Topic: Request: Tutorial for extreme beginners

[TerraEsperZ]

Obviously, we all can only speak about the tools we each personally use. I tend to do most of the work in Paint except for more advanced stuff like transparencies or removing specific colors on a large scale.

I'm not sure I have the patience to write a tutorial that goes into each and every little detail with accompanying screenshot, so I'm currently researching how to easily make a video of my desktop since it would be both much faster and more natural to mention all those little details, not to mention being easier to understand for beginners.

[Peardian]

Perhaps a short video would be good in this case? Alas, I have no way to do it myself or I would.


A little trick I use, in case you're not sure you lined it up correctly, is to use Undo and Redo (ctrl+z and ctrl+y) real quick. If the ground seems to shift slightly (don't worry about sprites or parallax backgrounds) then you know you have to redo it. If the ground doesn't change at all (might need to be zoomed in) then you know you placed it correctly.

[majax79]

Thanks Maxim I'll give it a try tomorrow. After I get done with level 1 in Day Dreamin' Davey I'll post it.

A video tutorial would be cool.

[Trop]

Didn't I already post this somewhere?

http://www.vgmapper.com/Lab/RawMapGuide.png

And you're doing Day Dreamin' Davey too?  Somebody already requested a level from me.  Easy game to map.

[Maxim]

Perhaps a short video would be good in this case? Alas, I have no way to do it myself or I would.

Camstudio is free and works pretty well in my experience. You need to do a bit of work to get it on YouTube though - mpeg-4 lossless works pretty well for that.

[TerraEsperZ]

Thanks for the suggestion Maxim. I had done a bit of researching on that issue that program did come out as the best free option. Unfortunately, I won't be able to do anything on the subject until this weekend.

(And even then I'm afraid it will be impossibly amateurish, on account of me having never done any video in my life.)

[DarkWolf]

I used Camstudio once to try and make a video tutorial but I couldn't get the file size small enough while still showing enough detail.  Good luck though.

[majax79]

Can I send my psp file to someone so they can tell me what I'm doing wrong?

[Maxim]

I'll have a look, you could attach them here.

[majax79]

Ok, I renamed the psp extension to jpg so I could upload it here. I only tried two screenshots to begin with.

[Maxim]

Well, here it is in PNG format for those reading along. So long as it's a flat image, you can always save to PNG and not lose any information.

What I see is two parts of the level that don't overlap. Because of that, I can't make them line up. This may be because of the black status bar at the bottom of the screen which might have obliterated a chunk of the first screenshot.

There's a few options:

1. Cut off the status bar before copy/pasting the second screenshot. Use the Selection tool (shortcut: S) to select just the parts that are wanted (also avoid the left column that is solid green).
2. Use the Eraser tool (shortcut: E) set to maximum "hardness" and a size of about 16 to erase the status bar while it is still "floating"
3. Use Irfanview to batch crop the screenshots. That's a little more advanced.

[feos]

Let's imagine, you're ripping stuff & have missed something during the gameplay.
You don't need to play from the begining, or even from the savestate, you can REWIND & catch what you need.

There are 2 ways for it. One is more complicated & requires using the LUA script, that allows rewind. And another is rather simple, it is about using the inbuilt TAS Edit tool of FCEUX. You either record a movie, load it for playback & the open TAS Edit, or you play in TAS Edit from the beginning, easily rewinding & playing around with layers.

To play in TAS Edit itself, you load your ROM, go to Tools - TAS Edit, pless Q button (it allows you to record with you keyboard or gamepad) making movie Read+Write, & switching TAS Edit to Recording mode. Then you shall unpause emulation. Pless || button in TAS Edit, or use the Pause hotkey (can be configured though Config - Map Hotkeys). If your input doesn't take any effect while the game is running, uncheck Attach four-score in Config - Input. The rewind itself may be done by double-clicking on the frame number, that sends emulation to this frame, or by pressing < button (frame by frame).

Video demo of how to use TAS Edit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAlV7dVtE_8

PS: use the latest build of FCEUX to have all necessary functions.