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luigiblood · 10 months ago

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Why Nintendo 64 - Nintendo Switch Online is shit

I have been very critical of Nintendo 64 - Nintendo Switch Online since the beginning, not only the very noticeably broken graphics emulation was certainly a case that everyone understood, but it did certainly make me completely avoid the Expansion Pack subscription entirely for a year because that was genuinely shit in 2021.

Now how is it in 2024? Well, it's not that much better. They did fix a lot of problems during that time for sure, and that's something that we do need to acknowledge to do at least something resembling fair criticism.

Current context

That one Dark Link room in Ocarina of Time was fully fixed, as the fog and even transparency emulation was just outright broken, somehow worse than its Wii U Virtual Console counterpart (which was already not very good), it also affected other games like Super Mario 64 where the fog was actually not correct, but oddly enough, it's not as much of a problem in Super Mario 3D All-Stars, and I'm not entirely sure what happened between that and Nintendo Switch Online for it to have such a massive emulation downgrade.

I've done some analysis of the software, though not a ton because I don't have that much time to waste reverse engineering emulators. Through that, I found out that iQue was responsible for the Nintendo 64 emulator on Wii U and Switch, because of the emulator framework, named "TRL," being 100% identical to their NES and GBC emulator for 3DS, confirmed to be iQue through leaked source code among other things, and the debug menu is seen on Wii U if you have more than one game ROM in the folder, and it's just like the 3DS one.

The Wii U Virtual Console N64 emulator was already seen as worse than its Wii VC counterpart, mainly due to the dark filter, but that thing has nothing to do with the emulation quality it was providing, aside from apparently some additional slight input lag on top of the already massive input lag which I find mindboggling, the graphics emulation was already considered worse than on Wii, a lot of issues that people saw on NSO were already on Wii U VC, which turned into a massive mess of complaints because, yeah, it turns out the Wii U was just not successful, but the Switch is, making obvious complaints very much more important.

The Dark Link room just happened to be using a bunch of graphical features at once which made it very noticeable when they don't work as intended. When I discussed this with other people, I couldn't help but feel terrible at the answer I get: "It's good enough."

This response annoys me to no end, but in truth, yes, the games are playable, nowadays graphically you probably wouldn't tell the difference from the real N64 with an untrained eye, and in fact, so am I at times too. But the problem is that it now becomes an actual history rewrite of how the game actually was, and you could still say that you would prefer the N64 games now than before with better framerates, better resolution, all that.

Better performance is always better?

Now this is still more of an opinion piece so here's my opinion about better framerate and better resolution: It's fucking misguided. Doing better framerate and better resolution works a lot better for games after that generation than the 32-bit and 64-bit era of the mid 90s to 2000, because the graphics looks a lot better for it and the standards are closer to the current era that we're in.

For N64 however, simply running the game better does not work as well as it should most of the time, and, frankly, seeing big polygons in 720p does not work as well as it should for most games. 2D games especially suffer from this and get some really weird filtering that just bothers me, especially in games like Yoshi's Story and Harvest Moon 64, where the emulator seemingly can't decide whether the graphics should be almost pixel perfect, or become vaseline.

Speaking of vaseline, where's the anti-aliasing? The N64 is very much known for its blurry anti-aliasing! While I'm pretty much immune to aliasing myself, I can still see it's not really respecting the original N64 very well about that, and it only deepens one of the biggest history rewrite of the N64 nowadays, where most people is more likely to look at badly emulated footage of a N64 game than seeing the game running on the original system, and this really bothers me that when you have every single other system on the service to care about this to the point of having a CRT screen filter, and even outright and pretty faithful reproductions of the Game Boy series' screens, N64 is the only one that forces you to play in its uglier HD resolution with no actual option to play games in their original resolution with some CRT filter or not, and that is just a real evidence of a lack of care to me compared to the rest of the systems.

When it comes to better framerates however, as much as I love that (Pilotwings 64 on NSO is actually one of the few experiences I can recommend on it), a lot of the games' speed are tied to the framerate, potentially making games harder than they should due to its speed being more accounted for the actual system, and sometimes, causing actual desync problems that iQue had to implement ways to manually slow the framerate down in specific moments of games just to account for it, but this only works for games that can run faster than intended. A lot of games sometimes have their framerate completely capped and doesn't run any faster.

But emulating the N64 lag is genuinely complex, and it's a problem that's not fully solved to this day even on unofficial N64 emulation, because there's way too many factors to take into account that it would probably take too much performance to figure out where it should take more time to process or not, so, on this one, I have a bit of sympathy about that as a developer, but it is still possible to roughly approximate that, even if the result can be weird; but I don't seem to notice any legit attempts about that.

Besides, a lot of people would be annoyed about the N64 lag and bad framerates, but to me if you want better framerates, in my opinion, it would be done differently, and unofficial emulation absolutely can deal with it in ways that isn't intrusive to the game's performance: If you played the N64Recomp PC port of Majora's Mask, you would know this, as RT64, the new graphics plugin powering this port (and hopefully emulators soon), actually handles interpolation between frames, allowing better framerate without sacrificing the game's performance to be better or worse than intended, and it makes for some real impressive results while still being relatively low in cost. For me this seems like a potential avenue to attempt to ease in comfort with N64 games.

Is N64 emulation really that hard?

…frankly, if you asked me this question 10 years ago, I would have said yes, at least to my understanding back then, but also now. But if you ask me this same question now, the answer is no, mainly because of brand new standards that actually makes a huge difference in how to handle N64 emulation in current systems, even through unofficial emulation.

I know it's very easy to mock unofficial N64 emulation as relatively hard to play, and this I would agree with, but this problem is purely user faced now. The old problem of unofficial N64 emulation was mainly that not many people were doing work on it and their time is just not infinite, but that is very much changing nowadays.

The Nintendo 64 is actually a well understood system, additional research are still being done, but for the most part, we can understand the N64 to a decent degree. The actual bottleneck of N64 emulation was actually how to emulate it on current systems, when we were stuck to older graphics API standards like OpenGL and DirectX 9.

However, a shakeup happened since with Vulkan and DirectX 12, allowing deeper GPU control. This, is actually one of the most important events of computing that actually unlocked bigger N64 emulation potential and finally get rid of problems that plagued N64 graphics emulation and it started with an adaptation of THE most accurate N64 graphics plugin as Parallel-RDP, and its extremely good, but its pretty much asking on performance and requires a decent GPU (no need for the latest stuff though).

Unfortunately, not much happened since on that field, due to as I said before, a lack of developers, but now RT64 exists, and is made to be extremely performant, and especially made to be accurate without relying on any game specific code for it, which is extremely impressive and shows a lot of potential for the future, while providing tons of new features that allows enhancements like frame interpolation and more. RT64 was fully enabled because of Vulkan and DirectX 12, else it would simply not exist!

Now why did I talk about this stuff that's seemingly unrelated to NSO? Well remember that Majora's Mask PC port I talked about earlier that uses RT64? I saw that thing running on Nintendo Switch, seemingly perfectly fine, with enhancements as well.

This makes me look at N64 NSO differently, and with even more criticism than before. Instead of making good graphics emulation through Vulkan, they seemingly instead just ported the graphics emulation from Wii U VC's GX2 API to Vulkan. That isn't without effort, but it is quite frankly lazy, and means that whatever they're doing, they're not using the technology at their disposal to the fullest, especially since Vulkan is a standard that applies to pretty much every current GPU under the sun now, whatever the work is done here, it would likely work on the long term, especially the next systems after the Switch. Why Nintendo did not allow that is just sad, and a waste of time. RT64 was done by mostly a single developer, and while it took many years to be developed, these years could have been reduced a lot more if it was handled by a team fully dedicated to this, with possibly even more cutting edge to it. The ingredients are there, but the recipe was just botched.

Genuine trust issues with the quality

But aside from all this stuff I just talked about, if you didn't understand much of it, hopefully this part should help you understand other issues that I have with N64 NSO.

Remember that the first version of N64 NSO was graphically buggy, and while they did fix that over time, new games sometimes were outright buggy and possibly game breaking:

When they added Paper Mario to the service, while the game did actually receive some improvements over the Wii U VC emulator, the game, somehow, was more prone to crashes. If you game over with Watt as a partner, the emulator crashes, and you lose your progress. If you have the curiosity of hitting trees with your hammer, one of them in the snow town actually crashes the game too! Thankfully both were fixed, but you still needed to wait months! If you had no idea why crashes could be caused as Nintendo just never warns about that stuff, that is genuinely inconvenient.

When they added Kirby 64; the western version actually had a game breaking bug that makes you softlocked if you get hit in a particular way underwater. That is genuinely a terrible bug that could affect just about anybody playing the game. Thankfully, they fixed it the next week, but that REALLY shouldn't have happened to begin with!

There's also the smaller problems like Yoshi's Story's boss, Inviso, where the point of the boss is to be invisible. Except he's very visible at all times making the point of the boss moot and any respect to the original game gone. For some fucking reason, they took more than a year to finally fix it, and that's just a huge shame.

There's also how Jet Force Gemini had a worse widescreen mode and somehow thought it was good for release, thankfully fixed 2 months after, but you still had to wait 2 months!

And then F-Zero X still has genuine framerate problems to this day where the game just runs worse over time. That game is known to run a perfect 60 FPS on the original system, so there's no excuse here.

I could also mention Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, but just look up Graslu's videos on them, he has done a full comparison, showing what's wrong with them with enough detail.

For these, I just mentioned the glaring issues plaguing several games, but a lot of times these issues just comes on their addition to the service, and then only gets fixed months later; and for me, that's an actual disrespect to the player. I understand the developer is doing their best here, but frankly, what that looks like to me is a legit constant: they visibly seems just scrambling to get games to work to a "good enough" state. I am NOT accusing iQue of this, however I accuse Nintendo to not have taken any measures to stop having these kinds of problems to begin with.

To speak better of iQue, they seem to be good at reverse engineering, as they do patch games to fix issues, or sometimes just modifications like anti-epilepsy measures or other kinds of hacks.

The controls

I had some really bad things to say about the controls, but it got partially invalidated when I played Perfect Dark on the service to see how bad it got. I think I simply overthought about it.

Now I have an opinion about the controls of Goldeneye and Perfect Dark that will not please people: They're… fine. The default controls I mean. I know people have some real aversion to FPS that doesn't use a double stick, but frankly I dare say those controls didn't age as badly as you'd think. Some people say it's best played on a N64 controller but I don't agree about that, it's also okay on a regular Switch Pro Controller.

Turok however, oh boy, the default controls can be a double stick FPS… except it's reversed. That's where the ability to remap controls would be very useful here, or possibly just one moment where better forced control setups would be actually nice here.

Or how Pokémon Stadium has minigames that uses actually both the D-pad and the Stick, it could be great if the right Stick acted like the N64 Stick at that moment on a Pro Controller instead of the C Buttons!

Instead, I sometimes get told it is an excuse to get the (frankly expensive) N64 controller. Fuck no. I should not be forced to buy that, and I actually dislike using that controller, and I played tons of N64 games through emulation with different controls without having serious issues either, so for me, this isn't an excuse. Wii U VC also provided button remapping!

The forced use of ZL as the N64 Z button, and L for N64 L button for every game, also bothered me. I know they care about consistency, but then, I got actually curious to check how they handled Z and L on Wii and Wii U VC… and holy shit. They handled it right from the start. On Wii they actually just used the L button for the N64 Z button! But, the N64 B and A buttons do correspond to the B and A buttons on the current controllers regardless. Though, on that one, for most games, it's not as much of a bother, but if you're playing games like, let's say Wave Race 64 or F-Zero X, this is particularly worse.

F-Zero X has the use of strafing left and right, so I'll let you imagine how worse that sounds if you use ZL and R. NOT ZR, that's for C Buttons macros on the face buttons. It feels horrible and unintuitive, but also there's how the B and A buttons on N64 are vertical, and you just use your thumb on both buttons, making it easy to boost or to soften bounces on waves in Wave Race 64, which is a pretty darn important thing to understand, but instead you have to handle it on horizontal B and A buttons, making it a slight bit more annoying to your thumb, physically speaking. It just feels unintuitive and actually bad for your thumb, frankly.

It's where I wish games would actually make either ZR or R buttons to be swapped depending on the title, to be the R button and C button macro, and also offer an option to rotate the face buttons so that B and A would be placed on Y and B instead, corresponding more to the actual feeling of the N64 controller.

Sin & Punishment is oddly enough the only game of the bunch that comes with slightly custom controls, more adapted to the game, and I'm sorta glad that they bothered.

Just to go back to the N64 stick emulation, I also wish the sensitivity of it was managed better on current controllers. It really seems like when some games run faster than intended, added with the fact the stick isn't reproduced faithfully, some games are a lot harder to play, especially with Joy Cons if that's your only and basic options, where for example, turning the camera is way faster and you just keep wanting to reposition all the time.

Missing features

Man, imagine emulating the Controller Pak for the ability to save in games that only uses it instead of battery backed save memory in the cartridge, but then, literally never use it, ever.

Well that's what happened to Wii U VC and N64 NSO. iQue has actually emulated it, but for some reason, they never use it, and I just do not understand why, especially in games where the Rumble Pak isn't supported.

Speaking of the Rumble Pak, it is emulated, but there's one thing I just do not understand: Why isn't there code to automatically swap the Controller Pak and Rumble Pak? They have the best ways to actually handle this in ways that is pretty transparent and unobtrusive, but somehow, they don't bother with it, and it's just very strange. I know the N64 games are weird about it, but some outright allow to swap them, sometimes they even bother to remove the No Controller Pak message in Winback, but in other games they don't even bother removing the Rumble Pak swap message. It's just inconsistent and weird.

We don't have Transfer Pak emulation unfortunately, but that one, I can partially understand, it's definitely a bit messy, but it would still have been cool to play Mario Tennis and Mario Golf with your GBC characters and to level them up on the N64 games. Instead, in Mario Tennis GBC, you actually get the Transfer Pak content unlocked from the start, which is still pretty cool of Nintendo to care, and a mere reminder that they do care about these details in other apps. But in Mario Tennis on N64 NSO, the Transfer Pak courts are yet to be unlocked.

Then there's the wish to see 64DD emulated, which they initially did some work towards that back on Wii U VC, but then simply never touched in years, and then removed the code after I noticed they tried to support the fanmade cartridge ports of them. It's probably just for testing though, I don't really care that they do it like that, but I would think it's particularly crass had they used them officially on the app. This has yet to be seen again, so I don't have my hopes up. Here's hoping the Nintendo Museum made them care though, considering Doshin The Giant 64DD actually showed up there.

The future

I think I pretty much said what I wanted to say the most in one place. It might have been a little hard to read, but I really wanted to make my points very clear.

When I look at N64 NSO vs the rest of the service, I just cannot help but see how worse it is in general, I have genuine trust issues as it is very badly managed as games get added but then doesn't run properly, only to get resolved, if it does, only months later. It just makes me want to put off for later any time I wanna play a N64 game on that service, and I really want to love that service, I want to recommend y'all the biggest N64 library so far that Nintendo has given us that surpasses both Virtual Console libraries on Wii and Wii U, but I just can't.

Unfortunately, I don't see the future to be that bright. I see no reason to believe Nintendo has done any big efforts to allow a better N64 emulator, and of course, Nintendo has never really addressed complaints, and I partially blame the "good enough" feeling. When I read ArsTechnica to make an article just to complain about the borders after the N64 NSO ordeal, it just makes me feel like no matter what, this bigger complaint of mine across all of N64 NSO just cannot be seen seriously. It's a much bigger problem than borders (though, I agree, they should allow more, including pitch black borders).

I don't see any reason for Nintendo to read this either, but that's my full impressions of N64 NSO so far. Nintendo 64 NSO is just shit, and disrespectful to the legacy of the N64.

I outright accuse it to force people to buy a N64 controller just to play it correctly, which definitely worked as it definitely was out of stock several times, but if that's truly what they aimed for, then it's an app that doesn't know what audience it wants. If it aimed to be played by casuals, they'll be put off by the controls. If they aimed for the hardcore, they'll find problems, no matter what.

And it really cannot be helped when the emulator is clearly designed for the developers to manually fix problems per game instead of having a better emulator overall.

#nintendo switch online #nintendo 64 #rant

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otomefowl · 3 months ago

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heeellooooo! How are ya’ll doing? Is there an estimated release date? How’s far along is the process? (Hopefully not sounding pushy!! That’s not my intent sry lol) hope you’re doing well!

It's all good, we love to see interest! My plan for now is to get a demo out as soon as we can. The demo includes the introduction of all eight characters, so it's pretty meaty. I'm currently in the debugging stage with the code, and from there it's almost all aesthetic: backgrounds, music (which will all be free for the demo), and other odds and ends. Because of this, there may be some changes in the user interface and even some art between the demo and the first chapter.

"First chapter? What does that mean?" Well, in order to keep up interest, the rest of the introduction will be released before the character routes in a "first chapter." By the end of this chapter, the player will be ready to pick an Artemis to play along. After that, the current plan is to release a few routes at a time.

TLDR; The demo will at most be done by the end of this year (I'll do better at updating on progress). The full game, however, will release over the span of a few years, depending on availability of our volunteers.

#afog #artemis fowl otome game #artemis fowl #game dev #mod iesnoth #otome game

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cupcraft · 5 months ago

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Cupcraft's Sims 4 Build Requests Challenge

Hi Hi! I have been very Sims 4 build-pilled for the past couple years and you can see builds I've posted on the tag #cup.builds (or by gallery, DispleasedBrick).

Thought I'd challenge myself to do small builds on request but to challenge myself.

I am doing a 2 pack challenge (+ basegame always included).

General Rules:

I won't use any custom content in the build itself.

I can only use packs I own, so if you request a pack I do not own it won't be included obviously (I will make clear what I own!).

Debug & Basegame will be fair game as long as its only debug for basegame or the packs you requested. Basegame will always be included.

I am doing this for free on my own free time so requests won't be quick necessarily and I may not finish them all/take all requests (depends on how many I get really).

How to Request:

Via Ask! Can be anon if you prefer!

Requests I'm looking for in the format of: I'd like you to try to build a STYLE/THEME/CHARACTER'S HOUSE/ROOM/APARTMENT/ETC. With 2 PACKS YOU OWN OF MY CHOICE. So for example "I'd like you to build Gregory House's apartment with everyday clutter kit and seasons" or "I'd like you to build a modern ranch house with horse ranch and eco lifestyle" etc.

You can also request minor terrain/misc things ie "it'd be nice if the home had a pond!" or even "try to include these color palette I like!"

Do not request very large and complex things ie castles, giant manors, things that involve extreme terrain manipulation (Ie mountain house). This challenge I also won't rennovate any townie houses. Not that i would never do a request like that but I want these to be finishable. I will build most houses and styles :). Even something as small as a room or apartment rennovation (not townie house, but apartments are more feasible ie the ones in eco-lifestyle or the highrise in lovestruck).

I ask for now that if you request the everyday clutter kit you are mindful that currently the game is glitched and it is missing 17 items and it has not yet been patched!

What packs do you own so I don't request something silly?

Expansions: I own all of them

Game packs: spa day, dine out, vampires, parenthood, jungle adventure, realm of magic, dream home decorator, my wedding stories, werewolves, and outdoor retreat

Stuff packs: spooky stuff, romantic garden, backyard stuff, vintage glamour stuff, laundry day, my first pet, moschino, tiny living, nifty knitting, paranormal, home chef hustle

kits (of the build ones, cas ones not listedn here): industrial loft, blooming rooms, desert luxe, everyday clutter, bathroom clutter, pastel pop, basement treasures, greenhouse haven, modern luxe, book nook, castle estates, riviera retreat, cozy bistro, artist studio, storybook nursery, and I will be buying on my next paycheck the cozy gamers kit and the bella goth kit (forget the actual name)

Taglist for my everything & sims specific tag list is in the replies :)! Request away!

#sims 4 #cup.builds

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moonwoodhollow · 5 months ago

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I was asked whether I'd ever share 'my' Oasis Springs as a save file, and while I'm all for this in theory, I don't know if that ever happens. Instead, I will share the lots separately, some might be furnished, but most won't be (I can only do so many midcentury modern interiors without cc).

So what do I have planned this year?

Finish the unfinished builds and upload them, some without cc, some with. The lots I currently have greyed out are still the debug ones that came with the game and I will finish them (hopefully) and get them uploaded. The ones that are not mine, are obviously not mine to share as I just renovated them btw.

Feel free to add suggestions, which builds or what kind of community lots I still need for this world!

#berry builds oasis springs #just some more bg info on this world #forgot to caption the solar flare lot (or whatever it's called). I made it a cc lot

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simthesize · 2 months ago

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How to record videos with Sims 2 in-game camera (HD, no UI, no lag, no file format issues)

I originally planned to include this information in the behind-the-scenes video about Bring Me To Life that I'm currently working on, but it's overly technical and not that interesting. It still might be useful to some people (mostly machinima creators), so I decided to make a separate post about it.

There are two ways to record videos in The Sims 2:

Using screen recording software

This is the most common and probably the easiest way. You just need a program like OBS that will capture whatever happens on your screen exactly as it happened. If this method works for you, it's perfectly fine. No need to follow this guide then.

Using the in-game video capture tool

This way involves capturing videos directly in the game by clicking the video camera icon or pressing V on your keyboard. This method is perfect for machinima creators. It automatically hides the UI, but more importantly, the video will always be perfectly smooth, regardless of the actual performance of your game, i.e. even if it runs like a literal slide show, any videos you capture this way will look perfectly fine.

Okay, so if this method is so great, why do we need a tutorial for it? Well, as is usually the case with this game, the feature works fine, it's just a little bit outdated.

To fix it, we need to do 3 simple* things.

*If you're a Sims 2 player, you're probably used to this kind of stuff anyway

Step 1: Installing a modern codec

In the Camera settings, the game lets you choose if you want the videos to be compressed. I highly recommend choosing that option, as uncompressed videos take up way too much storage space.

The codec that the game uses to handle compression is outdated and most video editing programs will not be able to edit such files. To fix this problem, we need to download and install x264vfw, which is a free an open source codec.

Once installed, open the Configure x264vfw app. No need to change anything there (unless you want to test different settings of course), except for this one small thing:

In the Debug section, go to Log level and change it to None. Otherwise the codec will display a pop-up window each time you record in the game, which is pretty annoying.

Step 2: Making the game use the codec

Locate the VideoCapture.ini file in the installation folder with your latest expansion pack. I have Ultimate Collection, so for me the path looks like this:

D:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection\Fun with Pets\SP9\TSData\Res\UserData\Config

Back up your file and open the original version with Notepad. You can either replace the whole thing with my settings, or just update the highlighted parts.

While you're at it, make sure to update the LargeSettings value to 1920x1080 so that the videos are captured in HD (no need to worry about it if you're copying the whole thing):

[Config] PreferredCodec=x264vfw Folder is relative to Res/Userdata Folder=Movies FilenameBase=movie NoFillFrames=0 AudioStereoOutput=0 AudioRateDivisor=4 GlobalSettings = reset, vbr:1, fps:10, keyinterval:30, mode:1, datarate:0 SmallSettings = size: 128x128 MediumSettings = size: 320x240 LargeSettings = size: 1920x1080 LowQualitySettings = minq: 6, maxq: 16, mode:0 MediumQualitySettings = minq: 4, maxq: 10, fps:15, mode:0 HighQualitySettings = minq: 2, maxq: 8, fps: 30, keyinterval: 60 SmallLowSettings = datarate: 75 SmallMediumSettings = datarate: 150 SmallHighSettings = datarate: 300 MediumLowSettings = datarate: 150 MediumMediumSettings = datarate: 300 MediumHighSettings = datarate: 600 LargeLowSettings = datarate: 300 LargeMediumSettings = datarate: 600 LargeHighSettings = datarate: 1200 AllowAntialiasing=0 # some drivers have issues with capture when AA is enabled [Codecs] 0=VP61 # On2 VP6.1 1=VP62 # On2 VP6.2 2=VP60 # On2 VP6.0 3=x264vfw # x264vfw

Save your file.

When in game, go to Camera Options and make sure Video Capture Size is set to Large and Video Quality is set to High.

Also, you might want to change the Maximum Video Recording Time to something higher than 60 seconds.

Credit for this solution goes to this person who left the following comment under this video

Step 3: Changing the file format from avi to mp4

Before doing this step, test if everything works correctly when you try to capture videos in the game. The videos will go to the Movies folder in your Documents folder for TS2.

Try to import the videos into your editing software. If it doesn't work, e.g. the program does not recognize the file or the file appears to be corrupted, you'll need to change the file format from avi to mp4.

I personally use VLC media player for that, as it's free and open-source.

Go to Media > Convert / Save...

Drag your files into the File Selection section or select them by clicking the + Add button.

Select the Video - H.264 + MP3 (MP4) profile and click the wrench icon to edit its settings.

In the Video tab, make sure to check the box next to Keep original video track. Go to the Audio tab and check the analogous box.

Save and in the next window specify the destination folder and click Start. VLC will go through each of the files you added.

IMPORTANT:

While Steps 1 and 2 only need to be done once, Step 3 needs to be done for every new video you record (unless, your video editing software doesn't struggle opening the avi files). The good news is, this step is really fast, no more than a second per a single video. This is because we're keeping the original video track intact. The only thing that is changed is the container. That's why this change is fast and does not affect video quality in any way. Ideally, this step wouldn't be needed if we figured out a way to force the game to use mp4 when saving those videos, but I'm not sure if this is possible.

Like I said, outside of machinima creation, it probably makes more sense to just record your screen with OBS. Especially if you want to capture videos in 4K, which I don't think would be possible with this method. But it works for me and as it took me a while to figure it all out, I just wanted to share all the info in a single post!

#sims 2 machinima #ts2 #sims2 #sims 2 tutorial #ts2 tutorial #sims 2 guide #ts2 guide #my stuff #ts2 simblr #machinima #ts2 machinima

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treason-and-plot · 1 year ago

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I can't remember if you have posts about your picture taking process but I'm really curious how did you get a lot like Prosper Room so crowded and look so lively. Do you pose everyone or do you just get them there and leave them be?

I would love it, if you have time and motivation of course, if you showed us your process for setting a scene and taking pics. I never did those in any sims game tbh and I always love seeing behind the scenes things.

Love you and your work to bits!! ❤️ ❤️

I don't think I have made any posts about my picture-making process because prior to today I don't think anybody has ever asked! But I really appreciate you sending me this ask and your lovely comments. Thank you so much!

For these particular scenes I have 16 Sims in the active family. (I did originally have 20 as stated here but my game kept freezing.) For anyone reading who may be unfamiliar with this process, I add the Sims to the household by clicking on my active Sim and then selecting NRaas>Master controller>Household> Add Sim. I then filter by age and gender so I have a decent cross section of Sims, and enable testing cheats so I can teleport each Sim to the active lot, in this case the Prosper Room. I have a decent gaming rig and can usually add 20 Sims to a lot before my game starts to protest, but as mentioned in an earlier post I had to reduce the number of household Sims in this case to 16, I suspect because the Prosper Room already contains a number of service Sims.

Once all the Sims have been teleported to the lot, I then set about dressing them. This can be a laborious process but I usually have a couple of Sims in the household who have a dozen outfits in their inventories for this very purpose. It is then a simple process using Nraas to transfer one of those outfits to another Sim in the household. I click on my active Sim and then choose NRaas>Master controller>Intermediate>Transfer clothing. A box will then appear as shown below asking for details of the 'Destination Sim' and I then choose 'current lot.'

A list of Sims will then appear of the same age and gender and I just choose the one I want to transfer the outfit to. You can also choose them all if you want!

Now, for my current Prosper Room scenes, I placed meals on all the tables using Nraas Debug enabler: Nraas> Debug enabler>Options sim> make food. (Again, quite a laborious process, because I like there to be a good variety of dishes!) I then instructed the majority of my Sims to sit at the tables and start eating the meals placed in front of them, as seen in the below pic.

Once they have finished eating, I can make them stay in their seats by having them converse with each other (which is probably the best way of making the scene 'lively') or by using Nraas animator: Nraas>Animator> Animation by category> Play Specific Idle>Seated Idles>a_chairdining_idle sigh_x. The wonderful thing about using Animator is that you can direct Sims where to look, too. (I know you can do that using pose player add-ons if you choose to pose your Sims instead, but if you use Animator the Sims continue looking until you cancel the animation).

I tried to illustrate my answer by using more screenshots but I kept getting warnings that I'd exceeded my character limit, so if anyone reading this needs more clarification of my process please don't hesitate to ask! Thanks again for the wonderful question @oasislandingresident!

#behindthescenes #sims 3 #sims 3 tips and tricks

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megumi-fm · 1 year ago

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this fortnight in megumi.fm ▸ bye bye march👋

ft. unchecked ambition to recreate of the hardest Kpop dances (only in vain), lots of code debugging, and using Yeolpumta the wrong way

💻 Internship // progress tracker

-> detecting pockets in protein structures using 3diff pipelines -> finding consensus pockets using outputs of pipelines -> pocket alignment of protein models by structural alignment with a set of known binding site structures -> read base paper -> weekly presentations [2/2] besides these tasks I've been trying to modify all my code files such that they can run directly from the system terminal (i hate edge cases and this entire process has taken years off my life) so that I can upload it on github

🎓 Uni Stuff

-> charted out a timeline for master's applications deadlines and related work

👟 Kpop dances!!

completed! 🔥bye bye ankles ⇒ I'd started this way before I messed up my ankle and then I abandoned it but we are so back... I picked it up last week and finally! it is done. 💪 bts' magnum opus ⇒ the main challenge is ensuring to hit every beat at the right speed and my rendition is still far from refined but hey. atleast my moves have developed some fluidity currently <3 🧢 left, right and just vibes ⇒ really needed a breather after the first two dances and now I'm here xD although the main reason I picked this dance was bc I loved the part switch version and all the references // ✅chorus + prechorus ⚡ crush...ing my motivation ⇒ so much for taking a breather. I've been obsessed with this song and I tried to start learning it and... four seconds- that's how much I've learnt in past three days. but the satisfaction when I got those four seconds? immeasurable. // ✅1st chorus pt1/3

💿 Other Things This week

📅 started my 18day habit challenge! by which I simply mean I'm using Yeolpumta as a daily tracker app rather than a study app and I'm loving it <3 I get excited seeing different colours marked on the daily calendar and as a consequence I've been more productive lately :D 🍊 been eating healthier! lots of fruit and water intake and I've also been learning to cook! 📖 The Myth of Sisyphus <3 I don't read a lot of non fiction but this piece is hella intruiging and I'm having a lot of fun 🍕 Lunch with the besties [x2] 🎰 Gaming Arcade shenanigans yet again 🎆 Fest at Uni! One of the best bollywood singers of all time showed up and he sang bangers from our childhood; we had a blast 🎧 lots and lots of kpop and for some reason I keep coming back to Advice by Taemin

[ 18th - 31st Mar; week 13+14/52 || and with that, 1/4th of this year is done. I'm pretty satisfied with how I how i spent the past two weeks, hopefully I'm able to stay consistent 🤞]

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amethystamanda · 4 months ago

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Eternal Threads House

I played Eternal Threads in late 2023, and the houes lived in my brain for a while, so I ended up building it in the sims. (I recommend that, it was a great way to get it out.)

Important note: I am NOT a builder. I very, very rarely get the urge to build something, and sometimes I even finish it. This was one of those times.

Someone asked about the CC I used in it. There is so much CC. Too much. But I don't feel good today, so I needed something to do that didn't involve a lot of thought, so I did my best to find it all.

There are still 8 things I didn't find. I don't know what they were. The game said that 14 items were removed when I placed the lot. I don't see anything obvious missing. It's probably some clutter that I downloaded specifically for this lot and deleted once I was done.

I substituted some of the CC that I can't find a link for for some other things. A coat rack that was converted from TS3 by multiple people, a hammer from debug for a CC one that I can't find a link for, and a bike from university for a deco one by coolspear (you need an account to get that, if it's still available). Maybe something else, I don't remember. Some things I can't find and can't think of a substitute for, but they probably aren't hugely important, except the ceiling rose, but, well, felixandre.

Second important note: I'm giving file names. They may not be the original file names. Some things may have gotten updated with new file names. For a while, I removed all spaces and special characters from my mods folder, up until it broke my game and I stopped. Since I've had some of these things for a long time, some of them went through that renaming.

Third important note: I use footprint overrides by Bessy. I find them safer and more reliable than over using move objects. I've never gotten a posture error from using footprint overrides. BUT if you don't have the footprint overrides, even with move objects on, a handful of things will go in your inventory when you place the house (or disappear completely if you don't have a sim on the lot). I also use shiftable mirrors (currently Bessy's, sometimes amoebae's, depending on who updates theirs first), but those shouldn't disappear if you don't have the override.

So, tagging creators since I think that's what you do, or at least the active ones? I never share builds, and I tend to forget what I used in the ones I'm playing in.

@hamsterbellbelle @plasma-janes @aj-nebula @the-crypt-o-club @aroundthesims

@awingedllama @bakiegaming @charlypancakes @lumenniveus @magnolianfarewell

@alistu @peacemaker-ic @pixelunivairse @serenebluesims @radioactivedotcom

@sforzcc @simdertalia @simstomaggie @zx-ta

(That's nowhere near everyone, but I think it's everyone who has an active tumblr.)

I'm not including any of it, despite quite a few of them having TOUs that allow it, because I'm not taking responsibility for it being currently functional. At least two come with things that are broken, once of them in a merged file.

It's a long list. There are 148 links. It was done for me, not to share, and was only put on the gallery so I could find it later if I wanted it. But if you want it, go ahead. The links are here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ireO_sWlrYL4-QHvV0yy70cdXOZ-AzWp_Ym5amOF0Eg/edit?usp=sharing

And the lot is on the gallery under the username amanda-amethyst, or here: https://simfileshare.net/download/5301401/. Five beds, one bath, re-created as best I can from the game. On a 40x20 lot.

If anyone uses it, I'd love to see it.

#mine #my builds #is a tag I have now #apparently #never thought I'd see that #sims 4 builds

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omedapixel · 1 year ago

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Hello! I was so excited for your new mod it just won't work, either version. First none of the commands worked, and all of a sudden the option to select an object is not showing up and Idk why, I really want to use it. Any idea?

hi! i'm sorry it's not working for you :( here are some steps you can take -

1. Put the mod in OVERRIDES

This might resolve the issue completely!

2. Enable Debug Notifications to see if the mod is being loaded

Open the package with S3PE and then open the file called "Sims3.omedapixel.Decorating.Main" with Notepad.

Edit the line as shown in the picture to be "True"

Save and close everything and load up the game. When you switch in to Build/Buy mode, you sould get this message -

That means the mod is working!! If you DON'T get this message, then there must be a bigger problem and I'll need more information to help you troublshoot.

3. Set Keyboard Language to English (US)

For my PC (Windows 10) it's done like this - Click on the bottom taskbar near the time and date, where it likely says ENG or whatever language your keyboard is currently in.

Select ENG US if it's there. Otherwise click 'Language Preferences' and in the next screen, add ENG US as a new language.

You can switch your keyboard language temporarily while you're playing the game.

If this still doesn't help, please message me directly off anon! It'll be much easier to work out the problem that way :) This goes for anyone having issues with S3DT!

#s3dt #ts3 #ts3 mod #s3 #omedapixel

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n0rtist · 11 months ago

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Y'know, that whole "extra info" tab Cassette Beasts has for every monster seems absolutely perfect for Stema's concept, do you have any intention of including something like it in Stema to give tidbits on the concepts each critter represents?

While I'm not too aware about Cassette Beasts' extra info tab, I have always wanted to include extra footnotes for my Stemas in the game! I'm currently not at that point in the code yet as I'm trying to debug walking attacks again...

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thehattyguy · 4 months ago

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Been deveveloping the world system for my game and ended up separating physics and logic from the rendering aspect of the game

That made it a bit hard to debug collisions and things related to the "logic" world because its all hidden within their own World3D so that I can have multiple worlds that don't interact with each other

So I made this small modular debug menu and added the first debug option which creates a duplicate camera inside the main logic world (maybe I'll make it move to the current focused world when I make ways of travelling between worlds) and overlays the rendered image on top of the regular game

This already helped me fix some bugs and there are still some others that showed up since I split logic and rendering that I'm still working on

Also! I had made the equipment section of the inventory binder and didn't end up making a post about it but it came out pretty nice aswell, I'll maybe post some more details about it when its more finished since for now you can only see and edit your deck

Here's how it's looking right now:

#game development #godot #devlog #indie dev #solodev #debugging

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terra-caw-777 · 3 months ago

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Okay so my beloved ChippyGaming has just posted a very interesting video..

youtube

Here's a list of all the 1.4.5 spoilers I can find in this video 😎 I will be covering ALL of them even if it's stuff we've seen before.

(you could just watch the video and see them for yourself but I just wanna make a list because this video is craaazy)

First of all at 0:40 you can see the lil' bugs in the grass! Kinda hard to get a good pic of them bc they're so tiny.

Here's some of them and it seems they can be lots of different colours.

It seems Red is using a new hairstyle? I'm not quite sure. Also I think Red's hair in the thumbnail of the video is slightly different to this one so at least 2 new hairstyles? Probably more tbh.

The player tethering thing is very interesting! Maybe if we ask nicely we could see it in the update... I really like how recall potions/magic mirrors are kinda broken and force the characters to meet at the midpoint between spawn and the other persons location. So they do work if you do it enough times. Idk I think thats cool and I hope if we do get this then they will keep this weird interaction. Then again it might get kinda annoying idk lol. Imagine using a teleportation potion....

Quick stack to nearby chests button has a green and yellow/orange? colouration and there are new stacking techniques? Presumably each different stacking technique will make the button go a different colour.

At 3:16 you can see a new crafting animation?!? The item also glows after being crafted. This could happen when the item is crafted for the first time. Not really sure cus Red says "it's in the works". The animation also changes colour based on the rarity of the item.

The crafting button that switches on the item selector thingy has a yellow highlight and theres a new quick stack button bellow this? Am I crazy or is this new as well?

Slighly different PvP and team buttons. First pic is new (1.4.5) second pic is current (1.4.4.9)

The Door Method will be the new meta in Terraria 1.4.5?!?!

At 4:17 you can see the first example of the new sunlight effects! (also pointed out at 18:13) The trees, clouds and grasses are glowing and you can also see subtle lens flare.

Also there is fps information at the bottom left of Chippy's screen. Idk if that's new but it seems suspicious. Could be because they are playing on a debug version of the game.

There has been arrows added to the item box of this wooden sword. Most likely to indicate that it is an autoswing weapon? Perhaps you will be able to enable autoswing for specific items as well as turning on the accessibility option.

Whenever they are underground there's dirt and stone dust particles falling from the ceiling?? Is this new? I Might be going crazy.

At the world seed part of the world creation menu it says "<Leave Blank For Random>" instead of just showing a random seed. This is probably because of the new secret seed selector.

New @runicpixels background?!?!?! I think I can see some different ones as well but I can't see it very well because they need height adjustment apparently. It could just be this one again though. Maybe a little bit of another one is visable in the thumbnail of the video as well.

Acorn Slingshot!! Uses acorns as ammo and plants trees where the acorns land. The video doesn't show Chippy actually getting it but all he was doing was chopping trees so you probably get it from shaking trees. Possibly when we get this item the acorns will roll or bounce to a viable tree planting location to prevent planting trees too close together.

New Cloud Slime!! It drops cloud blocks and has floaty physics! I think theres also new sprites for cloud blocks?

Cloud platform! They probably prevent fall damage just like their block counterpart.

Okay so at 10:32 a small tree grows but there is a platform right above it and normally that would prevent the tree from growing? right? New tree growing rules?? Maybe...

Guide is immune to zombies?? This could be a multiplayer bug...

At 11:55 the snail does not die when chippy shoots at it.. Immortal snail has been added??

New Dirt Slime!! It drops dirt blocks and hopefully it can also rarely drop the dirtiest block... We absolutely NEED that for the new skyblock seed.

New Dart Trap Slime? It's actually a Black Slime holding a dart trap which is supposed to be pretty rare. It can shoot arrows at you (which are probably poisonous just like regular dart traps) and it drops a dart trap.

Placeable critters! If you hold a critter in your hotbar and right click you can place down a small object along with the critter. The critter will always stay near this small object and cannot be damaged or killed (probably). Apparently when placed like this they stop being NPCs and become projectiles?? Perhaps we can do that projectlile limit exploit thing with these new placeable critters like we can already do with beach balls and flares?

New Granite Slime!! Can't really see it too well in the video because it is getting brutally murdered with fire. It drops granite blocks and seems to spawn anywhere in the cavern layer. The existence of a Granite Slime implies the existence of a Marble Slime....

New vanity item Goat's Tuft! Found in underground gold chests. I'm pretty sure this causes your character to make a goat bleating sound when they are damaged (as observed at 23:05 when Chippy takes damage from the eater of souls)

New 2x3 painting? Looks like just some guy. In the video they find it in a glowing mushroom cabin but it could just be found in underground cabins in general.

New Slush Slime!! It drops slush blocks and it looks very dangerous.. probably fires ice spikes at you and inflicts frostburn debuff.

HUGE NEWS!!!! MUD BALL IS IN THE CRAFTING MENU!!!!! MUD BALL NEEDS NO CRAFTING STATION TO BE CRAFTED!!!!

At 26:58 Red mentions the Mush Boy. Red is refering to the Mushroom Boi! from Dead Cells which is being added into Terraria along with other Dead Cells items and weapons like the Flint and the Killing Deck. Mush Boy is crafted with glowing mushrooms and is apparently an early game summoning weapon.

Okay! I think thats it? If i missed anything FORGIVE ME and let me know so I can add it! If you're reading this thanks for reading all that! (Still thanks if you skipped to the end though lol)

Love u <3

#terraria #terraria spoilers #terraria facts #terraria news #Youtube

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