Log Skip

What is going on: In Paper Mario, you must be on the ground for 2 frames for a loading zone in the game to trigger. That being said, you can enter a loading zone and continually move away from it to "store" it as long as you do not touch the ground for more than 1 frame. The old log skip method used to require ~15-20 frame perfect jumps, but obviously that's not reasonable.

For log skip to work, you must get a certain distance away from the loading zone before you trigger it (be on the ground for more than 1 frame). The way we do it now does that from out of bounds.

Setup before falling:

1. Rowf clip. The shopkeeper will be walking around. Just walk into the top left corner and hold left. When he walks into you, do two full jumps and hammer, that will pop you out of bounds and you can jump onto the grass.

2. Line up Mario's nose with the middle of the fence, roughly here: http://i.imgur.com/WNoMatq.png
The position where you line up isn't too precise, but anywhere around there is fine.

Now that you're in the right spot, log skip will work through a series of falls out of bounds. It is possible to do log skip in 2 falls (2 and 4 in the following descriptions), but we normally do it in 4 to make the trick easier. Doing it in 2 falls would save 6 seconds.


Fall 1: From the fence, walk straight down until you fall off the world. During this fall, your goal is to simply get your control stick in the proper angle for fall #2. During this fall, you will want to hold JUST BELOW down-right. Control sticks vary from controller to controller, so you have to do a bit of experimenting to find what works for you. It is important that you have enough momentum towards the right when Mario "resets" for Fall 2, otherwise you may not reach the loading zone, so try to find a spot on your control stick that is as far to the right as possible.


Fall 2: On this fall, we store the loading zone. As soon as you notice Mario "reset", or shoot back upwards, start holding UP-RIGHT, the faster the better. If you had the correct control stick position from Fall 1 and also switch to up-right fast enough, you should have enough momentum to reach the loading zone while you are out of bounds. A good way to know if you stored the loading zone 100% is if the screen lags, or Mario "speeds up" near the end of this fall, but that does not happen every time. A good visual cue is to look at the flower in the background, it should reach the 2nd cloud from the left: http://i.imgur.com/LVvMtOi.png

At the very end of fall 2, you must switch to either DOWN or LEFT. I'll explain why in Fall 3.


Fall 3: With this fall, you now (hopefully) have the loading zone stored, meaning Mario cannot touch the ground for more than 1 frame or the loading zone will trigger. The reason you want to be holding left or down when Fall 2 is about to end is because from where you were previously standing, Mario will immediately fall off the world each time he resets, and this never allows the loading zone to trigger.

This is very useful because you can use this fall as a safe point and continue falling for as long as you want until you are ready to do Fall 4. Also, if you know you made a mistake on Fall 4, you can simply start holding left or down again, and you will go back into "Fall 3" until you are ready to try again.


Fall 4: With this last fall, your goal is to get far enough away from the loading zone so that when you trigger it, Mario will load on the next screen and fall underneath the logs. When you are ready to attempt this fall, you must start holding roughly in between LEFT and UP-LEFT during Fall 3, and keep holding that until Mario "resets" again. Similar to Fall 2, it is best for this fall to have as much UPWARD momentum as possible in order to make it back onto the grass.

Your cue this time is watching for the screen to stop / jerk backwards. When this happens, immediately switch your control stick to UP-RIGHT, and hold it there. Assuming you had a high enough angle, Mario should land somewhere up to the left of the badge shop, and if you triggered the loading zone on Fall 2, the loading zone will trigger and you will get thrown under the logs on the next screen. You are aiming to land roughly here: http://i.imgur.com/u6KuDYx.png
Anything on that patch of grass to the left of the badge shop will work, the further the better.

Remember: if you know your angle was not good at the start of Fall 4, you can hold left or down again to revert to Fall 3, then try again when you're ready. Failing to land far enough on Fall 4 and triggering the loading zone will make you lose probably around 30 seconds in a run.


Summarized:

Fall 1: Allows you to get the proper angle for Fall 2
Fall 2: Triggers loading zone
Fall 3: Allows you to get the proper angle for Fall 4 (can fall as many times as you want)
Fall 4: Lands far enough away to make you go under the logs

A good way to practice the trick is to break it into two parts. You can do Falls 1 and 2 to learn how to trigger the loading zone, and you can also do Falls 3 and 4 separately to learn how to land on the patch of grass by the badge shop. When you're good at both, combine them, and there's log skip.