Since people will mostly make simfiles to submit to FFR instead of making them public to other sites or trying to make them uber awesome, I'm just going to make this FAQ with FFR in mind.
The first thing an accomplished DWI maker needs, is an editor. You can use notepad, but that takes months of experience and only a master can make a great DWI in notepad. And it takes a long time of testing out your DWI over and over.
So since you're new, I bring you the stepmania editor.
This is a very flexable editor. It's tons better than the XStep one and if used right can make some awesome songs. The only flaw in the SM editor is that you can't place 48ths and 64ths, sometimes when you play a song at an odd point in the song it becomes offbeat for the portion you play it, and the recording feature is messed up. But other than that, it's great, and trust me, this is the best editor besides notepad, XStep has way more flaws.
You can get the stepmania editor at http://www.stepmania.com but be sure to download the newest version and not the 3.0 final!
So now, you need to set up the DWI file.
Make a .dwi file, and have .dwi set to always open in notepad.
Put this in as a basic template.
#TITLE:Your Title Here;
#ARTIST:Artist of the music here;
#BPM:BPM Here;
#GAP:0;
#SINGLE:MANIAC
ifficulty here:
;
Now, you're asking. How do I find out the bpm?
That is a question that has been plaguing my IMs I get ever since I started making simfiles.
For BPM, I recommend winbpm. Type that in google or something, there's tons of different versions.
What I do to find the bpm, is headbob to the song. I often get it right too.
As for what gap is, since you're making a simfile to submit to FFR, you will not have to worry about that. Chances are, your simfile will have all yellow arrows or all orange arrows, but that's fine. Just remember to go over it to find out if it should be yellow arrows or orange arrows.
So now that you have the DWI file, create a folder for the song, and put the DWI and mp3 in there. Put it in your SM group folder (example, I always put my songs in Stepmania>Songs>Arch0wl Originals) and load up SM. Go to the editor, and load up your song, now it's time to start making arrows!
Your arrows are assigned by numbers. This is NOT on your numpad.
1 = left
2 = down
3 = up
4 = right
And then you can change the notes from 1/4ths to 1/8ths to 1/12ths 1/16ths to 1/24ths to 1/32nds by moving the left and right arrow key.
Red = 1/4th
Blue = 1/8th
Purple = 1/12th
Yellow = 1/16th
Pink = 1/24th
Orange = 1/32nd
So just start placing arrows.
Since you're making a song for keyboards, try to make the arrows go exactly to the melody or instruments. That's how all the good keyboard songs are done.
So now you're ready to start making your own simfiles!
One big mistake though is to add a spin. This is basically up-right-down-left or any variant thereof. It's really annoying for most of the players because you have to double step, you can't spin on arrow keys.
And don't use freeze arrows/hold arrows! Synth will just have to remove these when you submit your file to FFR as FFR does not support freezes.
Also, although you can, do not use quadruple and triple note presses. FFR can't handle those correctly. I know I did them on holy night but that was a test.
The first thing an accomplished DWI maker needs, is an editor. You can use notepad, but that takes months of experience and only a master can make a great DWI in notepad. And it takes a long time of testing out your DWI over and over.
So since you're new, I bring you the stepmania editor.
This is a very flexable editor. It's tons better than the XStep one and if used right can make some awesome songs. The only flaw in the SM editor is that you can't place 48ths and 64ths, sometimes when you play a song at an odd point in the song it becomes offbeat for the portion you play it, and the recording feature is messed up. But other than that, it's great, and trust me, this is the best editor besides notepad, XStep has way more flaws.
You can get the stepmania editor at http://www.stepmania.com but be sure to download the newest version and not the 3.0 final!
So now, you need to set up the DWI file.
Make a .dwi file, and have .dwi set to always open in notepad.
Put this in as a basic template.
#TITLE:Your Title Here;
#ARTIST:Artist of the music here;
#BPM:BPM Here;
#GAP:0;
#SINGLE:MANIAC
ifficulty here:;
Now, you're asking. How do I find out the bpm?
That is a question that has been plaguing my IMs I get ever since I started making simfiles.
For BPM, I recommend winbpm. Type that in google or something, there's tons of different versions.
What I do to find the bpm, is headbob to the song. I often get it right too.
As for what gap is, since you're making a simfile to submit to FFR, you will not have to worry about that. Chances are, your simfile will have all yellow arrows or all orange arrows, but that's fine. Just remember to go over it to find out if it should be yellow arrows or orange arrows.
So now that you have the DWI file, create a folder for the song, and put the DWI and mp3 in there. Put it in your SM group folder (example, I always put my songs in Stepmania>Songs>Arch0wl Originals) and load up SM. Go to the editor, and load up your song, now it's time to start making arrows!
Your arrows are assigned by numbers. This is NOT on your numpad.
1 = left
2 = down
3 = up
4 = right
And then you can change the notes from 1/4ths to 1/8ths to 1/12ths 1/16ths to 1/24ths to 1/32nds by moving the left and right arrow key.
Red = 1/4th
Blue = 1/8th
Purple = 1/12th
Yellow = 1/16th
Pink = 1/24th
Orange = 1/32nd
So just start placing arrows.
Since you're making a song for keyboards, try to make the arrows go exactly to the melody or instruments. That's how all the good keyboard songs are done.
So now you're ready to start making your own simfiles!
One big mistake though is to add a spin. This is basically up-right-down-left or any variant thereof. It's really annoying for most of the players because you have to double step, you can't spin on arrow keys.
And don't use freeze arrows/hold arrows! Synth will just have to remove these when you submit your file to FFR as FFR does not support freezes.
Also, although you can, do not use quadruple and triple note presses. FFR can't handle those correctly. I know I did them on holy night but that was a test.
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