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Theenglishman has been streaming his Metal Gear Solid VR missions TASing. http://www.twitch.tv/theenglishman Turns out that the secret to TASing is spending a whole lot of time doing the same thing over and over again.
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Nov 18, 2013 02:29
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Thanks everyone who watched TSSB, it was a lot of fun 
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Nov 18, 2013 04:59
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Wadjamaloo posted:I've always wanted to see a TAS in creation and learn more about the process. TSSB doing a TAS show would be pretty cool, but I imagine it would draw a lot of dumb hate and controversy. Pheenoh TASes Twilight Princess on his stream sometimes. It can be kinda boring though.
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Nov 18, 2013 06:01
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I have watched the hl2 dwadov guys make those and I find it interesting. I also know the use source demos to create the final product. How do other games stitch together the final product, is it just video editing? I also wonder how some of the frame by frame stuff gets made, like a lot of NES and snes stuff.
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Nov 18, 2013 07:00
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DWaMoV still had to encode and stitch all of the videos together at the end. Most segmented aren't nearly as segmented as source engine games, so manually stitching the videos together isn't actually a huge ordeal. A TAS is made by generating an input movie. You record the input, not the video, then you stitch the inputs together into a movie, that when played back on an emulator, produces an optimal speedrun. It's like a player piano that plays video games.
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Nov 18, 2013 07:14
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Watching somebody TAS live would be watching somebody check a bunch of boxes for all face buttons and drag a facsimile of an analog stick around, then click "next frame". Occasionally they'll open up a hex editor, and change some value from "5A" to "7B".
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Nov 18, 2013 07:19
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Dr. Stab posted:A TAS is made by generating an input movie. You record the input, not the video, then you stitch the inputs together into a movie, that when played back on an emulator, produces an optimal speedrun. It's like a player piano that plays video games.
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Nov 18, 2013 07:42
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Computers are 100% deterministic: there is no absolute randomness in a real computer. What you think is random is just clever manipulations of things that are varied or out of your control in normal play (some common ones include the system date/time, the buttons pressed on the controller, and the location of NPCs and the camera). These are all things a TASer can manipulate.
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Nov 18, 2013 07:46
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Wadjamaloo posted:How does this work with RNG? Wouldn't the playback have different RNG each time, or do they just run it 1000 times until it all comes together? As was already said, stuff you think is RNG is determined entirely by things that would be random to any actual person but can be manipulated in a TAS. If killing the third enemy on stage 2 504 frames after the game begins while you have 42 hit points and 4 items in your inventory gets you its super rare drop but doing it 503 or 505 frames gets you nothing, it's effectively random to a human being (even if they could get the other conditions right). But a TAS can nail that 504th frame. Actually with some super optimized runs for old systems you can see RNG manipulation done by human players--one example I can think of off the top of my head would be the NES Batman runs where pretty much every drop in the first part of the first stage is always the same when people run it. If you ever watch a TAS and see the player character seemingly doing nothing instead of moving forward, it's fiddling with the game's RNG to produce the most desirable outcome for something (most likely drops or enemy behavior) a ways down the line.
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Nov 18, 2013 07:54
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Pheenoh did some live TASing (of Twilight Princess) once. It wasn't very interesting to watch.
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Nov 18, 2013 07:58
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I'm also reminded of the drop algorithm in TLoZ1: This is entirely possible to manipulate by a human as well.
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Nov 18, 2013 08:01
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Suspicious Dish posted:I'm also reminded of the drop algorithm in TLoZ1: This is how SDA members caught TSA cheating and removed all his Zelda runs.
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Nov 18, 2013 10:08
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Wadjamaloo posted:How does this work with RNG? Wouldn't the playback have different RNG each time, or do they just run it 1000 times until it all comes together? RNG works different depending on the game. NESbot guy explained that some games rely on a fresh boot that is only practically possible with an emulator, while others might have an RNG that can be manipulated in normal playthroughs. FFXII comes to mind. RNGs generally use a seed to determine any "random" "roll." A good RNG will have this seed get affected by every button press you make, the last digit of your score, time, or some combination of things.
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Nov 18, 2013 10:31
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One of my favorite little weird RNG tricks in a game is Golden Sun's RNG - not only is it possible to force a given random encounter after a hard reset in the game, it's possible to fight a battle in a very specific way to force an item to drop from that battle. A very specific way.
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Nov 18, 2013 11:09
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Former Human posted:This is how SDA members caught TSA cheating and removed all his Zelda runs. Let's not forget his OOT runs which were blatantly spliced and people just wived it through because "the game is like that because TSA just owns and the game is bugging out"
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Nov 18, 2013 11:22
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Dizz posted:Let's not forget his OOT runs which were blatantly spliced and people just wived it through because "the game is like that because TSA just owns and the game is bugging out" Did SDA not have run verification then or something? Because it really was blatant! Unsynced music on area transitions and all.
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Nov 18, 2013 15:05
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People are a lot easier to fool than you think. Lots of people watched the run, and none of them noticed the splicing.
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Nov 18, 2013 15:54
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Suspicious Dish posted:Watching somebody TAS live would be watching somebody check a bunch of boxes for all face buttons and drag a facsimile of an analog stick around, then click "next frame". For less complex things like older 2d platformers you can get by just playing through the game, but having rewind and slow-motion bound to something on your controller. This probably wont result in THE frame perfect TAS, but you can always go in and fudge with the inputs later.
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Nov 18, 2013 17:34
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http://www.twitch.tv/theenglishman is live doing TASing now.
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Nov 18, 2013 17:38
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Dizz posted:Let's not forget his OOT runs which were blatantly spliced and people just wived it through because "the game is like that because TSA just owns and the game is bugging out" It probably also didn't help that it was a 5 hour run. edit: Yeah, quoted the wrong post. Not sure how the hell I messed that one up so badly. Regardless, I could easily see spacing out a little bit and missing an "obvious splice" if you're not actually getting paid to scrutinize a run that long. pyromance fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Nov 18, 2013 |
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Nov 18, 2013 18:48
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pyromance posted:It probably also didn't help that it was a 5 hour run. I think we got a misfire here. I remember watching that run all the way through with some friends a long time ago and none of us noticed poo poo. I watch the evidence video now and I can't believe we were so distracted.
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Nov 18, 2013 19:04
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It's pretty hard to notice most of the splicing but there was a part in the Gerudo Valley area where the music literally skips when he's entering the desert sandstorm maze and I can't see how anyone [of big status in SDA] didn't notice it. E:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlzocshpIlI E: Most of the pause splices that Cosmo had found are really cleverly hidden so I'm guessing he did lots of splices between cutscenes or something. Dizz fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Nov 18, 2013 |
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Nov 18, 2013 20:09
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Alteisen posted:NEW TMNT WR, 19:46. And now he's reviewing it, which I always find interesting to watch: http://www.twitch.tv/sinisterwon
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Nov 19, 2013 05:52
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Dizz posted:E: Most of the pause splices that Cosmo had found are really cleverly hidden so I'm guessing he did lots of splices between cutscenes or something. Maybe the most amazing thing is that when TSA was caught his excuse was that he accidentally put different clips from different runs together to coincidentally create WR videos. Accidentally. For every run he submitted. On a bunch of different games. That's the sort of thing that would be very very difficult to do accidentally (ok, impossible), but very very easy to do deliberately.
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Nov 19, 2013 06:24
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Suspicious Dish posted:Watching somebody TAS live would be watching somebody check a bunch of boxes for all face buttons and drag a facsimile of an analog stick around, then click "next frame". http://pastebin.com/Kx64VeUk It took an average of 8 minutes for every second of gameplay, most spent tweaking that file, watching a subpixel counter, and reloading earlier states to figure out the earliest frame that a direction change wouldn't result in death. I think the only thing interesting about watching it would be realizing that it takes a really long time to make them. There could be some insight into challenges that are invisible in the final video, but those are usually pretty easy to just describe in the notes. Heran Bago posted:RNG works different depending on the game. NESbot guy explained that some games rely on a fresh boot that is only practically possible with an emulator, while others might have an RNG that can be manipulated in normal playthroughs. FFXII comes to mind. Suspicious Dish posted:Computers are 100% deterministic AnonSpore posted:Actually with some super optimized runs for old systems you can see RNG manipulation done by human players--one example I can think of off the top of my head would be the NES Batman runs where pretty much every drop in the first part of the first stage is always the same when people run it. OneEightHundred fucked around with this message at 07:16 on Nov 19, 2013 |
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Nov 19, 2013 06:34
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OneEightHundred posted:There was a thread started very recently regarding the use of chosen power-on states, since the startup RAM state is indeterminate and some games actually seed their RNG from uninitialized memory, making it basically impossible to sync with a bot (or at best, it would take ~256 tries). Feasel actually takes advantage of this for his FF1 runs. The RNG seeds from an uninitialized memory location and he takes advantage of it because it's the same for him every time with a cold power-on. Really interesting run because of how much RNG manipulation it involves and how well he keeps up with it.
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Nov 19, 2013 07:34
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Man Romscout is a beast. Just got a new SOTN WR with 17:47
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Nov 19, 2013 08:27
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getitoffgetitoff posted:Man Romscout is a beast. Just got a new SOTN WR with 17:47 Yeah, and our very own GilderSneeze picked up a new PB/WR in Clash at Demonhead with a 22:46. e. Then I felt the WR vibes flow through me and nailed out a solid 1-bonus run of Chester Cheetah's Wild Wild Quest(SNES) in 16:21. You could probably push that down to 16:10 with perfect movement on every level and the risky strat on the Florida boss, but why the hell would you want to. SeXReX fucked around with this message at 13:56 on Nov 19, 2013 |
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Nov 19, 2013 09:38
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So, I have a somewhat-offtopic question, but since it's related to AGDQ I think it's OK (please link me to a better place if you know of one): what has the Prevent Cancer Foundation done? They seem to have gotten a million dollars, summing up the totals over the years. Do we know of any research that has been funded by our work?
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Nov 19, 2013 14:23
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Oh hey, Romscout is doing a Death skip in non-luck mode SOTN runs now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLMFDZbar4I e: Someone above me posted about this, but I have video 
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Nov 19, 2013 16:21
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SotN has gone through so many changes in the past month. It's insane how much more broken an already broken game has become with more people working on skips. Also, skipping Death at the beginning means that the meal ticket drop COULD happen in a normal run, rather than requiring specific runs for it, which puts it a little closer to actually happening.
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Nov 19, 2013 17:28
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pyromance posted:SotN has gone through so many changes in the past month. It's insane how much more broken an already broken game has become with more people working on skips. Yeah, it seems like the approach Rom is taking right now is "I'm not going to go out of my way to try the meal ticket skip, but if one happens to drop then I may as well go for it." So it might happen eventually, but it's not something that it seems like Rom is really going to try for specifically.
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Nov 19, 2013 17:46
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I remember the death skip involving the shield knockback method, but how does this one work?
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Nov 19, 2013 19:57
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Suspicious Dish posted:So, I have a somewhat-offtopic question, but since it's related to AGDQ I think it's OK (please link me to a better place if you know of one): what has the Prevent Cancer Foundation done? They seem to have gotten a million dollars, summing up the totals over the years. Do we know of any research that has been funded by our work? They sent us all letters thanking us  But joking aside their website seems to have links available for the sake of transparency, even if it looks more like they focus on fundraising.
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Nov 19, 2013 20:17
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Heresiarch posted:I remember the death skip involving the shield knockback method, but how does this one work? It's a variation on the "shift line" glitch normally done with the Heart Refresh, only in this case it's done by backdashing during the level up animation. If the room you walk into after doing the trick doesn't scroll, you load in on the wrong side of the screen and immediately transition to the next room after that, in this case skipping Death's room before he appears. You can also do this to loading rooms to carry the current tileset into the wrong area and create some incredibly garbled graphics.
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Nov 19, 2013 20:23
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The PCF created the super colon...what more do you need?
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Nov 19, 2013 22:57
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Suspicious Dish posted:So, I have a somewhat-offtopic question, but since it's related to AGDQ I think it's OK (please link me to a better place if you know of one): what has the Prevent Cancer Foundation done? They seem to have gotten a million dollars, summing up the totals over the years. Do we know of any research that has been funded by our work? Last year's funding went to a grant studying new methods of early detection for stomach cancer.
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Nov 19, 2013 23:20
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So just in case anyone cares that 720 hour marathon wrapped up last week. The couple, who I'm pretty sure just don't feel fatigue like mortal people, has now scheduled nightly streams and 48 hour marathons EVERY SINGLE weekend going forward indefinitely. And the guy has admitted that his life's dream is to be a streamer. I just can't look away.
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Nov 20, 2013 00:50
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:So just in case anyone cares that 720 hour marathon wrapped up last week. The couple, who I'm pretty sure just don't feel fatigue like mortal people, has now scheduled nightly streams and 48 hour marathons EVERY SINGLE weekend going forward indefinitely. And the guy has admitted that his life's dream is to be a streamer. I'm sure they'll still be doing this in ten years. Or two years. Or one year. Or six months.
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Nov 20, 2013 01:06
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:I just can't look away. Yeah it just seems like they might be able to make more money doing this instead of working a real job which I'm certain none of them want to do.
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Nov 20, 2013 02:12
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