Tutorial:Simfile Making:Advanced Techniques

[Ntc2415]

Advanced Simfile Techniques

Intro:
Hi, I am Ntc2415, a.k.a. Ntc6992 (until my brother screwed up my account...not the point).
I have been making simfiles off and on for over a year, studying new tricks and tips in syncing and interesting
cool tricks. After looking around I found the need for someone to make this tutorial...the ideas are vaguely there
but noone bothered to explain. So here i am, going to explain this all to you. If i miss anything you want just ask..
or if you know anything, feel free to post an additional tip below...

Contents(hint:This list goes from easier to harder techniques)
I.Hidden and lift Arrows
II.Stops and BPM jumps(or bpm changes)
III.Negative BPMS
IV.Illusion stops
V.Negative Stops

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I.Hidden and Lift Arrows

Hidden notes:

I. How to add
PRetty simple, just use the right ctrl + [number 1-4(not numpad) for note]

II. Uses
Pretty much no uses, it can be used as a placeholder,
a reference point, or an easter egg in the song.
These hidden notes are well...hidden...If you hit them
they give you no points, no additional combo, or anything.

The only way to hit it is to be exactly marvelous timing
so, not knowing its there and hitting it perfectly on accident
will be a coincidence for the user giving the user a 2 second moment of WTF?!

Lift Notes:

I. How to add
Again simple, use Left Ctrl + [number 1-4(not numpad) for note]

II. Uses
This is a pretty cool one. This can be used as a
deadly mixture to screw the person over. The way to hit
this note is to start the note down then let go of the key
when the note reaches the target line, thus the name...lift note...
This is best used before an actual regular note , then causing the user
to have a spasm to hit the lift note then actually have to hit the note.
Its like having jacks that are off-timing and evil...muahaha...umm sorry..

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II.Stops and BPM jumps(or bpm changes)

Stops:

I. How to add
Use the keys F10 to add more milliseconds and F9 to reduce milliseconds

II. Uses
This is simple. You uses stops to make the song stop when the user
doesnt expect it, leaving the user baffled and off timed. Pretty simple,
the number of milliseconds is how long the chart stops for.

Tips:
To get accurate stops that doesnt mess with syncing,
you take your bpm, say 180 maybe..., and divide that by
60 seconds, thats 3... you know there are 3 beats per sec.
You know each measure is in 4/4, always which means theres 4
beats per measure you take 4 and divide that by 3
which gives you 4/3 seconds per measure. to get half a measure,
you divide by 2(to get 2/3), to get 3 measures, you multiply
that by 3(to get 4), BAM!

BPM Jumps(or bpm changes):

I. How to add
Use F8 to increase bpm and F7 to decrease bpm

II. Uses
If your song changes in rhythm(bpm), instead of painfully
making 32nd notes on the beat, just change the chart's bpm in the
middle to accompany the song.

Tips:
Use a song editor in combination with a bpm finder, edit out the part
with one bpm and find that bpm, then edit out the part that changes
,find that bpm, and blam! you got yourself the bpm.

To put the bpm change exactly on that beat, you find the song
listen to it and see the time when it changes. Then you take that
time and write it down. Get the first bpm, divide it by 60 secs to get
beats per second. Then you take 4( because there are 4 beats in a measure)
and divide it by the bps to get seconds / measure. Then you take the time and divide it by seconds per measure.Lets say
you got 52 seconds and the seconds per measure is 8 secs per measure.
Then you would have 52/8 which is also 6 and 1/2 which means you
go down 6 and a half measures and make your next bpm change.

_______________________________________________

III.Negative BPMS

I. How to add
You use the bpm change and you keep going down until it goes to
a negative number of your current bpm(current bpm:132 negative: -132)
Any desired amount later make it the postive value again.

II. Uses
You can use this as an easy way to make jumps similar to negative stops
but easier and not as pretty. What you do is if you make the bpm - 132 at
measure marker 1 and make it 132 at measure marker 2, then at measure
marker 3 i make it 32 bpm. What the program will do is
try and play the chart backwards, but it will end up skipping the measure 1 and 2. Whatever gap there is between the negative and the positive
bpm it will skip another gap that big after wards. Lets say i have bpm -132
at marker 1 and i have 132 halfway in the measure. This means it will
skip the first half, then the another half a measure afterwards.



Youre thinking... but why?!...

Alright so... the negative bpm wants it to go backwards but the
positive bpm acts as a mirror, instead of going backwards up wards
it reflects and goes backwards on the other side, resulting in a skip
across the chart.

Tips:
You can also combine stops at the beginning of negative bpm and
afterwards to create a trippy kind of flash effect, you get it just right and
it could screw over people big time. Just make sure not to change the bpm
too much if any, if you want to slow it down, i suggest dividing it by 2 instead,
of changing it to a random number.

_______________________________________________

IV.Illusion stops

I. How to add
Pretty much you goto your sm file and change the bpm of a section
to a ridiculous bpm(preferably a multiple of the actual bpm to keep in sync)
and you combine that with stops to create the illusion of negative stops
or jumps in the chart. This is the technique used in the beginning of
TsusurvivorgamusH. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD5BGqlryfM

II. Uses
This is used as an easier alternative to negative stops although
it can be easier to make mistakes, it requires less math and
SM editing skills. More of a guess and test sort of trial and error for
this one... it can get frustrating.



Tips:
I have no tips for this one, more like a go out and try it thing.

Well ok , maybe i do. If you wanna make sumthing look like its going
back wards you can use this... just use stops and make the position of the
farther away from the actual pattern each time giving
an effect of the chart moving backwards.

All negative stop effects can be achieved using this illusion
stop technique. The classic mines to notes, chart jumps, sudden chart changes, you name it.

The secs for stop really is up to you...just makes it shorter or longer...

in tsurvivorgamush it is .200 stops with 500000.300 bpm which achieves
a great affect that the mines are moving themselves into a chart.
Pretty cool.

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Warning: may cause frustration.

V.Negative Stops

I. How to add
No matter how hard you try. You cannot make stops negative
in the game. This must be achieved by editing the stops in the sm file.

II. Uses
I suggest editing this in wordpad or notepad. You can go along making your simfile marking off negative stops first with postive stops knowing that it will
skip by this formula (amount of measure skipped) = seconds/[4/(bpm/60)]

Explanation: There are always 4 beats per measure. then you get the
beats per second by dividing the beats per min by 60 secs. LEts say there is
5 bps. Since there is 5 beats per seconds and there are 4 beats per measure there is one measure in 4/5 seconds...Got it? Now you take that value to
come up with any amount of measure you want to skip. Say you want to skip
one measure.. you have -4/5 which is -.8 if you want to skip 1/2 of a measure
you multiply by 2 to get 1.6, etc.

From there you figure out your stepfile then add in postive stops where
you want your negative to be... to mark it... skip 1/2 measure or measure
or 2 and put the other steps.

Once that is finished, you goto your sm file for that song and change the stops
you change all the ones you want to be negative to be ...well negative.



Tips:
You can stack a bunch of negative stops to create cool effects, just experiment
around with it and find new ideas.

BE CREATIVE!

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I give you the basics and the rest is for you to experiment and discover...

That's it for now, if you want me to make more tutorials just post requests
or if i missed sumthing that you know just add to it below... or just ask questions and i can respond...

I atleast hope this helps sum1.

[JenovaSephiroth]

Decent guide, but you're pretty off with the explanation of why negative bpm's do what they do. I miss the really long essay I did about the theory behind it

[alexdestructions]

pretty much what jenova said, it's a pretty decent guide

[Nightfirecat]

Maybe some video examples would help on some of them? I get what's being said, but at the same, time, it's rather hard to visualize the negative BPMs and illusion stops.

[Ntc2415]

I couldnt find a good way to explain negative bpms... ill try and edit it...

[askl]

too much effort

[Patashu]

negative bpms are basically infinite bpm but all the notes it passes over are ignored completely

what's so hard to explain about it

[TC_Halogen]

No offense to OP, but let JenovaSephiroth tell you how everything works. No one will ever beat his negative BPM Vertex^3 hello world chart--ever.

EDIT: I read the negative BPM area...your method is absolutely terrible. There is an actual formula to the negative stops/negative BPMs.

[Dr Tran]

super advance stepman techniques:

color association

ULTRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa advance stepman techniques:

absolute color association



this is also a serious post

[Ntc2415]

Well.. Cant say i didnt try...

I just wanted to lay the basics and what i knew out there...

This forum lacked a tutorial for this so i posted this... hoping maybe itll
influence sum1 to make a better one...

Or if i feel like going into deep research in timing windows and stuff ..but thats
probably not going to happen...

Originally Posted by Dr Tran

super advance stepman techniques:

color association

ULTRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa advance stepman techniques:

absolute color association



this is also a serious post

lulz , you can tell i did put a little too much into this..i got wayyy too bored

Originally Posted by TC_Halogen

No offense to OP, but let JenovaSephiroth tell you how everything works. No one will ever beat his negative BPM Vertex^3 hello world chart--ever.

EDIT: I read the negative BPM area...your method is absolutely terrible. There is an actual formula to the negative stops/negative BPMs.

No offense taken...

well i explained the math behind negative stops but negative bpms are
pretty simple to figure out but hard to explain...

Originally Posted by Patashu

negative bpms are basically infinite bpm but all the notes it passes over are ignored completely

what's so hard to explain about it

Umm...no...Negative bpms will try and read the chart backwards if
you don't put a positive bpm afterwards... not really infinite...

EDIT: Really, i hoped everyone knew this already, what i was focused on was the math behind the negative stops
so that you dont have to guess around the number of seconds. Then I added stuff like techniques that are similar
to negative stops that are a little easier to use.

[Dr Tran]

Originally Posted by Ntc2415

lulz , you can tell i did put a little too much into this..i got wayyy too bored

as sarcastic as my post probably came off as it wasnt lol. im too lazy to make a tutorial on how to do that so you should.

also your tutorial is great for people that have no idea what -bpms or -stops are. as you can tell most everyone thats posted in this thread is well beyond just the basics and understands the mechanics of -bpms and stops so dont let what they say get you down because im sure people will be glad you made this

[Ntc2415]

I guess so.. maybe later ill go into even farther detail...i feel sad about the way i posted negative stops and negative bpms though...ill maybe look into it a bit more.. edit a bit until its picture perfect...

*cough*maybe Jenova would like to help *cough*

[Tolkmeister]

Thanks soooo much... I joined FFR last week i was looking for this everywhere...I understood this and it helped me. I've been looking for a way to put negative stops, I thought you needed to hack or something... This should be sticky'd imo.

They have nothing like this on bemanistyle or stepmania forums.

[TC_Halogen]

Originally Posted by Ntc2415

EDIT: Really, i hoped everyone knew this already, what i was focused on was the math behind the negative stops
so that you dont have to guess around the number of seconds. Then I added stuff like techniques that are similar
to negative stops that are a little easier to use.

Except the math behind your "theories" are off so you technically ARE guessing the amount of time that you need to space in between--so your techniques are nothing more than trial and error guesses.

The moment I seen where you said 132 and -32 BPMs in your example just showed me that you happened to find one instance where trial and error was correct.

EDIT: I also see that you are assuming the person is using 3.9+ (or 4.0 if the new [?] alpha) because of the use of lifts/hiddens.

[Ntc2415]

Now i know what i forgot to put... you should have 3.9+ ... (4.0 is crap in my opinion...)

Your explanation on how i failed really... well... failed...wanna quote the section you're saying
cause im a little clueless on what section you're talkin about...

besides if you look into the math... it's correct.. its up to you on how to use it...

If you have any bpm divide by 60, take that number and take 4 and divide by it you get secs per measure which is useful to know how many seconds a negative stop skips

[Dr Tran]

this reminds me i still need to make a ddream video tutorial ugh

[Ntc2415]

Hah.

[stargroup]

title misleading

gimmick techniques, not advanced simfile techniques

[TC_Halogen]

It'd be misleading without being specific. Saying Advanced Techniques would be inaccurate if it were for more in-depth PR/layering too.

Very obscure title.

[jimerax]

I don't think it's "advanced" either (and poll is lol), it looks a decent SM tutorial though.