Additional Guidelines

[MarsPhoenix]

As ScoreHero is a community of competitive players, there are some things that the site overall understands about the game that Harmonix would likely not mention to keep their guides simple for people charting. What I mean is that I think it'd be good to gather a few thoughts about charting that Harmonix hasn't mentioned that the top players in any given instrument might understand better. For example, I've been going after Drum FCs with paths lately, and I know that if Overdrive starts too close to the end of a drum fill, if you hit the green at the end of the fill too early, the Overdrive can disappear, which can be very annoying if you accidentally hit too early.

So I think it would be a good idea to get a list of things that charters might also want to consider from this perspective. I don't know if there would even be that much of an expansive list, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to check.

And on that note, it should also be explained how this can be avoided. For example, how far away does OD have to be to not disappear if you finish a fill early?

[MarsPhoenix]

As ScoreHero is a community of competitive players, there are some things that the site overall understands about the game that Harmonix would likely not mention to keep their guides simple for people charting. What I mean is that I think it'd be good to gather a few thoughts about charting that Harmonix hasn't mentioned that the top players in any given instrument might understand better. For example, I've been going after Drum FCs with paths lately, and I know that if Overdrive starts too close to the end of a drum fill, if you hit the green at the end of the fill too early, the Overdrive can disappear, which can be very annoying if you accidentally hit too early.

So I think it would be a good idea to get a list of things that charters might also want to consider from this perspective. I don't know if there would even be that much of an expansive list, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to check.

And on that note, it should also be explained how this can be avoided. For example, how far away does OD have to be to not disappear if you finish a fill early?

[Kawigi]

A bunch of these are my feelings as a programmer :-)

I think a generalization for what you mentioned is that you shouldn't have OD markers overlap fill markers. Ever. The game never handles it well. If an OD phrase ends under a fill, people won't be able to hit it if the fill appears (like Iron Maiden m86/87). If the OD phrase starts under a fill, the OD phrase may disappear sometimes even if you hit all the notes you could see. If an OD phrase starts before a fill and ends at the same time of the fill, Interstate Love Song m40 happens (if you don't activate with full squeezes, you don't get the OD, if you do, you get double OD).

On vocals (or drums), don't put the first opportunity to activate OD after you've already eaten OD. For drums, take unisons into account when deciding if that's a problem. Give it Away has that problem, and it makes it look like no one ever played the song.

On guitar, Don't let a long trill just randomly have a strum in there, like Bodhisattva m278 on Hard guitar.

On vocals, put every kind of phrase marker for a phrase in the same place, and have it be within about 1 beat of the end/beginning of the notes in the phrase.

Start and end unison bonuses at the same time on all instruments. Don't overlap OD more than a beat or two between instruments (not including vocals) unless it's supposed to be an OD phrase. The game generally handles it ok if unison bonuses don't quite line up, but that doesn't mean you should do it :-)

Empty vocals phrase markers like at the end of Even Flow make you look stupid, even if no one ever sees it. Same with notes that aren't in a phrase (can't remember which official DLC song does this, but there is one), notes with no corresponding lyric, or lyrics with no corresponding note (like the end of Shoot the Runner).

There's a suggestion somewhere in the Creator's docs about how much OD a song should have relative to the number of measures in a song. If your song isn't in 4/4 or doesn't have 4 beat track pulses per measure, you should adjust accordingly. Also, there's a tendency in official songs for harder songs to have a little more OD and easier songs to have a little less, relative to the length of the song. Either way, every song should be gold-starrable on every instrument without any real squeezing. Almost any song should be gold-starrable on drums with the natural path.

Maybe there's already something about this in the official docs, but don't overlap vocals phrase with a BRE. You won't see anything abnormal in solo mode, but it does weird stuff in coop that makes it so you can't see that part of the phrase (hope you have it memorized :-) ). Timmy and Highway Star do this by a little bit, Hard to Handle has basically a whole phrase in a BRE.

Vocal activation windows happen wherever the gap between the last note in a phrase ends at least .6 seconds before the first note in the next phrase starts. put a gap in your phrase markers if there is that much time, and if possible don't have windows where that gap is less than .65 seconds long. Also, make sure the windows occur sometimes - you might have to cut off notes at the end of a phrase a little early, but it's better than having huge, constant un-activatable chunks of the song. Having more activation windows also makes it easier to not have OD phrases that are really hard to reach, like at the end of Crushcrushcrush.

It'd be nice if we could figure out what conditions cause early windows on vocals, so that those can be avoided. I suspect, though, that if you keep the beginning of phrase markers fairly close to the actual first note of the phrase, you won't get them.
_________________

Organizer, Vocalist and path factory for Season 9 League Champion band Barre Exam (RB1) and cofounder of Season 10 League Champion band Better Than You --v (RB2) - The #1 band on scorehero
Kawigi's Rock Band Projects
Drum Paths | Star Cutoffs | Scoring Data for Pathing | Notes and Lyrics for Vocalists

[Kawigi]

A bunch of these are my feelings as a programmer :-)

I think a generalization for what you mentioned is that you shouldn't have OD markers overlap fill markers. Ever. The game never handles it well. If an OD phrase ends under a fill, people won't be able to hit it if the fill appears (like Iron Maiden m86/87). If the OD phrase starts under a fill, the OD phrase may disappear sometimes even if you hit all the notes you could see. If an OD phrase starts before a fill and ends at the same time of the fill, Interstate Love Song m40 happens (if you don't activate with full squeezes, you don't get the OD, if you do, you get double OD).

On vocals (or drums), don't put the first opportunity to activate OD after you've already eaten OD. For drums, take unisons into account when deciding if that's a problem. Give it Away has that problem, and it makes it look like no one ever played the song.

On guitar, Don't let a long trill just randomly have a strum in there, like Bodhisattva m278 on Hard guitar.

On vocals, put every kind of phrase marker for a phrase in the same place, and have it be within about 1 beat of the end/beginning of the notes in the phrase.

Start and end unison bonuses at the same time on all instruments. Don't overlap OD more than a beat or two between instruments (not including vocals) unless it's supposed to be an OD phrase. The game generally handles it ok if unison bonuses don't quite line up, but that doesn't mean you should do it :-)

Empty vocals phrase markers like at the end of Even Flow make you look stupid, even if no one ever sees it. Same with notes that aren't in a phrase (can't remember which official DLC song does this, but there is one), notes with no corresponding lyric, or lyrics with no corresponding note (like the end of Shoot the Runner).

There's a suggestion somewhere in the Creator's docs about how much OD a song should have relative to the number of measures in a song. If your song isn't in 4/4 or doesn't have 4 beat track pulses per measure, you should adjust accordingly. Also, there's a tendency in official songs for harder songs to have a little more OD and easier songs to have a little less, relative to the length of the song. Either way, every song should be gold-starrable on every instrument without any real squeezing. Almost any song should be gold-starrable on drums with the natural path.

Maybe there's already something about this in the official docs, but don't overlap vocals phrase with a BRE. You won't see anything abnormal in solo mode, but it does weird stuff in coop that makes it so you can't see that part of the phrase (hope you have it memorized :-) ). Timmy and Highway Star do this by a little bit, Hard to Handle has basically a whole phrase in a BRE.

Vocal activation windows happen wherever the gap between the last note in a phrase ends at least .6 seconds before the first note in the next phrase starts. put a gap in your phrase markers if there is that much time, and if possible don't have windows where that gap is less than .65 seconds long. Also, make sure the windows occur sometimes - you might have to cut off notes at the end of a phrase a little early, but it's better than having huge, constant un-activatable chunks of the song. Having more activation windows also makes it easier to not have OD phrases that are really hard to reach, like at the end of Crushcrushcrush.

It'd be nice if we could figure out what conditions cause early windows on vocals, so that those can be avoided. I suspect, though, that if you keep the beginning of phrase markers fairly close to the actual first note of the phrase, you won't get them.
_________________

Organizer, Vocalist and path factory for Season 9 League Champion band Barre Exam (RB1) and cofounder of Season 10 League Champion band Better Than You --v (RB2) - The #1 band on scorehero
Kawigi's Rock Band Projects
Drum Paths | Star Cutoffs | Scoring Data for Pathing | Notes and Lyrics for Vocalists

[Grinnz]

The OD-after-fills thing is covered in the docs. Nothing to do with overlap, just when OD includes the note under the "crash" of the fill which isn't technically inside the fill, hence the ability to squeeze those notes. I'm pretty sure OD isn't physically allowed to be under fills. (by Magma I mean)

The unison bonuses thing has also been covered. Misaligned unison phrases are forbidden, as are overlapping phrases that aren't unison. Most of the vocal phrasing issues you mentioned also cause magma to fail compilation.

Things like this are why I keep up with the RBN creators club goings-on

But the EW glitch is something I have asked about and is still apparently an enigma.
_________________

Quote:

<ace5993> keys is like guitar with easier charts and no strummer <Grinnz> and four note chords <Blehgopie> so its like GH guitar then

[Grinnz]

The OD-after-fills thing is covered in the docs. Nothing to do with overlap, just when OD includes the note under the "crash" of the fill which isn't technically inside the fill, hence the ability to squeeze those notes. I'm pretty sure OD isn't physically allowed to be under fills. (by Magma I mean)

The unison bonuses thing has also been covered. Misaligned unison phrases are forbidden, as are overlapping phrases that aren't unison. Most of the vocal phrasing issues you mentioned also cause magma to fail compilation.

Things like this are why I keep up with the RBN creators club goings-on

But the EW glitch is something I have asked about and is still apparently an enigma.
_________________

Quote:

<ace5993> keys is like guitar with easier charts and no strummer <Grinnz> and four note chords <Blehgopie> so its like GH guitar then

[MarsPhoenix]

It's not about OD that's under fills, it's about OD that comes immediately after the crash at the end. If you hit the crash too early, the game will tell itself that you didn't hit the note beneath the crash and will turn off the incoming OD. I think this is how it works anyways. If you look at some Drum Paths, they will say you should activate late to avoid disappearing OD, and that's the sort of thing I'm talking about.

[MarsPhoenix]

It's not about OD that's under fills, it's about OD that comes immediately after the crash at the end. If you hit the crash too early, the game will tell itself that you didn't hit the note beneath the crash and will turn off the incoming OD. I think this is how it works anyways. If you look at some Drum Paths, they will say you should activate late to avoid disappearing OD, and that's the sort of thing I'm talking about.

[Kratos]

Peer reviewers should just tighten up their ratings in general. When I play songs on drums like Days Without with EXTREMELY OBVIOUS AUDIBLE NOTES that don't have a note on the screen, it's really annoying and almost makes me want to stop playing the song.

[Kratos]

Peer reviewers should just tighten up their ratings in general. When I play songs on drums like Days Without with EXTREMELY OBVIOUS AUDIBLE NOTES that don't have a note on the screen, it's really annoying and almost makes me want to stop playing the song.

[GanonMetroid]

[GanonMetroid]

[Kawigi]

I really meant (and said, but perhaps not clearly) "no more than a beat." Snapping everything to a 16th note is probably better. Technically it'd be nice to use 100 ms, except that defining where that is in midi time takes some math. The reason I say 100 ms is because the game actually snaps the end of vocals phrases to 100 ms after the end of the last note. Ajanata's chart generator actually draws them that way, too (if you dig up some much older versions of the charts, you'll see where the ends of phrases are actually charted, which could really be anywhere, and occasionally is before the last note in the phrase completely). Nothing so consistent seems to happen to the beginning of phrases, though - sometimes it seems like they lie wherever the phrase marker starts, sometimes it seems like they are snapped to within a constant distance from the first note (look at the end of Eye of the Tiger on ajanata's charts, then look at them in-game - no way the beginning phrase markers are being used). And sometimes the point where activations can register don't exactly line up with where the end of the activation window is rendered on-screen.

[Kawigi]

I really meant (and said, but perhaps not clearly) "no more than a beat." Snapping everything to a 16th note is probably better. Technically it'd be nice to use 100 ms, except that defining where that is in midi time takes some math. The reason I say 100 ms is because the game actually snaps the end of vocals phrases to 100 ms after the end of the last note. Ajanata's chart generator actually draws them that way, too (if you dig up some much older versions of the charts, you'll see where the ends of phrases are actually charted, which could really be anywhere, and occasionally is before the last note in the phrase completely). Nothing so consistent seems to happen to the beginning of phrases, though - sometimes it seems like they lie wherever the phrase marker starts, sometimes it seems like they are snapped to within a constant distance from the first note (look at the end of Eye of the Tiger on ajanata's charts, then look at them in-game - no way the beginning phrase markers are being used). And sometimes the point where activations can register don't exactly line up with where the end of the activation window is rendered on-screen.

[Chil]

As far as I know, the vocals OD activation topic has been documented since the beginning of the Creators site.

[Chil]

As far as I know, the vocals OD activation topic has been documented since the beginning of the Creators site.

[Grinnz]

But they do need to be told how to represent rocking :p
_________________

Quote:

<ace5993> keys is like guitar with easier charts and no strummer <Grinnz> and four note chords <Blehgopie> so its like GH guitar then

[Grinnz]

But they do need to be told how to represent rocking :p
_________________

Quote:

<ace5993> keys is like guitar with easier charts and no strummer <Grinnz> and four note chords <Blehgopie> so its like GH guitar then

[Kawigi]

[Kawigi]