Ah, yes, I saw this pop up in my subscription feed on YT recently - been looking forward to the submission thread, and finally seeing the whole run in all its glory. I'm sure if I had that, I could sit down and come up with a list of specific things, but, in general, here's a few ideas:
-Discuss who was involved in what roles and maybe a bit of the origins & history (think re-syncs) of this years-long project.
-Define the goal, including why certain macro decisions were or were not made (the non-transformation rule, monitor & sRing inclusion, character selection, etc).
-Rings table or chart of some kind, w/ explanation for any missed/impossible rings & DDZ rings, etc.
-Any specific moments in the run that come to mind for you for any reason, anything you feel as particularly noteworthy or interesting - that might not belong in the dedicated level notes section?
-Lastly, I'd like to suggest linking to the wonderful Atlas encode that was recently produced by... I forget who, sorry... because it's a nice visual aid that could help viewers understand the "strange" antics in their first-impression of the run, the first stage, AIZ.
Thank you for the suggestions Yog, they will be very helpful for write the submission text.
And about the run, the 3 full run encodes are avaidable on my YT channel right now if people want to see it. These are: "Original/normal", "Tails point of view" and "Camhack + ring locations"
Next question. In the Tails encode, the camera snapping between Tails and Sonic when they approach each other or split up is very jarring. Is there anything that can be done about that?
Next question. In the Tails encode, the camera snapping between Tails and Sonic when they approach each other or split up is very jarring. Is there anything that can be done about that?
AFAIK no, it is how camhack behaves when you are seeing what Tails is doing.
But a friend is working on a complete Atlans encode for this run, would take a while but will worth it
But a friend is working on a complete Atlans encode for this run, would take a while but will worth it
Speaking of which, here's HCZ2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxzHItPChgQ
It's still not perfect, and I still have yet to find out how to hide the HUD more efficiently as well as draw the plane B data, but it does show how Tails is used offcamera in most places.
Moving forward, I'm going to change it to focus on the interpolated midpoint of Sonic and Tails, so that way Tails doesn't end up off-camera.
Here's my code: https://hyper.is-a.cat/gogs/x10A94/atlas-s3k/src/master
I did not want to keep this specific to Gens, considering there's plenty of Bizhawk runs out there, or specific to Genesis, even. Thus, it'll be possible for me to create Atlas encodes of other games, even if they're slightly less polished than those done with video editing. As such, the most common denominator that I could get to work on Linux was.. creating a savestate for each frame, plus some mid-frame data. This isn't very optimized, but it really doesn't need to be, given that it creates a 1080p video at around 15fps on my machine, which is fast enough for debugging.
If you somehow get it to work on windows, I'll put it on github so you can make a pull request.
Yeah, your mod is great for realtime playthroughs, but for a TAS like this where the camera must be dynamic to make sure that you actually see where both characters are on the level, it should account for future frames as well, which is not very possible when running a realtime renderer.
It's also pretty crucial to be able to hardcode things at certain points in the run, since it's unlikely that I'd be able to nail the presentation for everything in the entire game.
You two have already heard from me what I think of this marvelous TAS, and even if you have not, people more informed than I have, and I'm pretty sure when it's actually submitted, will continue to do so, commented on how and why it's so great.
So I'll just add that a year or so back I was thrilled that Evil_3D came along and picked up this game out of nowhere to TAS and was so great. New blood coming into the game after so long was pretty thrilling, especially some one so adept... and something I did not expect to ever see this late into the game.
And now it's happened again!
You've done amazing work on this Kaan55; you're an fantastic contribution to the community.
Amazing run; looking forward to voting Yes on submission and, if you chose to do so, following your future projects.
Cheers for the great TAS.
This is amazing! One suggestion for the HUD would be hiding the "real one" and showing a made up one in a greater scale on the corner of the screen, like this mockup I made:
This one has a 3x scaled up HUD, I made also this one with level name on the other corner, and a 4x scaled up version (too big).
Games are basically math with a visual representation of this math, that's why I make the scripts, to re-see games as math.
My things:
YouTube, GitHub, Pastebin, Twitter
You two have already heard from me what I think of this marvelous TAS, and even if you have not, people more informed than I have, and I'm pretty sure when it's actually submitted, will continue to do so, commented on how and why it's so great.
So I'll just add that a year or so back I was thrilled that Evil_3D came along and picked up this game out of nowhere to TAS and was so great. New blood coming into the game after so long was pretty thrilling, especially some one so adept... and something I did not expect to ever see this late into the game.
And now it's happened again!
You've done amazing work on this Kaan55; you're an fantastic contribution to the community.
Amazing run; looking forward to voting Yes on submission and, if you chose to do so, following your future projects.
Cheers for the great TAS.
Thanks paused. Honestly I didn't think I would've even contributed to the project with my own input. In the beginning I was merely a follower that occasionally found cool stuff.
You can certainly bet this won't be my last contribution to the community.
Challenger wrote:
Congratulations! I'll look forward for the submission.
As soon as we finish the submission comments it'll be out. Right now we have so much shit to explain :p
If you would like help proof-reading or anything, feel free to let me know - thanks.
Honestly, I really would like you to tell the story of this project from your perspective, after all this movie exist thanks to you!
kaan and me are stuck on the submission comments, this will take a while to be completed, and too we are giving time to Selicre to finish the Atlas encode
Ha, I realise this is something of a weak offer, as I can't offer even a fraction of what Yogwog can; but as he brought up proof reading and whatever other assistance can be given, just shout from me like wise.
But yeah; take your time on it till you're happy with it. Run is already out there for us fanatics who will seek out the commentary when it's done regardless. Worth taking your time on it for the people who are just more interested in TAS's in general who will only read your commentary the first time they watch your video.
kaan55 wrote:
You can certainly bet this won't be my last contribution to the community.
Honestly, I really would like you to tell the story of this project from your perspective, after all this movie exist thanks to you!
How does this sound? I figure I'll post it openly, here, so that everyone can have an opportunity to verify accuracy or warn me of any potential cringe or length issues which, let's be honest, I'm wont to do ;p
For readability of this post, I've put it in italics.
The thing about ring attack TASes is, in a traditional TAS, the idea is to go from beginning to end of a level or game as quickly as possible - but, in a ring attack, it is to go from one ring or set of rings to the next, in such a way that results in the overall level or game completion with the most rings in the shortest time.
Hopefully that gives some perspective on the extraordinary amount of work that ring attack TASes require.
And not to diminish other forms of TASes, which already in their own right require tremendous effort and expertise. It was in fact one such TAS - a traditional Sonic TAS, by SprintGod - which caught my eye in 2012. This was my introduction to TASes as a thing, and it blew my mind and inspired me to get into the TASing scene.
Around that time, new discoveries by the likes of MarzoJr, Nitsuja, Aglar, and others, of game-breaking bugs were resulting in Sonic 3 & Knuckles TASes that were faster and more impressive than ever before. However, there was a growing concensus within the community that such runs, for all their glory, deprived the viewer of the kind of intensive gameplay that makes TASes so attractive in the first place - for which Sonic games of old are ideal, by their fast-paced nature.
Yet, there seemed to be no solution to this dilemma given TASvideos' rightfully strict guidelines governing submissions. And yet again, in spite of this, in 2013 I began work on my own personal vision of what that solution could look like. And hence in 2014 I submitted my Knuckles ring attack TAS of S3K. It was well-received, luckily, and I said then that I hoped that one day a TAS just exactly like this one might eventually emerge.
And now it has.
And it's all thanks to the enterprising Evil_3D, who founded the project, and his inventive co-author Kaan55, who joined some time later, after offering several new strategies to get even more rings; whereas my own participation was primarily planning-related.
I would like to think that my TAS had the same impact on Evil_3D and Kaan55 as SprintGod's had on me. It was a pleasure working with them and getting to know them, albeit in the limited capacity that I did.
And I give them credit for staying true to my original vision of what a ring attack TAS could, and I daresay, should, be. (Could or should be, at least, for now... I can't deny that it would be fun to see Super or Hyper characters zooming around, collecting rings someday, now that this current milestone has been reached.)
I hope that you the viewer, find as much enjoyment as I do in watching this run, and as I and others on the forums did, in watching its development.
-The Yogwog
A few additional notes:
-I realize this is quite long, and I'm not exactly sure what you were looking for, so I had also prepared a much shorter version with less "historical context." But, you can think of this as like a forward in a book.
-I wrote this assuming you, Evil_3D, and Kaan55, will provide more detailed accounts of your individual roles (not to suggest it's somehow not okay if you don't want to - I'm just saying, that's what I did).
-You might want to include, perhaps in just a link to a separate Google document or something, any materials you composed in process of creating this run - maps, notes, etc. It may come in handy to any potential future TASers inspired by this... Plus, who knows, some might just be interested to have a look.
-Other than that, I hope the Atlas encode, the submission text, and the submission itself are completed soon & let me know if you need anything, or of any changes to the above you might like me to make.
I really loved what you writed here, is a very nice introduction for the run. I don't know if I will add some personal feelings too, my english and expressions are a little bad yet, maybe kaan can write some of his point of view too.
thank you~
Thanks Evil_3D. I'm glad you like it. I hope you do add your own personal thoughts and opinions as much as possible, I think your English is just great. I look forward to Kaan55's thoughts, too.
Sorry for the somewhat delayed response.
I like what you wrote TYW. I mean I don't know what else to say other than it explains history behind this project pretty well.
Considering this is still the first project I ever participated in I think people would be very interested to hearing my perspective.
Evil_3D, I'd be very interested in hearing why you started this (re)started project.
Since the publishing of the movie is fairly soon, I decided to work some more on the Atlas encode. This time with a dynamic camera that needs a bunch of fixes to make transitions not as jarring.
Link to video
This one has a 3x scaled up HUD, I made also this one with level name on the other corner, and a 4x scaled up version (too big).
