Special request: Re-recording feature in ScummVM !

Burning Death · Post by **Burning Death** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 6:26 pm

Hello everybody

,
has anybody heard of tool-assisted game movies before? Let me quote a quick explanation of the website for such movies (http://bisqwit.iki.fi/nesvideos/ ): "These are movies of games being played extraordinarily, using an emulator as a tool to overcome human limitations of skill and reflex."

Currently TAS (tool-assisted) movies are possible with older Nintendo consoles (NES/SNES/N64), handhelds(GB/GBA) and the Sega Genesis/Megadrive. It's only a recording of which buttons were pressed during the play. It does not contain image data or program code. I like to see such a feature in the ScummVM 'emulator' too

!

"I don't get it, what's the point in TAS movies?" - Take a quick look into the first lines of this Why and How FAQ: http://bisqwit.iki.fi/nesvideos/WhyAndHow.html

For the gamer it works like this: You start a game and start to record your gameplay. Lets say you accidently missed to pick up an item but saved your game before. Now, simply load your savestate and pick up that item. In the final movie you don't see the failed attempt. This sequence is called 're-records' and that way you could create entertaining, flawless, fast, funny or whatever movies.

Is this possible within ScummVM?

Kaminari · Post by **Kaminari** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 7:18 pm

This is simply called "input recording". ScummVM doesn't have such a feature, but you could submit a request on the SourceForge project page.

Another link of interest: RZX Archive.

clem · Post by **clem** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 11:30 pm

only recording input won't help if the game uses random events though (I think coordinates in MI2, sun/moon/earth disk in Atlantis, etc)

btw the original Monkey Island 2 had a feature to save (and play?) demo files - alt-F9 or smthn like that

however I doubt anyone is gonna implement that in ScummVM - there are just more pressing matters

Post by **sev** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 1:22 am

Random stuff is easy achievable. Just record our Rand class output too and return it back during playback. Since in this case there will be no other factors which affect gameplay, you will get a perfect gameplay reproduction.

Eugene

LogicDeLuxe · Post by **LogicDeLuxe** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 9:57 am

clem wrote:btw the original Monkey Island 2 had a feature to save (and play?) demo files

Some versions of Monkey 1 also have this feature. It was probably implemented for the Monkey 2 demo. I once did a recording of the entire Monkey 1, though it failed on those random elements, i.e. Guybrush wasn't able to go into the kitchen in the ScummBar, since the chef does not leave the kitchen at the expected moment.

Burning Death · Post by **Burning Death** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 4:17 pm

Randomness could be manipulated... Yes, I remember that recording feature from MI1 too but I couldn't find it again so I though it was a previous feature from ScummVM or I've just got another version of MI1, though.
Btw. in MI1 open the door in the kitchen while the chef is in, now he'll come out in exactly 10 seconds

.

So it seems like re-recording will never happen? Maybe a special 'just for speed runner' lite version of ScummVM, please

.

LogicDeLuxe · Post by **LogicDeLuxe** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 12:05 pm

Since Monkey 2 demo relies on this feature, it should be there one day.
Once it is implemented, it could be modified for the speedrunner's needs.

clem · Post by **clem** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 1:42 pm

monkey2 also had a shortcut (alt-w ?) which asked you if you want to win the game - hit yes, you go straight to the credits

afaik that doesn't exist in ScummVM (yet)

would make a speedrun pretty short though, heh

Post by **eriktorbjorn** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 3:28 pm

clem wrote:monkey2 also had a shortcut (alt-w ?) which asked you if you want to win the game - hit yes, you go straight to the credits

afaik that doesn't exist in ScummVM (yet)

would make a speedrun pretty short though, heh

Alt-w works for me, though I don't know if ScummVM handles it correctly or not: If it notices that the Alt key is used for a keypress, it adds 154 to the key code, but the only reason it does that is because the cheat is actually scripted, and MI2 looks for key code 273. The ASCII code for "w" is 119, and 119 + 154 = 273.

The ending if you win the game this way is slightly different from what you get if you win the game the normal way.

sanguinehearts · Post by **sanguinehearts** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 4:45 pm

clem wrote:only recording input won't help if the game uses random events though (I think coordinates in MI2, sun/moon/earth disk in Atlantis, etc)

btw the original Monkey Island 2 had a feature to save (and play?) demo files - alt-F9 or smthn like that

however I doubt anyone is gonna implement that in ScummVM - there are just more pressing matters

Thanks for pointing this out clem,
any ideas on how you playback the files in the original engine?

sanguinehearts · Post by **sanguinehearts** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 5:28 pm

Just found an old feature request for this,
It mentions a patch that Endy has/had?
was this support for original recording files or simply ScummVM's own version.

so far Its know that the MI2DEMO DEMO.REC file is just a recording of mouse movement, it is required to start the original interpretor, It must be this file as replacing it with a dummy DEMO.REC file or MI2 playback file of the same name throws up an invalid save game error.

however looking at the MI2 full game recording files in a hex editor they seem to contain similar information as the DEMO.REC file.

also is it known that if you start MI2DEMO.EXE with the command SPUTMDEBUG 1
e.g MI2DEMO.EXE SPUTMDEBUG 1
the Windex debugger is loaded ?
Thanks for your time

Im also attaching this to the previous feature request,
not sure if its any use