iminashi

In official content, if any of the notes in the chord have linkNext, the chord itself has linkNext. Cases where only some of the notes in the chord have linkNext aren't that common, but I can find no exceptions (there are no chords with linkNext=0 that have chordNotes with linkNext=1).

Here are some XML examples:

As for chordify, I'm not sure I understand how you're supposed to use it. I apply it on a chord and it makes a chord that has linkNext, but doesn't have any chordNotes, which makes the game crash...

A while back I ran into a bug in the Toolkit's linknext handling. I've rewritten the part to fix the bug, but  I think a change should be made in EOF before I commit it.

Cases like these

should be exported in the same way:

<chord time="20.998" chordId="2" linkNext="1" >
   <chordNote time="20.998" string="1" fret="5" sustain="0.500" linkNext="1" leftHand="1" />
   <chordNote time="20.998" string="2" fret="7" leftHand="3" />
   <chordNote time="20.998" string="3" fret="7" leftHand="4" />
</chord>

I.e. linknext on the chord itself and only on the note(s) that should have it.

While doing some tests, I also came across some obscure cases where things aren't working as expected.

Here the second chord, with the slide out, doesn't get split into notes automatically.

In this case the first chord is split into notes while it shouldn't be.

Not related to linknext, but if you import a RS XML that has something like this in it into EOF, the sustain of the single note will be cut short (stops at the first chord).

Ubisoft's character substitution for the sortable fields is pretty inconsistent.

&:

I don't think the substitutions matter much, except for some artist names, if one wants them to be sorted together with ODLC (e.g. "B.B. King" is sorted as "BB King").

All the characters (except for ★ and ➨) from the lyrics font texture can be used in artist name and title.

@@raynebc The font texture used for lyrics can be easily found in the game files, but it's not the same font used for the artist/title fields.

I agree with Billkwando that when it comes to tilde, it has been tested enough to prove that it doesn't cause problems.

As for other characters in the artist/title/album names breaking the game, until someone demonstrates a case where that happens, I remain skeptical.  :)

Added a new section about crowd events (9.).

I would guess that it happens because DDC moves the END phrase to the first beat of a bar.

Chords and linknext are a bit of a special case, I guess. In official content, chords that have any chordnotes with linknext always have linknext too.

Besides, the current implementation in the toolkit only checks if the chord itself has linknext.

http://i.imgur.com/lh3yRhk.png

This is not exported into the XML properly.

<chord time="16.998" chordId="3" >
  <chordNote time="16.998" string="1" fret="5" sustain="1.000" linkNext="1" leftHand="1" />
  <chordNote time="16.998" string="2" fret="7" leftHand="3" />
  <chordNote time="16.998" string="3" fret="7" leftHand="4" />
</chord>

The chord should also have linkNext="1" instead of just the chordNote. 

@@raynebc That doesn't work. Chordnotes cannot have different sustains.

I can think of two ways to make it work:

1. The simple way

Since the problem is caused by how RS draws open notes into the anchor zone, you can simply remove the FHP changes from the slides:

http://i.imgur.com/HIBp5Iz.png

If the fingering uses the first finger, EOF will give a warning every time you save.

2. The hackish way

If you absolutely need to have the FHP changes (why?), it is possible to keep them. Remove the open D note(s) from the chords, then edit it back into the XML as a note 0.001 seconds before the first chord, and set the correct sustain (if you put it exactly on the chord it seems like the chord's linknext messes things up).

http://i.imgur.com/F4Xaqjz.png

EDIT: Or you could also try to do it in EOF:

http://i.imgur.com/r68oVo9.png

I'd go with the simple way.  :)

@@Alex360 Well, I haven't seen any other notes being used in the DLC that I have, and how quickly you can change the color isn't limited by the song bpm. For example, changing every 0.033 seconds (1/30s) works. ...That gives me an idea to see what it looks like when you make the color changes faster gradually.

@@Rockfirstlast There's no way to shut off all the lights, not that I know of anyhow. The closest thing would be beams off (note 42) and dark purple fog color (35).

The strobe effect can be achieved by simply changing between two colors very quickly. For example, in "Cold Company" there is a part where it switches between 28 (dark blue) and 35 (dark purple) about every 0.2 seconds. You'd preferably need an algorithm to generate it, otherwise you're in for some tedious copy-pasting/editing.  :P (I've thrown together such an algorithm in Ruby, but haven't tested what kind of crazy stuff you might achieve with it.)

Finally got around to doing a bit more substantial update.  :ph34r:

Added some stuff about FHPs (1.3) and chord fingerings (1.4).

Added links to illustrative animated gifs in 3.2.

Added a tip to 4.2 (High density repeats).

Might add something about showlights and crowd events later.

 

Did you notice an issue or a special behaviour in RS2014 due to this first beat position ?

 

Only the leading silence thing I mentioned. I don't think there are any other issues.

 

  About the first time position of a beat, I setted it like that because EOF generates the "0.000" beat by default. 

Not sure what you mean by that. EOF sets the startBeat and the first beat at the time where the beat map begins, not at 0.000.

It only matters if people want to use ODLC-like leading silence (10+ seconds of silence). I've tried it, but haven't noticed any merits in doing so myself. Anyway, Firekorn advises that people do that in his tutorial. And if you move the first beat from 10s to 0s, it will mean that about half of that silence will not be skipped like it is in ODLC.

 

 - New process to add measure 0 at time 0.000 when startBeat is greater than 0.000

What's the reason for this? Since in ODLC the first beat is at 10.000.

Also, I'd really prefer if DDC didn't move sections/phrases to the first beat of a measure. Having to create workarounds like 1/4 measures to get a section to start at the right place feels silly.

@PC Plum You could use my chordshapes file. That C chord is included.

http://customsforge.com/topic/35879-improved-chordshapesxml/

Don't know if this has been discussed before, but it is possible to make an arpeggio using a handshape and display the chord name by making a chord with one note:

http://i.imgur.com/jWLIAoO.jpg

What do you think of such a contraption? Looks a bit weird when you're not used to it.

The abridged XML for that's pretty simple:

    <chordTemplate chordName="A" displayName="A-nop" fret1="0" />
    <chordTemplate chordName="A" displayName="A" finger2="1" finger3="1" finger4="1" fret1="0" fret2="2" fret3="2" fret4="2" />

...

    <chord time="11.996" chordId="0">
        <chordNote time="11.996" string="1" fret="0" />
    </chord>

...

    <handShape chordId="1" startTime="11.996" endTime="15.246" />

Customs that are made with a really old version of the toolkit (v2.2 I think) also may not be affected. And if an arrangement doesn't have any chords, it won't be affected by the mastery bug regardless of the version of the toolkit used.

Updated with 16 more shapes.

Well, I took a peek into the game's executable and found this list:

I haven't tested that, but in ODLC E3, D3 and E13 are always uppercase and e0, e1, e2 are always lowercase.

Yeah, most likely leftover stuff that shouldn't be there.

@@Alex360

As a matter of fact, I did come across some events that only appear in DLC, not in any on-disc songs.

Here are the event codes:

sp

wedge_25
rwedge_25
wedge_50
rwedge_50
wedge_cutoff

pa_1:5
pa_2:5
pa_7:4
pa_1:7
pa_2:7
pa_18:7
pa_29:7
pa_6:9
pa_4:14

ct_17:3,10,17

del_3:start
del_3:end

My guess would be that they don't actually do anything.  :)