vids at http://speeddemosarchive.com/WeLoveKatamari.html
matthew69's vids

It looks like several of us are going to submit improvements to the We Love Katamari runs. Prince's Bride, Matthew69, Yoshifan from Cyberscore, and I are all making or have made videos. Radix gave us permission to submit them.

Here are the ones up now, and in BLUE the improvements that are recorded or are likely to be recorded:

AFAP1 - 0:34 by Arrow 0:31 by Prince's Bride
AFAP2 - 0:27 by Dr. Thinker 0:22 by matthew69
AFAP3 - 0:26 by slo_bro 0:21 by Yoshifan
AFAP4 - 0:31 by slo_bro 0:25 by Yoshifan
AFAP5 - 6:07 by slo_bro 4:56 by matthew69
ALAP1 - 0:28 by Arrow 0:20 by matthew69
ALAP2 - 1:11 by Dr. Thinker 0:57 by matthew69
ALAP3 - 3:05 by slo_bro 2:23 by matthew69
ALAP4 - 3:51 by slo_bro 3:22 by matthew69 :woot
ALAP5 - 6:13 by slo_bro 4:59 by matthew69
School ALAP - 1:32 by slo_bro
School AFAP - 1:03 by Dr. Thinker
Race Track ALAP - 1:14 by slo_bro 1:08 by slo_bro
Race Track AFAP - 0:27 by slo_bro 0:24 by matthew69
Underwater ALAP - 1:15 by khfan1 0:53 by matthew69
Underwater AFAP - 0:26 by khfan1 :woot
Zoo AFAP - 0:34 by khfan1 0:31 by matthew69
Flower Garden AFAP - 0:44 by Arrow 0:39 by matthew69
Room Cleaning - 0:45 by slo_bro 0:36 by Yoshifan :woot
Collecting Cousins - 1:48 by Arrow 1:23 by matthew69
Sumo Small - 0:43 by slo_bro 0:40 by matthew69
Sumo Medium - 1:08 by slo_bro 0:57 by matthew69
Sumo Large - 1:31 by slo_bro 1:27 by matthew69
Campfire Small - 1:01 by slo_bro 0:43 by slo_bro
Campfire Medium - 1:58 by slo_bro 1:38 by slo_bro
Campfire Large - 1:57 by slo_bro 1:33 by slo_bro

(Single-Segment video: 1 hour 11 min 45 sec by slo_bro)

Major thank-yous go to Yoda and Anwonu, and Vix for letting us use this thread.

If you want more info on Speed Demos go to http://speeddemosarchive.com/

Hoping we can get some videos accepted on Speed Demos Archive! :)

I'd be happy to make a video for the 50 item pick up level (or any other you'd like from me) if you want one. It'd have to be on VHS, so I'd need instructions on how to get it to you.
BTW, very nice time on Stage 5 slo bro. You aren't that slo(w) after all.

Speed Demos only hosts videos for speed related runs, hence the name Speed Demos :P The 50 Item Challenge isn't eligible, unfortunately (nor is Save the Pandas, etc.). Basically right now we'd just like to see if anyone here is willing to record some videos of their times, and then try to compare all of our scores to best determine who should record which levels.

I saw the listings for the ALAP's in your wanted list and just assumed you wanted any runs, but now I understand. The ALAP's are for the meteor runs. Too bad, I just went and made a new record on the 50 item stage, and it's on tape!

doesnt mean you cant post the vid here ^_^

Hi, it's me again. For the ALAP meteor runs you don't know the time you made until the end. This is one area I felt was superior in the original KD, the King would tell you immediately what your time was, so you could do a restart right away if you missed your goal. Anyways, do you want videos of the entire run with the time screen at the end, or just up until the goal is met? I just taped a Stage 1 ALAP :33 meteor with a final size 35cm3mm. I'm sure I can get a :32 again with a few tries.

EDIT: How do I go about getting a run on VHS turned into something I can put on my computer? Any help is appreciated.

COOL, now there's no need for me to struggle to record a :45 meteor run on ALAP1 (that's all the better I can do). NOW we're getting somewhere! :) Now I'm excited.

I could be wrong, but I think Speed Demos will only want a video up until you reach 15cm. What we do is we reach the goal size, then pause and cancel out of the stage. But for all I know maybe a run all the way up to a huge size like 35cm would be a good idea. Thoughts, Arrow? You know SDA a whole lot better than I do.

I too was wondering what equipment is necessary to transfer a video from VHS to my computer. Is it expensive? I wonder if I could afford it. edit: But in any case, Speed Demos will accept runs on VHS tape too.

Thanks for the compliment on my best time, stage 5. I've got to compliment your Stage 1 time, it's WAY out of my league.

This could get competitive, if a bunch of us have the means to record times. I'm hoping it does.

Hoping that within a few days all my AFAP times will be blown out of the water :)

I believe all you need is a capture card. I'm not too sure though.

I know over at the ssx fansite, the members use capture cards to play their ps2's on they're compy's and they capture it as they play.

Not too sure though. :(

The one I use at work is called Dazzle. Basically, it's a device with A/V in-out, and it connects with USB. You could do it from a VCR or a game system, anything with a/v. I think it also has coxial connection.

It costs like 40$ I think.

You do not need a capture card to submit. If you have one, that's great, and will save a lot of time. But if not, you can just record to a VHS tape and send it to Nate (an affiliate of SDA) who will capture it. That's what I have to do with my videos.

For the ALAP levels, just quit as soon as you reach the target size like Slo said. Here's an example of how it should probably look (note, this is not my video) (also note that you may have to save the video to your computer for it to play):

ALAP3

And yes, I do plan to ask yoshifan (the creator of that video) if he'll submit a few for us ;) For those of you that have visited cyberscore, you probably know that yoshifan pretty much owns all Katamari time trials.

Dr. Thinker - I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you don't need to start recording quite yet. We should first figure out who to have record each level. For instance, my record on ALAP1 is 0:30, and I could probably shave a second or two off of that with practice. So unless someone else can claim a better time than that, than I should probably be the one to record it. That's all we're trying to do right now is just find out who would be interested in this, and then compare our scores to decide who should record each level. Then a little later we'll actually worry about recording and sending tapes to Nate (those of us without capture cards).

Also note that these aren't permanent. If you were to beat one of the records down the road, and record it, you could always submit that video to SDA and have it take the place of whichever record was originally submitted. Heck, I'm surprised no one has submitted improvements on SnapDragon's videos for the original KD. His routes are amazing, but not perfect. I know a few people here have beaten some of his times.

ALAP2: 1:11
Already taped if needed (heck, I'm taping everything I do now).

Great time on ALAP2, keep them coming! (Like Arrow said though, we probably don't need to be recording yet. But I feel better myself having some of my times recorded already.)

Hoping we can find a few more people interested in recording for Speed Demos. Omgimonfire, I know you wanted to do speed demos, do you want to record a few?

One of the big challenges will be preparing a video for every single stage we have listed. Certainly if you can beat my times for some less popular stages, like underwater ALAP for example, then do it! When we submit we need a video from somebody for every single stage we have listed.

slo's progress: I recorded a 1:45 for School ALAP, and a 0:29 for AFAP3 using khfan1's route he explained in another thread. Of course both of those times are still beatable.

I'm not even trying to learn a lot of the stages, like underwater AFAP, school AFAP, zoo AFAP, Tidy Up and ALAP3, because I see on the scoreboard that Dr. Thinker has scores for these stages that kick butt! We are very fortunate to have Dr. Thinker on board. And I am glad to hear that Arrow plans to do some videos; I bet he has some great times too.

We're still looking for more people with the means to record their times. If you're interested, even if you haven't recorded anything yet, please post here. Once we've got everybody that's interested and we know what times they're capable of, then we will know just who should record what stage.

Here's a page worth reading for anybody who might submit videos: http://speeddemosarchive.com/submit.html It's got the rules and procedures for submitting videos to Speed Demos.

good luck everybody

Thanks for the info on Dazzle. So if I really wanted to get serious about recording I could connect my PS2 directly to my computer using Dazzle. Course it would help when I submit videos if I had better than a 56k modem.

So we've got Dr. Thinker, Arrow, slo_bro, and possibly Frig1d from www.speeddemosarchive.com . And we don't know yet if we have Yoshifan. I think this bunch can definitely get the job done.

Should I remove the "scoreboard" from the top of the thread? I just realized it is probably pointless until we know what times everybody's capable of.

Also, may I try to record speed demos of the Sumo stages and the Campfire stages? I realized these could be done for speed too. Or would 26 total stages be too many? Yup, as usual, I need Arrow's help again.

Sorry, I've been sick the last couple days. I was thinking about the Sumo and Campfire levels too, but I'm just not sure if there would be as much interest in them since they aren't "official" time trial levels. On the other hand, I suppose the ALAP versions of the school, racetrack, and underwater aren't really "official" either since they don't save your times (in meteor form). So I guess we have to decide if we want to do every possible timed record (26 total), or just the minimum of ones that actually save your record (17 total). I don't have a strong opinion either way. I'll add my times and yoshifan's times to the list a little later (even if yoshifan doesn't submit, his times should still serve as good benchmarks to aim for).

I say submit all 26, and if Speed Demos doesn't want them all they don't have to include them all. I'll admit that my judgement is clouded by the fact that lately I've been working on Sumo, School ALAP, Racetrack ALAP and Underwater ALAP...

I'd like to see all your times, and I'd like to know if Yoshifan wants to join us, but hey, I don't mean to be rushing everybody. Let's take our time. Radix definitely doesn't want our submissions until at least the start of December anyway. And taking our time means more time to practice and perfect our runs. So if anybody feels like I've been rushing them, sorry, we should take our time.

... Or we can do it more quickly if we want. I think what we need now is for Dr. Thinker to post his times he'll be able to record, Arrow to post his times, and to know whether Yoshifan wants to submit his runs. Once we have all that we can all decide what stages each of us should record.

I'll get us started by posting my times for stages I haven't recorded yet. I bet both Arrow and Dr. Thinker can beat all of these times, some of these are actually pathetic ... but I'll start us off by posting them anyway.

AFAP1: 0:50
AFAP2: 2:21
AFAP3: 4:22
School AFAP: 1:43
Underwater AFAP: !:35
Zoo AFAP: 1:41
Flower AFAP: 1:07
Tidy Up: 1:19
Cousins: 2:50
Campfire L: haven't done a speed run yet

If we each make lists like this (hopefully with better times than mine) and post them, then we can decide who should record what.

Well, it's not so much a matter of SDA wanting them or not. SDA pretty much equals Radix, and in this case I don't think he's even played the game, so he isn't going to care what levels we submit as long as the verifier approves them. The verifier probably won't have a strong opinion either. He/she is going to watch all the videos regardless because that's their job. But then when they're actually published on SDA, I'm just trying to imagine how many people will actually care to download all three size versions of Sumo and Campfire.

My thought is that Speed Demos says they won't accept the submission unless we record every stage and submit them all at once ... I took that to mean the less popular stages too. And if the WLK section of Speed Demos became really popular, it would be cool for people to have lots and lots of stages to record and submit improvements.

But you're right. A lot less people would download Sumo M or Campfire S than would download ALAP1, for sure. I hadn't thought of that. I think the best thing for me to do is let you decide whether we should include all 26 stages. I'm biased toward submitting all 26, but it's your call.

Dr. Thinker, are you still planning to record? I hope you are, but if you decided not to that's alright. I just ask because I haven't heard from you for a long time.

Ready and willing. Let me know which one(s) you want from me. I'd probably be able to duplicate any of my times from the Hall of Fame.
I'll be looking into picking up one of the cheaper VHS-to-digital devices this weekend, so I'll hopefully be able to get my runs hosted and available for download soon. I know a few people would like to see the 50-item run.

I'm very, very, very very glad to hear that, Dr. Thinker. I proudly added your times from the scoreboard onto the post at the top of this thread.

We still don't know Arrow's times, but for now it looks like we could use your help on:

AFAP2
ALAP2
ALAP3
School AFAP
Underwater AFAP
Zoo AFAP
Flower Garden AFAP
Room Cleaning

And please, just because I didn't ask for a stage don't think that means you can't do it. It would be very cool if you wind up beating a whole bunch of my times. I am still trying to beat my times, and I hope you are too :havana

========

as for my progress ...

Now I've recorded videos myself for 17 of the 26 speed stages. I'm hoping that Arrow decides that we can submit times for the stages that don't save your fastest times (like Sumo and Campfire), because I already have runs recorded for all 9 of them :) It would be a bummer now if I can't submit them :frusty Of course I'm still trying to improve the times I've recorded, and I hope other people are too. But I'll go with Arrow's judgement, and if he doesn't think we should submit those nine stages then we won't.

I'm a happy Slowbro tonight because I managed to improve on my two best times - my times on As Fast/Large As Possible 5. I also improved 2 of my other times, and added a cool run of Campfire Large to my video. This is going faster than I expected; we might just be ready to submit by the time Radix from Speed Demos told me he might be able to accept our submissions (the beginning of December). Hope it keeps going well...

I forgot to mention - count me among the people who would like to see your 50 Items stage run!!!

Some updated times:
AFAP1: :42.36
AFAP2: :27.20
Underwater AFAP: :47.06
School AFAP: 1:03.63
Cousins: 2:04.16
All on tape. Do you really want a Tidy-up run from me? There is a video out there from Yoshifan doing it in 36 seconds. I can't touch that. I'll get to work on the flower and zoo stages.

You're fast :) We do want a tidy-up video, because we don't know yet if Yoshifan wants to submit his.

Good times, and they're already on tape :woot We're so close to being ready now, the only problem now is that we can't submit anything until December. And there's a chance that Radix won't be able to accept anything even longer than that. But we'll deal with that when the time comes.

Thanks so much for making all those videos!!! If we get them accepted it will be cool to have our names and videos at www.speeddemosarchive.com :)

By the way, have you read http://speeddemosarchive.com/submit.html yet? It would be good to know the rules.

Also, just a note, we will only be submitting our times in seconds, not hundredths of seconds. As Arrow said on the other forum, (and I quote)

not really important, just worth mentioning

Dr. Thinker - I would really love to see a video of your 50 Item route. I have to wonder how long it will be... I remember my best attempt probably ended up taking around 20 minutes with all the waiting and slow moving. I may consider purchasing a video capturing device at some point too, but I'm ok with sending my VHS tapes to Nate, for now.

Slo - I'm pretty sure we could submit before December. If I, someone who already has a speed run on the site, were to tell Radix "I've got 26 WLK videos ready to send, cool?" I'm pretty sure he wouldn't flat out say no. But they probably wouldn't actually be published until well into Dec. since the capturing takes time (this is, of course, dependant on how many of our videos we send are already captured vs. how many are on tape), the verification takes more time (especially with that many videos), and it may just work out to be bad timing if Radix ends up moving within the next few weeks, which seems very likely. At any rate, I haven't recorded anything yet, and inbetween work and my other speed run I'm working on, I can't say that I'll necessarily be ready before Dec. anyway :heh

Alright, well I agree with your point about the "all levels" rule, so let's go ahead and do all 26. I went ahead and added my times to the current list, as well as yoshifan's times in parenthesis (again, even if he doesn't submit, they're still nice goals to aim for), unless our times were already higher than his.

AFAP1 - 0:35 by Arrow
AFAP2 - 0:27 by Dr. Thinker (0:26)
AFAP3 - 0:26 by slo_bro (0:21)
AFAP4 - 0:38 by Arrow (0:25)
AFAP5 - 6:07 by slo_bro
ALAP1 - 0:30 by Arrow
ALAP2 - 1:11 by Dr. Thinker
ALAP3 - 4:08 by Dr. Thinker (2:36)
ALAP4 - 4:22 by slo_bro (4:03)
ALAP5 - 6:13 by slo_bro
School ALAP - 1:45 by slo_bro
School AFAP - 1:03 by Dr. Thinker
Race Track ALAP - 1:48 by slo_bro
Race Track AFAP - 0:46 by Dr. Thinker or 0:46 by slo_bro
Underwater ALAP - 1:30 by slo_bro
Underwater AFAP - 0:47 by Dr. Thinker
Zoo AFAP - 0:47 by Dr. Thinker
Flower Garden AFAP - 0:57 by Arrow
Room Cleaning - 0:52 by Arrow (0:36)
Collecting Cousins - 1:48 by Arrow
Sumo Small - 0:54 by slo_bro
Sumo Medium - 1:24 by slo_bro
Sumo Large - 1:55 by slo_bro
Campfire Small - 1:15 by slo_bro
Campfire Medium - 2:08 by slo_bro
Campfire Large - 2:09 by slo_bro

By the way, I just want to say that you guys have some VERY impressive times! I didn't even realize how amazing some of those were until I compared them to my own and realized you blew them away. Slo, I'm dying to know your Campfire Small route. I thought I had the most optimized route possible, but my time is over 20 seconds slower than yours!

EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot two things :heh First, I wanted to say that the levels I would really like us to focus on improving are Flower Garden and Race Track AFAP, because quite a few people have higher times for those, and ALAP3 and Room Cleaning because yoshifan is kicking our butts on those >_< Secondly, I wanted to add that any of yoshifan's records that are recorded (not all of them are) can be found here: http://www.vortiginous.com/yoshifan/We%20Love%20Katamari/

:woot Managed to improve my best on Speedway AFAP. I also beat my ALAP3 record, but didn't get it to Yoshifan's standard.

New zoo/friends AFAP: :37.46 :pimp
Taped, of course.

I'm glad you're taking care of the racetrack stage, that one makes me :frusty

EDIT
I just realized khfan still has 2 seconds on me for the zoo stage. Back to work.

I know this doesn't really belong here (not speed related), but I made a new record of 7m79cm5mm tonight. The entire run plus the king/planet ending sequence takes 14 minutes, almost to the second. At 1 item left I paused and did a quick run-through of the items, so that's included in the video.

I got a 3:27 on ALAP3. Should I keep at it, or is this one yours?

Good going! I can't believe that zoo time. ALAP3 is yours. If you can beat my time on any stage then do so, I don't claim any stages as my own.

edit: I haven't speedrun that much in recent days, but I did improve the Racetrack time again (and Sumo L).

http://www.vortiginous.com/yoshifan/We%20Love%20Katamari/

I watched Yoshifan's AFAP4 video. I didn't match his time but I did get mine down to 0:31.

I improved a couple of my other times too.

I recorded a cool new faster video for Sumo Small, and improved Campfire Medium, but honestly I doubt anybody cares about those particular stages ... oh well ...

Well, it's December now. Dr. Thinker and Arrow, are you still planning on submitting your runs? I hope so. If so, should we submit them sometime soon? Or should we wait a while longer? That would be fine too. I'd just like to know.

Or, if you have decided not to submit anything that's fine too of course, but I'm hoping that's not the case. I am so off the pace in stages like AFAP and ALAP 2, Cousins and Zoo that what I would submit if I had to do it alone wouldn't be anywhere near as good as if you're still planning to do this :applause hoping I'm not alone

I care about those levels! The campfire stage is my favorite in the game... I can't wait to see your videos. Anyway, yes I'm still interested in submitting some videos. I really wanted to try to set some better records on other stages, but I just haven't had any time to play lately. If you think your videos are ready to go now, just give the word and I'll do my best to find time to record the few records I hold. I can always try to break some of those other records later ;) I don't know if Radix will be ready yet... from what I understand, he's still living in his horrible apartment for the next couple months.

These are the ones I have recorded and willing to send:

Stage 2 Meteor - 1:11
Stage 2 AFAP - :27.20
Stage 3 Meteor - 3:27
Stage 4 AFAP - 32.13
School AFAP - 1:03.63
Underwater AFAP - :47.06
Zoo AFAP - :37.46
Cousins - 2:04.16

And the 50-item pickup - 7m79cm5mm

I don't think I'll be spending any more time with this in the near future, as I got a new 360 that's taking up all my free time.

You guys are great. I am so glad to hear that you are both still planning to do this. Admittedly our project is not up to Yoshifan standards, but with the three of us I think we can put something really, really good for Speed Demos Archive.

Dr. Thinker, I have your AFAP4 time beaten by a second, and Arrow can beat your time in Cousins, (it's too bad we can't use the 50-item stage) but I think the other 6 stages are all yours. Really, really great times! You are nearly twice as fast as me literally in both Stage 2s and in Zoo. Wow. Are they still on VHS video? Arrow can do a better job than me at telling you how Radix wants them submitted, but I know that they want a list of video start and end times of each successful run (telling how many minutes into the video the successful runs are) when we do submit. But I guess I'm getting ahead of myself. One other thing, we will be using only exact seconds when we submit, not hundredths of seconds. Just an unimportant detail. Good choice getting the 360, I haven't tried it yet but I bet it's great.

Arrow, I think Dr. Thinker and I are all ready to go. I have made very little progress in the last 3 weeks (and have spent lots of time playing other games), and Dr. Thinker's all done, so I think we are all ready to submit. We are counting on you for AFAP1, ALAP1, Flower Garden, Room Cleaning and Cousins. Of course you are welcome to beat any of my times on other stages too ... it would just improve our submission. If you are really strapped for time the AFAP1 and the ALAP1 are the most important, since Dr. Thinker has a kick-butt Cousins time, and I can come close to your times in Flower Garden and Room Cleaning. So if you could find the time to run these 5 (or at least 2) stages sometime soon, that would be great. And believe me, if we get our submissions accepted, I will be watching Speed Demos for improvements. I'm hoping you do beat some of my times later on, so I can watch the videos.

I'm also very glad that somebody's interested in the Campfire stages. Some of my best recordings are in the stages that I think less people will download. I love my Sumo Small run. One strength of our submission is that we have so many different stages run. I will mention that in my Comments page when I submit :) Another strength is that we are not weak in any single stage out of all 26. If I was doing this all by myself, there would be a few stages where probably most of the people downloading videos would have already beaten my times. As I have said before I am glad I am not doing this alone. My secret hope is that the WLK section on SDA will get really popular, and so many people will send improvements that eventually all or nearly all of my videos will be replaced.

Just one other little thing, Arrow, are you still speed-running another game too? I would like to hear what game and how that's going.

I actually beat one of Yoshifan's times! :) I got ALAP4 down to 3 minutes 56 seconds.

I also found an improved route in Race Track ALAP and got to 1:14.

Since I last posted here I added something weird to our collection of videos: I did a single-segment speedrun from the beginning of WLK, just doing what's necessary to roll up the sun and see the ending, as quickly as possible. It's a weird 1 hour, 15-minute video. Did anybody know that the Pandas level lets you cancel out and complete the stage even if you've only collected $10 in stuff?!?!

If all goes well, and if the person that runs Speed Demos Archive is able to take a new project, then we may be able to submit our project right at the end of December.

Very good news - Radix is willing and able to accept our videos right away! I know Arrow is still recording, but this means that Dr. Thinker and I can start getting our tapes ready to send right away.

Radix is very specific about how he wants the tapes labelled and stuff, so I will PM Dr. Thinker with his exact instructions.

So we can send in our tapes as soon as Arrow is finished, and then it is not outside the realm of possibility that our videos might be ready to download by the end of January! That's exciting for me.