Wednesday, February 14, 2018

[TAS] Kaizo Mario World 100% in 16:56.78

Game: Kaizo Mario World
Download: Patch
Emulator: lsnes rr2-β23
Duration: 0h 16m 56.776s (61107 frames)
Re-record Count: 78430
Movie: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/36393053340852367




This beats the previous old record by ism140 by 1 minute and 16.27 seconds:

The 100% run requires completing every intended exit of this game, including the star world. The timing starts on console power-on and finishes at the last frame of input, some seconds before Bowser is hit.

Major thanks to BrunoVisnadi who noticed the break in the Ghost House long ago. I discovered the platform teleport glitch (autoscroll) during the making of this TAS.

Level by level comment:

1 Yoshi Island 1: If you kick Bob-Om, you reset its stun timer and delay the explosion. If you do so at the correct time, you can even change its palette. We need to get the mushroom for the 3rd level.



2 Yellow Switch Palace: nothing really unusual, except walljumps.


3 Yoshi Island 2: the major improvement is clipping through the floor using the muncher as the ceiling. When Mario is big, ducking under a ceiling and presses A (or even B, but that requires releasing down at the precise frame), he might clip the floor.



4 Autoscroll: I actually discovered a new SMW glitch in this level!
Touching one of the three-platform sprite on the frame it spawns (by scrolling the screen all the way over and sticking to the side of the screen) will cause Mario to be warped leftward. This will send him through solid blocks, as well as still leave him with the ability to jump.

After getting the red Yoshi without the blue shell, I press A to dismount him with turbo.
Dismounting Yoshi repeatedly against a ceiling will let Mario move horizontally (albeit slowly) without moving vertically. This can be used to clip into upside-down slopes.


Then, I force Yoshi inside the wall just for showing off. By the end of this level, I need the shell in hands to get a mushroom in the item box.

5 Ghost House: here comes the biggest improvement of this TAS.
By running very fast toward left in a L corner, Mario does a wallcatch and the game registers him on top of the block. If he is big, his head gets inside the top block which forces him to the left. With the correct subpixels, it's possible to duck and jump to clip downward very fast.

In order to capture the Throw block, mario's side must be inside the block region. As Mario is small and grows when he is about to touch it, the lateral points momentarily touches the block.









The second Throw block uses the same principle, but uses the P-Switch as a way to force Mario upward.





6 Water Level (normal): Mario's graphics get blurry because I'm pressing left and right in alternative frames. This makes him swim slightly faster than just holding right. And the green shell in the other room is worth, as it makes Mario go twice as fast.

7 Red Switch Palace:
L+R glitch: Holding down both the left and right directions at the same time while Mario has either a P-balloon or Lakitu cloud will boost Mario rightward at higher speeds than normal, even allowing him to force his way through solid objects without dying.

8 Water Level (secret): the same as the normal exit...

9 Ice Level: the fishes use RNG and the global timer, so they might appear in bad positions at the beginning.

10 Go Faster Pokey Level:
  • we get hurt and pass through the munchers, jumping when the invisibility timer is about to end;
  • I wait a few moments near the two Growing vines to manipulate where the next superkoopa will appear, to hit Yoshi's block without the shell;
  • In the end, I scroll the screen (holding L) to avoid the hole and save time.
11 Autoscroll Ghost House: I keep P-Meter through the level and that allows me to hit the goal tape 2 frames before it would without P-Meter. When I seemingly through the ghosts without getting hurt, it happens at precise times. Those ghosts can only hurt Mario 1/4 of the frames.
the true hitbox is not what it seems

they only hurt when the rectangle has a blue interior
12 Castle:
Shells, throwblocks, Goombas, and Bob-ombs can destroy sprites that would normally be undestroyable (e.g. Thwomps, Thwimps) so long as they are in a higher sprite slot than the sprite.

We don't enter the door immediately, because Mario has to wait the layer 2 to rise, otherwise he would die smashed.

13 Top Secret Level: this small level seems easy, but it's hard to optimize. Don't try to get the feather without TASing or you'll get stuck.

14 Platforms Level: explaining flight in this game is really complicated. Just keep in mind that Mario needs to keep the air in his cape and rotate a lot to control it.

15 Bowser Castle: the takeoff meter isn't cleared between rooms' transitions. If you jump with takeoff and enter the door fast, you can regain flight in the next room. In the boss, I skip one of his phases by throwing the Mecha-Koopas on him at correct frames. I end the input soon by flying very high and get hurt in the process.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Encoding SNES movies - Tutorial

This text is a quick and dirty tutorial to encode high quality videos from SNES emulators. Very suitable for unofficial tool-assisted speedruns movies. If you wanna know the completely right way, you must follow this guide. This tutorial presupposes that the user is using the Windows OS and that the game is the NTSC (american or japanese, but not european) version, with a constant native resolution of 256x224 pixels (or 512x448). Some obscure games might vary that.

Software
Emulator(s): BizHawk, lsnes or Snes9x-rr.

Lossless codec: install Camstudio, otherwise the dumped video will be have a huge size. This will place a dll file in your system that programs can use to encode and decode videos.

Scripting video editor: install Avisynth. Like in the previous installation, no executable is added to My Programs.

Encoding package: download and extract this archive. I (Amaraticando) used the original package from TASVideos, removed a bunch of stuff and tweaked it for SMW. If you don't trust the Mega link, download the original one.

Video Dumping

BizHawk
ResolutionSound
256x22444.1KHz stereo
Select Speed/Skip to 0 (never skip)
You can turn off the sound in Config -> Sound if you don't want to hear it while dumping. It won't affect the dump's audio.
Open the ROM.
Pause emulation. (Pause key)
Load the movie.
Select File -> AVI/WAV -> Record AVI.
Choose a file name (such as movie.avi), and choose a lossless RGB codec of your choice (Camstudio recommended). Click OK.
Unpause emulation. At this point, audio and video are now being captured.
When you reach the desired end point, select File -> AVI/WAV -> Stop AVI.

lsnes
ResolutionSound
256x224/512x44844.1 KHz stereo
Open the emulator, load the ROM.
Select load movie/savestate tab, select the movie, check start paused and hit ok.
Set avi-soundrate to 5 (settings, advanced tab, or 'set-setting avi-soundrate 5')
Select AVI capture (Camstudio / PCM) from capture menu.
Set speed to turbo (or other desired speed).
If you want to, you can mute audio by unchecking Config->Sounds enabled. This won't affect dumped audio.
Unpause the emulator
When reaching the end, select end avi dump.
Snes9x-rr
ResolutionSound
256x224 (NTSC)48KHz stereo[1]
Note: This applies to v1.43 v17 and most revisions of v1.51. Earlier versions of v1.43 have a different menu layout.
Select Config -> Speed -> Frame skip -> skip 0.
Select Config -> Sound -> Playback rate -> 48KHz.
Select Config -> Video -> Display Configuration... and make sure that "Bi-Linear Mode 7" is checked.
Load the ROM.
Set speed to about 400% (= key or Config -> Speed -> Set Speed).
Pause emulation (Pause key).
Load the movie file, with Sync Sound checked (it increases sound resolution).
Select File -> Audio/Video Recording -> Start AVI Recording. Choose a file name (such as movie.avi), and choose a lossless RGB codec of your choice (Camstudio recommended). Click OK.
Unpause emulation. You are now capturing audio/video.
When you reach the desired end point, select File -> Audio/Video Recording -> Stop AVI Recording.


Video Encoding
Navigate to the encoding package folder. There's a readme inside. You must place the raw AVI that you just dumped inside the folder (like in the picture below). If there's any SOX audio, put it too (optional). The names must be exactly movie.avi and audio.sox .

Next, double click on global.bat. This will open a prompt and execute the batch.
If the prompt doesn't appear, hold Shift and right click on the folder. The context that appears will have a Open command window here. Inside the prompt, type global.bat and enter.

The prompt will give you some options and maybe some error if something went wrong.
You will have to type the size of the encode and the crf quality (the lower the better, but takes more time and disk space). After everything is done, the encode will be on folder output. For safety, remove the mkv file from this folder when you finish.

Monday, November 14, 2016

SNES Super Mario World - List of Pit Hacks and Records

In this post I shall list the main pit hacks and their best times.
The best times that matter the most are the ones in their chronological order, but I might put a few records that weren't the best at its time in small font.
The difficulty level is my opinion on how hard it's to complete the hack with tools, without considering the best strats and optimization.
This list is probably incomplete, you can suggest edits in the comments. A pit hack must be harder than Molotov's Pit Hacks series.

1 Square Puzzle
Download   Difficulty: ★★★
4:19.61 by Amaraticando

Colon Three
Download   Difficulty: ★★★★
100%
6:45.92 by xHF01x
Demo by HoorayForJay and shadowdragon121TASer

The level%
16:45 by TheLilGecko
19:25 by gusapno

Glitch Abuse
Download   Difficulty: ★★
2:38.92 by Amaraticando
9:47.50 by shadowdragon121TASer
9:50.12 by HoorayForJay
10:24.72 by TheFinalBoss726
12:26      by Bullethead2202 [deleted channel]

Glitch Abuse 2
Download   Difficulty: ★★
PS: must display the castle destruction to count as finished. The Pokey stun glitch is not valid.
10:24.20 by  shadowdragon121TASer
11:47.62 by Amaraticando (smv)
13:30 by HoorayForJay and shadowdragon121TASer
WIP  sub 2 mins by BrunoVisnadi

Glitch Abuse 3
Download  (notice that there's a beta version)   Difficulty: ★★★
6:43.96 by shadowdragon121TASer

Item Abuse
Download   Difficulty: ★
2:39.34 by Amaraticando (lsmv)
5:44.28 by Amaraticando [original glitched video with description] *
7:06.10 by Dawn[Regnum0nline] (smv) *
7:12      by PangaeaPanga [YouTube strike] *
7:15      by TheFinalBoss726 and Dawn[Regnum0nline] (smv) *
7:35      by PangaeaPanga [YouTube strike] *
7:41      by TheFinalBoss726 *
8:05      by xKingBulletBillx *
8:14      by ISM *
8:46      by xKingBulletBillx
10:34    by dainegai *
*: timing ends when the credits scene appears.

Item Abuse 2
Download (alt)   Difficulty: ★★
6:51.66 by Dawn[Regnum0nline] (smv)
6:57.?? by Gbreeze
7:02.10 by Dawn[Regnum0nline] and PangaeaPanga
7:37.83 by Lucas S.
8:02.90 by Kaizoman666
8:08 by sotel11
9:02.93 by TheFinalBoss726

Item Abuse 3
Download   Difficulty: ★★★★
7:05.47 by shadowdragon121TASer
7:57 by PangaeaPanga (smv) [demo, original video received a copyright strike]

La Mansión
Download   Difficulty: ★★
1:45.97 by shadowdragon121TASer
Demo by rappervsmario

Living on the Edge
Download   Difficulty: ★★★
2:19.87 by Amaraticando
2:32.92 by shadowdragon121TASer
2:37.55 by HoorayForJay
2:47      by TheFinalBoss726 [demo]

Pit of Death
Download (alt)   Difficulty: ★
PS: Snes9x 1.43  is not preferred due to it inaccurate timing
2:00.07 by HoorayForJay [probably wrong time, todo: fix later]
2:01.?? by TheFinalBoss726
2:02.?? by MRO314 [Snes9x 1.51?]
2:02.?? by Sung-Hyeon Kim
2:03.?? by xKingBulletBillx
2:03.?? by dainegai
2:04.?? by Kainiet
Demo by MoltovMarioWorld
AFAIK, there's a deleted TAS by Panga.
WIP  exactly 2 mins by BrunoVisnadi

Pit of Despair
Download   Difficulty: ★
1:16.07 by Lucas S.
1:16.93 by HoorayForJay
1:44.?? by Olivebates
1:59.?? by dainegai
2:10.9? by MoltovMarioWorld

Pit of Insaneness
Download   Difficulty: ★★★
6:25.33 by Lucas S.
7:03.10 by Lucas S.
7:56.28 by MRO314 (smv)
?:??.?? by NBKevin98 [deleted]

Pit of Insaneness 2
Download   Difficulty: ★★★★
6:36 by NBKevin98

Pit of Keys
Download (v1.1)  Difficulty: ★
2:20.60 by shadowdragon121TASer
2:26.87 by Sung-Hyeon Kim
2:38.43 by sotel11
3:05.?? by TheFinalBoss726

Pit of Trials
Download   Difficulty: ★★
6:51.53 by shadowdragon121TASer
8:02.08 by HoorayForJay

Pitiless
Download/Thread   Difficulty: ???
to be done

Shell Abuse
Download   Difficulty: ★
1:09.27 by shadowdragon121TASer
1:12.37 by shadowdragon121TASer
1:13.55 by DarkGui21
1:14:25 by Sung-Hyeon Kim
1:14:?? by Shameimaru Aya
Demo by shadowdragon121TASer

So I Herd You Liek Corner Clip
Download   Difficulty: ★★
1:30.23 by ylTAP (smv)
1:36.45 by shadowdragon121TASer
Demo by TheFinalBoss726

The Pit Level 2
Download   Difficulty: ★★
6:35.47 by Mr. Kaizo
8:36.67 by yITAP
9:37.42 by IgorSantos777

Wall-Jump Abuse
Download   Difficulty: ★★★
6:31.37 by shadowdragon121TASer
6:57.65 by shadowdragon121TASer
7:11.75 by HoorayForJay
9:39.67 by Lucas S.

World of Dickish Moves
Download/thread   Difficulty: ★★★★
16:42 by TheFinalBoss726 [demo]

Yoshi Puzzle Pit
Download   Difficulty: ★★
4:08.03 by shadowdragon121TASer
5:12.02 by shadowdragon121TASer
8:51.10 by rappervsmario (smv)

Sunday, November 13, 2016

SNES Super Mario World - How to duplicate blocks to the sides

The Game Resources > SMW wiki has an explanation on how to duplicate blocks from some distance, but it's not satisfactory. Let me provide a better one.

First off, you must throw the projectile upward with null horizontal speed. Remember that Mario doesn't need to have zero speed for this and it's useful to try pressing left+up or right+up.

Every sprite has 4 points of interaction, like draw in the pictures. You must observe the head and the lateral point that touches the block. Drawing the block boundary is also useful.

The solid blocks only push sprites outside every other frame. That means that in odd frames they will push to the right (or left) and in even frames they will push to the opposite side. By the time the projectile gets inside the block, the direction must push the projectile outside and remove the head from its boundary. The lateral push is always 4 pixels wide.

Let's see each step of a duplication away:

click to increase the pictures

The sprite starts with vertical speed -112 and it increases +3 each frame.
Observe that the head is just below the boundary, but not touching it. In this case, the vertical position is 334.0 and the speed is -97. Using the SMW arithmetic, we can calculate the next would-be position:
334.0 - 97 = 334.0 - (6*16 + 1) = 334.0 - 6.0 - 0.1 = 328.0 - 0.1 = 327.F

The projectile goes outside and the duplication occurs:


Let's see what happens in the middle of the frame.
The sprite goes up and the lateral points touch the boundary:
As the right lateral point is inside and the block is pushin to the left, then the sprite goes to the left 4 pixels. If the green area below were to the right, the block wouldn't change its horizontal position. If the head were much to the right, the shift to the left wouldn't be enough to escape the boundary. In this case, the duplication doesn't occur, but the block isn't activated!
Duplication to the right is very similar and the presence of another block in the vicinity doesn't matter.

Remarks:
1) The setup consists in positioning the projectile in a good horizontal position, good vertical position and good vertical subpixel. The closer to the block, the wider is the number of possible initial positions. You should be able to predict the oscillation of the block too and always check if the sprite is not moving to the left/right.

2) the majority of handheld sprites have the same offsets and dimensions. However, it might be the case that the vertical distance between head and laterals is not 7 pixels. In this case, the minimal speed required is not -97.

3) the emulator used was lsnes. The Lua script used to display the helpful info is my smw-tas.

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

SNES Super Mario World - Clearing Levels Without Pressing A or B

The title of this post is exactly the name of an interesting playlist on YouTube.

The idea is: the player must complete the maximum amount of the 96 exits in the game without pressing A or B. Making a Tool-Assisted Speedrun is allowed and pretty much required in most levels (unless you're some god). Of course it's impossible to clear all of them, but the correct number of exits is still unknown.

Rules:
1) The buttons A and B are prohibited. You cannot press any of them, not even for a frame. You cannot either start the level with those buttons pressed.
2) You cannot start the level in a glitched state. For instance, you cannot start the level with an orb in the item reserve. However, you can start with Yoshi, with a cape and with a normal item in the inventory, even if you need to press A/B in previous levels.

Not discussed yet: the use of arbitrary code execution without pressing A or B on any joypad.

Table in progress: to add the difficulty and date.

TOTAL: 55 out of 96 exits, as of 2020/01/10.
                3 possible (as in we cannot state impossibility)
                1 hot        3 infeasible                   38 impossible


infeasible




impossible
ATUDE allows only one jump. There's no item to manipulate and nothing to be done.


2018/03/20
impossible
No Yoshi


2016/09/20
secret exit

2016/09/20


 secret exit




impossible
No Yoshi

secret exit
impossible
No Yoshi

impossible
You can't make it to the 2nd rotating platform. It's not possible to surpass the 1st rotating platforms without ATUDE.





 secret exit




impossible
No Yoshi, can't advance in the 2nd room.

secret exit
impossible
No Yoshi, can't advance in the 2nd room.

impossible
No Yoshi




secret exit




 secret exit

2018/10/07


impossible
No Yoshi

impossible
You can't pass beyond the first vertical pipe. There's no way to use the stun glitch to help.



impossible
No Yoshi


2018/10/11
secret exit

2018/10/11





impossible
todo...

impossible
You can't make ATUDE due ot the autoscroll. There're no interesting sprites early in the level.


2018/03/12


secret exit
impossible
You can't unmount Yoshi or grab the ropes.





impossible
No Yoshi




secret exit




secret exit






secret exit


impossible


secret exit
impossible




secret exit




impossible







impossible




secret exit




impossible


secret exit
impossible


impossible


impossible




impossible



impossible*




impossible


secret exit
impossible


impossible


impossible


secret exit
impossible






secret exit
hot!


impossible


does not count as an exit



impossible


secret exit
impossible




secret exit


Everyone and SomeGuy712x

November 1990
secret exit


impossible


secret exit
impossible


impossible


secret exit
impossible




2018/04/22
infeasible


impossible



2018/10/03



2020/01/07





* SDS is almost possible, if only Yoshi could leave the floor at the beginning of the second room.