How To Make Your Song Playable In Stepmania

[Reone662]

I hope I don't piss off anyone with this but I thought that making guide how to make own songs playable on stepmania would be great idea for those people who hasn't make any stepfiles to stepmania and wants to make then playable on it. This is straight quote from Stepmania.com site and let's put it here too to make everyone's life easier. :P

Be sure to download the latest version of StepMania. The latest version of StepMania includes an application called StepMania Tools.


Launch StepMania tools from the Start Menu.

From the StepMania Tools main menu, choose "Create Song".

Select an MP3 that you'd like to use to create a new song.

Your new song is now created and waiting for you to add steps to it.

Important!
Your new song will not be playable in StepMania until you create at least one set of steps for it. Continue with the instructions below.

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Create steps for your new StepMania song

Launch StepMania and choose "Edit/Sync Songs"

In the group row, select "My Creations". This is the default song group for new songs you create using StepMania Tools.
In the song row, find your new song.
In the Action row, choose "Create with Blank" and press Enter. This will add blank steps to your song.

Now the Action row changes to "Edit Existing". Press Enter again to begin editing your steps.


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Sync the song
Before entering any steps, you need to enter syncronization information so that your steps will be in sync with the music. There are two values that need to be entered: the beat 0 offset and BPM.


To adjust the song file beat 0 offset:

* open the song in the editor
* Add one note at the very first beat of your song
* press F11/F12 to adjust the Beat 0 Offset value (shown in the right column of text).
* After adjusting the beat 0 offset, press 'P' to play back the song and make sure that your note at the beginning of the song is landing on the first beat of the music.

To adjust the song file BPM:

* open the song in the editor
* move to the first beat
* press F7/F8 and experiment until the BPM (red text) matches the actual music file.
* After adjusting the BPM, press 'P' to play back the song and test your sync changes.

Here's a good strategy when entering BPM information:

1. fill the 20 or so beats with simple quarter note arrows
2. play back the song starting at the first beat
3. make a small adjust the BPM at the first beat to try and make the arrows line up with the beat of the music
4. repeat 2-3 until the arrows are in sync with the music


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Edit steps for your new StepMania song
Add/remove steps: Press the number buttons 1-4 to toggle steps at the current beat.
Change the current beat: Press the Up/Down arrow keys to move to an earlier/later beat.
Show a list of functions and key mappings: Press F1 to access the help screen.
Save your steps: Press Escape to access the Edit Menu, then choose Save.
Exit the editor: Press Escape to access the Edit Menu, then choose Exit.

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Create a background and banner (optional)
See the Song Backgrounds page.

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All done

Now your song and steps will appear in the regular game modes. Play on!