Let's Play Angband video series

[d_m]

So if you go up or down stairs, does it continue recording? Are you guaranteed to get the same level? Or are movies limited to recording action on one particular level?

This is really interesting. I'm excited to see some movies!

[Pete Mack]

No--movies are more like the Borg.

Once macros* (which are mostly term-level stuff) are parsed, everything looks like a single keystroke or other UI event. It just keeps replaying the game until the log runs out.

(It's a bit more complicated, to allow for external inputs like screen refreshes, pauses, and quits, but not much--and as Eddie suggested, there's a possibility of a small set of legitimate commands like inventory that won't affect the game state--even the 'l'ook/e'x'amine command can't be allowed in most cases, because it changes targeting!)

I've got the basic logging written, now I'm hooking it into inkey().


* and I was wrong about writing macros to the special user prefs. They are processed before logging. keymaps are important, so I need to split them out of the macro_dump pref file writer.

EDIT
PS to Niles:
Sorry about hijacking your thread!

[Pete Mack]

For those who are curious, the fundamental changes are instumenting inkey_ex correctly, and adding the logger. There are other changes like disallowing saves and many user commands, but for hands-off use, these changes should suffice.

I'm still debugging, but this gets the basic idea.

EDIT:
BTW, isn't about time to join the 90s and replace "aux" with "impl"?
Also: the Borg's 'Mega-Hack' for injecting characters really is a Mega-Hack. There is a right way to do this. See diffs.txt

[Nile]

PS to Niles:
Sorry about hijacking your thread!

Hey, no problem!

[Arphod]

That said, I wouldn't mind watching a really serious dive (< 250K turn win). I have a very poor feel for strategy at that level; watching a single game might make a huge difference.

Oh man, somebody please do this.

[Pete Mack]

Well, it's bedtime and I am recording a "movie". I do have an idea about whether it will play back or not: not.

As I don't want to do any more debugging, I'm not going to try replay yet.

EDIT: well, that plan worked out real well. I couldn't resist playing it back.
After fixing a couple silly bugs, it's kind of working, but it's hopelessly fragile.

Good night all.

[grapejoose]

That said, I wouldn't mind watching a really serious dive (< 250K turn win). I have a very poor feel for strategy at that level; watching a single game might make a huge difference.

I would love to see this. I'd probably even pay someone for this. :b

[Rizwan]

That said, I wouldn't mind watching a really serious dive (< 250K turn win). I have a very poor feel for strategy at that level; watching a single game might make a huge difference.

I would love to see this. I'd probably even pay someone for this. :b

Maybe we should have poll to see how many people would like to see such a movie and by whom?

[Marble Dice]

I can't tell you how many times I've wished this thread was real.

[Pete Mack]

Damn. I thought that if I carefully recorded every keystroke (or other event) that actually returns to the game, and also carefully disable macros so that they don't get converted a second time*, the game would replay. But somehow, it doesn't.

I am trying to move down 3 steps. They get recorded, correctly, as:

;j2;j2;j2

On replay, the first move is translated correctly, as a step south.
But the second step is translated starting with '2', not ';' and then all hope is lost.

Oh well, off to work.


* re-enabling them when there's actually interactive input from the terminal.

[myshkin]

I can't tell you how many times I've wished this thread was real.

If you really and truly love it, it will become real.

[Pete Mack]

OK, I wasn't thinking. keymaps get pushed back on the queue, so they wree getting treated twice. I just watched a movie of a Half-Orc warrior
1. going to the store,
2 buying a stack of oil,
3 going down the stairs to kill Morgoth.

There's no features except crude playback and screen refreshes, but the end is in sight

[Pete Mack]

Damn. I was too quick. I realized I'm logging at to physical a level, which would be appropriate before ajps' changes. All I have to do is log "commands" --

    s16b command_cmd;       /* Gives identity of current command */
    s16b command_arg;       /* Gives argument of current command */
    s16b command_rep;       /* Gives repetition of current command */
    s16b command_dir;       /* Gives direction of current command */
    int  command_inv;       /* Gives item of current command */
    ui_event_data command_cmd_ex; /* Gives additional information of current command */

and the rest of the state should take care of itself.

[Sirridan]

Will this amazing bit of code actually play a recorded game start to finish, same levels/drops/etc?

EDIT: Aaah, the post with the pre-alpha patch vanished!

[Pete Mack]

Never fear--I moved it to a separate thread.

And yes, it is sufficiently stupid (ie primitive) to play a whole game through.
If you are curious, examine the changes to util.c--that's the only thing that caused any sweat.