____ __ /\ _`\ /\ \__ /'\_/`\ __ \ \,\L\_\ \ ,_\ __ _____ /\ \ __ ___ /\_\ __  \/_\__ \\ \ \/ /'__`\/\ '__`\ \ \__\ \ /'__`\ /' _ `\/\ \ /'__`\ /\ \L\ \ \ \_/\ __/\ \ \L\ \ \ \_/\ \/\ \L\.\_/\ \/\ \ \ \/\ \L\.\_ \ `\____\ \__\ \____\\ \ ,__/\ \_\\ \_\ \__/.\_\ \_\ \_\ \_\ \__/.\_\ \/_____/\/__/\/____/ \ \ \/ \/_/ \/_/\/__/\/_/\/_/\/_/\/_/\/__/\/_/ \ \_\ \/_/ __ __  /'__`\ /'__`\ /\_\L\ \ /\ \/\ \ \/_/_\_<_ \ \ \ \ \ /\ \L\ \__\ \ \_\ \ \ \____/\_\\ \____/ \/___/\/_/ \/___/ (c)2001-2003, 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 stepmania300.exe to a known location on your hard drive, then double-click the file icon to begin the installation. The installer may prompt you to 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: * F1 = insert coin for player 1 * F2 = insert coin for player 2 * 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 any attract screen: * Left or Right = next attract screen * F3 = toggle CoinMode In title menu: * Escape = return to attract sequence 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 In editor: * Escape = menu * Up/Down = prev/next line * Left/Right = change snap * 1 through 0 = add/remove note * 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) ************************************************************ 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 there is exactly one movie in the song folder, StepMania will insert a background change to that movie at the moment the music starts. ************************************************************ 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 StepMania now natively supports USB Pump It Up pads. ************************************************************ 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. * Will you tell me when the next version will be released? Nope, 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 Exporter (smpackage.exe) can create packages of your song, announcers, themes, or other add-ons. Simply launch the Package Exporter (Start Menu->Programs->StepMania->Package Exporter), click the items you would like to make into a package, then click the one of the Export buttons. "Export as One" will take all of the selected items and make one package that contains them all. "Export Individual" will create one separate package for each selected item in the list. ************************************************************ 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. For a list of StepMania message boards, see the 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: * Escape = menu * Up/Down = prev/next line * Left/Right = change snap * 1 through 0 = add/remove note * 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 syntax of a .SM is similar to .DWI and .KSF except that some tags are different. (Note that StepMania can load images can be in png, gif, jpg, or bmp format, and can load sounds in ogg, mp3, or wav format.) #TITLE:...; - The "main title" of the song. (Support for UTF-8 foreign characters coming soon) #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. #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. #MUSIC:...; - The file name of the music file. e.g. "b4u.mp3". This image must reside in the song folder. #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. "16.00". 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 a new background named 'bg name'. 'beat' is a fractional value value and 'bg name' is a string. Different bg changes are separated by commas. e.g. "60=falling,80=flower". When StepMania looks for a backgound, it searches in this order: - Looks for a movie with file name = "bg name" in the song folder. You must include the file extension in "bg name". e.g. "60=falling.avi,80=flower.mpg". - Looks for a BGAnimation folder with the name "bg name" in the song folder. - Looks for a movie with file name "bg name" in the RandomMovies folder. You must include the file extension in "bg name". e.g. "60=falling.avi,80=flower.mpg". - Looks for a BGAnimation with file name "bg name" in the BGAnimations folder. - Looks for a Visualization with the file name "bg name" in the Visualizations folder. For example, suppose you have a song B4U and special B4U-specific BGAnimations called "robot" and "electric". First, move the robot and electric BGAnimation folders into the B4U song folder (e.g. Songs\4th Mix\B4U\robot and Songs\4th Mix\B4U\electric). Then, using the editor, insert a new background change at each point in the song where you to switch to a new BGAnimation. When prompted for the name of the background change, you could type either "robot" or "electric". Each pattern of notes has 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", "pump-couple", "ez2-single", "ez2-double", "ez2-real", "para-single" 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", "Challenge", "SManaic" 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 pump-couple = 10 notes/row ez2-single = 5 notes/row ez2-double = 10 notes/row ez2-real = 7 notes/row para-single = 5 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. The default background mode can be set in the Graphic Options menu. BGAnimations - Sprite animations similar to DDR 1st-5th Mix. There must be BGAnimation folders present in the BGAnimations directory, or else no background will be played. See the section called "BGAnimations Format" in this document 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 choppiness 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 . Layer files can be PNG, AVI, or MPEG files. 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 layers of a BGAnimation are drawn from bottom in the order in which the layer graphics files appear alphanumerically. A layer file name will often begin with a number to control the order in which they are drawn. 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, blink mirror, left, right, shuffle, supershuffle 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" and placing them in the song group folder (e.g. Songs\MAX2\extra1.crs). When it comes time to play an extra stage the first song in the .crs file will be used. Don't forget to specify modifiers - see the "CRS File Format" section of this document 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". Add as many .WAV, .MP3, or .OGG sounds as you want to the 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. For a complete list of announcer trigger names, see the example announcer packs that are available at www.stepmania.com. ************************************************************ 18. Creating a Note Skin ************************************************************ Note skins allow you to customize the way notes appear. Note skins must reside in the folder "NoteSkins\\". 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 (2x1).png tap parts (2xN).png tap explosion bright (NxN).png tap explosion dim (NxN).png note color part (NxN).png note gray part (NxN).png hold parts (4x2).png hold explosion (NxN).png 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. Most of the note skin elements can use any number of frames. For example, the element "tap exposion bright" could have 4 frames (2x2), 2 frames (1x2), or just a single frame. The exception to this rule is "tap parts" which must be 2 frames wide, and hold parts which must be 4x2. For more information on about textures with multiple frames, see the section "How StepMania Loads Textures" in this document. ************************************************************ 19. Creating a Theme ************************************************************ All themes must reside in the Themes folder below the StepMania program directory. Inside a theme folder, you will all or only a few of the items below: Themes\\BGAnimations\ Themes\\Fonts\ Themes\\Graphics\ Themes\\Numbers\ Themes\\Sounds\ Themes\\metrics.ini\ The 5 possible folders in a theme hold "theme elements". A theme element is simply a little piece of the theme that can be changed. Each of the 5 folders contains different types of information as explained below: BGAnimations: This folder contains BGAnimation elements for the different screens. Since all backgrounds for all the menus in the game are generated using BGAnimations, any screen in the game can have an animating background. Also, BGAnimations can contain movie layers. For more information about BGAnimations, see the section "BGAnimations Format" in this document. Fonts: This folder contains graphics and font width data used by the font system. Font graphics and width files are generated using the program "Bitmap Font Builder", which is available for download at http://www.lmnopc.com/bitmapfontbuilder/. To export a font for use in StepMania: - In Bitmap Font Builder, choose Character Set->Full ASCII. StepMania can only load 16x16 character sheets. - In Bitmap Font Builder, click File->Save 32bit TGA. Save the file some place that is easy to access. - Open Photoshop and load the TGA file. Click the chanel "Alpha 1", then load this channel as a selection. - Click back to the Layers tab and create a new layer. - Choose Edit->Fill, and fill the selection with white. - Delete the layer named "Background". You should now see a mostly transparent background with faint hints of white text. - Click File->Save For Web. Choose the Format "PNG-24" and Save. - Rename the PNG file you just saved to " 16x16.png". (the "16x16" means that the graphic contains 16 * 16 frames worth of characters. - Back in Bitmap Font Builder, click File-> "Save Font Widths (INI Format)". Save this in the same directory where you saved the PNG. Rename the exported INI file to " 16x16.ini" where the first part of the file name matches the PNG you exported. - Done! The PNG and the INI file are your new font. Move them into your theme's Fonts folder. StepMania will also look for the following optional lines in a font INI file: CapitalsOnly=<0|1>: If 1, then StepMania will use the capital letter frames in place of the lower case letter frames. If not specified, StepMania will use 0 for this value. DrawExtraPixelsLeft=<0..32>: If letters of your font are being chopped off on the left size, try increasing this value. If not specified, StepMania will use 0 for this value. DrawExtraPixelsRight=<0..32>: If letters of your font are being chopped off on the right size, try increasing this value. If not specified, StepMania will use 0 for this value. AddToAllWidths=<0..32>: The value in this line will be added to the width of every character in the font. Increase this value to increase character spacing in your font. This feature is also useful if you wish to add a black border the characters of your font. If not specified, StepMania will use 0 for this value. ScaleAllWidthsBy=<0.0...2.0>: The width of every character in the font be multipled by this value. If not specified, StepMania will use 1 for this value. LineSpacing=<0..64>: This controls the spacing in pixels between lines of text. This value is only used in text items that have multiple lines. If not specified, StepMania will use the height of the frames in your texture (which is 32 pixels for 512x512 graphics). Top=<0..63>: This indicates the top of a typical capital letter, from the top of the frame. If not specified, this will be derived from LineSpacing. Baseline=<0..63>: This indicates the baseline of the font, from the top of the frame. If not specified, the baseline is derived from LineSpacing. Graphics: This folder contains graphics used in all of the screens. These graphics are the meat and potatoes of a theme. These graphics can be of any dimension. For example, your theme could have a "title menu logo dance.png" graphic that is 640x480 - which would take up the whole screen! Numbers: This folder contains graphics used to render numbers. Every graphic in this folder must be 5 frames by 3 frames (5x3) and follow the standard layout (see the Numbers graphics in the theme named "default" for examples). Sounds: This folder contains sounds. Sounds may be in OGG, MP3, or WAV format. metrics.ini: A metric is simply a values that can alter the appearance of the game. metrics.ini is a large list of values that will allow you to alter things like the position of elements in the menus, and the order of menu screens. There is no documentation or explaination of these values other than the value name. Because the theme "default" implements all possible theme elements and metrics, the metrics file "Themes\default\metrics.ini" contains a complete list of all possible metrics. DO NOT EDIT the file "Themes\default\metrics.ini". Instead, create a blank file "metrics.ini" in your theme folder, and override only those values you want to customize for your theme using default's metrics.ini to see what values are possible. When StepMania looks to load a theme element from one of these folders, it will first look in the folder of the currently selected theme. If the element is not found in this folder, StepMania then look for the theme element in the theme folder called "default". The theme "default" is a base theme and guaranteed that a theme is usable even if it is missing elements. This "fallback" system has other advantages too. User-created themes, can override as many or as few theme elements as the author pleases. For example, you could create a theme called "MySuperTheme" which does nothing more than override the title menu logo. Here's how you would create this theme: - Create a new folder in "Themes" called "MySuperTheme" - Open the MyStepMania folder. Create a folder inside called "Graphics". - Copy the file "Themes\default\Graphics\title menu logo dance.png" into your Graphics folder "Themes\MySuperTheme\Graphics". - Edit your new title menu graphic to be whatever you want. - Start StepMania, go to Appearance Options, and change your theme to "MySuperTheme". ************************************************************ 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. * How to you specify that a texture has multiple frames (for 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 1x3.png Frame0000=0 Delay0000=0.05 Frame0001=1 Delay0001=0.05 Frame0002=2 Delay0002=0.05 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? StepMania will soon dither all textures by defaul, thus making the current texture hint system obsolte. * Why do the graphics look so blurry? Some 3D graphics cards (the Voodoo3 in particular) do not support textures greater in size than 256x256. If a texture is larger than the card's maximum texture size, the image will scaled down internally resulting in output that looks blurry. Here are some hints for optimum image quality: - 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). ************************************************************ 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!  * Optional: Create the SSH keypair for painless access to CVS server via SSH. Open a command prompt and enter this to create a new key pair: ssh-keygen -C -f identity is an identifier placed in the public key. I used my email address. Just press enter when it asks you for a passphrase. You don't want a passphrase. BTW, without the -C option the program will fail and you won't get a new key pair. I couldn't use any other ssh-keygen utility except for this one. Any other (SecureCRT, or the linux server) and ssh.exe wouldn't read it. Next, on your user account page at SourceForge, you should find a box to enter your SSH public key. Copy the entire contents of the identity.pub file (located in your .ssh directory) into the text entry box on the page -- be sure not to add any line breaks or it will not work. After a 6 hour wait, you should be able to use CVS with SSH without using your password. (Meanwhile) Create a new file called ssh.bat in your WinCVS directory with notepad (or whatever editor) and dump these contents into it: @echo off rem echo %0 %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9 > debug.txt ssh.exe -C -l %3 -i c:\ssh\.ssh\identity %1 %4 Edit paths as appropriate. Use of the .bat file is mainly for the ability to manipulate the command line that ssh gets. These options aren't in WinCVS yet. On the Ports tab of WinCvs preferences, select 'Check for an alternate RSH name' and put "ssh.bat" into the editbox. WinCVS will create a new console window in your taskbar when running ssh.bat, but you won't ever see any output as it's redirected. ************************************************************ 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 ************************************************************