[SM5.0.12 - SM5.1 B1/2][WIP] Project Diva: Stepping Revision

(Click the logo to check the repo!)

Hello there! I think its about time to show a theme project I've been working since late July.

To explain how this theme came to existence: I was really interested on the Project Diva games quite recently and I played the PSP titles. The idea came to my head to make a theme of those titles. But that didn't go too far and became the classic version of Stepping Revision which you can still get here.

But then I stumbled upon Future Tone, and I was amazed. I couldn't resist making a theme like that. And I put a lot of time into this remake of the theme.

All graphics are made from the ground up, (And are available on the _SRC folder) and it is fun to do them.
I'm also doing my hardest to recreate the feeling of FT as close as I can, while still restricting myself on StepMania's limitations.

What ended up is, a Diva styled theme, that has its spin on it, and I'm happy how it's turning out.

Here's some screenshots of the theme so far. (I still need to complete things!)









The theme also includes some features, such as a dedicated character display, which replaces the In-Engine one, support for custom title cards, (Which use CDImages to work), random song play in menus, and some locations to choose from (for now).







(Miku's image in this screenshot is not present on the theme right now, as I need to finish the rest of the renders for the other choices in the Title Screen. You can still see them by going to Graphics/TitleMenu)

This looks awesome! If I am seeing this right it has a new engine for character stages like DDR? If so that would be great for DDR style themes to get almost the real experience for the dancers.

Yeah, it replaces the In-Engine one (literally) and recreates it while also allowing more things like different cameras, and BG stages and other items that you want to add or whatever you want. It does have its limitations like character stops, which can break a little if the player accelerates or slows the game via the debug buttons, but during normal play, this doesn't occur.

I documented it here: https://github.com/JoseVarelaP/PD-Stepping-Revision/wiki/Dedicated-Character-Display
And the file that does all of this is this one: https://github.com/JoseVarelaP/PD-Stepping-Revision/blob/master/BGAnimations/ScreenGameplay%20background.lua

Can you please post a video of the theme (along with the dancing characters)? I want to see the theme in full action

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Here's a video showing ScreenSelectMusic and some gameplay, alongside some dancing characters that i haven't finished yet.
(I wasn't able to record all the theme because I already had to go to uni, so maybe a longer video will be soon, but for now, this should be enough.)



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Ok so, new things.

- Locations are now automatically loaded.
- Safe check for locations in case the model file is not named correctly or formatted.
- Locations can have their custom cameras.


- Locations can now set if they can change the lighting setting.
(This will affect how the material filename will be)


Info about how to create a location and make it run on the theme and camera commands is available here:
https://github.com/JoseVarelaP/PD-Stepping-Revision/wiki/Locations

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Another Update - Sep 4 (9:40pm)

- A bunch of commands have been added for Locations
(All of them are optional, the location can still load without them)


- Character Rate Updater has been fixed and now works just like StepMania's updater.
- Lyric display BG has been fixed for widescreen displays

- Way more fixes on other screens and improvements

You mean we now have a theme for all of those Project Diva StepMania packages? Great!

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New stream of updates:

- Dedicated Character Display now supports Haste alongside Music Rate.
- Model Rate Updater now also stops on Delays.

- Remade Jukebox a bit.
(There is still work to be done to this specific screen, such as the song info.)


- Made a check to resize Baby-Lon to it's original size. (Suggested by Inori)
(Might still be the wrong size, please let me know if that's the case.)


I've also started to work on the character selection screen, and it's going quite fine. It's just a matter of fixing the scroller flow and making a 2 player variant.


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November 18, 2018
New features going on!

Diva Room
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I've been working on the Diva Room, that If you may remember from the Project Diva games, allows you to interact with the Vocaloids. Well, this is almost (for now) that same thing.



The room (right now) allows for individual character loading with unique locations for each. These are generated when a new character is not detected on its Locations file (which is on Save/SteppingRevision/RoomLocations.ini)

While in the Diva Room, pressing Left or Right lets you switch the camera presets. Pressing Enter will let you access the menu.
In here, you currently have 3 options.



When going to the Character Chooser, you can select the character and see in what place they're in.



For the Location Chooser, it will overwrite the location of the currently selected character, which is the one that is displayed on the Main Diva Room screen. This loads on the locations currently available on your Locations folder.

For more information as to how add more locations, check out this wiki article on how to create one.



The last option lets you set the current character in the Diva Room to be your Gameplay character, which will be used in the Dedicated Character Display and other Character powered screens that use it.

Experimental Light Fix
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This is a fix that attempts to fix a pesky bug that is on Models being loaded by Lua instead of the engine. When loading them, it does not bring any kind of shadow, Lua ActorFrames cannot do this on current StepMania versions. So, when making models appear without any kind of diffuse workaround, some appear to have no material or textures at all, and appear white.

This just because of the sensitivity they have when the shininess setting on the model is set to crazy values.

Almost all SM characters do this kind of thing, so what this fix attempts to do, is to darken the models in order to fix this issue. Note that not all models are made in this way, so some that depend on textures to make up the shadows will get mostly affected by applying this fix.



Testing?
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If you wish to try these new features, you'll have to check out the Diva-Room branch, as the work is being done outside of master, as the work will take to get it right, and I would really appreciate the feedback and suggestions that you may give on these features. I hope you enjoy using them.

DivaRoom branch: https://github.com/JoseVarelaP/PD-Stepping-Revision/tree/Diva-Room

That is all, stay cool.