Putting the Marathon Vidmaster's Challenge films on YouTube

[The Man]

I’m currently uploading Dr Sumner’s film of “Begging for Mercy Makes Me Angry!”, which is more or less the halfway point of M2. (It’s actually well past that, but it feels like a halfway point.) Do people want me to do Dr Sumner’s films from scenarios like Rubicon and Tempus Irae next, or should I do M1? And a follow-up in either case: how does one go about making an SDL conversion of the old Rubicon map so the terminal pictures will work (or does someone have one already); and what emulator would you recommend for M1 on OS X Yosemite? (Aleph One doesn’t read M1 films, sadly, so I have to emulate.)

Or should I do someone else’s M2/M∞ films? I think I’ll at least upload that Sidoh one of “Eat It, Vid Boi!”, because hot damn. And it was a stand-alone release, so it wouldn’t be messing up the continuity of someone else’s film pack.

(Oh, and regarding my “KYT” film, there was some AR ammo I missed. Whoops. I’ll get it next go-round.)


…come to think of it, I can do both M1 and Rubicon or Tempus Irae encodes at the same time, since I’ll be encoding the M1 films on my Mac. Still, knowing how to make SDL conversions and having an emulator recommendation would both be helpful.

[HelviusRufus]

Do them all. You are making a valuable archive so anyone can watch the action.
Especially since many of the films are sit & sqx and are unavailable to PC users.
Also, if they are all in one channel, a link to it on the Marathon link page would be nice.

[ravenshining]

And a follow-up in either case: how does one go about making an SDL conversion of the old Rubicon map so the terminal pictures will work…
…Still, knowing how to make SDL conversions and having an emulator recommendation would both be helpful.

If you've got an emulator running, just drop the map file onto a copy of MacBinary III. Same for the Images file. I'm sure someone must have written an OSX MacBinary utility somewhere if you don't want to bother with an emulator and twenty-year old OS 8 utilities, but that's the final step I take to produce my Images file for Redux, since I have to use ResEdit under OS 8 to assemble it anyway.

[Wrkncacnter]

that's the final step I take to produce my Images file for Redux.

Atque can split/merge images files, no need to mess with OS8.

[ravenshining]

Huh. So it does. Not sure how to go about making CLUTs without Photoshop though, and I only have Mac Photoshop....
Then again, I don't have CLUTs in my map file, and it seems to run fine even under software with 16-bit colour. Are CLUTs even necessary for A1, or do only the original binaries bother with them?

I suppose, although I'm rather fond of ResEdit, that having an Atque-able folder would be better on GitHub, should anyone other than me ever contribute there.

[Wrkncacnter]

I'm not sure, but I can tell you that I never messed with CLUTs when making the Yuge images file, and it seemed to work out as far as I know. Maybe there are some crazy graphics settings you can choose that would pay attention to it?

[The Man]

Do them all. You are making a valuable archive so anyone can watch the action.
Especially since many of the films are sit & sqx and are unavailable to PC users.
Also, if they are all in one channel, a link to it on the Marathon link page would be nice.

Thanks. And yeah, I just sent Hamish a link so he can put it up on the Story and Vidmaster pages; hopefully it won’t bounce to his spam folder.

I’ll try running an emulator later today – I need to head off shortly. Is SheepShaver still the best-regarded PowerMac emulator? Or should I be running x86 for some reason instead? (And if so, is Basilisk II still the best-regarded x86 emulator?) Also, either way it looks like I’ll need a working build of OS 9 or OS 8. I could Google one, but I don’t trust random search results for something like that.

[treellama]

Especially since many of the films are sit & sqx and are unavailable to PC users.

The unarchiver command line tools can open both .sit and .hqx.

https://theunarchiver.com/command-line

[PerseusSpartacus]

Thanks. And yeah, I just sent Hamish a link so he can put it up on the Story and Vidmaster pages; hopefully it won’t bounce to his spam folder.

It would appear that Hamish got the message. The latest news on the Story Page quotes you extensively and links to the YouTube channel you set up. Just thought you should know.

[The Man]

Cool. Thanks for the heads-up.

I did "Fatum iustum stultorum" myself on a whim early this morning while encoding John's film of it (also up on my channel). I didn't remember the level very well, as is plainly apparent - I wandered around for awhile trying to find the secret that makes it practical to vid the level (it's technically possible to activate switches with rockets, but without the secret, you only get four of them), and I go back for a recharge after defeating the last Trooper who hadn't knocked himself into the water, not realising there wasn't any combat left. I left some underwater A-Bobs and Troopers alive out of a sheer memory lapse, but I think I did fairly well overall. (And really, who cares - they can't teleport out of water, and Lh'owon gets blown up two levels later. And punching Troopers to death underwater is boring.)

This was probably my fourth or fifth attempt - it took awhile to get the hang of the level's combat, and I got stuck without any ammo in the water puzzle on my penultimate try. Not bad for going in pretty close to blind, though, I think.

[The Man]

“All Roads Lead to Sol…” just finished encoding; I’m uploading it as we speak. That’ll complete John’s M2 films. I think I’m going to start his Tempus films next as they won’t require any SDL conversions, and I’m afraid simply don’t have the energy to figure out OS8/9 emulation in the middle of the work week. (If someone has a link to a util that’ll do the conversions in OS 10, I’ll probably start uploading Rubicon films, too. Alternatively, if someone has the original Rubicon - not Rubicon X - map already SDL converted, that’ll work, too.)

I’ll try to get M1 started off this weekend. Those do seem like the most important part of this project, since A1 can’t play them. On the plus side, M1 films can encode side-by-side with the A1 ones, since I’ll be doing the M1 films on my MacBook, while I’m doing all the A1 films on my Dell, which is much slower. M1 films can hopefully encode real-time; I’m lucky to get half-speed for the A1 films.

[The Man]

I redid “Fatum” with fists only, apart from four charged fusion blasts for a switch that can’t be punched; this time, I also cleared out all the enemies. (I probably could’ve done it with just two fusion blasts, but I wanted to clear out the main part of the mission before going back to clear out all the underwater enemies I’d missed; since some people might not care so much about those, I decided to save them for the end of the film.) It’s overall a much more competent film, as well; I make fairly short work of most of the Troopers, and I shortened my completion time by almost three minutes. I could probably do an even better version if I practice more, though; I’m still pretty bad at punching A-Bobs underwater or when exiting water. I’m encoding it now; I’ll upload it once it finishes.

I’ve encoded John’s Tempus irae films through “Polygonium opus”; they’re currently uploading, and I’ll start encoding “Sordidae, turpes et faetidae” shortly. Here’s the playlist of Tempus films so far. I’ll probably also include the Lost Levels films in this playlist because really, who cares about separating them.

BTW, it seems the version of the original Rubicon map I have doesn’t have a resource fork. Does someone have a version that does? If not, it’s probably not the biggest deal in the world, since the only thing it breaks is terminal images, but it’d be nice to have one. (I might be able to reconstruct the resource fork this weekend from the contents of Rubicon X’s map, at least assuming they use mostly the same images.)


Edit, 7:40 am ETZ: Since Kabletown Comcast has absolutely horrible upload speed, there’s still about half an hour before the video finishes even uploading (who knows how long it’ll take to process), but it’ll be here when it’s done. I plan to sleep for the next few hours at least, so I’ll just go ahead and put the link up.

I also made a playlist for all my vid films from the original trilogy; that’s here. However, apparently YouTube isn’t going to let me add the new “Fatum” video to this playlist until it finishes uploading, so it won’t be on there until I wake up again.

[The Man]

"My Own Private Thermopylae" is the latest level to have fallen. There were a couple points that could be improved - in particular, I can probably do the level fists only if I practise some more. There's one odd point where the troopers just jump into the water, without being pushed in or anything. I've never seen them do that in any other level, but they did it almost every time I tried the level, but only in the first room.

For Tempus, "The Revealing Science of God" literally just finished encoding. I already did "Never Satisfied" because it's so long, so I suspect I have about 2/3 of the scenario done. (About half if you include The Lost Levels.)

I was hoping to figure out OS8/9 emulation this weekend so I could start work on M1, but I spent so much time on other Marathon projects that it didn't happen. Hopefully soon.

"Thermopylae" is encoding now. I'll upload it after I sleep.

ETA: here

[The Man]

Just did "Kill Your Television" with fists only. Not very difficult, once you figure out the angles needed to make the cyborgs kill themselves; just time consuming. I did some gratuitous fancy footwork in Thoth's computer banks, too, just because I could. I'll probably be going to bed in a moment, so I'll upload the encode when it's done.

I'm not sure how much of Tempus is left to encode, but I think it's probably only about 25% by film length. "Hang to Dry" finished moments ago; the only other film of that length until The Lost Levels is "Mt. Vesuvius", which I decided to leave encoding while I sleep.

ETA: Kill Your Television, fists only

[The Man]

Tempus proper is finished; that took even less time than I expected (playlist here, since I think I neglected to link it before). The first level of The Lost Levels is also up already, and I’d project that “This Is the First Day” (level #2) is at least 75% finished encoding, so I’ll hopefully have time to start uploading that before work (I need to leave in a little over an hour).

I’m going to repeat an earlier question: Does anyone have a copy of the original Rubicon map with its resource fork intact? I might be able to reconstruct it from the Rubicon X map with MacBinary this weekend if I manage to get Basilisk II and/or SheepShaver running, but I’d prefer to have the original resource fork, as I don’t know how much of it changed between releases (hopefully they didn’t renumber the terminal images). Overall, this won’t affect too much of the Rubicon films, but if I don’t have the resource fork, the terminal images won’t display. Thanks in advance.

[The Man]

Third “KYT” film, also fists only, more than 13 minutes shorter than my previous attempt. I took it down from 47 minutes and change to barely more than 34. I can probably shave off another minute or two if I keep practising this one, though I dunno if I can get to under half an hour.

TI:TLL has a lot of really long levels, so I’ve decided to encode the longest ones first. They’re visible at the end of the TI playlist already, but I’ll wait to make them public (outside that playlist) until I’ve got the full chronology done. As an aside, I think “Lather, Rinse, Repeat” may be my favourite level from either Tempus Irae or The Lost Levels, though it’s a tough call.

[Johnman]

Subscribed. The world needs more Marathon content.

[Pfhorrest]

Aaron, Dr. Sumner is looking for you.

[The Man]

Oh wow, thanks for letting me know. I’ll have to figure out what happened to his email(s); they don’t seem to be showing up even in my spam folder, but I’m not 100% certain when he sent them.

Edit: Located and sent a reply. He’s basically offered to send me any other films he’s recorded, which is awesome, and it sounds like there’s a lot of them, so you may end up seeing even more stuff than I expected. I don’t know why I didn’t see his response sooner; I’m not sure if it was Gmail being weird or my own carelessness.

(Also, thanks to Johnman for the subscription, as well as anyone else who’s subscribed.)

[The Man]

I’ve encountered an odd glitch in Dr Sumner’s film of “Prison Sex”. It desyncs fairly quickly, resulting in a player death within a couple of minutes. It’s the only film I’ve seen ever do this so far. Dr Sumner thought it might be because his film made extensive use of monster freeze, but I don’t have Previous AI enabled in my Tempus Irae install, and his film of “From Now We Go On”, which similarly takes advantage of monster freeze, works perfectly, as far as I was able to ascertain; it definitely finishes the level mission.

I’m not sure what’s going on here. It’s entirely possible this is a previously unobserved glitch in A1’s emulation of M∞’s film engine. I doubt the desync is in the original film; I find it highly unlikely that Nardo would’ve accepted the submission to their site if it hadn’t worked. It is possible that the file on their end got corrupted. This isn’t entirely implausible because their link to his “You Gotta Sin to Get Saved” remake also isn’t working. I’ve asked Dr Sumner if he has his original recording still, and whether it works on his computer under A1. If it doesn’t, I’ll have to try emulating M∞-flavour Tempus Irae in SheepShaver and/or Basilisk II once I get it/them running and see if the film works there.

This is going to bug me until I figure what’s going on with it. I’m also worrying now about whether there were desyncs I didn’t notice in any other film. If one of the films I’ve uploaded goes obviously out of sync, please let me know. I haven’t had time to sit down and watch them all yet, though I’ll probably have substantially more free time for the next couple of months – apart from a vacation on the 23rd through the 3rd, which will, perhaps paradoxically, give me far less time to do Marathon-related things, since I’ll be spending almost none of it in front of a computer. In any case, I’ll probably be able to go through for glitches myself sooner or later, but if you notice any other desyncs, please let me know.

[The Man]

Dr Sumner has vidded an absolutely mind-boggling number of levels. He sent me this list:

Alderian Connection - films for all 5 levels

An AI Called Wanda - films for all 12 levels

The Black Series - films for 15 of 16 levels (Bishop Station was the exception)

Courier11 - films for all 25 levels

D-Day - films for 11 of 12 levels (Gristle, Gore and Spew was the exception)

Dissent - films for all 23 levels

EMR (the original) - films for 32 of 35 levels

Encounter at V’tri - films for all 4 levels

Escape!! - films for all 7 levels

Escape!! 2 - films for 6 of 7 levels (Reminds Me of a Hoover was the exception)

Evil - films for 12 of 16 levels

Fell - films for 26 of 35 levels

Gemini - films for 7 of 10 levels

Genus J’raxii - films for all 6 levels

Incident at Quilliam - films for all 7 levels

Jigsaw - films for all 8 levels, plus a film for the special level

Last Interceptor - films for all 5 levels

Machina - films for all 7 levels

Marathon 1 - numerous packages of films

Marathon Devil - films for 18 or 21 levels

Marathon 2 - numerous packages of films

Marathon 2 Devil - films for all 21 levels

Marathon Infinity - Numerous packages of films

Operation Exaggeration - films for all 11 levels

Operation Vengeance - films for all 13 levels

Origin of Species - films for all 14 levels

Pfh’Joueur - films for all 19 levels

Phoenix Falling (Marathon 1 scenario - no films for this one)

RebelBase - films for both levels

RebelBase∞ - films for all 3 levels

RED - spoiler films (Kindergarten) for 28 of 32 levels

Return to Marathon - films for 2 of 3 levels

Rubicon (original scenario) - films for all 61 levels

Siege of Nor’Kohr - films for all 6 levels

Sons of Ludd - films for all 8 levels

Take This! - films for 6 of 7 levels

Tempus Irae - films for all levels of both

The Classified 19 - films for all 17 levels

The Craft - films for 11 of 12 levels

Valior - films for 2 of 3 levels

Vilcabamba - film of the only level

Xariim - films for all 14 levels

Yota Saga - films for 45 of 51 levels (this is Goran’s scenario)

If anyone has any requests, let me know. I'm pretty sure my biggest priorities, beyond finishing all the odds and ends for the trilogy proper, will be, in no particular order, Rubicon, Pfh’Joueur, Gemini Station, Return to Marathon, Siege of Nor’Korh, Evil, and Origin of Species, but if anyone wants to see any of the others in this list, I’m game. I’d like to encode all of them at some point, but that seems like it’d be a year-long project on its own. I might give up on the idea of using only my desktop to encode these – some of these old total conversions don't have HD shapes anyway, so 1080p might not be that necessary. Being able to encode on my MacBook as well would save a lot of time.

I vidded “Eat It, Vid Boi!” BTW. Not a very impressive film, since I probably hadn’t played the level in a decade, but I did at least manage to complete it with fists only. Encoding now; will post when it’s done, assuming I haven’t fallen asleep again.

edit: Link to my “Eat It, Vid Boi!” film.

[Hathomirr]

Not sure why I wasn't paying much attention to this topic before, but I'm glad someone is helping to post these sorts of videos, if only to help archive lost or forgotten scenarios. I've actually been attempting some playthroughs on YT myself (non vid-runs, though), but many of the ones on the list above don't seem to work properly on newer systems (a few of them I haven't even heard of).

You've already got Pfh'Joueur and Return to Marathon on your to-do list. I remember playing Dissent a while back, and An AI Called Wanda sounded interesting, so perhaps put those up as well?

[The Man]

I’ll add the latter two to the list.

Unfortunately, the RTM films don’t seem to work under A1, unless for some reason you have to use the M2 film engine to run them (I don’t see why you would; they don’t work under the M∞ or A1 film engines, in any case). I’ll have to hold those off until I get Basilisk II/SheepShaver running. I may make further effort to that extent tomorrow.

Rubicon will probably be my top priority on my desktop once I get the resource fork for its map, (well, apart from the M2/∞ films I haven’t encoded yet), and of course, M1 is going to be my top priority on my Mac once I get an emulator running.

[The Man]

Dr Sumner just sent me a pack of every single M2 level completed with fists only, which is insane. Most of these have never been seen before; apparently they were never sent to the Vidmaster page. I’m obviously not going to have time to post all of them before leaving for vacation, but you have a major treat to look forward to when I return. I’ll probably encode at least the “Begging for Mercy Makes Me Angry!” one after I finish his Infinity speedruns, which should take me about ten minutes to encode and about thirty minutes to write the descriptions for (not even joking; it took way longer to write descriptions for his M2 speedruns than to encode them).

He’s also sent me a pack of M2 “no recharge” films, which includes every level except “Begging for Mercy Makes Me Angry!” and “All Roads Lead to Sol…”, both of which are probably impossible to complete in this fashion due to the lava baths they require. Some of these were posted to the Vidmaster page, but many weren’t. These will be posted after I return from vacation as well.

Beyond that, he apparently has similar packs of fists only/no recharge M∞ levels, though he hasn’t sent those yet. I would be shocked if anyone else on the planet has even half as many Vidmaster films as Dr Sumner does.

For my part, I vidded “My Own Private Thermopylae” again with fists only this time, though I will warn you that there is a ten-minute segment that is extremely boring (the relevant times are listed in the description). I’ll probably make a third film of the level after my vacation that doesn’t have ten minutes of nothing. See here when it’s done (an estimated three minutes from this edit at 4pm EDT).

edit: much better “Thermopylae” with a shorter running time by almost nine minutes.

[The Man]

Since Hamish hasn’t yet put up the film packs I’ve been uploading, I’ve uploaded them myself, with Dr Sumner’s permission. Here are:

· Marathon 2 fists only (all 28 levels)
· Marathon 2 no recharge (26 of 28 levels; some duplication with old sets; “Begging for Mercy Makes Me Angry!” and “All Roads Lead to Sol…” are the exceptions, and are probably impossible to complete without recharging due to the goo/lava baths they require)
· Marathon ∞ fists only (31 of 33 levels; “Whatever You Please” and “Electric Sheep Three” are the exceptions)
· Marathon ∞ no recharge (31 of 33 levels; “Hang Brain” and “Try Again” are the exceptions)

…looking at that, I’m astonished that it’s possible to complete “A Converted Church” without recharging. Holy shit. I’ll make that one a priority to encode.

(Has anyone heard from Hamish lately? I’m a bit worried.)

There may be a few others Dr Sumner has sent that aren’t on the Vidmaster page – probably mostly M1-related, though there are also a few odds and ends from M∞ that I haven’t really looked at. Regarding M1, I’ll probably make a serious effort to get an emulator running Thursday or Friday.

My own progress vidding levels (I’ve been sticking almost exclusively to M2, I think largely because I’ve been uploading Dr Sumner’s films of it):

We’re Everywhere

Done fists only – for the most part. I went through four fusion packs trying to figure out a way to blast the way through the secret before concluding that it must be impossible. (I thought I remembered doing this in M2 a long time ago, but I must’ve been mistaken.) I also attempt to lure one of the Compilers to the ledge with the secret shotgun in order to launch myself up, but I haven’t managed to figure that out yet either. There must be a trick to getting them to cross monster & item impassable polygons, but I haven’t yet figured it out.

Apart from that, it’s fists only, and I clear out the level, but I’m sure I’ll improve on it drastically in future attempts. I hadn’t played this level in years, or even looked at any films of it, so I didn’t remember it very well.

Kill Your Television

Completely fists only, including the underwater switch. I’m getting better at this each time I do it, I think. There’s still a little bit of room for improvement – I’m sure I can shorten this by a few minutes and I can do better at killing some of the cyborgs/F’lickta, but I felt better about this attempt than I did about any of the previous ones. The level is completely cleared out (apart from Ticks, possibly) and I pick up all ammo, AFAIK. This is longer than my previous film by a couple of minutes, I think, but it’s still a few minutes shorter than Dr Sumner’s fists only film.

As for other levels, I’m sporadically attempting “The Hard Stuff Rules…”, but having little luck so far; Flame Cyborgs are almost impossible. I’ve also been attempting “All Roads Lead to Sol…”, but that final room keeps killing me (I’ve killed the Juggernaut, but I’ve yet to survive its explosion). And “This Side Toward Enemy” has given me trouble because I’m still not very good at dealing with Troopers. I briefly attempted “For Carnage, Apply Within”, but I think it’s well above my current skill level. Maybe I’ll give “Begging for Mercy” a go – I successfully vidded the Chronicles variant and, as a result, know the level fairly well, so I might be playing above my usual skill level on that one.