[SM] Super Metroid Impossible

2007-12-08 01:58:12 pm

Yeah, it's kind of a running joke.

2007-12-08 02:37:23 pm

Almost happy

More like some defect in my brain...

Anyway after some light low-optimized testing I have come to the understanding that no more then 6 E-tanks and no reserve-tanks should be needed when going to LN. (2-3 tanks less then I excpected)

Running from the rechargestation near Crocmire it should be no problem to reach LN elevator with ~50 energy left. Doing a CF at the elevator and running to GT's E-tank should leave you with even more to spare. I never tested GT but he should be easily beatable with 7 Tanks right? From the recharge station there till the next E-tank is no problem and if doing a CF right next to ridleys lair you have 8 Tansk for him which is plenty.

This is ofcourse as long as the ammo is sufficent... Recharging before ridley and before your health runs out is maybe the biggest issue (I did not test this) but then again, with no missile what so ever Ridley takes ~40 seconds to kill after he appears (this is with plasma beam ofcourse), that's 600 damage, you loose ~100 before he appears which means you have 200 left until the health arives. Worst case senario you abuse the pause screen for a couple of seconds.

So now you (Tonski and kriole) should have an easier time to decide what items to pick up before LN which I belive would have been maybe the hardest part of the run.

More like some defect in my brain...

Anyway after some light low-optimized testing I have come to the understanding that no more then 6 E-tanks and no reserve-tanks should be needed when going to LN. (2-3 tanks less then I excpected)

Running from the rechargestation near Crocmire it should be no problem to reach LN elevator with ~50 energy left. Doing a CF at the elevator and running to GT's E-tank should leave you with even more to spare. I never tested GT but he should be easily beatable with 7 Tanks right? From the recharge station there till the next E-tank is no problem and if doing a CF right next to ridleys lair you have 8 Tansk for him which is plenty.

This is ofcourse as long as the ammo is sufficent... Recharging before ridley and before your health runs out is maybe the biggest issue (I did not test this) but then again, with no missile what so ever Ridley takes ~40 seconds to kill after he appears (this is with plasma beam ofcourse), that's 600 damage, you loose ~100 before he appears which means you have 200 left until the health arives. Worst case senario you abuse the pause screen for a couple of seconds.

So now you (Tonski and kriole) should have an easier time to decide what items to pick up before LN which I belive would have been maybe the hardest part of the run.

Tonski

2007-12-08 03:03:18 pm

So we'll call me Tonksi from now on? ;)

CPadolf that's good useful information, thank you. I think that if it won't take too much time I'll go with 7 etanks, but I'll think about the farming part when I'm done with Maridia for good.

After Maridia, how many etanks would I need to get the speed booster good without having to do too much pause menu abuse? I think 3-4 would be just fine with enough optimization no? Also, when I get out of Maridia isn't speed booster the first think I have to take, and after that I go to green brinstar and get space jump on the way, right? I'm kinda missing the route myself here since I didn't plan it in the beginning, I decided to think about it when I'm there in my run.

Sneaky Paradox

2007-12-12 01:25:11 am

All right, I have a few questions regarding when I kill Draygon (haven't yet) and putting it on youtube (no, I know how to but...)

1) Which codec do you use to encode it to get a good quality?

2) What do you use to make the AVI or whatever type of file smaller?

Cpadolf

Edit history:

Cpadolf: 2007-12-13 02:50:39 am

2007-12-12 04:01:36 am

Almost happy

When I'm putting vids on youtube I don't care for quality (uplaod a quality vid there and it will still look like crap when up) therefore I just record uncompressed frames and compress it in Windows movie player when done for maximized shitquality. I think that quality is sufficent for youtube though.

Anyway I made some more item planning and now I think that I have a good view of what is needed. (this is to Tonski and Kriole)

10-15 Supers before LN: Taking the chargeroute to maridia you should have 10 SM before entering LN, getting one more will certanly slow you down rather then speed you up, also since you find an extra 10 down there 2 CF's is still possible. Taking WS supers before maridia you are left with the choice to take or not to take the Supers past botwoon, it's a tough call since they take a lot of time to get but could potentiall save a lot to. (draygon, GT, Ridley and MB)

20? Missiles: I think you enter maridia with 20 missiles, and past draygon there is no place where they have the chance to even remotely save the time taken to get a pack. 3 packs save 1 second on Ridley.

4 E-tanks before Speedbooster: Preferably you should also have spacejump before this otherwise you might end up using the very lame pause abuse, but it's your call.

6-7 E-tanks before LN: I'm certain 6 should be sufficent (I have tested all areas) but take 7 if your not sure.

20-25 PB's: Theese are ofcourse for the CF's, taking 20 might turn out to be to few, but I don't know, maybe I'll test this later.

0 Reserve tanks: Self explanatory.

EDIT: 20 PB's is enough, but like the energytanks you might have a hard time with that few.
Actually you could probably go in with 15 and pick up the 4th pack just before the elite pirates.

When I'm putting vids on youtube I don't care for quality (uplaod a quality vid there and it will still look like crap when up) therefore I just record uncompressed frames and compress it in Windows movie player when done for maximized shitquality. I think that quality is sufficent for youtube though.

Anyway I made some more item planning and now I think that I have a good view of what is needed. (this is to Tonski and Kriole)

10-15 Supers before LN: Taking the chargeroute to maridia you should have 10 SM before entering LN, getting one more will certanly slow you down rather then speed you up, also since you find an extra 10 down there 2 CF's is still possible. Taking WS supers before maridia you are left with the choice to take or not to take the Supers past botwoon, it's a tough call since they take a lot of time to get but could potentiall save a lot to. (draygon, GT, Ridley and MB)

20? Missiles: I think you enter maridia with 20 missiles, and past draygon there is no place where they have the chance to even remotely save the time taken to get a pack. 3 packs save 1 second on Ridley.

4 E-tanks before Speedbooster: Preferably you should also have spacejump before this otherwise you might end up using the very lame pause abuse, but it's your call.

6-7 E-tanks before LN: I'm certain 6 should be sufficent (I have tested all areas) but take 7 if your not sure.

20-25 PB's: Theese are ofcourse for the CF's, taking 20 might turn out to be to few, but I don't know, maybe I'll test this later.

0 Reserve tanks: Self explanatory.

EDIT: 20 PB's is enough, but like the energytanks you might have a hard time with that few. 
Actually you could probably go in with 15 and pick up the 4th pack just before the elite pirates.

Lance Uppercut

2007-12-12 06:16:21 am

I also record uncompressed avi files and then edit those in windows movie maker. That should make the shitty quality as good as possible, but there is no meaning putting better quality on youtube. I have done this with all my youtube videos and they look fine.

Getting closer to killing Draygon, SP ?

Sneaky Paradox

Edit history:

Sneaky Paradox: 2007-12-12 07:17:34 am

2007-12-12 07:01:39 am

I suppose. Its the same old routine of dying but I get her belly red nearly each time now. But at least now when I do it'll be good and the sound won't desync, unlike my suitless run I posted on youtube which I'm going to repost.

Max

2007-12-13 07:17:54 am

Waaaaaaa i want insanity

To get a good quality vid use the microsoft h.264 codec or if your just going to use it on youtube, use Xvid.
With youtube it doesn't matter what quality it is when you put it up as it gets converted to .flv (Flash Video)
Which is pretty dodgy.

moozooh

Edit history:

moozooh: 2007-12-13 07:40:03 am

2007-12-13 07:37:01 am

Well, if you're producing a video specifically for YouTube, you can improve the resulting quality by maximizing the quality of a file you're feeding to it. Since there is a 100 MB upload limit, what you need is to up the bitrate so that you get a file just below that limit. For a 5 minute video, it would be ~2770 kbps in total* (which is overkill by itself, but it won't matter after YouTube processes it). Using H.264, of course, makes it even better — especially if the segment you're uploading is close to the time limit (10 min, in which case the maximum bitrate you can afford is ~1385 kbps, which may cause artifacts with less advanced codecs on complex scenes, which then will be "enhanced" further by YouTube's codec).

* — meaning that you need to take into account both audio and video streams' bitrates, not just video's.

Sneaky Paradox

2007-12-13 04:16:45 pm

Interesting. I'll test them all out.

Max

2007-12-17 04:31:50 pm

Waaaaaaa i want insanity

Hey is it against the rules to ask where the h.264 codec is.
I got the x.264 codec and it doesn't seem to like virtual dub or snes9x.

P.JMan

2007-12-17 05:24:35 pm

I like Big Butts and I can not lie

x264 is h264 anyway

Sneaky Paradox

Edit history:

Sneaky Paradox: 2007-12-24 03:45:15 pm

2007-12-17 10:44:13 pm

I have x.264 codec but I still have the sound desync problem. It doesn't desync on full frames but this codec has such beautiful quality.

EDIT:Just noticed that this was the 1337th post.

Cpadolf

2007-12-25 02:42:31 pm

Almost happy

Hmm how attention whorish to post this in two threads, well at least it is on topic in both.

Now I'm not really the WIP kind of guy and in general prefer to complete something before showing it off but what the hay after all it's Christmas so I'll go ahead and show some of my SM:I work. While there really isn't anything not seen at least twice already the work in itself differs quite a lot from what has previously been seen in strategical choices and general speed, ammo and health management is largely improved with the help of earlier videos and should be close to optimal by now.

Points of interest: (Watch the run first preferably)

- This is in fact v2 for me, so far I have improved by 329 frames, about 200 frames more then I thought possible (by me).

- While a 09:14/15 escape is theoretically possible 09:05 had to suffice, the luckmanipulation for the intro sequence would have had to be completely reworked here and I had neither time nor patience or determination to test every frame for it, since I can not hex edit smv's I would have had to test one frame of delay at a time, not worth it for a silly clockchange along with a .1 second improvement.

- Torizo skip is Impossible, very impossible.

- Gauntlet can be improved by some, likely more then a second but at the sacrifice of much more time later, I slow down a lot in the end to keep above 30 hp for obvious (?) reasons.

- Escaping from Spore Spawn with 5 missiles was seemingly impossible even after much testing, 4 had to suffice and to have 5 would just barely save time if at all.

- Possible improvement, take the last damage from spore by one of the falling things for 25 less damage, this would mean I had to use 1 less missile later and at the same time had to pick up one less later = time gain. On the other hand it would mean no missile could be used against mini-kraid and in the end I think it is equally fast either way.

- Possible improvement, Make the beetom jump directly in red brinstar, P-JMan did this in his semi TAS 100% but it might have been possible for him because he slowed down a lot to pick up missiles first. I'll test this.

- With very little more height a much faster kraid entry would have been possible. A block in the roof makes it very unlikely that it is though.

- I don't save all missiles to kraid, there is no difference between having 6 or 7 there (well less difference then the time I save on mini-kraid anyway.) since equally many missile pickups will be needed and in the end that is what the whole kraidfight is all about.

- The goal so far for the run is sub 01:00, I think that is very possible.

Enjoy (hopefully :P)

Hmm how attention whorish to post this in two threads, well at least it is on topic in both.

Now I'm not really the WIP kind of guy and in general prefer to complete something before showing it off but what the hay after all it's Christmas so I'll go ahead and show some of my SM:I work. While there really isn't anything not seen at least twice already the work in itself differs quite a lot from what has previously been seen in strategical choices and general speed, ammo and health management is largely improved with the help of earlier videos and should be close to optimal by now.

Points of interest: (Watch the run first preferably)

- This is in fact v2 for me, so far I have improved by 329 frames, about 200 frames more then I thought possible (by me).

- While a 09:14/15 escape is theoretically possible 09:05 had to suffice, the luckmanipulation for the intro sequence would have had to be completely reworked here and I had neither time nor patience or determination to test every frame for it, since I can not hex edit smv's I would have had to test one frame of delay at a time, not worth it for a silly clockchange along with a .1 second improvement.

- Torizo skip is Impossible, very impossible.

- Gauntlet can be improved by some, likely more then a second but at the sacrifice of much more time later, I slow down a lot in the end to keep above 30 hp for obvious (?) reasons.

- Escaping from Spore Spawn with 5 missiles was seemingly impossible even after much testing, 4 had to suffice and to have 5 would just barely save time if at all.

- Possible improvement, take the last damage from spore by one of the falling things for 25 less damage, this would mean I had to use 1 less missile later and at the same time had to pick up one less later = time gain. On the other hand it would mean no missile could be used against mini-kraid and in the end I think it is equally fast either way.

- Possible improvement, Make the beetom jump directly in red brinstar, P-JMan did this in his semi TAS 100% but it might have been possible for him because he slowed down a lot to pick up missiles first. I'll test this.

- With very little more height a much faster kraid entry would have been possible. A block in the roof makes it very unlikely that it is though.

- I don't save all missiles to kraid, there is no difference between having 6 or 7 there (well less difference then the time I save on mini-kraid anyway.) since equally many missile pickups will be needed and in the end that is what the whole kraidfight is all about.

- The goal so far for the run is sub 01:00, I think that is very possible.

Enjoy (hopefully :P)

attachment:

Hohoho.smv

Fano7

2007-12-25 03:24:47 pm

Every Bit Counts

Very entertaining.

Cpadolf

2007-12-25 03:34:21 pm

Almost happy

Score :-)

Sigh, nice pagebreak.

Saturn

2007-12-25 09:09:22 pm

Incredible WIP, which just reeks of quality in every spot!

You were also very entertaining in the waiting scenes. I especially liked the Ceres one before and during Ridley. It's funny that especially this scenes are sometimes even harder for me to make looking good than the actual speed optimizations during a regular run. You definitely have a good sense to be entertaining in them. Also impressive ammo and health management. Despite the tiny slowdowns you mentioned the reasons for, I couldn't see anything that could be improvable on the first look.

Thank you for this nice Christmas Present. :)

Cpadolf

Edit history:

Cpadolf: 2007-12-25 10:36:18 pm

2007-12-25 10:20:33 pm

Almost happy

Thank you :P

Quote from Saturn:

I couldn't see anything that could be improvable on the first look.

Yeah I think there is little that can be improved at this point other then very small 1-2 frames optimizations here and there which of course are very hard to spot the the naked eye. The two places I think have most potential for bigger improvement is the end of the gauntlet, finding an earlier frame to leave with 31 hp, and the red brinstar shaft where it might be possible to make the beetom jump earlier. (this I will test)

Quote from Saturn:

You were also very entertaining in the waiting scenes. I especially liked the Ceres one before and during Ridley. It's funny that especially this scenes are sometimes even harder for me to make looking good than the actual speed optimizations during a regular run.

Thanks, I try to make every run look as different as possible, and avoid doing things other have done in these situations so that it don't fall under the
"seems copied" category. And yeah getting those parts to look the best is really hard since there is no practical limit of how good they can be but I try to go with whatever comes to mind first and that usually turns out nice.

EDIT: I also uploaded it to youtube, ww*w.youtube.com/watch?v=elYE0VdGiME (broke the link because it's distracting when it's embedded.)

Thank you :P

[quote="Saturn"]I couldn't see anything that could be improvable on the first look.[/quote]

Yeah I think there is little that can be improved at this point other then very small 1-2 frames optimizations here and there which of course are very hard to spot the the naked eye. The two places I think have most potential for bigger improvement is the end of the gauntlet, finding an earlier frame to leave with 31 hp, and the red brinstar shaft where it might be possible to make the beetom jump earlier. (this I will test)

[quote="Saturn"]You were also very entertaining in the waiting scenes. I especially liked the Ceres one before and during Ridley. It's funny that especially this scenes are sometimes even harder for me to make looking good than the actual speed optimizations during a regular run.[/quote]

Thanks, I try to make every run look as different as possible, and avoid doing things other have done in these situations so that it don't fall under the 
"seems copied" category. And yeah getting those parts to look the best is really hard since there is no practical limit of how good they can be but I try to go with whatever comes to mind first and that usually turns out nice.

EDIT: I also uploaded it to youtube,  ww*w.youtube.com/watch?v=elYE0VdGiME (broke the link because it's distracting when it's embedded.)

Kriole

2007-12-26 01:36:39 pm

Meri Kurisumasu! ^_^

Me wants credits for the morph ball pickup buuhuu =(

Cpadolf

2007-12-26 02:06:15 pm

Almost happy

Oh yeah, thanks to Kriole my morphball pickup is 20 frames faster then it was.

And in general thanks to both Kriole and Tonski this is faster then it would have been without their WIP's, mostly due to getting a better picture of how to plan my ammo/health route.

Tonski

2007-12-26 02:13:11 pm

Well I did do the RB CWJ first...

Lol just kidding I take no credit for your awesome work. If you would've done everything my way it's be like a million frames slowe. :-D I just wish I would've told you about P.JMan's beetom strat earlier, my bad.

Cpadolf

2007-12-26 02:20:41 pm

Almost happy

I tested that one though, seems it is not possible to do without slowing down earlier in the room and it is probably so because the beetom then get time to move around some thus jumping faster when you shot the block.

And yeah, some things unavoidably end up being the same in two runs, there is only one fastest way through a room. (not that it necessarily is the fastest way if two people do the same but still).

hero of the day

2007-12-26 11:50:33 pm

I haven't posted here is a while, but this excellent wip really needs recognition. You have made some seriously awesome stylistic choices. The way you move Samus when she is falling down the shaft in pink brinstar and the old tourian escape shaft is awesome, and as mentioned before the pre and post ridley antics were cool. Not only does this run looks great, it also seems to be very tightly optimized, though it is sometimes hard to tell when watching on youtube. Sub 1 hour should certainly be doable with this level of precision. Keep it up man :-)

Cpadolf

2007-12-27 07:45:17 am

Almost happy

Thanks :-)

But you do have the smv and IPS patch here in this thread, doesn't take much time to fix that so you can watch it in high quality. Anyway, considering the time I spend on these "unpublishable" runs I really fell like making a run that would get published at TASvideos later, maybe I ought to do that 100% run after all...

Lance Uppercut

2007-12-27 09:43:05 pm

Well I thought I would give my two cents on this one, though I am not a TASer. I liked it very much and I am also surprised how far you have reached already. All that optimizing has to take a lot of patience, as well as skill and something to compare it to. You have all those things and the result speaks for itself.

I agree that the waiting scenes look nice, you are like Genisto for Super Metroid. That fast wobbling in spinning motion looks good, and you don´t even overuse it.

Kraid must be hard to optimize, but I know you will make it look very nice in the end. Maybe all claws just don´t drop missiles at all (or do very rarely at least) so maybe you have to accept the fact that the fight will not look like blue milk run... T and K both did great Kraid fights so if you improve those, even if just a bit, it will look totally awesome already.

Keep up the good work, it is always nice to receive updates, WIPs and gifts. :)