X-Ray Climb
X-Ray Climbing is a technique that allows upward traversal while stuck in walls. It is most frequently used to go Out of Bounds. It is mainly used while getting stuck inside of a door. Most categories that go Out of Bounds do so by means of X-Ray Climbing, such as Any% Glitched and RBMBO.
To perform X-Ray Climbing, make sure to pick-up the X-Ray Scope. Get stuck in a wall (usually a door) while standing, and then crouch. Use the X-Ray Scope, face the other direction and immediately stop scoping. If done right, Samus should now be forced into a standing position which moves her up by 5 pixels.
Runners will need to be careful not to morph part way through the X-Ray Climb, which would result in a softlock. To avoid this, many runners will pause and turn off Morphing Ball to avoid this.
Item Randomizer, certain Low% categories, as well as some RBO routes sometimes make use of inbounds X-Ray Climbing to get through The Precious Room after defeating Draygon due to the lack of Gravity Suit.
It is also sometimes used in Pants Room to get to Spring Ball. Other inbounds uses are rare, usually relegated to plandos or puzzles. Inbounds X-Ray Climbing can be useful in many hacks: It is simply the layout of the original map and the fact that Bombs are very early that makes inbounds X-Ray Climbing not very useful.
If you're trying to see if you're high enough to jump out of the wall, do it from a crouch. If you're still fully embedded in the wall and you jump while standing, it will put you in a crouched pose that won't allow further X-Ray use.
Because of the properties of X-Ray Scope to change Out of Bounds blocks, non-optimal X-Ray Climbing that leaves X-Ray activated for seconds at a time can alter the layout of the Out of Bounds, causing standard routes or setups to have new blocks in their path.
Contents
Setting up an X-Ray Climb
The most common way to initiate an X-Ray Climb is by getting stuck in a door. There are a couple other ways, which are listed for completeness.
Door Stuck
There are 3 levels of being stuck in a door: (Shallow) Stuck, Deep Stuck, and Very Deep Stuck.
Stuck
A stationary spinjump and walljump check inside the door shell of a rightwards transition is enough to get Stuck inside of a door for X-Ray climbing most rooms. You'll need to do the walljump check low enough to avoid having the top of the doorframe put you in a forced-crouch pose, which would prevent the use of X-Ray.
Note with some doors that may close faster, this may either be impossible or require a different height to get caught.
For a leftward door transition that you don't need to be Deep Stuck, you will need to do a stationary spinjump with dash speed, followed by a precise walljump check. Once the next room loads, hold down, and your momentum will carry you into the door as it closes. This is most notably used in 12% and some older routes of Any% Glitched and Low% Glitched in order to X-Ray Climb in Mother Brain's Room.
For a leftward door transition suitless underewater (where dash speed cannot be used), a different set-up is required. The shortest description is that it is the same as a rightward transition, but Samus needs to downgrab the door.
From a full height jump in the door frame, there are two frames that work to trigger the transition. Then Right should continue to be held the entire time. There is then a one frame window to initiate a Down press after the transition: It is usually the second frame after you have control of Samus after the transition (TODO: Double check when it isn't; with Hi-Jump, one of the two frames is instead the third frame after you have control of Samus. Due to this inconsistency, it is suggested to unequip Hi-Jump if you are attempting to time the Down press). Thus, it is a 2 frame window, followed by a 1 frame window. The Down press can be held (if trying to time it), or Down may simply be mashed (you will not Morph, since Right is held).
For the height in the door shell, see the image below. In this image, the green numbered frames are the ones that work. The number indicates what number frame this is with Samus in this pose. This is from a full height jump.
Below is an example of this, which can be used to collect the items in Aqueduct.
This has a use in RBMBO, where it is used in the top right door of Mt. Everest to leave Maridia (using Out of Bounds travel).
Deep Stuck
Sometimes, Samus needs to be deeper in the door. This is usually due to a slope tile existing on the tile next to the door shell (e.g., see the any% glitched X-Ray Climb).
The two common methods to get Deep Stuck are by: (1) properly taking enemy damage (e.g., in any% glitched); (2) initiating a shinespark on the same frame as a wall jump check of the door transition, and immediately sparking after the transition (e.g., in RBMBO, to X-Ray Climb into Tourian).
There are additional methods, but these tend to be too precise for RTA use. The most well-known may be a boomerang Mockball, which was used in an old TAS to get Deep Stuck to be able to X-Ray Climb to Tourian. To be feasible RTA, this would probably require L+R.
Similarly, one can use boomerang momentum to get Deep Stuck without a Mockball. This may require Speed Booster, and to be feasible RTA would probably require L+R.
Very Deep Stuck
There is one extremely limited use where it can be helpful to be even deeper in a door shell. Specifically, Samus needs to be deep enough that she can trigger the transition (either with a wall jump check, or simply by turning around). Then Samus may X-Ray Climb up to a different transition, and trigger the transition blocks without opening the door shell.
The only viable method for accomplishing this RTA is via G-Mode. See G-Mode for an example. This has no practical applications in the vanilla map, so is relegated to plandos, puzzles, challenges, and hacks.
Similar to Deep Stuck, it is possible to get Very Deep Stuck with boomerang momentum (with Speed Booster). Again, to be RTA viable this would probably require L+R.
Other Methods
There are a couple other methods to initiate an X-Ray Climb. A couple are listed below. Basically, any method of getting Samus embedded in a wall would work.
Blue/Green Gate
By using a gate, an X-Ray Climb can be initiated. This is done by barely standing inside of the gate, and then shooting it closed.
This is used in RBMBO to skip Botwoon by using Out of Bounds travel.
Frozen Enemy
By pixel perfectly freezing an enemy just inside of a wall (the same as the Rinka position for Zebetite skip), it is possible to clip into a wall a single pixel. From this position, an X-Ray Climb can be initiated.
Some more exact values
Here I am putting some notes so they are somewhere on the wiki. They should be double-checked precisely by someone knowledgeable, and added to.
In the below, there are sometimes differences between left doors and right doors. A left door is one that entering a transition scrolls the screen to the left. They are usually on the leftside of the screen, and are right-facing. Right doors are, of course, opposite.
Levels of stuck
There are 16 pixels of stuck in a door, since tiles are 16 pixels wide. Not all of them are different. Below, the effects at every level are stated.
- 1 pixel: Can climb; pushed down by slopes next to the door; can CF past 45 degree slopes next to the door.
- 2 pixels: Can climb; pushed down by slopes next to the door; can CF past 45 degree slopes next to the door.
- 3 pixels: Can climb; pushed down by slopes next to the door; can CF past 45 degree slopes next to the door.
- 4 pixels: Can climb; pushed down by slopes next to the door; can CF past 45 degree slopes next to the door.
- 5 pixels: Can climb past slopes next to right doors; pushed down by slopes next to left doors; can CF past 45 degree slopes next to left doors.
- 6 pixels: Can climb past slopes next to doors.
- 7 pixels: Can climb past slopes next to doors.
- 8 pixels: Can climb past slopes next to doors.
- 9 pixels: Can climb past slopes next to doors; can trigger transition blocks with a difficult walljump check.
- 10 pixels: Can climb past slopes next to doors; can trigger transition blocks with a walljump check from a buffered jump; wall crawling enemies will no longer damage Samus.
- 11 pixels: Can climb past slopes next to doors; can trigger transition blocks with a walljump check from a buffered jump; Samus can't walk out of walls flat with the door.
- 12 pixels: Can climb past slopes next to doors; can trigger transition blocks with a walljump check from a buffered jump; Samus can't walk out of walls flat with the door.
- 13 pixels: Can climb past slopes next to doors; can trigger transition blocks with a walljump check from a buffered jump; Samus can't walk out of walls flat with the door.
- 14 pixels: Can climb past slopes next to doors; can trigger transition blocks with a walljump check from a buffered jump; Samus can't walk out of walls flat with the door.
- 15 pixels: Can climb past slopes next to doors; can trigger transition blocks with a walljump check from a buffered jump; Samus can't walk out of walls flat with the door.
- 16 pixels: Can climb past slopes next to doors; can trigger transition blocks by walking into them; Samus can't walk out of walls flat with the door.
Thus, the above levels of stuck correspond as follows:
- 1 to (4 or 5) pixels: Shallow stuck. Can CF past a 45 degree slope next to the door, but otherwise pushed down by slopes. This goes to 4 pixels on the right, but 5 pixels on the left.
- (5 or 6) to 8 pixels: Deep stuck. Can climb past slopes next to the door. This start at 5 pixels on the right, but 6 pixels on the left.
- 9 to 16 pixels: Very deep stuck. Can additionally trigger transition tiles in line with the door using a walljump check.
Getting stuck
Here, it is recorded how deep different ways of getting stuck can get. If it is not specified, it should be assumed this goes from an a room with air physics to a room with air physics.
Note these are not optimized at all. For example, maybe one more pixel could be squeezed out by correctly lining up subpixels.
- Standard shallow stuck (e.g., the standard left door stuck): 1 pixel.
- Momentum mirroring without speed booster at full speed from an air room into a water room: 2 pixels on the right, 4 pixels on the left.
- Dash speed stuck: 3 pixels on the right, 4 pixels on the left.
- Shinespark deep stuck: 5 pixels on the right, 6 pixels on the left.
- Mockball deep stuck: 5 pixels on the right, 6 pixels on the left.
- Mockball deep stuck from an air room into a water room: 6 pixels on the right, 7 pixels on the left.
- Momentum mirroring with speed booster with full speed available: 11 pixels on the right, 10 pixels on the left (most likely not optimal; it was simply tested that very deep stuck was possible).
- Mockball deep stuck with speed booster: 15 pixels on the right, 16 pixels on the left (not optimized; it was simply tested that very deep stuck was possible).
- Direct G-mode stuck: Any value from 1 pixel to 16 pixels can be achieved.
There are other methods of getting stuck that should perhaps be tested. For example, a knockback deep stuck is in the current Any% Glitched route.
