TASing

What is a TAS?

TAS stands for "Tool-Assisted Speedrun". TASers will slow down the game in an emulator, and use savestates to push the game to its limits and make a theoretical "perfect" speedrun, or showcase interesting mechanics that can not be performed by humans. For more information about TASing, head to tasvideos.org

Super Mario Galaxy TASes

The Current TAS WIP for SMG1 Any% is being made by Xander and PurpleSun. Current progress for this TAS can be found here.

A seperate Any% Luigi TAS is also in the works, being made by Toogs, and can be found here.

The current TAS WIP for SMG2 Any% is being made by Shadow64 and PurpleSun. Current progress for this TAS can be found here.

The current TAS WIP for SMG2 Green Stars is being made by Purplesun. Progress for this TAS can be found here.

Along with full game TASes, there are many people trying to optimise Individual Level TASes. The fastest TAS ILs for SMG1 can be found here, and the fastest TAS ILs for SMG2 can be found here.

If you have any questions about SMG TASing, head over to the Discord Server

Resources

Build for Dolphin 5.0 that supports LUA scripts, created by SwareJonge
Recommended Settings:
Dual Core Disabled (Config)
Idle Skipping Disabled (Config)
HLE audio emulation (Config -> Audio)
Internal Resolution 3x Native for 1080p (Graphics -> Enhancements)
2 Emulated Wiimotes with Nunchuk Extensions (Controllers)

LUA scripts created by Xander
Command line tool for DTM information

SMG TAS Tech

Instant Backflips (IBFs) & Instant Sideflips (ISFs)

Instant Backflip

IBFs are typically done by holding neutral for 2 frames before landing, then Z + any direction on the frame you land, and then A on the next frame.

ISFs are weird; they are typically done by falling backwards then holding Z + pressing A either on the frame you land or 1 frame before.

Goomba Cancel

Goomba Cancel

By shooting a Goomba with a star bit and having it spin into the player whilst landing from a Launch Star, Mario will go into a kicking animation and immediately start accelerating in any direction. This is faster than both DPad Cancels and Jump Cancels but it can only be done in specific scenarios

Spin Cancels

There are a few different spin cancel techniques, helpful in different ways.

Spin cancel jump (SCJ), Spin cancel long jump (SCLJ):
Shake for 2 frames and press A (can include special jumps e.g. while running, shake 2f then Z + A for a spin cancel long jump). This cancels the slow spinning animation but keeps spin properties so you can hit anything during the jump until it reaches its peak.

Spin cancel ground pound/frame perfect ground pound (FPGP):
Shake for 1 frame, then shake + Z This is mostly used for getting a regular ground pound from a long jump, but can also be used for its spin properties, for example Major Burrows instant hits.

Airspin Cancel:
Before landing, shake for 1 frame, then shake + Z. This is only useful in specific circumstances and has two different effects: a 'spin' and a float. A ‘spin’ continues the spin animation but has a much lower height, whereas the float goes into a falling animation and is floatier with lower horizontal speed.
This could be used to avoid land stuns not caused by launch stars, or to gain a bit of extra distance before lava boosts. It is also used to prevent Mario/Luigi floating for a bit after creating a cloud in SMG2 with the cloud flower.

Walljump Techniques

Neutral Walljump Strain:

Comparisons of forward and backward strain strength with 1 frame of neutral vs 0 frames

Going neutral on the Nunchuk stick after walljumping will give you more control over movement in the air, bypassing the fixed speed. If you then hold the direction of your facing angle, you will gain more horizontal speed at the price of a little height (no more than 1 unit lost). If you hold opposite the facing angle, you will gain some more height and slow down significantly.

Inputs: Grab wall + A | Neutral joystick | Desired direction

Glitchy Wallkicks:
Some slanted walls that overhang can be grabbed briefly, and jumping off them results in a glitchy wallkick that stays facing the wall, giving you backwards momentum and a chance to grab another wall with the same angle.
This can also happen with a straight wall in certain circumstances, such as in Upside Dizzy where long jump bonking and switching gravity can grab a wall while turning to get a wallkick with a weird angle.

Mega Wallkicks:
These happen on slanted walls that slant away from Mario/Luigi, opposing the overhanging walls of GWKs. These walls tilt you upwards, giving a much higher jump than normal.

Falling Wall Jumps:
There are a few frames when falling off a wall where you can press A and get what looks like a regular single jump.

Mega Tricks

There are a few ways to get more height (and sometimes speed) than usual…

Mega Double/Triple Jumps:
These are done by manipulating gravity or moving platforms for horizontal speed and/or vertical tilt, and immediately jumping to maintain that speed/tilt. The most well-known example is the Sludgyhop in Space Junk 1.
While some extra speed is maintained when holding forwards, more speed can be conserved by going neutral on the joystick just before landing (pressing C has the same effect). Since being in neutral causes Mario to decelerate in the air, the best conservation comes from going neutral just 1 frame before landing.
In some cases, more height has been gained by holding the direction opposite your trajectory; it's not understood for certain why it works, but it appears that holding backwards can lock tilt.

Inputs: Neutral joystick | Land + A

Mega Sideflips:
In areas with a particular camera (understood to be XZ_PARA, which does not rotate on its own) and with a certain angle, you can sideflip and hold an angle adjacent to your sideflip angles to strangely get a lot of height.
Inputs would look like: Up | Neutral | Down | A + Left/Right | Hold Left/Right

If the camera can be manipulated with movement before entering its area, this can have an impact on MSF height, and can sometimes even be the difference for the trick to work. An example of this is when doing the Beach Bowl Secret MSF route, where grabbing different points of the ledge to the parallel waterfalls (at which point the camera would activate) would affect the height of the MSF there. Some MSF areas require holding an angle not directly adjacent but barely outside of the stick deadzone.

Mega Wallkicks:
See #Walljump Techniques.

Mega Ledge Grabs:
No understanding. Automatic ledge grab jumps occur when you approach a ledge with a lot of vertical speed, and sometimes they can get a lot of height.

Zip Jumps

Going neutral when running on a slope will cause a slide that has a small burst of speed at the start. Tapping Z when sliding also causes a small boost. The two can be combined for very fast speeds for 1 or 2 frames, and jumps on those frames are called zip jumps.

The timing can be different depending on how much slope you have left to jump on, but is typically done as: Neutral -> Z -> Neutral -> A

Zip Jump speed can be affected by:

1. Your previous ground speed
2. How perpendicular you are to the slope (i.e. slower the more you're going down the slope, and going up causes 0 speed jumps)
3. If you slide along a jagged or curved point, as this causes a kind of forward warp (See: Crystal Zip Jumps)

Zip jumps are more powerful in SMG2 because the patching of SMG1's slope jump trick meant that G2 slope jumps have fixed speed (unless you jump off the edge, which is easy to do with zip jumps. Edge slope jumps are the same as G1 slope jumps).

Cutscene optimisation

When approaching an NPC or triggering a mini-cutscene (such as launch star spawn, or unlocking something with a key), it is important to move the camera so that it doesn’t need to move as far to its cutscene angle. This makes the cutscene faster/the textbox appear earlier.
For some mini-cutscenes, it is also important to be as close to the camera's target as possible, as this will reduce camera movement time.
Some mini-cutscenes can have an instant ending with a particular position and camera angle setup, such as in Sky Station 1 and Chompworks 1.