____ __ /\ _`\ /\ \__ /'\_/`\ __ \ \,\L\_\ \ ,_\ __ _____ /\ \ __ ___ /\_\ __  \/_\__ \\ \ \/ /'__`\/\ '__`\ \ \__\ \ /'__`\ /' _ `\/\ \ /'__`\ /\ \L\ \ \ \_/\ __/\ \ \L\ \ \ \_/\ \/\ \L\.\_/\ \/\ \ \ \/\ \L\.\_ \ `\____\ \__\ \____\\ \ ,__/\ \_\\ \_\ \__/.\_\ \_\ \_\ \_\ \__/.\_\ \/_____/\/__/\/____/ \ \ \/ \/_/ \/_/\/__/\/_/\/_/\/_/\/_/\/__/\/_/ \ \_\ \/_/ __ __  /'__`\ /'__`\ /\_\L\ \ /\ \/\ \ \/_/_\_<_ \ \ \ \ \ /\ \L\ \__\ \ \_\ \ \ \____/\_\\ \____/ \/___/\/_/ \/___/ (c)2001-2002, StepMania team http://www.stepmania.com ************************************************************ Table of Contents ************************************************************ 1. About StepMania 2. Minimum Requirements 3. DirectX 4. Installation 5. Controls 6. How StepMania Loads Songs 7. Connecting Dance Pads 8. Compatibility Issues 9. FAQ / Troubleshooting 10. StepMania Packages - .smzip 11. Questions, Bugs, Suggestions, and Help 12. The StepMania Editor 13. The .SM File Format 14. Backgrounds 15. BGAnimations format 16. The .CRS File Format 17. Extra Stages 18. Creating an Announcer 19. Creating a Note Skin 20. Creating a Theme 21. How StepMania Loads Textures 22. Building StepMania from CVS Source 23. Thanks See the file "NEWS" for version history. ************************************************************ 1. About StepMania ************************************************************ StepMania is capable of playing many game types. Currently, it supports games similar to Dance Dance Revolution, Pump It Up, EZ 2 Dancer, and Para Para Paradise. In the future, it will support games similar to BeatMania, Guitar Freaks, DrumMania, and more. The games played by StepMania are rhythm games. Notes scroll up from the bottom of the screen, and the player must hit the corresponding button on the controller in time to the music. All games can be played using the keyboard, but the real fun comes when using specially designed controllers, like a dance pad or hand sensors. ************************************************************ 2. Minimum Requirements ************************************************************ * Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, or Windows XP * Pentium II, Pentium III, Celeron, Athlon, or compatible processor, 266MHz minimum (400 MHz recommended) * 64 MB of RAM * Video card that supports High Color (16-bit color) and has 16MB video RAM * DirectX 8.1 compatible video card with drivers * DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card with drivers * DivX 5 video codec for movie visualizations (www.divx.com) ************************************************************ 3. DirectX ************************************************************ DirectX 8.1 is required before installing StepMania. If DirectX 8.1 is not installed on your computer, the StepMania installer will display a warning and abort the installation. ************************************************************ 4. Installation ************************************************************ To install StepMania, download the file stepmania300xxxx.exe to a known location on your hard drive, then double-click the file icon to begin the installation.The installer automatically remove an older version of the program if one is present. The default installation directory is 'C:\Program Files\StepMania'. ************************************************************ 5. Controls ************************************************************ Use the "Config Key/Joy" option from the Title Menu to configure your keyboard, dance pad, or other game controller. This menu allows you to map up to 2 keyboard/joystick buttons to each function in the game. The third column is the default key mapping, and cannot be changed. However, you can override a default keyboard key by simply assigning it to another function. The mappings for player 1 are on the left half of the screen, and the mapping for player 2 are on right half. The following is a list of special keys: Any time: * F4 = toggle fullscreen * F5 = toggle detail * Hold Tab = increase game speed 4x (useful for moving through menus quickly) * Hold Tilde (~) = decrease game speed to 1/4x In menus: * Arrow keys navigate menus * Enter = Start * Escape = Back In gameplay: * F8 = toggle AutoPlay * F9 = decrease offset * F10 = increase offset * F11 = decrease BPM of current segment * F12 = increase BPM of current segment * Hold Escape = abort playing ************************************************************ 6. How StepMania Loads Songs ************************************************************ All files for a specific song (data file, music file, banner, background) must reside in a single folder. This folder must have the following path: Songs/// For example, the song B4U may consist of the following files: Songs/Dance Dance Revolution 4th Mix/B4U/b4u.dwi Songs/Dance Dance Revolution 4th Mix/B4U/b4u.mp3 Songs/Dance Dance Revolution 4th Mix/B4U/b4u-banner.png Songs/Dance Dance Revolution 4th Mix/B4U/b4u.png Songs/Dance Dance Revolution 4th Mix/B4U/b4u-movie.avi StepMania supports the SM, DWI, BMS, and KSF song file formats. If the song file format is BMS or KSF, simply put all the KSF or BMS files into the song folder. If a song file does not specify a valid banner file, StepMania first looks for a graphic in the song folder that contains the word "banner". If that search fails, StepMania will guess which image is most appropriate. If a song file does not specify a valid background file, StepMania first looks for a graphic in the song folder that contains the words "bg" or "background". If that search fails, StepMania will guess which image is most appropriate. If a song file does not specify a valid CDTitle file, StepMania will look for a graphic in the song folder that contains the words "cdtitle". If that search fails, StepMania will guess which image is most appropriate. If a song file does not specify a valid movie background file, StepMania will look for a movie in the song folder that contains the letters "movie". If that search fails, StepMania will use the first movie in the song folder. ************************************************************ 7. Connecting Dance Pads ************************************************************ There are several devices that allow you to connect PlayStation dance pads to your PC. * Not recommended: generic PlayStation->USB converter Using a generic PlayStation->USB converter is not recommended to play any dancing game on the PC. The vast majority of these converters are not capable of registering simultaneous presses of Left+Right or Up+Down. This restriction will cause the player to miss many notes where two buttons must be hit simultaneously. * Highly Recommended: specific brands of PlayStation->USB adaptor There is just one brand of PlayStation->USB adaptor that functions perfectly with StepMania. These adaptors are available for purchase through some importers (www.liksang.com). The adaptor is made by "Boom", and it small and black with a detachable USB cable. These adaptors cost about $15 and allow you to attach one dance pad per adaptor. The primary advantage of these adaptors is that they do not require special drivers and require no configuring. * Semi-Recommended: PlayStation->Parallel adaptor PlayStation->Parallel converters do not have the simultaneous button problem that USB converters do. The disadvantage of these adaptors is that home-made drivers are required to use these devices. These drivers are often finicky and incompatible with some sound cards. PlayStation->Parallel adaptors can be purchased from the StepMania web site or any importer. For Windows 98 and Windows Me users, the recommended driver is "DirectPad Pro 5.0 for Win9x". For Windows 2000 and Windows XP, the recommended drivers is NTPad XP 1.x or PSXPAD. Win98/WinME "DirectPad Pro 5.0 for Win9x", found at http://www.aldostools.com/dpad.html Win2K/WinXP NTPad XP 1.x, found at http://www.aldostools.com/dpad.html PSXPAD 0.8.2002.0606b, found at http://www.psxpad.com/download/downcnt.php?name=psxp_a020606b ************************************************************ 8. Compatibility Issues ************************************************************ Some video card/driver combinations have visual errors when running StepMania. If you experience any visual errors, please visit your video card manufacturer's web site and download the latest Direct3D 8.1 drivers. Below is a list of known issues that are thought to be video card driver bugs: * S3 Savage family cards (e.g. Diamond Stealth) Symptom: The right edge of some graphics appears "cut off". Explanation: Drivers do not properly handle textures >= 512x512, resulting in cropped textures. Turn the texture detail option to 256 to force textures to a smaller size. * SiS cards Symptom: Garbled fonts. Explanation: Drivers have errors in handling texture coordinates. Only known solution is to upgrade drivers. * Any card older than two years Symptom: Various graphical glitches. Explanation: These problems are most often caused by buggy video card drivers bugs. Please upgrade to the latest drivers, which will hopefully fix the errors. ************************************************************ 9. FAQ / Troubleshooting ************************************************************ * The error "Cannot find Dinput8.dll" appears when launching the game. You need to download DirectX 8.1. http://www.microsoft.com/directx * StepMania reports "Direct3DCreate failed". You need to download DirectX 8.1. http://www.microsoft.com/directx * StepMania reports "Direct3DCreateDevice failed". This error means that your video card or drivers do not support Direct3D 8. Download the latest drivers for your video card. If your video card is older than 2 or 3 years, Direct3D 8 drivers may not be available. Sorry. * Music rates of over 100% do not work on my computer. Why? Some very old sound cards do not support sound playback rates that are greater than the original sample rate. This problem is likely to be corrected by newer sound card drivers. * I’m looking to purchase a video card. What works well with StepMania? Just about any video card manufactured in the last year will run StepMania flawlessly at 60 frames per second. I recommend any card with an nVidia GeForce chip or an ATI Radeon chip. * How can I improve performance with my existing video card 1. Install the latest drivers for your video card. 2. Press F5 in the game to toggle between high detail and low detail modes. 3. Tweak the Display Resolution and Texture Resolution setting in the GameOptions screen. * Chris, will you tell me when the next version will be released? I'd rather not going to say. Sorry. It's gotten me in trouble before. * Why won't you tell me? I promise I won't tell anyone else. The reasons I won't tell is because: a) I don't know yet, and b) I don't want to make anyone angry if it takes longer than expected (it usually does). ************************************************************ 10. StepMania Packages - .smzip ************************************************************ The StepMania package format was created to make the distribution of songs and other add-ons very easy.  StepMania package files have the extension '.smzip' and can be installed by double-clicking the .smzip file. A StepMania package is 'installed' by extracting all files in the package to the StepMania program directory. This allows songs, courses, themes, and visualizations to all be installed by the Package Manager. The file format of an .smzip file is actually the PK-Zip standard.  This means you can rename any .smzip file to have the extension '.zip', and then open the file in any compression application (e.g. WinZip, WinRAR). The StepMania Package Manager (smpackage.exe) can also export song packages for you. Simply launch the Package Manager (Start Menu->Programs->StepMania->Package Manager), click the items you would like to make a package for, then click the Export button. A .smzip package will be placed on your desktop, and you can share it with friends. ************************************************************ 11. Questions, Bugs, Suggestions, and Help ************************************************************ If you have a question about or problem with StepMania, please first ask your question a StepMania message board. A link is available from the StepMania web site - http://www.stepmania.com. If you have found a bug, please file a bug report into the SourceForge bug tracking system (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=37892&atid=421366).   This will allow the developers to track and fix bugs much more efficiently.   * In a bug report, please specify your video card brand and model, and your OS version (Win98, WinXP, etc). * PLEASE, PLEASE enter your e-mail address on the bug reports. In many cases, we need more information from the bug reporter. Please use SourceForge's feature request system to enter new feature requests (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=421369&group_id=37892&func=browse). Also, please discuss feature ideas on the StepMania message board or the StepMania developers list (stepmania-devs@sourceforge.net).   If you would like to help with development of StepMania, please send an email to the StepMania developers list (stepmania-devs@sourceforge.net) or to Chris (chris@videogamers.com). ************************************************************ 12. The StepMania editor ************************************************************ The StepMania editor allows you to edit, record, synchronize, and play back note patterns. When you choose 'Save', your song will be saved in both the .SM format and the DWI format for use in Dance With Intensity. If you save a song that was originally in the BMS or KSF format, the old files will be appended with ".old", and a new .SM file will be written with your new song data. Following are a few basic commands that you will find useful in learning to use the editor: Esc - show/dimiss menu Up/Down - change beat Left/Right - change beat snap value Enter - Set selection begin marker Space - Set selection end marker P - Play back current selection (if no selection, play whole song) R - Record over current selection (if no selection, record whole song) ************************************************************ 13. The .SM file format ************************************************************ The .SM song file format was created to be one file format that supports all game types that StepMania can play (dance, pump, beat, guitar, etc). The .SM file syntax is identical to DWI except for some different tags and meanings. These are a list of all supported tags. All images can be in png, gif, jpg, or bmp format. All sounds can be in ogg, mp3, or wav format. #TITLE:...; - The "main title" of the song. #SUBTITLE:...; - This text will appear underneath the main title of the song on the Select Music screen. e.g. "~Dirty Mix~" or "(remix)". #ARTIST:...; - The artist of the song. #TITLETRANSLIT:...; - Transliteration of song's main title for sorting #SUBTITLETRANSLIT:...; - Transliteration of song's sub title for sorting #ARTISTTRANSLIT:...; - Transliteration of the artist of the song #CREDIT:...; - Give yourself some credit here for creating a wonderful song. #BPM:...; - BPM of the music #BANNER:...; - The file name of the banner image. e.g. "b4u-banner.png". This image must reside in the song folder. #BACKGROUND:...; - The file name of the background image. e.g. "b4u-bg.png". This image must reside in the song folder. #CDTITLE:...; - The file name of the spinning CD logo. e.g. "b4u-cdtitle.png". This image must reside in the song folder. #MOVIEBACKGROUND:...; - The file name of the a background movie. e.g. "b4u-movie.avi". This movie must reside in the song folder. #MUSIC:...; - The file name of the music file. e.g. "b4u.mp3". This image must reside in the song folder. #MUSICBYTES:...; - The size in bytes of the music file that this song was last synchronized with. A "Song may be out of synch" warning will be displayed if the value of this tag does not match the actual size of the music file. #OFFSET:...; - The time in seconds at which beat 0 occurs in the music. This is specified as a floating point value. e.g. "2.34". #SAMPLESTART:...; - The time in seconds to start the music sample that plays on the Select Music screen. This is specified as a floating point value. e.g. "32.34". #SAMPLELENGTH:...; - The time in seconds let the sample music play after starting. This is specified as a floating point value. e.g. "32.34". Note that in the last 1 second of playing the music will fade out. #SELECTABLE:...; - If "NO", the song can not be selected manually and can only be played as part of a course. If "ROULETTE", the song can can also be selected via roulette. The default value is "YES". #BPMS:...; - A value of the format "beat=bpm". Indicates that at 'beat', the speed of the arrows will change to "bpm". Both of these values are specified as floating point values. You must specifiy a BPM value for beat 0. Multiple BPMs can be given by separating them with commas. e.g. "0=160,120=80". #STOPS:...; - A value of the format "beat=sec". Indicates that at 'beat', the motion of the arrows should stop for "sec" seconds. Both of these values are specified as floating point values. Multiple stops can be given by separating them with commas. e.g. "60=2.23,80=1.12". #BGCHANGE:...; - A value of the format "beat=bg name". Indicates that at 'beat', the background should begin playing 'bg name'. 'beat' is a fractional value value and 'anim name' is a string. Different animation change are separated by commas. e.g. "60=falling,80=flower". Each pattern of notes has have the same basic format: #NOTES::::::; NotesType: Must be one of the currently supported types in StepMania: "dance-single", "dance-double", "dance-couple", "dance-solo", "pump-single", "pump-double". Description: This will be displayed on the gameplay screen. This can be any text, but is most commonly "Basic", "Another", "Trick", "Standard", "SSR", "Maniac", "Heavy", or "Challenge". DifficultyClass: This value must be "easy", "medium", or "hard". These values correspond the levels of difficulty on the Select Difficulty screen. DifficultyMeter: The difficulty of these notes as a bar rating. The value must be an integer between 1 and 10. RadarValues: The values that will be displayed on the Groove Radar as floats between 0.00 and 1.00. The 5 values must be separated by commas, and are specified in the order: "stream,voltage,air,freeze,chaos". For MAX300, these values are "0.95,0.98,0.22,0.12,0.13". These values will automatically be written when you save the song in the StepMania editor, but you may edit the .SM file afterward to tweak them. NoteData: This value requires a longer explanation. Each note is represented by a character: 0 = no note here 1 = a regular "tap note" 2 = beginning of a "hold note" 3 = end of a "hold note" a-z,A-z = tap notes reserved for game types that have sounds associated with notes Notes that are hit at the same time are grouped into rows. For example, if the NotesType is "dance-single", the row "1001" would specify that both the Left and Right and Down panels should be hit at the same time. The number of notes per row (also called the number of 'columns') depends on the "NotesType. dance-single = 4 notes/row (Left,Down,Up,Right) dance-double = 8 notes/row dance-couple = 8 notes/row dance-solo = 6 notes/row pump-single = 5 notes/row pump-double = 10 notes/row Note rows are grouped into measures. The number of note rows you specify in a measure will determine the time value of each note. For example, if there are 4 note rows in a measure, each note will be treated as a quarter note. If there are 8 notes rows in a measure, each note will be treated as a eighth note. If there are 12 notes rows in a measure, each note will be treated as a triplet (1/12th) note. Measures are separated by a comma. Example: // measure 1 2010 0000 0100 0000 : // measure 2 0001 0100 0001 0000 3010 0000 0000 0000 ; ************************************************************ 14. Backgrounds ************************************************************ StepMania supports three different modes of backgrounds: BGAnimations - The background will cycle randomly through different sprite animations. Each of these animation must reside in the "BGAnimations" folder in the StepMania program directory. See the section called "BGAnimations" in the readme for more information on the BGAnimations format. BGAnimations will perform better than the other background modes on slower computers. Random Movies - The background will cycle randomly over any avi or mpg files in the "RandomMovies" folder in the StepMania program directory. Visualizations - A random avi or mpg file will be chosen from the "Visualizations" folder in the StepMania program directory. This movie file will be played and blended over top of the song's background graphic. Many video AVIs will require the DivX codec for playback. If you haven't yet downloaded DivX, you can get it from www.divx.com. Playing movies as the background is very processor intensive, and may cause the frame rate to decrease on slower computers. Sample animations, visualizations, and random movies can be found at www.stepmania.com. ************************************************************ 15. BGAnimations Format ************************************************************ The BGAnimations folder in the StepMania program directory may contain several BGAnimation folders. \BGAnimations\\ is the name of the animation. are one or more graphics files that will be used as layers in the animation. Each sprite represents exactly one layer. Multiple layers can be specified by having multiple . For example, a BGAnimation named "flower" may include the files: BGAnimations\flower\1 TileScrollUp.png BGAnimations\flower\2 StartOnRandomFrame ParticlesFloatDown 1x2.png BGAnimations\flower\3 TileScrollLeft CycleColor 2x2.png The first number in the name of a will specifies its drawing order. A layers with a small number will be drawn before a layer with a larger number. Different "effects" are specified for each layer by adding tokens to the file name. Here are an explanation of the currently supported tokens: UseSongBg - Use the song's background file instead of this graphics file. Since this graphics file is merely a placeholder, you might want to make this graphic a 1x1 graphic to save disk space. Add - use additive blending instead of normal blending. CycleColor - cycle the color of the layer over the colors of the rainbow CycleAlpha - cycle the alpha channel of the layer over type StartOnRandomFrame - Start the animation on a random frame. This is mainly useful for Tile or Particle effects. DontAnimate - Stay on the first frame of this animation. This is only useful for layers with multiple frames. (stretch effects) - These scretch the graphic across the extire screen. ScretchScrollLeft, StretchScrollRight, StretchScrollUp, StretchScrollDown, - Scroll the layer in a direction StretchWater, StretchBubble, StretchTwist, StretchSpin, - Deform the background sprite with an effect. Only stretch spin is currently implemented. (particle effects) - Use the graphic to make individual particles on the screen. ParticlesSpiralOut, ParticlesSpiralIn, - Spiral particles away from/toward the center of the screen. ParticlesFloatUp, ParticlesFloatDown, ParticlesFloatLeft, ParticlesFloatRight, - Scroll the particles across the screen. ParticlesBounce, - Particles start traveling in random directions and bounce when they hit the edge of the screen. (tile effects) - Tile the graphics across the screen, forming a grid of graphics. TileStill, TileScrollLeft, TileScrollRight, TileScrollUp, TileScrollDown, - Scroll the tiles TileFlipX, TileFlipY, - Flip the tiles along the X or Y axis. TilePulse, - Tiles zoom in and out. ************************************************************ 15. The .CRS File Format ************************************************************ CRS files define the courses used in the "Oni" Nonstop Challenge mode. All CRS files must reside in the "Courses" folder in the StepMania program folder. #COURSE:...; - name of the course #LIVES:<0..10>; - An integer between 0 and 10. This line is optional. #REPEAT:; - start over after last stage? #SONG:\:[:modifiers]; - group folder - The name of the folder that contains the song folder. song folder - the name of the folder that contains files for the song description - BASIC, TRICK, SSR, MANIAC, HEAVY, etc. modifiers - One or more of: 0.5x, 0.75x, 1.5x, 2.0x, 3.0x, 4.0x, 5.0x, 8.0x boost, wave, drunk, dizzy, space, mini hidden, sudden, stealth mirror, left, right, shuffle little reverse note, flat, plain noholds nofreeze dark norecover, suddendeath, power-drop, death 0.7xmusic, 0.8xmusic, 0.9xmusic, 1.0xmusic, 1.1xmusic, 1.2xmusic, 1.3xmusic, 1.4xmusic, 1.5xmusic ************************************************************ 16. Extra Stages ************************************************************ You can manually specify extra stages for each song group by creating .CRS files called "extra1.crs" and "extra2.crs". These courses must contain exactly one song in the course. Don't forget to specify modifiers - see the CRS File Format section for more information. If a CRS file is not found or is invalid, the program will choose an appropriate song, notes, and modifiers. Don't forget: extra stage CRS files belong in the song group folder (e.g. "Songs/DDRMAX/"), not in "Courses". ************************************************************ 17. Creating an Announcer ************************************************************ Announcers folders must reside in the "Announcers" folder inside the StepMania program directory (e.g. "Announcers\DDRMAX\"). An announcer folder contains several more folders - one for each announcer "trigger". You can place as many .WAV, .MP3, or .OGG sounds as you want in a trigger folder. When StepMania wants to play a sound for that trigger, it will play a random sound file from your trigger folder. Sound files in a trigger folder can have any name you want. It's recommended that you name the sound files according to what is being said (e.g. "everybodys waiting for you.mp3"). If there are 0 sound files in a trigger folder, or the trigger folder is missing, then no sound will be played for that trigger. ************************************************************ 18. Creating a Note Skin ************************************************************ Note skins allow you to customize the way notes appear. Note skins must reside in the folder "Skins\(Game Name)\(Note Skin Name)". Note skins are specific to a particular game (dance, pump, etc). In the note skin folder, you must implement the folling files for each note: Receptor (NxN). Note color part (NxN). Note gray part (NxN). Hold Explosion (NxN). Tap Explosion Bright (NxN). Tap Explosion Dim (NxN). Hold.colors Tap.colors "" must be the name of the note (e.g. "left", "upright", "snare"). Look at the example note skins included with StepMania for a complete list for each game. "NxN" is an optional string that specifies the dimensions of the graphic. For example, if there are 6 frames, 3 wide 2 high, in your color part animation, then you might use the file name "Up Note color part 3x2.png". For more information on about graphics loading, see the section "How StepMania Loads Textures". ************************************************************ 19. Creating a Theme ************************************************************ Themes must reside in the Themes folder in the StepMania program directory. Inside each theme folder, there are up to three directories: "graphics", "sounds", and "fonts". Graphics may be .sprites or any file format described in the section "How StepMania Loads Textures". Sounds can be in .mp3, .ogg, or .wav. Fonts must use the .font file format. When StepMania looks to load a font element (graphic, sound, font), it first looks in the current theme folder for the element. If that element cannot be found, it will fall back to using the element in the theme named "default". "default" is sort of a base theme and should not be modified. This system allows user-made themes to override as little or as many theme elements as they want. For example, you could create a theme that does nothing more than override the title menu logo. Such a theme would contain only one folder ("Graphics") and one file ("Graphics\title menu logo.png"). > What's in a .font file? Example: [Font] Texture=Score Numbers 7x2.png Widths=5,8,10,17,15,18,15,6,9,9,8,14,5,9 Characters=01234 :56789~. CapitalsOnly=0 DrawExtraPercent=0.1 Texure: File name of texture file. Must be in same directory as .font file. Font graphics can be generated by the program Bitmap Font Buider (http://www.lmnopc.com/bitmapfontbuilder/). Width: The width in pixels of the character in each frame of the texture. Characters are specified in a left-to-right, top-to-bottom ordering. Characters: The characters corresponding to each frame in the texture. Characters are specified in a left-to-right, top-to-bottom ordering. CapitalsOnly: 0=false, 1=true. Use "1" if this font implements only capital letters. DrawExtraPercent: A number between 0.0 and 1.0 specifying the maximum amount in percentage of the frame width that a character can hang over its width. Many italic fonts hang a actually a little bit wider than base of the characer because of skewing. For these types of font, the DrawExtraPercent should be > 0. This value takes some playing around with. ************************************************************ 20. How StepMania Loads Textures ************************************************************ > What are textures? "Texture" is simply another name for graphics file. The name "texture" is more common when taking about 3D graphics. This document uses "texture" and "graphic" interchangably. > What types of graphics can StepMania read: StepMania can use any of the following graphics formats as textures: png, gif, jpg, bmp, avi, mpg, mpeg. StepMania looks for textures on disk only by looking at file name minus the extension. For example, when StepMania wants to load the graphic "title menu logo", it will first look for "title menu logo.png", then "title menu logo.gif", ... then "title menu logo.mpeg". > How to you specify multiple frames in an animation? Simply add the string "(NxN)". Immediately before the "." that separates the main file name and the extension. For example, suppose there is a file called "title menu logo.png" that you would like to turn into an animation. Now, you create an graphic file with 9 frames of animation - 3 frames wide and 3 frames high. Name this file, "title menu logo 3x3.png", and stepmania will play the graphic as an animation with frames in the order left-to-right, top-to-bottom, with 0.20 seconds separating each frame. > What are .sprite files? .sprite files are a way to have even more precise control over how your graphics animate. Each sprite has multiple "states". For each state, you may specify: 1) What frame of the graphic to show, and 2) how long to show this state before moving to the next state. Let's look at an example .sprite file: [Sprite] Texture=dancer p1 8x4.png Frame0000=0 Delay0000=0.05 Frame0001=1 Delay0001=0.05 Frame0002=2 Texture is the name of the texure file to use. This must reside in the same directory as the .sprite file. If your texture has multiple frames, be sure to specify the dimensions in the file name using the convention described above. FrameNNNN is the index of the frame number to use for the first state of the animation. Frame may range between 0 and (total number of frames - 1). Frame indicies move left-to-right, top-to-bottom over the frames in an image. DelayNNNN is the time in seconds to show the state. > My graphics show ugly banding or look washed out. What can I do? You can use texture hints to have more precise control over how your graphics are storred on the graphics card. All are textures loaded by StepMania are 16-bits. The default the texture format is 4444 (4 bits for R,G,B, 4 bits for alpha), which can cause some banding artifacts or a washed-out look. You can change the texture format by adding "hints" to the file name. Hints: "no alpha" - This will force a 5650 texture format (5 bits for R, 6 for G, 5 for B, 0 for alpha). 5650 textures cannot have transparency, but have much better color fidelity. "1 alpha" - This will force a 5551 texture format. If your graphic has only "on or off" alpha (like a GIF file), use this hint for better color fidelity. "dither" - This will dither an image upon load. Dithering will reduce banding, but can cause transparency artifacts. Hints can be placed anywhere in the file name, but are usually placed at the end of a file name in parenthesis. For example: caution (dither, no alpha).png Arrows Left 1x4 (1 alpha).png > Why do the graphics look so blurry? Some 3D graphics cards (the Voodoo3 in particular) cannot handles textures > 256x256. If a texture is larger than the card's maximum texture size, the image will scaled down internally. Since the card is using a low-resolution version internally, the output, when scalled back to the original image size, will be blurry. Whenever possible: * Keep your images to dimensions smaller or equal to 256x256. * Make your images have an even number for each dimension (e.g. 286x120 is will appear less blurry than 285x119). The reason behind this has to do with how 3D accelerators represent screen coordinates with floating point numbers, not integers. ************************************************************ 21. Building StepMania from CVS source ************************************************************ CVS is the repository that manages the StepMania source code. Our CVS server is graciously provided by SourceForge. You can get the absolute-latest bleeding edge updates to StepMania by taking the source from CVS. Below are instructions on how to configure your computer to download source code from CVS and complile the source into a working executable. If you do not have a basic understanding of how to build a program using Visual C++, then you probably should not attempt to build StepMania. * Step 1: Install and configure Visual C++ The StepMania source can currently be built with Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 or Visual C++ .Net. Installing Visual C++ or Visual Studio with all the default options is sufficient. * Step 2: Install the Direct X 8.1 SDK The DirectX 8.1 SDK is a free (but large) download from Microsoft: http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/?url=/downloads/sample.asp?url=/MSDN-FILES/ 027/001/771/msdncompositedoc.xml&frame=true. Install it using all the default settings. The SDK installer will configure Visual C++ with the correct paths needed to find the DirectX 8.1 libraries and headers. * Step 3: Create a SourceForge account In order to commit changes to CVS, you'll have to have a SourceForge account. Create an account at www.sourceforge.net, then e-mail Chris (chris@videogamers.com) with your username so he can add you to the project. * Step 4: Install WinCVS A CVS client is required to "checkout" the course from the CVS server. Download version 1.2 of WinCVS here - http://www.cvsgui.org (or http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=10072) IMPORTANT: Now, open and close WinCVS once. This will cause WinCVS to create registry entries, which is required for the next step... * Step 5: Use SourceForge Setup to install SSH and configure WinCVS A small utility called SourceForge Setup will greatly simplify the steps needed to configure SSH and WinCVS. Download SourceForge Setup from http://sfsetup.sourceforge.net/. Use the following settings when prompted by SF Setup: - Unpack SSH directory: c:\ssh - SSH install direcotory: c:\ssh - Your home directory: c:\ssh - Your SourceForge user name: -yourusername- - Name of the project: stepmania - The directory where you will be keeping checked out project sources: c:\stepmania IMPORTANT: If you are using Windows 2000 or Windows XP SourceForge Setup will not correctly write changes to the c:\autoexec.bat file. Verify that the following lines are present after you run SF Setup: rem SourceForge setup stuff SET PATH=%PATH%;c:\ssh SET HOME=c:\ssh IMPORTANT: You must restart after running SF Setup so that the new environment variables take effect. * Step 6: Enable SSH access to the cvs machine Before you can use your account, you must run the following (substituting your username and projectname as appropriate) before attempting to use CVS from a new user account. Open a command prompt, and type: ssh -l username cvs.stepmania.sourceforge.net Enter your password, and you'll get a message about how you're not supposed to be there and the connection will drop. What they don't tell you is that this creates your home directory and is required for things to start working. * Step 7: "Checkout" the source code - Open up WinCVS again. - In the right pane, you should see the folder "stepmania". - Right click on that folder and choose "Checkout module...". For the module name enter "stepmania". - Click OK. - If a "chose your home directory" window appears, select "c:\stepmania". - A minimized console window should appear. Unminimize it, type in your SourceForge password, and press Enter. - The source code should begin downloading. This can take a long time depending on your connection speed. * Done! Enjoy staying on the bleeding edge of StepMania releases!  ************************************************************ 22. Thanks ************************************************************ Thanks to: redcrusher for help on ez2 graphics Dj Slash & Tony Thai for the caution graphic Kyle "KeeL" Ward for his awesome menu music (www.ampcast.com/keel) ************************************************************ End of document ************************************************************