I'm just finishing my second CDLC.  Overall, I'm pretty happy with how things are working out - but so far I have used the DD Creator in the Rocksmith Custom Toolkit to produce Dynamic Difficulty.

 

With the bass part for the current song, this seems fine (it's not a very complicated part).  I'm not really satisfied with what the DDC produces for the guitar part though.  I can see roughly what the algorithm is doing and as an algorithmic approach that seems fine... but it's not the same as the order of notes to make visible if I had free choice.  (I'd like to think that I would pick a more "musical" selection that would enable the phrase to be learnt quicker.)

 

Are there other ways to create DD?

 

My guess is that I ought to be able to do something in EoF to create the DD, but I've not seen a single tutorial describe how to do it.  Am I missing something?

@@MartynQ - DD can be created manually, but it's usually a lot of work. In addition to defining and naming all of the similar phrases (so that they level up and down together) you have to make a separate EoF track for each difficulty with the notes appropriate for that difficulty. It wouldn't necessarily be a ton of work doing the highest and lowest levels (full song for max difficulty and basic chord/hand position changes for lowest difficulties), but I really wouldn't want to put in the work on defining the intermediate ones myself.

 

But the basic way you can do it is once you have your main difficulty, you go to Track -> Rocksmith -> Insert New Difficulty, decide whether you want that to be above or below the current difficulty level (if you're working with the full song, probably below) and whether you want to import the contents of the level you were working on. Then edit that track to your liking, then continue until you get to the bare bones, lowest difficulty track.

 

Up to you whether you decide whether that's worth it or not. Many beginners will surely appreciate it, but since I've been at a decent level of skill (and gotten used to reading Rocksmith) I much prefer to use RR to learn tricky parts rather than DD and I know many others feel the same way.

Thanks for the reply... I'd guess it was going to be a bit more complicated and quite a lot more work.

 

I guess I could just play around with this and see how it goes... one question in my mind is whether I make any use of the "Supaeasy", "Easy" and "Medium" tabs in EoF?  At the moment, I just put my track in the "Amazing" tab.  From what I interpret from what you say, I guess the answer is "no, just ignore them"?

@@raynebc is the guy for that kind of question.

 

But yeah you'll have a lot more work for a result that not many people will even notice or use.

Thanks for the reply... I'd guess it was going to be a bit more complicated and quite a lot more work.

 

I guess I could just play around with this and see how it goes... one question in my mind is whether I make any use of the "Supaeasy", "Easy" and "Medium" tabs in EoF?  At the moment, I just put my track in the "Amazing" tab.  From what I interpret from what you say, I guess the answer is "no, just ignore them"?

I think if you use those it will also generate DD (but only up to the 5 levels. If you want more, do what I said above so the difficulty levels are numbered).

 

I remember on one of my early works (I actually think one of the ones I just released officially yesterday) I accidentally switched between one of the tabs, was confused as to where everything went, re-imported the GP into the new track and worked on it, then when I generated the custom it had DD bars in-game despite the fact that I hadn't used DDC or anything.

The other difficulty tabs are just lower difficulties. EOF will ignore a difficulty for an arrangement if it is empty, adding your notes into supaeasy or amazing will give the same result. When you insert a new difficulty level, EOF automatically changes to the numbered difficulty system (supaeasy maps to the lowest difficulty level). You can delete empty difficulties if you want, doing so won't change the contents of the XML files created but it may make it nicer to work on the project because it will be easier to change from one difficulty to the next if you don't have to skip any.

Thanks for the help everyone.  I've done a first experiment: taken a copy of what I'd been working on and added a few difficulty levels in a very basic way - the most straightforward section (which would require least work to adjust) I create four levels of difficulty, whereas for a repeating section I just created two and did nothing to the rest.  And it all worked just as I'd hoped.

 

Really quite satisfied to be able to do this.  Thanks for your guidance.

 

But yeah you'll have a lot more work for a result that not many people will even notice or use.

I think I'm also after the sense of satisfaction of having done something as well as I can.  Also, the DD is quite a lot for my benefit - I've found that I learn songs way way way faster in RS than from tabs and the DD is one of the things that helps.

@@MartynQ To be honest i prefer people that work on FHP than DD because it's far more important in the end product and is a valuable information at any level of difficulty but if you are ready to pass some time in creating by hand the DD, be my guest, i wouldn't discourage anyone to do so :D

@MartynQ  One thing that I have done that works nicely, is to add DD with the toolkit to the XML arrangement.  Then pull the XML arrangement with DD back into EOF.  Then edit/delete all of the DD that you want or don't want.  Finally resave the XML with EOF and pull it back into the toolkit for packaging.  Not as much work as it is to explain. ;)  GL

@@MartynQ To be honest i prefer people that work on FHP than DD because it's far more important in the end product and is a valuable information at any level of difficulty but if you are ready to pass some time in creating by hand the DD, be my guest, i wouldn't discourage anyone to do so :D

 

What does FHP stand for?

Fret Hand Position which is the higlight part of the fretboard to indicate which finger should play which note. Many people rely on the automated generation of it which has a lot of flaws especially in lead part.

 

Cozy advice of using DDC to get a head start can also be a good solution so that you have a base that you can work on but this needs to be done at the very end of the process of the CDLC creation, because any changes of tab will need to be corrected on all difficulty afterward.

Good point about fret hand position... I think I could do with some improvement there.  I'll work on it.

Ok - what I hope is the final question on this topic: I've been very successful (at least by my previous standards!) in creating dynamic difficulty by inserting difficulty levels as explained above.

 

What I observe is that Easy and Medium score attacks both use the very lowest level of difficulty.

 

My guess (!) is that I need to have used the "Easy" and "Medium" difficulty levels (already existing tabs) in EoF?  I'm probably going to play around with it to see if that works, but any input from those more expert would be happily received.

http://customsforge.com/topic/17148-score-attack-levels/

To get a good/better result, positioning sectors and phrases is crucial. 

There are two ways of approach. Working from top to bottom, or bottom to top.

 

Lyrics are often used to get the structure of a song to set sectors and phrases, and let DD do the rest. 

But identical/similar guitar patterns are not always in line with lyrics.

A pattern may start before/after a lyrics chorus, it gets broken up, and DD will consider it different.

 

Also a bass/rhythm part may not be completely in line with lead part, which again may break up similar patterns, 

if you use the same sectors for all instruments.

This is working from top to bottom.

 

As a result, succeeding in rising DD in one sector won't rise others. 

DD lacks responsiveness in most songs.

The main purpose of DD "to rise" while playing is missed.

 

To find out the specific "guitar" structure, I use "catalog", to find identical/similar patterns, which may repeat in different "lyrics" sectors.

Define these patterns as phrases, and then gather a same group of phrases into sectors.

Do this for all instruments. 

It's working from bottom to top.

 

It gives more insight to variations the artist put in his song,

and probably a better basis for DD to be generated in the Toolkit.

 

Truth is Fret Hand Position is a topic that should get much more attention,

specially in case of slides, and pull off/hammer ons.

 

Truth is Fret Hand Position is a topic that should get much more attention,

specially in case of slides

So true. I hate when there are pitched slides that go from what was previously marked as the third or fourth finger down to the new 1st finger position. Especially when that new 1st finger position is the 1st fret, so I have to figure out a way to appease Rocksmith without jamming my hand into the nut.

http://customsforge.com/topic/17148-score-attack-levels/

Thanks... I wouldn't have worked that out by trial and error.

 

http://customsforge.com/topic/17148-score-attack-levels/

Thanks... I wouldn't have worked that out by trial and error.

 

 

You can also use BPR tool to adjust score attack levels for each phrase in an existing CDLC.

It has not been specified but the easy way is to:

 

- Start with the highest DD level, copy all notes /paste to inferior level (select the first charted beat marker ((the position of the first note in max dd)) & paste).

 

- Remove the undesired notes (the "tempo" of the song is to consider to keep a coherent song.

 

- Copy/paste the new created level, remove the notes etc..

It has not been specified but the easy way is to:

 

 

 

The easiest ? What if your song has 963 notes?

with shift+L you can at least select a couple of similar notes and remove them in block.

I said that for the copy/paste process.