 seconds 33 frames faster than the Knuckles 100% run. This much time saved put some timed objects in rather inconvenient places in Flying Battery 2, and I was forced to find another route; I found one which makes a final time of 1:11::52 for Flying Battery 2, for savings of 2 seconds 56 frames over the any% run.
And yes, it can all be used in the any% run too.
The WIP is here. For convenience, the savestate you need to view the movie is here; remember to grab it if you don't already have it.
Detailed description of the levels:
Flying Battery 1
The stuff at around 0:09 and 0:10 is to get the glitch working correctly: Sonic must jump off from the "handle" and hit the ground with Tails and the handle both off-screen or the anti-gravity will be canceled. So I go inside the wall using the trick I discovered earlier, jump off and zip back in time for Tails (who is not idle) to grab Sonic. At 0:14 I still can't spindash -- not that it would help much, as I would simply get inside the ground in a bad location. At about 0:15-0:16, Sonic can't go running or he will enter the ground; Moreover, the hamster cylinder will cancel the anti-gravity if I enter it normally (i.e., running). Then I use anti-gravity to underflow the horizontal position.
Flying Battery 2
I use the anti-gravity glitch to enter the wall. Inside it, I slow down and start running on the opposite direction; this causes me to zip up. If I keep horizontal speed in the right range, I don't return in the same path, and I control horizontal speed to zip up to the right height in the right place. The I jump into the wall and zip to the end of the level. This is the same trick used to climb the wall before the boss at the end of the any% Flying Battery 1 level, just going in the other direction. If there were an easily grab-able fire shield early in the level, I could die to remove the left barrier and to an horizontal underflow (at a slightly different location) which would potentially be faster. But alas, no such fire shield exists.
Awesome to hear you're back at it. As I'm without my computer at the moment, I'll have to wait until you're finished and someone encodes the run to watch.
That is one of the best things I've ever saw.
With your permission, can I encode it on Youtube? I keep it unlisted so only people from here can see it.
Sure. But please encode the new WIP which further improves Flying Battery 2 to 1:11:21, saving 31 frames. I am now 3 seconds 27 frames faster than the any% run in this level.
New WIP, still up to Flying Battery 2.
What changed is: at the ending of Marble Garden 2, a cosmetic change that I had meaning to change for a while. Launch Base 2, Mushroom Hill 1 & 2 all see better optimization, and now have the following times:
Level Time Improvement
Launch Base 2 0:42::24 34 frames
Mushroom Hill 1 0:36::15 22 frames
Mushroom Hill 2 0:33::26 70 frames
Also, the post-Launch Base 2 cutscene is shorter by 1 frame. I have no idea why, but it is.
I believe it's to do with the fact that the game thinks it's still in Launch Base 1 because of him dying during the score count after the behind-the-scenes transition to the Launch Base 2 area. Beyond that, I don't know.
WIP until end of Sandopolis 1.
This level is annoying as hell: no zips, many annoying timed objects. Thanks to Tails, I managed to get to the object at 0:16 in time to skip it, which is not possible for Hyper Sonic alone. That puts another timed object later in a very inconvenient place -- and there is no way to get past that timed object other than wait for it to move. This would lose almost all gain from having Tails. Searching for ways to gain that time back, I found an improvement to the 100% run, which I hadn't managed to do it when I did it. I searched high and low for alternate routes, and in the end, found one: go above the level. Only with the help of Tails can Sonic get to this route -- not even Hyper Sonic can do it. The route taken suffered through several iterations, and is the fastest possibility I found. After all that trouble, the level was finished at 1:29::09 -- savings of 4 seconds, 48 frames from the 100% run (about half of which can be reclaimed in the 100% run if a timed object is in the right spot).
WIP to end of Sandopolis 1.
Improvements in speed management in the off-screen portion, a slight optimization of the lift by Tails and the boss fight combine for a final time of 1:27::51 -- saving 78 frames from the previous WIP. The new position where the sign post falls is a lot better too, and places the first timed object of the next act in a great spot. I just have to optimize the stage transition now and plan my route for the next stage.
WIP to end of Sandopolis 2.
Thanks to that initial shortcut courtesy of Tails, as well as a few improvements in precision from the 100% run, Sandopolis 2 is now sub-1-minute: 0:55::55, or 6 seconds 52 frames faster than the 100% run. One timed object is in an inconvenient place, but fortunately it is possible to go around it without any trouble.
I honestly did not expect Tails to make this much difference in the Sandopolis levels -- some difference, yes, but not to the tune of 12 seconds 58 frames! Makes me want to see how the Death Egg levels will fare...
Joined: 8/8/2005
Posts: 296
Location: NSW, Australia
This is so very awesome. It's as though Hyper Sonic can enter whatever wall he likes now.
As an aside, I'm doing real-time speedruns which incorporate a lot of the tricks from nitsuja's 2006 runs which started it all. I wonder if four or five years down the track people will be able to do this sort of stuff in real-time runs? ...No, probably not.
It's as though Hyper Sonic can enter whatever wall he likes now.
He almost can; the exceptions are either uneven terrain or walls where he would need to move to the left in order to enter. Not all entrances are useful, but many are. Many walls also leave you stuck.
I wonder if four or five years down the track people will be able to do this sort of stuff in real-time runs?
Most of the Hyper Sonic tricks would be nearly impossible to perform unassisted -- the precision required is simply ridiculous. I'd love to be proven wrong, though :-)
A quick summary of how the Hyper Sonic wall entrances work, if you want to try it: when you jump for a suitable ledge, or certain forms of sloped terrain, you must
be moving to the right (you can't do it going left; believe me, I tried);
be moving fast enough horizontally to clip the edge;
not be moving too fast vertically that you are still mostly in the ground for at least 1-2 frames after the initial clipping (higher horizontal speed helps in this regard too);
be able to hyperlaunch at a specific frame (usually, you have to do it diagonally down to the right, but in some rarer cases, straight down also works).
In most cases, the room for error is nil -- both the jump and the hyperlaunch require extreme precision.
For example, when jumping for the ledge, if you hold the jump button 1 frame more or less usually means you can't do it -- you will either be too low and hit the wall, too high and be ejected up (being left standing on the ground) after the hyperlaunch or too far left that you are ejected to the left of the ledge after the hyperlaunch. If you are trying a shallow zip, another possibility is that you end up entering the wall instead (which is usually bad in most cases where you want a shallow zip).
Likewise, if you hyperlaunch 1 frame too early or too late, you probably won't be able to do it -- for shallow zips, you definitely won't be able to do them, regular zips are slightly more forgiving (depending on the vertical and horizontal speeds, you may have 2 or even 3 frames in which you can hyperlaunch and still succeed). Failure has consequences similar to those described above -- ejected left, ejected up, hit the wall or (for shallow zips) be stuck in the wall.
Now, not all news is bad news -- the new Launch Base 1 trick, with Sonic + Tails, can easily be done unassisted. It requires some practice, but it can be done. It won't be as elegant as the version in the WIP, but it will still be pretty fast.
