How to make SSBM combo videos using Project Clippi
A beginner’s guide to making Super Smash Bros. Melee combo videos
You’ve just finished a netplay session and have hundreds of SLP files that you need to process to make that killer combo video that’ll make you internet famous. Here’s a beginner’s guide on how you can get started with Project Clippi. Before we start, make sure you have the Slippi Desktop App installed before continuing. This guide will only cover combo curation and Dolphin playback. For a guide on screen recording your gameplay, check out the recording guide.
1. Download Project Clippi
Needless to say, you’re gonna need Project Clippi. Go to the releases page and download the latest version for your operating system.
2. Setup Project Clippi
First, open Project Clippi and navigate to the Replay Processor tab. We will use the Replay Processor to generate a JSON file containing the combos for our video.
Then click the ‘Choose’ button and select the folder containing your SLP files.
Check the ‘Load output file into Dolphin when complete’ checkbox if you want to playback the combos after the processing is complete. If you wish, you can also change the output file filename and location.
Click the ‘Process replays’ button to start processing.
3. Fine tune the output
No combos were found!
Try setting the highlight setting to ‘conversions’ instead of ‘combos’ and then start processing again. This will relax the combo requirement but the combos found might be less impressive.
These combos are just of me getting bodied!
You can set up a combo profile to match your character. Start by opening up the settings page.
Scroll down a bit until you find Character Filter and Name Tag Filter. To narrow down to just the combos that you performed, it should be sufficient to just enter an in-game tag or your netplay name (e.g. your Slippi Online nickname, connect code, etc.). However, if you are playing on console and you often don’t use an in-game tag, it might be harder to find your own combos. Entering the characters that you tend to use will be a step in the right direction, but it’s best to just get into the habit of always playing with a tag.
Make sure to hit ‘Save Profile’ once you’re done. You should get a little green success notification as shown below.
I still can’t find any combos!!
If you’ve tried using the ‘conversions’ option and still can’t find any combos, you can try to reduce the Minimum Combo Percent required for a combo and/or disable Combo Must Kill. This will result in less impressive combos but the alternative is to just git gud.
4. Load the combos into Dolphin
Once you have a JSON file that you want to play back and record, open up the Playback Queue tab. Click ‘Load JSON’ and select your JSON file.
If you want to, you can click the ‘Shuffle queue’ icon button in order to randomise the playback order and introduce some variance in the combo video.
Click the play button to start the playback in Dolphin.
5. Record Dolphin
Once you’re satisfied with your highlights, you will need to use a screen-recording program to record the Dolphin window as video. Follow this guide to automatically record the gameplay footage using OBS. Once you’ve got your gameplay footage recorded, you should have yourself a neat little combo video! Go put it on YouTube and get those internet points!
If you run into any problems, feel free to tweet at me either at @_vinceau or @ProjectClippi. If you’re feeling generous, donations via Ko-fi or PayPal are greatly appreciated.
FAQ
Dolphin loads but doesn’t play anything and only shows a blank screen!
If Dolphin loads but doesn’t show the game picker, you can try set the default ISO path manually by going to the ‘Playback’ settings.
Another thing to note is that in order for Dolphin to ‘skip’ to a specific clip, it needs to replay all the inputs from the beginning of the game. So if you think Dolphin is just frozen, often times it’s just working hard to fast forward the game. Just be patient and hopefully a clip will play eventually.
Dolphin only plays like one or two clips before stopping!
This was an issue with an older version of the Slippi Desktop app but should be fixed in version 1.5.0. Try updating your Slippi Desktop app and see if that fixes it. If that doesn’t work, or if version 1.5.0 isn’t out for your operating system, you can try to click “Shuffle” in the playback queue before pressing play. The older version has trouble playing back the same SLP file back-to-back so sometimes simply just shuffling the queue will fix it.
Dolphin gets stuck on the ‘Waiting for game’ screen and won’t play anything!
Slippi Desktop app in the past has had issues playing back SLP files with full-width characters (often found in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean), as well as accented characters (often found in European languages). This issue should be fixed in version 1.5.0. Try updating your Slippi Desktop app and see if that fixes it. If that doesn’t work, or if version 1.5.0 isn’t out for your operating system, try moving all your SLP files to a path without those characters.
What’s the difference between combos and conversions?
Combos require the opponent to be in hit-stun again within 45 frames of hit-stun ending. Conversions on the other hand are more relaxed since it just requires the opponent to be in hit-stun within 45 frames of touching the ground. Conversions would, for example, allow for extended edge-guards to be considered a “combo” despite not being in hit-stun, since they have yet to touch the ground.
