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Out of all those, the only one I would find interesting at all is the purist minimal input, counting the number of keys pressed down each frame.
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I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
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alden wrote:
I got curious and counted some: http://tasvideos.org/Alden/ButtonPressStatistics.html
What software did you use for counting?
Joined: 7/2/2007
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alden wrote:
I got curious and counted some: http://tasvideos.org/Alden/ButtonPressStatistics.html
Heh. What about the Super Metroid 100% movie?
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Player (121)
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Excel, and it only works for NES movies :) I'll probably do a few more, any suggestions?
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
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Try to include the marble madness movie... an example of a movie where a and b are not a factor. Also, punch out.
Has never colored a dinosaur.
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A and B are definitely a factor in marble madness. A is the dash button that makes you move much faster.
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OK, added some more: http://tasvideos.org/Alden/ButtonPressStatistics.html Surprisingly, Marble Madness seems to be on the high end... The most dense button pushing so far is SMB2 warps, which averages almost 2 presses per frame... by comparison, the median density movie, A Boy and His Blob, presses about 2/3 of a button per frame. Monopoly presses under 1/25 of a button per frame on average :) At some point I'll make a real script for these and maybe expand to other systems.
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
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I like these. alden, if/when you expand to other systems, the Kirby Dream Course movie by gocha will be something for you.
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How about this: The best movie file is the one which completes the game and which compresses the best (eg. with a defined version of 7zip using some defined compression options).
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Chamale wrote:
Edit: I made it to 4-2 with 49 button presses, but now I can't do the trick with the vine where you go in the pipe and get sent to the warp zone. Even when I get stuck in the wall and get taken to the extreme right edge of the screen, it doesn't work. Any suggestions?
The reason why it works in the published SMB run is because of the part where Mario enters the wall in 4-2 which advances him further right relative to the screen. I can't explain more. Now you know who's also working on it. :)
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Truncated wrote:
I like these. alden, if/when you expand to other systems, the Kirby Dream Course movie by gocha will be something for you.
I do want to try to make a utility at some point... BTW the reason I was able to do the NES titles with Excel is the new .fc2 format for FCEUX... It stores button presses in essentially plain text so it is easy to import as a fixed-width spreadsheet and then apply simple functions like COUNTIF... all the other formats will make me think :S
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
Editor, Expert player (2073)
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Super Mario Bros. done in 162 163 button presses: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1372908278/Super%20Mario%20Bros%20%28PRG%200%29%20%28JU%29%20least%20press2.fcm I did it just for the concept. There was no attempt at making it as fast as possible. By level: begin: 1 1-1: 15 1-2: 15 4-1: 13 14 4-2: 15 8-1: 34 8-2: 19 8-3: 15 8-4: 35 total: 162 163
adelikat
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Does holding a button for 5 frames count as 1 press or 5?
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
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adelikat wrote:
Does holding a button for 5 frames count as 1 press or 5?
Holding a button counts as 1 press. If we count input frames, there is no way to bring it below 15000 10000 (Edit: I don't know what I'm talking about).
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As someone commented, "minimal presses" is far from unambiguous. Is it: 1) The sum of all the keys which are in their down state at each frame? 2) The amount of keys pressed to their down state during the movie? 3) The amount of key state changes during the movie? (In other words, each time the state of a key changes, ie. from non-pressed to pressed and vice-versa, that counts as one.) (2 and 3 are, technically speaking, almost the same thing, except that 3 produces a number which is almost double of that of 2. However, as a concept they are distinct. In some cases it could make a difference, eg. if we are counting with method 3, eg. if the 'start' button is pressed you don't want to unpress it during the rest of the movie if you don't have to.)
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From what I understood, you simply counted how many buttons were pressed on each frame, and added them all up. Holding a button for 5 frames would be 5 presses, holding 2 buttons for 5 frames would be 10, etc.
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Warp wrote:
As someone commented, "minimal presses" is far from unambiguous. Is it: 1) The sum of all the keys which are in their down state at each frame? 2) The amount of keys pressed to their down state during the movie? 3) The amount of key state changes during the movie? (In other words, each time the state of a key changes, ie. from non-pressed to pressed and vice-versa, that counts as one.)
While the definition of "minimal presses" is subject to debate, I reason that Nach intended definition #2 on the following basis:
Nach wrote:
Can SMB be beaten in less than 60 presses?
Nach wrote:
I take some of that back, SMB would only need Right+B once the entire game, leaving the rest of it to minimal jumps.
The phrase "minimal jumps" probably means "minimal number of jumps". Most other interpretations contradict the first half of the sentence in which it appears. Under #2, any key switch from non-pressed to pressed (or a key press from the first frame) counts as 1, and nothing else. Then my SMB movie has 163 key presses. Under #3, my SMB movie has 2*163-3=323 key changes. 322 if I held Start the whole way. Whether key presses on the first frame should count or not is again debatable.
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FractalFusion wrote:
Whether key presses on the first frame should count or not is again debatable.
IMO they should be definitely counted. While highly unlikely, it's theoretically possible that some game might be completable by pressing and holding one or more keys from the very first frame and keeping them that way all the way through. In this case it makes sense to make the distinction about how many keys were pressed on that first frame (as well as a distinction to a "zero-press movie" where no buttons are pressed at all at any point). Definition #3 would also make sense over #2 in this way: Is it possible to complete the game by pressing a certain key at the beginning and keeping it pressed, or must the key be released at some point? Technically speaking that makes a difference, and definition #3 accounts for that.
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So, I was bored. Currently only supports fcm but I could add smv and gmv pretty quickly. The hardest part was wrapping my head around the way the binary is organized for fcm. Also, only records data for controller 1 for now (but multi-controller movies should work). Get it here (holy crap that's quite the url). I wrote it in managed C++/CLI as a challenge to myself but I wish I had picked something easier. This probably requires the .NET framework.
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fm2 should be pretty easy too. It's all clear text basically. Awesome! I'll check it out...
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
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bkDJ: funny that you picked Arkanoid warped as an example. While making it, I thought, if optimized for least button presses (which I didn't do, since I moved quite a bit to the left and right while waiting) it could very well be the TAS with the largest % of the frames no button presses at all.
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Baxter wrote:
% of the frames no button presses at all.
Oh, that's a good stat to include. Fixed it up a bit. Enjoy. EDIT1: I must be retarded. I'm trying to add smv support and it's simple hex updates unlike fcm which is almost optimized for network transfer. However, following the format spec, I end up with ridiculous results: I'm pretty sure this super metroid run used "right" more than 0 times! EDIT2: oh jeez. Endianness. Well, fixed. Here's the latest. EDIT3: Reorganized code (still terrible) for easier format additions. And wow, fm2 was ridiculously easy and made for a very quick implementation. :D Latest version here: http://www.mediafire.com/?aaaaanaabaa (what the hell is with all those "a"'s) Also, I'm open to suggestions.
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I'm sensing a bug in the program, button A held down for 7701 frames in a 4409 frames movie is very impressive. :) Here's the movie if you want to run some tests on it or so. Otherwise a very nice program, keep up the good job. EDIT: I just tested, and this bug is present in all versions up to 0.3.