A Little Help With Metrics / Lua?

I've been testing the DDR 3rd Mix theme that was posted HERE and I'm having a small problem, once I pick a song and the curtain / door closes, it stays there for what it feels like an eternity before the gameplay screen actually shows and the song starts. This screen is what I'm talking about:




The curtain stays closed for around 5 or 6 seconds. I would like to know if there is anything on the metrics.ini or any of the Lua animation files that I could tweak, in order to reduce it to 2 seconds. The reason why I'm asking here (instead of the original thread) is because I would like to learn how to do this "globally", since many other Stepmania 5 themes (like XX STARLiGHT) have this kind of long delay and it totally breaks immersion for me. At first, I thought it was just the way Stepmania 5 works, but I tried other themes, like Simply Love, and the transition there is almost instant, so I know it can be done, the question is how?

I tried messing with the values in ScreenSelectMusic out.lua, but that only made the logo and the disc to disappear faster. I also tried the same thing with default.lua and delay.lua from the _doorclose folder, and that made the curtain animation faster, but the delay is the same.

Also, if anyone knows how to display custom graphics on the jewel cases that represent the groups on this theme, that would be great.

Thank you in advance.

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Check metric's ScreenStageInformation (or whatever that screen is called)

Look for TimerSeconds and ForceTimer. You may add them yourself if they are missing and set the values you want. ForceTimer must be set to true.

If that theme have ScreenStageInformation out, you must move all table values inside to your ScreenStageInformation decorations' default.lua and delete that ScreenStageInformation out afterwards.

Thank you so much!!! That did the trick! The value was indeed too high (3.267), I changed it to .600 and it works and feels so much better and dynamic now, just like the arcade.

I don't want to bother you, but if you have the time, would you mind pointing me in the right direction about fixing the last issue I have with this theme? It's very simple: the song start behaviour is reversed, which causes another unnecessary delay. The gameplay screen starts with "READY!", but the song won't start actually playing until the "HereWeGo!" is on screen. It should be the other way around: the song should start as soon as "READY!" is on screen, and then the "HereWeGo!" message is supposed to pop up when the first arrow is about to appear (or a little bit before, depending on the song, but still). I've been searching everywhere on metrics.ini for this one but I can't find it, so I suspect it's Lua related.

Thank you again!

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After analyzing the metrics.ini from other themes, I finally figured it out!!!

Basically, what you need to do is include (or mod, if they already exist) these two lines in metrics.ini:
MinSecondsToStep=2
MinSecondsToMusic=0

With those values, the music starts as soon as you see the gameplay screen, as it always should (on DDR).

After razorblade's help (thank you so much!) and this fix, we went from this:



To this:



I'm pretty sure there might be other things that could be improved, but it feels amazing now. A HUGE improvement in my opinion.

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I feel like that long pause is where the original games would normally be playing the audience applause sound clip. But yeah, in Stepmania it doesn't make much sense to keep the pause if you aren't playing the audio.

I think WA might not be the best example since originally, indeed, it has a slight pause before the music starts. But I am sure it's not as long as it was happening on the theme with its original metrics. This is the arcade version:

[youtube]https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxMPaW7VilcU7WIpvwC3Vg_g-deDlw1tRx?si=C8wUlD6LSD3a7jH6[/youtube]
(Ah, bummer! It doesn't let me post the clip, but you can watch it HERE).

I swear most of the songs on DDR, especially on 3rd Mix, start immediately, though. As soon as the curtain opens. This behaviour is particularly noticeable on DDR MAX 2 or EXTREME when playing Oni Courses. As soon as one song is over, you are supposed to hear the next one immediately under the clapping and cheering. It's a nice and stressful feeling. xD

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If you have doubts or questions about any theme that is on this site, you should post your messages in the corresponding thread so that the author will take more care of them. That pause you make reference to is due to the reading of the cd while the song loads, I made it based on another video, that's why the time is different.

Ohhhh, I get it! Perhaps you based your theme on the Playstation version which, indeed, has a longer loading time compared to the arcade. Thank you for the clarification.

I swear I was going to, but I've seen people here getting a little defensive or annoyed when people resurrect very old threads, that's why I tried contacting you first, and then I made this thread. Besides, it wasn't just about your theme, since I've seen many other themes that have those delays and I wanted to learn how to fix all of them. I am sorry and thank you for your work.

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