StepMania AMX

If you speak Spanish I suggest you read the mxpumpers' thread instead.

-----
Description
-----
StepMania AMX (SMA) is a fork of StepMania Plus REDUX which focuses in improving the gameplay with features such as:

- Separate TimingData per chart (aka "Split Timing" aka Splits)
- Pump It Up's Holds (aka LongNotes), Stops (aka Delays) and Speed Changes
- Step Multiplier for Hit and Miss Tiers (multiplies Combo, Score and Lifebar values)
- Fake Areas to ignore blocks of steps (to use mostly with Negative BPMs)
- Editor focused in step making with shortcuts such as F3 to change TimingData

Some features are also intended for power users and theme makers:

- 100+ new preferences (via StepMania.ini), 300+ new theme metrics and some new noteskin metrics
- Numeric metrics can parse LUA Strings but can only deliver 1 or 0 (its the same basic LUA you can use with SM 3.9, nothing fancy)
- Also, you can use LUA in Commands using cond,lua_string,command_if_true example:
cond,GetSecond()>30,diffusealpha,0;cond,GetSecond()<=30,diffusealpha,1;
Potential issue: don't use LUA Strings with commas such as GetEnv("LookIHasAComma") == "o,o"

A lot of code has been optimized, some 3.9's and even redux's bugs have been fixed, unfortunately betas from 3.0 are kind of unstable, since I just added new features instead of fixing code, so the most stable version (with most new features) is 2.7

Since youtube blocked the gameplay video I use to promote SMA you can download it from here:

I'm open to feature requests and also feel free to send me bug reports (use http://pastie.org/ to copy/paste the crashinfo.txt in case of crashes please), just consider that I don't have enough knowlede of recent DDR versions since I have not been able to find a DDR in Mexico City (at least not a newer than Extreme), so please include gameplay videos, guides for dummies, any other helpful resource, etc. with your request.

-----
Download Links
-----
SMA 2.7 (Full Package, includes SMA, Test Songs and SMNX2 Theme):
http://aldo.mx/stepmania/SMA4-Beta2.7.rar

SMA 3.0 (Includes SMA and SMNX2 Theme):
http://aldo.mx/stepmania/SMA-Beta3.0.rar

Patch from 3.0 to 3.1:
http://aldo.mx/stepmania/SMA-Beta3.0-a-3.1.7z

-----
Instructions
-----
1a. Unpack to a new folder if its a new installation of SMA
1b. Unpack and replace in the same folder of SMA if you are patching

2. Run the desired .bat:

Patcher.default.bat.- Keeps REDUX behavior and enables new features
Patcher.pump.bat.- Use Pump It Up's specific behavior with legacy themes and enables new features
Patcher.redux.bat.- Keeps REDUX behavior, disables new features
Patcher.vanilla.bat.- Keeps Original 3.9 behavior, disables REDUX and SMA's features

NOTE: Not every new feature (such as the new editor) gets disabled even if using vanilla patcher

3. No step 3, just add some songs, themes, noteskins, etc. and open StepMania

-----
FAQ
-----
How do I edit BGChanges?
Press F3 in the editor and pick Background as the editor mode. Please be aware that the game uses two different TimingDatas at the same time, one for steps and one for song, the background uses the song's TimingData so if you have different timings it may lead to confusion the first times. Until I figure a more intuitive way to edit BGChanges, if you don't get used to this behavior I suggest you use another 3.9 based build to design background animations.

Where is paymode/Can I Haz SRC?
In an effort to help Andamiro to prevent piracy, pay mode has been completely removed and I have closed the source. I won't release a version with paymode in the future neither open source the game, so please retrain yourself from requesting it.
No matter if you cry, start a flamewar, make/upload funny photoshopped photos of me, bribe me with $65,535.00 USD, hack my server and upload my private videos to a pr0n site, etc. will make me accept to give you the source or a version with paymode enabled. Any request will be posted at http://bit.ly/HPrifa (mxpumpers.com's flamezone) so at least be creative.

Can I save a song as .SM instead of .SMA?
Not yet , its a planned feature, but until that day comes here is a workaround: Disable "Save timing in rows" in editor preferences and you will get a SMA with the same timing format as legacy SM's, so you can copy/paste the portions you need to a new .SM

Whoa, I have seen xxx feature of SMA in SM-SSC are you helping them?
Occasionally I share some of my achievements with the Spinal Shark Collective (SSC) in the way of concepts, ideas, portions of code, etc., so not everything I code is lost, SM5 is the future anyway

How often do you release updates?
There is not a fixed date for updates, usually I release them when a critical bug has been detected/fixed or I have coded something new.

IIRC Doubles is broken. Don't know if this was fixed.

The closed source is the thing I'm most annoyed at, since I wanted to take ideas from it (crediting Aldo), to see what can be implemented in OpenITG (I'm not interested in Pump, ever.)

Sorry if closing the source annoyed you, I didn't close the source because I wanted, but because I had to do it.

The month after I made my first release, I found 5 StepMania arcades in Mexico City using the engine with my tweaks, not because I was hunting them, but because they were in well-known places like "Metro Chilpancingo", even near my home I was able to find one of those pirated arcades. This was the reason I decided to remove pay mode and close the source at that moment, but I looked for alternatives to let the game be open sourced.

Unfortunately MIT License allows explicitly to sell the game and let others do it, so even if I wanted to take legal action against those people I couldn't do it. On the other side StepMania doesn't use the original MIT License, but an altered MIT license, which grants everything the original MIT License does, except for sublicensing the code. I also opened a petition to the copyright holders of SM 3.9 to let me sublicense the game under a non-commercial license. No luck tough :/ so closing the source is still the only option I have if I want to prevent people from selling it (at least as a pirated game).

Anyway, as I said when I opened the thread, I usually share concepts, ideas, portions of code, etc. with the SSC, so join us in #sm-ssc @ irc.badnik.net

i'm so sorry to hear that Aldo. that must he a differcult blow and i'm really really sorry Y_Y i hope things get better for you

I remember how sillybear's DDR X2 CS theme was picked up by two arcade chains, one of those who butchered classic DDR cabinets (2nd Mix, 3rd Mix, DSfTDK, 4th Mix) by plastering on an LCD screen in front where the monitor is seen, gutting the insides and replaced them with computers and placing an X2 AC marquee. They used sillybear's theme and marketed it as DDR X2 AC, even when there are no or loctest-era X2 AC songs.

It's hard when people or groups are making money on something which is made available free.

---

@Aldo: *sigh* too bad that I want to take ideas for OpenITG, and you're sharing them with SM5 =/

This is indeed really unfortunate, at least people from the pump communities I belong have stopped to recreate the current versions since we already learnt this stuff is the target of those people. Unfortunately, not every person understands this situation, and usually attacks us "for hiding the multimedia", or in my case for closing the source, but at the end is really funny how hard they have tried. The last one told us a story about giving the fiesta ex bgas as a birthday present to his 9 years old brother.

I'm not sharing everything with them, they usually reverse by themselves what I didn't share with them, its funny since most of my songs have gimmicks that required fixing the engine, and those gimmicks also break SM5 , like this one (video of what should have happened).

Anyway. I believe you wanted to add the "iWheel" to OpenITG, if I'm correct, the description in this video has how I achieved it (for those who can't read Spanish, MusicWheel::GetItemPosition() does everything you need). That wheel was an accident, not that I really wanted to code it, but besides the wheel update, basic lua conditions in commands and Moving/Settled/Section Change animations for SSM, I haven't done any heavy updates to the theming engine and most changes usually take a few minutes to implement them. My changes are mainly focused in improving gameplay, trying at first to replicate modern pump gimmicks, but then materializing my own ideas. Anyway, this is what the SSC have already reversed, which is already like 85% of what the latest version of SMA does:

http://code.google.com/p/sm-ssc/source/browse/src/NotesLoaderSMA.h
http://code.google.com/p/sm-ssc/source/browse/src/NotesLoaderSMA.cpp

In the end is not my goal to slow down SM5 adoption, but I'm one of those people who would love to see a metric-based theming engine in SM5 (something like Winamp 5, which has theming engines of both Winamp 2, and Winamp 3), but none of the devs are interested and considers adding support for SM3.9 theming cruft code.

What about the selected song preview to keep playing in Player/Song Options? Are you planning to fix it?

@razorblade: actually this was a StepMania bug that ended up being a feature, like negative bpms. When I find a way to bring the previews back (not by just disabling the fix to that bug) I will do it.

I'm sorry that you want to live in the past forever.

@AJ187: The SM5 dev team is not worthless, but neither is worthless the stuff created by the community in the last 8 years since the release of SM 3.9 final. I already said that even a "SM 3.9 emulator theme" would be possible to do with everything the all-mighty lua is capable of, without having to screw the actual codebase.

man OpenITG is way less active than SM5 from what I have seen, why still live in the past and try to make OpenITG PERFECT, why dont we just all get together and work on SM5

---

Because they are fucking dumb. Every single one who want to keep working on oITG and similiars.

oITG is amazing.

Wait a minutes you guys... StepMania 5 is open source, OpenITG is open source. Everything one of them has can be added to the other... right?

=\

Wan, please get the OpenITG project to adopt the SM5 engine for future releases (Among other things I really want the ITG PC themes on an arcade), k thanks

Not forever. SM5 does exist on my comp and I've taken a look at some of its features.

At least I'm not still sticking to SM3.9 like lots of people

AeronPeryton: I'd like to see maany of SM5 features in OpenITG but I know it's not going to happen. The natural way would see some of OpenITG features in SM5 xD
AeronPeryton: what? O.o

EDIT: I'd prefer the "why aren't you messing with SM5" talk to be in another thread to avoid hijacking this one.

Is StepMania AMX is compatible with Mac OS X?

trust me your better off with SM5 than AMX.