Forest64
MK64 Bowsers Castle, Fastest Lap (Shortcut) - 3537
updated
E G G
Didn't think it was ever going to be done, but here it is. The first non-shortcut 3lap TAS. Will it be the last as well? I'm certainly never making another nonsc 3lap TAS again
Spent more time than I should have on the sidebar, but I think it's nice (see below for explanation). Should I use it in future TAS videos?
Exact time = 1:18.3555
Game video only: youtu.be/x0_wHltT0Ok
Is this time perfect? Of course not. Lap 1 is significantly worse than the other two - it should be the fastest, but instead it is the slowest.
This wasn't meant to be a new year special, but I took so long that it ended up being one anyway. I suppose this is a nice way to end the year though. Now it's time for a break...
Explanation of everything on the side, from top to bottom:
-Map: Shows current position and path taken in last second. Also shows locations of moving obstacles and their actual sizes.
-Wall bounce (purple circle): Shows when wall bounce state is active, which is a period of low acceleration after hitting a wall.
-Triple B (green circle): Shows when triple B state is active, which makes you slow down faster when braking
-Tires: Shows surface type under each tire, which is used to determine if you are off-road. Black means no surface (null tires)
-Tilt: When turning the kart becomes "tilted," which is why it is important to briefly hold to opposite direction after turning to untilt. Less tilt generally means higher speed
-Pitch: Forward pitch increases speed, backwards decreases speed. The pitch angle is exaggerated in the side display, otherwise it would be hard to see (except when jumping the pitch only ranges from about -1700 to 2600, and a full circle is 65536)
-Engine speed (blue bar): The higher this value is, the faster the acceleration and top speed are
-Triple A (blue circle): shows when triple A state is active, which makes engine speed increase faster. However, it also makes engine speed decrease faster (such as when jumping from a steep slope) so it is not beneficial to always have this active
-MT boost (yellow bar): The higher this value is, the faster the top speed (and probably acceleration) are. Quickly fills up during the short "glide" after a MT, then slowly decreases
-MT glide (yellow circle): shows when MT glide is active, which is also shown by the "E" turning orange on the left side. You cannot start charging the next MT until the glide of the previous MT ends
-Shroom boost (red bar): The higher this value is, the faster the top speed (and probably acceleration) are. Quickly fills up after shrooming, then drops after shroom ends. Note that it stops decreasing slightly above zero
-Shroom timer (red circle): Shows when the strong part of the shroom is active (when the shroom boost is increasing). Note that the shroom state (which lets you drive offroad without slowing down) does not end as soon as this ends, but when the shroom boost stops decreasing (at which point the shroom on the left darkens)
-Inputs: At the bottom is the inputs that the game processes on the next frame (in other words, what you would need to hold while the current frame is on screen). Note that this is different than most TAS input displays (at least the ones I've seen), which simply show what inputs the game processed on the current frame. The horizontal analog input ranges from -65 to 65, since anything beyond 65 is treated as 65 (normal controllers reach ~90, and the max possible input is 127). Gray is deadzone (-12 to 12). Vertical input (and other buttons) are unused in normal driving, so not shown. The next second of inputs is also shown above because I think its fun to watch.
Exact time = 31.9969
Previous TAS (32.05): youtu.be/F89phmqz-xw
Full race: youtu.be/szCokVRltZE
Null tires = setting the floor type under your tires to 0 instead of whatever the floor actually is (8=grass, 7=sand, etc.). Since 0 is not considered off-road, having null tires while on grass lets you avoid the speed loss from off-road.
Used old 3lap for first 2.5 laps, and second half of new fast lap TAS for second half of lap 3 (since lakitu places you in same exact spot for both 3lap and flap, can reuse same input for both). Had to redo the bowl cut on lap 1 since that used a shroom in the old TAS, but shrooming at the end saves more time (bowl shroom saves about 0.5, ending shroom about 0.8). Can probably save a few more frames there, but this is good enough for now.
Why didn't I do the new SC on all 3 laps? Read the description of the fast lap TAS to find out: [youtu.be/3QAq8ktt8Xg] Summary: After doing the new SC, you cannot warp from pink wall to ramp. The warp from wall to ramp saves ~6 seconds, and the new bounce to stands SC saves ~5 seconds, so it is not worth doing the new SC on laps 1 or 2.
Now you might be thinking: "Even though the warp to wall saves more time than the bounce to stands, the warp can only be done twice in a 3lap, while the bounce to stands can be done 3 times. 6x2=12 seconds, and 5x3=15 seconds, so isn't it better to do just bounce to the stands on all 3 laps? Also, the ~5 second timesave is compared to the finish line warp, but on laps 1 and 2 you drive around the long way, so doesn't the new SC actually save ~6 seconds on those laps?" The answer to those questions is probably yes, but I didn't think of doing that until I was writing this description. But doing that means I can't just copy the inputs from the fast lap TAS, and my head hurts from all the bouncing so I don't want to do it again so soon. (I'll probably do it next weekend)
[The previous paragraph is wrong, with the current bounce it is only faster to do it once.]
Exact time = 1:20.0643
Previous TAS (1:24.83): youtu.be/ByHYdSj48ks
Not a new idea, but I assumed it wouldn't work so never tried it until now. Was messing around on Royal Raceway and accidentally jumped from ramp to pink wall, so decided to give this a try and it actually worked. Made a 19.84 [youtu.be/lyb3bKsvyV8], then improved it to the 19.78 here.
This can be used in the 3lap, but cannot be used for multiple lapskips like in 150cc [youtu.be/KmR04DWVdtU?t=90] because that requires a different setup at the beginning of the race and jumping from the ramp to the wall breaks that setup. Similarly, jumping from the ramp to wall breaks the bounce ramp warp (used in the first half of this lap). Since this new SC saves ~5 seconds over the finish line warp but the bounce ramp warp saves ~6 seconds over the normal ramp warp, it seems best to only use this SC on lap 3 of the 3lap, as done here: [youtu.be/OPi0uSRwjjI] (Update - this is probably not true, see description of 3lap)
As mentioned above, this cannot be used for multiple lapskips on the stands like in 150cc, and it is also not possible to complete two laps by reversing off the stands [youtu.be/a1FNsKUrI_M]. This is because those lapskips require you to store sections 29 or 28 respectively (this is what the setup at the beginning of the race does in 150cc), but this method of getting to the stands stores section 3. Currently there is no known way to get a lapskip with section 3, but a two days ago there wasn't even a way to get on the stands so maybe something can still be found.
Finally, it may be theoretically possible to bounce all the way to the stands from the first time you reach the top of the pink wall, skipping lakitu and the ramp. However, this doesn't sound fun to try and each time you try to bounce on the wall there is a 50% chance you get stuck (which you can't really control), so I'm going to pretend its not possible (it might not even be faster if it is possible). A more reasonable option would be to bounce from that spot to directly underneath the ramp, which would allow you to warp from the pink wall to ramp on lap 1 of 3lap, but again that might not be faster and I don't want to do it. Feel free to try it if you don't value your time.
Start to first wall bounce copied from Weatherton's 24.95 [youtu.be/LNEnBk7GCQc]. Can maybe improve this a few frames, but I didn't try at all.
Exact time = 19.7852
Previous TAS (24.95 by Weatherton): youtu.be/LNEnBk7GCQc
Input display: youtu.be/3dBImHsLR1E
I think this is fast? The stairs and spiral are very hard to optimize. RTA WR is about 35.76 at the time this was made.
Exact time = 35.1773
Marty 🟩
Watertank
Decided to slam into the wall a bit and somehow this happened. I still don't really understand this SC but 1.66 seems fast. I do have another idea that has potential to save up to ~0.3, so maybe another improvement soon?
Exact time = 1.6650
Full race: youtu.be/SdFpljAR0dE
3 2 1 0
Crazy spiral that somehow is pretty fast. Lots of strange turns on this course but I think it turned out nice. Marty seems to like it.
Exact time = 32.1083
Previous TAS (32.22): youtu.be/LsXGZX4GgNI
Exact time = 19.2498
There is a chance this time is float perfect, which I don't think can be said for anything else in this game. I suppose that means this time is pretty good.
Previous TAS (19.29): youtu.be/nObo3EloabI
Map: desmos.com/calculator/blr7d3aj1d
Exact time = 27.7337
Previous TAS = none
Whats a desertenko?
It's a new skip on KD thats slightly
easier than the KD Fence Clip and
can get times of 7"xx range for flap!!
Exact time = 7.3387
Full race: youtu.be/0_fG1sFUWMs
Input Display: youtu.be/tkvnYSgSVQ0
Previous TAS (7.58): youtu.be/i2a1gfSznIw
It's always good when you can sub :)
Would be very happy leaving this 3lap here, since it seems pretty optimized and has a nice final time. Fortunately, it seems like doing 3 IR lapskips would put the final time around 32.15, so using the third shroom to launch back makes this strategy faster. Unfortunately, it seems like using the third shroom to launch on lap 1 saves around .33, which might be more than the launch on lap 3 saves. Need to do more testing still, but I hope this is faster since I already spent the time optimizing this for the sub.
Exact time = 31.9778
Previous TAS (32.01) : youtu.be/tCkFaDfSUkg
Improved the 0.98 to 0.92, then suddenly figured out a nice improvement for 0.69. Was able to save another .01 after that to get this.
Exact time = 0.6878
Full race: youtu.be/YE6DuR0_OEA
Previous TAS (0.98): youtu.be/jOnX9a1ydDM
Exact time = 2.9158
Full race + input: youtu.be/oiYtURziEXM
With this confirmed possible, 11/16 courses have had at least one new time trials shortcut in under 1 year (August 4, 2020-August 3, 2021). That's the same number of courses that had shortcuts found in the first 20 years after MK64's release. There are 3 courses which have no time trials shortcuts: Moo Moo Farm, Koopa Troopa Beach, and Banshee Boardwalk. Besides these 3, the only other 2 courses which have not had a new shortcut in the past year are Choco Mountain (which had its new shortcuts, including the "Weathertenko," discovered in 2014), and DK's Jungle Parkway (the only course to have its original shortcuts still optimal). Wario Stadium 3lap also hasn't had any new shortcuts since the 90s, but the fast lap there does have a new strategy so I think that counts. Also, while Yoshi Valley fast lap did have a new strategy found in the past year (youtu.be/Db4yj5ozTFc), that only saved 2 frames and is arguably not even a new shortcut at all, so it's nice to have something here that is undeniably a new shortcut. This one will also save time on the 3lap, which is something the previous discovery on Yoshi Valley didn't do.
So why did this take so long to be performed? In order to complete a lap, you MUST cross from behind the finish line to in front of it in some way (the finish line is an infinite vertical plane that passes through the visible finish line). However, you don't always gain/lose a lap when you cross this, otherwise you could complete laps when passing the finish line halfway around the track. There are a few different conditions that must be met for the finish line to be active, but the important one here is that you must be within 1000 units from the center of the road at the finish line. (You can imagine a sphere with radius 1000 centered on the middle of the road at the finish line, and the finish line is active only if you are in that sphere.) This sphere gets quite close to the far left path of the track (the wall bounced off here), but there is a small gap between the wall and the sphere. This is why the normal 3lap lapskip works - you hit the wall in front of the finish line, then tumble left so you land behind the finish line (which causes you to cross the line forwards as you get placed down, which completes a lap) but since you crossed backwards across the line close to the wall, you are outside of the sphere so the finish line is inactive and you don't lose a lap. This results in a lapskip since the finish line is active when you cross it forwards but not when you cross it backwards. But in the usual 3lap lapskip you must fall all the way to the bottom and get rescued by lakitu before finishing the lap. So if you could cross backwards across the line while outside of the sphere (just like in the 3lap), but then cross the line forwards while still in the air, it would be much faster. Unfortunately, as seen in the 3lap, hitting the wall near the finish line launches you left, so you cannot cross the finish line forwards in the air after hitting the wall. However, slightly right of the place you hit in the 3lap is a part of the wall that knocks you to the right after you hit it, which is the direction you need to cross the finish line midair. The problem is that before hitting the wall you must cross the finish line backwards (outside of the sphere), but the part of the wall that knocks you right is almost entirely in front of the finish line. Luckily there is a tiny part near the top that is both behind the finish line and knocks you right, which is what we need. However, that part of the wall is just barely behind the finish line, so after hitting it you usually cross the finish line forwards before re-entering the 1000-unit sphere, so the finish line is still inactive and you don't complete a lap midair. As you get closer to the top of the wall, the tiny section you must hit gets a little wider, allowing you to hit the wall a bit further behind the finish line, which lets you reactivate the finish line before crossing it. The problem here is that to hit the wall so close to the top, you need a LARGE bounce and high speed to cross the canyon quickly (this is why this SC is slightly easier in 150cc). With ideas from Weatherton on how to get the best speed/height possible and a lot of tiny adjustments, I crossed the finish line midair only 999.9978 units from center of the sphere. If I had been .003 units farther away, the finish line would have been inactive so no lapskip. Unless a consistent way to get more speed is found, this is extremely precise in time trials (worse than KD?) and will not be done RTA.
Can get sub 9 if I improve lap 3 or just use mushrooms better.
Exact time = 9.1015
Previous TAS (9.83): youtu.be/eJm3banBNAs
First 28-29 seconds from Weatherton's 35.93, rest by me. Saved 1.5 seconds with much better lapskips. Second and third laps are still bad.
Exact time = 34.4543
Previous TAS (35.91 by Weatherton): youtu.be/xLgx3WbN0s0
Not happening RTA
Exact time = 7.5860
Full race (+input): youtu.be/o8P5BUx-m7M
Previous TAS (17.19): youtu.be/dJ8_vJN9SNI
10th* of 16 courses to get a new SC within 1 year! (actually 9th since this was found before BC, but close enough). Also much more optimized than the old TAS. Pretty good considering the length, but could always be better. .6x is possible, probably .5x or maybe even .4x.
Exact time = 84.8703
8K recording by Weatherton: youtube.com/c/weatherton
Previous TAS (1:38.69 by DwainiumB): youtu.be/UIDp_HHD8cM [removed]
First hit of this SC (using 3 shrooms): youtu.be/UAdkZ8qQgW0
Release video (by Weatherton): youtu.be/IZxdz3zGIzE
Fast lap TAS (24.95): youtu.be/LNEnBk7GCQc
First 3lap TAS with this SC (1:24.97): youtu.be/0TQao23Lnrk
Possible time saves:
-Triple tap A before going out of bounds on laps 1 and 2. Saves 3 frames total (1 on lap 1, 2 on lap 2). This was not done here since triple tap mechanics were understood a few days after this was made, and to include this would require redoing the entire race. This was done on lap 3 since that only required redoing the last few seconds of the race (this is the main difference between the .97 and .87)
-Land on the wall faster on laps 2 and 3. Can save up to 4 frames (2 on each lap) if the bounce can be done as fast as in the single lap TAS. The approach is slightly different in 3lap so it is not confirmed that this can be saved, but it seems fairly likely. Unlike the triple tap changing the bounce to save these frames can be done without redoing the rest of the course, but since there are multiple other time saves that require redoing the whole course I haven't bothered to try this at all.
-Drive slightly better on lap 1. From edge of ramp to end of lap, lap 2 saves 2 frames over lap 1. Although lap 1 is slightly different than lap 2 (you start from a different point on the ramp), that should not matter significantly. One frame is lost before the first turn after the ramp (possibly due to landing farther right) and one is lost due to a worse bounce (which leads to worse lines after it). There probably are also a few frames lost before the first SC since that was made while testing the bowl cut shroom, and I never redid that part after deciding to make the whole 3lap TAS.
Putting all these saves together is about 10 frames or 1/3 second. While that sounds like a lot (and it is) I'm not motivated to redo this anytime soon unless there is a new SC here or every other course gets a completed TAS.
*11th if you count the better respawn on YV lap as a new SC
What a pain.
Tiny modifications to Weatherton's 1.20 to save 0.01. Also remade the whole setup from power on instead of starting from savestate.
Exact time = 1.1991
Full race (+input): youtu.be/b_VFcuqN7wo
Previous TAS (1.20 by Weatherton): youtu.be/FIRkhez1XbA
position=1655/-837.2/75.32/8752 (48.076)
First half by Weatherton, second by me. Not super optimized, just a proof of concept.
Ghost is Weatherton's nonSC lap
Marty
Will make explanation of the strategies used here soon
ok
Full race: youtu.be/a19Q1cSU9Hs
Exact time = 2.8999
Previous TAS (2.9145): youtu.be/m7I8CCAUnLc
No sub 14, but there's much more time to save it doesn't really matter. Uploading since it's a large improvement over the old TAS and I don't know when I'll feel like trying this again. I don't understand what makes you go fast here. Exact time = 14.0314
Previous TAS (14.77 by Fried): youtu.be/H-5Mla-pNqg
Is Bowser actually fast here? Is it better to not use shrooms? I have no idea.
Previous TAS (11.14 by DwainiumB): youtu.be/ZnY0AbBnOUg [removed]
With Input Display: youtu.be/Hw1DzvmobD8
Previous TAS (41.83) by Abney: youtu.be/0A1Gm-x9KPM
This strategy has been known for 6 months, no its not going to be done RTA, stop asking Abney about it.
Doesn't use Lakitu, which means it should work on every version of the game. Significantly faster than the other two strategies, which is surprising. Also you can see the sideways bus for a few frames, which is nice.
This track has a lot of interesting strategies to set up the lapskips, so was pretty fun to work on. Might make a video showing/explaining the many ideas for this track if I feel like it.
Previous TAS (15.38): youtu.be/8yxi-RoY7Kw
1: youtu.be/HK5Dm7nP7cg
2: youtu.be/8yxi-RoY7Kw
3: youtu.be/MiPg16NUhNU
Thanks to Weatherton for the high quality recording (and saving 0.01 on the last turn)
Pretty much the same as the last one. Still a few frames to save, but seems very hard to get under 17 seconds.
Previous TAS (17.24): youtu.be/xLFm9dvDAQs
Timer bad
Full race: youtu.be/0pE-b1i73fA
Previous TAS (0.02): youtu.be/XM4RwhRygLo
Thanks to Weatherton for high quality recording
Uses the new shortcut that only works on Japanese versions. Seems like a possible frame to save on the first wall hit, but hard to tell.
Saved over a quarter second from the previous TAS, which at the time I thought was nearly perfect. Shows how there's almost always room to improve if you look hard enough.
Previous TAS (3.51): youtu.be/XM4RwhRygLo
Exact lap time = 0.9998. Never expected this to go under a second, but here we are.
More than 60 frames at 60 fps = less than a second? Must be floats.
Previous TAS (1.10): youtu.be/C5G2P-1N8co
Full race: youtu.be/z1_bAiFeAbY
I didn't even realize it was possible to go this fast. There's still probably a few more frames that can come off by starting the lap lower, but not much more.
Previous TAS (1.42): youtu.be/wFAf6OU_T0k
Full race: youtu.be/Gl8DtIEtERs
Saved 0.01 with a better final jump and 0.01 because the timer is bad. The start of the lap is bad, but the rest seems pretty good.
Previous TAS (1.44): youtu.be/raFUlVCrylw
Full race: youtu.be/3eLmX_kHZDU
Full race here: youtu.be/ZbnTdcXDb7o
Not good enough
Previous best TAS (19.39): youtu.be/FQXdtEXDb1A
19.28 almost certainly possible, maybe 19.24. I've had enough of this for now, but at least its 19.2X
Wario number 0.01
Previous best TAS: 0.24 by Kyman [youtu.be/_UFnlNv95wc]
Exact time = 0.0190
Full race here: youtu.be/eK0pGZb_d84
Proof of concept TAS. Have to land exactly on the fence (x = -688) in order to clip through, so very precise.
First video of new shortcut
Down + two B taps, hold right for a bit, ABZ at same time, hop before hitting wall
Also, sorry about the keyboard being loud - I don't know how to prevent that
Made that jump!
Possible improvements:
*On laps 2 & 3, hitting the wall at a sharper angle can save a frame (similar to lap 1). It seems very unlikely to be able to turn sharp enough and still hit the right spot, but maybe it can be done.
Made this in a few hours. Not very optimized, but shows potential strategy. This should be able to go under 15 seconds.
First ~5 seconds taken from Weatherton's all cups TAS, rest by me.
Lost over .1 on initial tumble.
Beats Fried's 1.88 TAS with the old strat.
Have to drive first half lap nonSC to set this up (or just jump first wall after the fourth bump)
Will improve this before the end of 2020.
Spliced demonstration video. This only works on JP 1.0.
With a 31 second lap 1 and ~6 second laps 2 and 3, this would give a 43 second 3lap time. While there are a few seconds to save on lap 1 here, I don't think it's quite enough to beat other versions. (current 3lap WR is mid 39, so would need to save at least 4 seconds on lap 1 for this method to be faster)