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MArio 64 Parallel Universes and Timecubes - A masterclass in how to TAS/Glitch

//ARCANUM

//ARCANUM

Member
Zyrox said:
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hahahaha well played
 
W

Weltall Zero

Member
As a software engineer, that was beyond fascinating. The whole bit about paralel universes coming about because of float->short casting is particularly awesome. I had all but forgotten about the flying frozen scuttlebug by the time it came into action. Awesome video all around.
 
L

Luigi87

Member
So if I understand this correctly, pressing half of the A button will make Mario transcend time and space. Yes... Yes of course. It's all so clear to me now!


My head hurts...
 
L

liquidtmd

Banned
Exile20 said:
We need a Mario 64 University course at this point.
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Its one game that could justify it. From soundtrack to design. I've gamed from around '87 and in all that time, I'd say this is the only title that solely justifies one platforms existence by itself

The mechanics are absolutely so satisfying. To see masters of this game speedrun it with no assists, its bewitching
 
W

Weltall Zero

Member
KemoSabe said:
Omg. Some people just have too much free time...
I dont get it: why would you spend thousands (?) of hours to figure this out.
Learn SAP or different languages if you have this level of dedication.

( whish i could do something like that...)
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I'd rather live in a world where people do awesome stuff like this instead of learning an ancient frankenstein of a language meant for the exciting world of sales, reports and accounting. :)
 
R

Radio

Member
My favorite part of this is that he could just be an elaborate troll and making everything up, and I'd have no clue.

You guys would tell me if he was, right? Guys? Please?
 
K

KHlover

Banned
I hope this guy is a physics teacher irl. Or better yet a professor. Just so I can go to sleep knowing that SOME people out there have an amazing physics prof. This guy's lectures would kick so much ass.
 
K

KittenMaster

Member
I finally finished watching the video, that is one of the best uses of overflowing/underflowing Mario's position to exploit the game's programming and one of the best explanations for how it's done I have ever seen.
 
O

OminoMichelin

Member
Hinchy said:
As a programmer this was absolutely fascinating. I was grinning from ear to ear when I realized what the float => short conversion was doing for the floor collision. This guy's fantastic.
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I started learning how to program last year, and I've been playing around with unity and reading about what goes on under the hood in games for a few months. The latest AGDQ was a revelation for me, it was so much fun trying to figure out how those kinds of glitches could happen. I always liked them but I feel now I can appreciate them a lot more.
Developers these days are incredibly lucky.
The video and the idea behind it are incredible.
 
H

Hesh

Member
For someone that didn't work on the game at all this is absolutely fascinating how he's reverse engineered the programming behind the game and then used it to do things I would imagine the actual programmers never thought of in a million years.
 
Kent

Kent

Member
"Parallel universes" is a bit of a fanciful term for what's actually going on there. Makes it sound a lot cooler than it actually is (at least, to people not familiar with how things like these actually work already).

Still though, the fact that he did all of this work for minimizing the number of times he has to press the A Button to beat Super Mario 64 is impressive, and I always love hearing about the crazy nonsense people pull when trying to do things like this or speedrun games.
 
T

Trigonometrize.

Member
Kent said:
"Parallel universes" is a bit of a fanciful term for what's actually going on there. Makes it sound a lot cooler than it actually is (at least, to people not familiar with how things like these actually work already).

Still though, the fact that he did all of this work for minimizing the number of times he has to press the A Button to beat Super Mario 64 is impressive, and I always love hearing about the crazy nonsense people pull when trying to do things like this or speedrun games.
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The sensational branding of these techniques is the one thing I'm not fond of in the speed run community. It's not really a big deal though.
 
W

Weltall Zero

Member
Kent said:
"Parallel universes" is a bit of a fanciful term for what's actually going on there. Makes it sound a lot cooler than it actually is (at least, to people not familiar with how things like these actually work already).
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It's a bit more appropriate than other similar fancy terms, though; for one, they are actually paralel in a literal sense, both in the x and y axes. One could argue that "paralel stage" or "paralel world" would be more accurate, since it's only the current stage that's replicated, but otherwise it feels a rather apt term.
 
d00d3n

d00d3n

Member
Elite universities in the US should rescind their offers to the clock radio kid and give them to Mario 64 Albert Einstein instead.
 
Kent

Kent

Member
Weltall Zero said:
It's a bit more appropriate than other similar fancy terms, though; for one, they are actually paralel in a literal sense, both in the x and y axes. One could argue that "paralel stage" or "paralel world" would be more accurate, since it's only the current stage that's replicated, but otherwise it feels a rather apt term.
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Except that it isn't - what's actually going on, is that Mario's collision with the terrain is calculated only within the boundaries of the level itself. Total position mod level boundary is used on both axes to get the functional collision detection, rather than positing that there's actually an invisible "copy" of all of the terrain out there in space for some reason (noting that this was stated directly in the video as being the case). This is an artifact of Super Mario 64's rudimentary 3D engine and is, quite likely, done to prevent the engine from crashing when Mario steps out of bounds.

"Parallel universe" isn't really a good description of it because the name implies that anything actually exists out there, which it's quite clear (especially from the video) that nothing does. You could call it "out-of-bounds displaced terrain collision geometry" and be far more accurate and informative of what it actually is, but you'd also turn fewer heads in the process.
 
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