(Note: Please judge the Challenge chart!)

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 Re-sublimity / KOTOKO
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  Stepped by Xythar for TGL Simfile Tournament (Long Version)

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 Quick Details
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   Song Title: Re-sublimity
  Song Artist: KOTOKO
  Song Length: 3:38
   Song Genre: Trance Pop
        Album: Re-sublimity(single/2004) & Glass no Nabikaze(2005)

     Steps By: Xythar
  Graphics By: Xythar (source photo by coralsea)

 Author Email: gmmazz@hotmail.com
Other Entries: Gotta Get My Groove On (TM5)
               Collision Chaos (OSC3)
               Born To Be Bone (TM6)
               Taratta Dance (Cheesemix 2)
               Mei (OSC4)
               Snail (World Tour)
               Shake It Down (OSC5 DDR Division)
               Gradation (OSC5 ITG Division)
               Vairocana (OSC5 KB Division)
               Momoiro Kataomoi (Cheesemix 3)

Readme Format: Now I'm no longer centering headings in consideration of people who don't necessarily open Notepad in a maximised window. That being said, in order for this to display properly, you'll need to have word wrap on, considering I can't put in line breaks myself since I have no idea what size your window is.
 
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 Introduction
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As well as the somewhat-acquired-taste M.A.G.I.C speed ball, I wanted to have something with a little more mass appeal. So you get Re-sublimity by KOTOKO, a cool trance pop song with some good potential for both easier and harder steps. I believe this was released as a single (which is where the video is from), and then on an album, and I think it was also used as the opening theme for an anime, but I don't really remember or care which. This isn't an anime file. :P

There's no BPM tricks or anything in this. I saved that for my other entry.

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 Steps
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This song took quite a long time to step! :)

 BEGINNER:  1 foot, 216 steps, 216 combo, 0 freezes
    LIGHT:  3 feet, 339 steps, 360 combo, 25 freezes
 STANDARD:  6 feet, 576 steps, 602 combo, 25 freezes
    HEAVY:  8 feet, 716 steps, 749 combo, 22 freezes
CHALLENGE: 10 feet, 1208 steps, 1254 combo, 0 freezes

(All the difficulties have quite a high number of steps due to the length of the song, although I didn't really take that into account when rating them since DDR generally doesn't, e.g. Hot Limit)

Beginner is beginner. Steps generally either on each measure or each second beat, depending. Rated 1 foot due to BPM.

Light is fairly easy (most steps are still on each second beat, but it breaks into quarter step streams on occasion), just long. It's definitely just 3 foot material.

Standard works pretty well, I think. Base is quarter steps this time, but with frequent 8th streams thrown in there where they fit. 8ths are as dense as they get, and the streams aren't particularly long or difficult, so 6 feet is appropriate here.

Heavy is pretty good too, I think, although ultimately it wasn't my judged chart because it'd probably be boring for keyboarders. It uses 8th streams similar to standard but makes them longer and throws in some chaos to match the music more closely, although never anything denser than the occasional 16th gallop. There is also some usage of freezes and jumps, much like the previous charts. I rated it an 8, although in retrospect it's a fairly easy one.

Challenge is the big one. It's similar to one of the many 130-something BPM songs in ITG that are 10s on expert - lots of 16th runs all the way through that go to elements in the music. It's probably unbelievably tiring on feet, but completely paddable and since the song is 135 bpm I didn't feel the 16ths were fast enough to warrant an 11 (although it's really right on the borderline). But yeah, stamina-draining as hell. I've specified this as my judged chart because I feel it's also quite good and should give the keyboard judges a bit more entertainment than heavy would. (I just hope nobody says 'the song didn't need to be this hard' or I'll get quite annoyed... >_>)

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 Graphics
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Fairly basic here. I wanted to make something that transitioned well into the video, so I made a background similar to the clouds you can see at the start by taking a photo by coralsea which is available here:

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/598385

I grayscaled it and added text in Photoshop CS2. The CD title is my name in this case because I didn't know what album this was from at the time and I figure the name probably wouldn't mean much anyway. I also put in a 'second background' taken from the last frame of the video so that Stepmania could transition to that at the end for a nice effect.

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 Other Info & End
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I got the video from some video site (I don't remember what it was), it took me quite a long time to find a good quality one (ie, not Youtube's). I cut the song in CoolEdit from its original length of 5 or 6 minutes down to a more appropriate length of 3:38 (normally my files are much shorter but this is the long version bracket...) and edited the video in VirtualDub to match. I also used VirtualDub to encode it... sorry about the filesize, but it is a long version video. Taking that into account, the size is pretty standard really.

Lyrics are from a site I can't find now :/ Well, they all have the same ones, really. I put them into an LRC file using timings from Stepmania's editor.

Thanks to Danir, Mazrim and Crono for testing, as well as to all the usual people and to TGL's staff for organising the contest.

See you later,
Xythar
