StepMania Help Thread

I'll start it off.
Hi, I have been trying to figure out how to make songs and put them on StepMania for a long time, but it is very confusing. Is there a fast way to do this because I have many simfile ideas that I have been wanting to share?

If you're using fossilSM 3.9:
Go into the program folder and double-click smpackage, from there you can pick a song and it'll make a folder for you with the song in there, so you can start making your own charts for it.

If you're using SM5:
Inside the Songs folder, make sure you have a subfolder as a category, then make a subfolder inside that one with the title of your song, and make sure the song is in there. Or, in easier terms:
Songs-->Category folder (Ex. My Creations)--->Your Song Folder (Ex. Butterfly)--->The actual song, plus the.sm file after you start making your own steps.

Once you know how everything works, it's pretty simple.

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And one more question: how do I get the bpm of the song?

For most songs, you can use http://www.all8.com/tools/bpm.htm to tap out the bpm. If you have good rhythm, you can usually find the bpm pretty easily.

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^The hardest part IMO is determining the offset for the song. There is no simple way to do it, especially when it is the recording that sucks that may cause the song to drift off a BPM.

I remember when I was doing a full length www.blonde girl track and the music became offsync after about 40 measures and it wasn't because of the BPM or offset but just because the track was poor quality [download off youtube]. Luckily I found a better quality track to make it work.

So that is something to keep in mind too.

Thank you very much xXMokou98Xx and I will keep the offset in mind. How do I make a banner for it? If it's hard to do then never mind.

Banners are typically 256x80 or 512x160 for DDR, 418x164 for ITG, both work fine for stepmania.
Just like with backgrounds, you wanna make sure the text in the banner is clear and visible, choose colors for the text that go well with the background. It's actually a pretty simple process, only gets complicated if you go all out and make really outstanding graphics that require more time to create.

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Do I use a program to get a banner or get a picture from the internet?

You could make your own with an art program (though that would be pretty time consuming and would require a lot of skill), or just take a picture from the internet and go into whatever image editing program you may have (I dont recommend MS paint by any means, so if you have better programs then use those) and then get creative. Edit the background colors, add effects, make the text look nice, whatever you think will make your graphics look good.

If you have GIMP, Photoshop, those tend to be the best programs for making graphics.

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Welcome to the StepMania Help With Everything Thread.

Simfile work takes quite a time, I've never actually finished one, but when I was trying to create one man oh man, the time it spent to even create the Expert chart was quite long, granted it WAS my first time creating a simfile, so naturally it took me a while to get used to the keys and such that make the magic happen. That was probably Step 1 out of 5 for completing a simfile!

There are places online that offer free classes and tutorials on Photoshop, GIMP, and other computer-based art programs, hell Youtube is chock-full of them, with even better instructions than a stagnant page. If you wanna be hardcore, you can buy some books on how to utilize all the available tools the program offers as well as giving you tutorials to follow based on the chapter you're in (or sometimes it might just let you be creative and allow you to do your own spin on it, those books are always fun).

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On the subject of syncing songs, I tend to use mute's guide. Obviously you don't have to sync to -0.012 if you aren't gonna be playing it on an ITG machine (I think generally syncing to a GO of 0.000 is a good idea, but I don't know how many people actually do that here).

Just be warned that muddy audio files will be more difficult to sync to (try to get the best quality version you can on that note; I don't ever recommend ripping from youtube as "high quality" ever)

Finding the offset is actually pretty easy, BPMs can be a little harder, especially if the file drifts (what's up DJ Sharpnel).

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^LOL buy books.

Even if you want to be legit, you could go to your local library or sit in a book store and read up on it while on your laptop. You ever walk into a Barnes and Nobles with a café/Starbucks adjoined to it within the store and that is what some of the people are doing on their laptops.

Bump: Sorry about being a burden if I am.

I created my first two simfiles and I am trying to put a banner and bg in them. When I do it, nothing happens. What am I doing wrong? (I already converted them into PNG)

in the simfile, make sure that everything is labeled correctly

ex:

#TITLE:Song;
#SUBTITLE:;
#ARTIST:Artist;
#TITLETRANSLIT:;
#SUBTITLETRANSLIT:;
#ARTISTTRANSLIT:;
#GENRE:;
#CREDIT:;
#BANNER:Song-bn.png;
#BACKGROUND:Song-bg.png;
#LYRICSPATH:;
#CDTITLE:;
#MUSIC:Song.mp3;

for banner and background, it does not have to have the -bn/-bg, but it must be the same as the name of the graphic file.

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And you have to reload file in stepmania. Either do it from step editor or from main menu.

Might need to delete the cache too since that can prevent new gfx from showing.

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Uhm, does anybody know how to install Stepmania in Ubuntu 12.04?

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