SM5.x Theme Ideas

Evening all. Just had an idea about possible new themes to consider if anyone was willing to try their hand at it. First off, I'm an old-head from DDR years and years ago (some may remember me from then), but I have no skills in the theme making department. So this is more of a round table, idea thread from some older/retro themes that can be reskinned and made anew.

The reason I'm thinking of this is because I've been using SM5.0.12 and the Starlight XX theme for the past 5+ yrs, and while it is fantastic, I realized I wanna switch it up. I'm not really a fan of the DDRA to DDR World themes, but I understand to be arcade accurate, this is what people have primarily focused on. But that's also a part of the idea I had that Starlight XX did so well -- it gave the option to use different songwheels in its theme.

As for the theme ideas, the ones I was thinking of were:
DDR Party Collection
DDR X2 (US PS2 version)
DDR SuperNOVA1 & 2
DDRMAX2
DDR EXTREME

As an example, it would be cool to have these themes in the jukebox songwheel, 5th to X songwheel, jacket songwheel (my personal favorite), or A to World style. I may be wrong, but maybe how Starlight XX pulled it off could make it "easier" by using it as a template for those who would consider trying to do these, but I've kinda missed these themes and would use them in their preferred style.

I think the newest Project Starlight for Outfox supports custom judgments, so while it's not an exact match you should be able to add all the missing backgrounds lifted from other themes to Starlight and I'm certain I've seen the judgment fonts made. You don't have the other aspects 100% correct but you can get the general feel of those themes.

---

I wasn't talking just about the judgment fonts, though I do know I could probably customize it that way since I've done it before (back in the SM3.9 days). But what I'm talking about is the overall themes themselves with customizable songwheel options done like Starlight.

As an example, I seem to remember like 10-15 years ago someone was working on a SuperNOVA theme for SM5 but updated it so the song select screen looked like DDR X2/X3 using jackets; but of course the overall theme colors, fonts, etc was SuperNOVA.

I guess that's what I'm getting at with this idea. Reviving older themes but with the option to change how the song select, results screen, etc look. (hopefully that's not too confusing...)

Yeah I get what you mean. Life bars, where the high scores are on the song select screen, stuff like that. That’s kinda what I meant, you still have those the way Project Starlight does it, but the newest one in beta lets you change judgment like Simply Love does from what I’ve seen. So it’s at least closer to what you’re looking for than twopointzero was, that’s all I was saying.

I think the theme you’re referring to is SuperNOVA 2 (DDR X2 Style). I used that for a while. It’s a nice looking theme.

---

It would be great if AI could be used to program Stepmania themes. I don't know how to do it, or even if such a thing exists. I understand the idea, but you might have compatibility issues.

do not use ai, use Use it in your idea. I try to look at the .luas of other themes, and some I don't know xd.

---

Use the Piotr's version instead if you implenent FLARE GAUGE LEVELs in your themes.

---