New GH Import Function Issues

[David]

Bluzer has sent me a test file which isn't showing correctly in Phase Shift. Basically The drums are showing the Green and Orange Notes flipped.
From opening the MIDI in Cakewalk I can see that they are charted like this so it's not likely to be an issue with Phase Shift but with the chart. Secondly, there are some issues with the Extended Sustains and forced HOPO's.
From looking at the midi there seems to be overlapping Forced HOPO Midi Events. Basically, there is a MIDI note on event and then another note on without a note off before it. I'm assuming this is a bug as it's goes against the MIDI standard. You can see thsi in the image below.



The 2 selected notes run underneath the one after it.
Also you can see that both Forced HOPO On and Off are charted at the same time.

Thanks
David

[vandorb12]

I also have a green/orange flip as well. He told me that it should be fixed in the next beta release.

The overlapping forced ho/po note flags are interesting. I know that every note in GH is either forced on or off... maybe Ray should implement some import logic that follows how PS calculates ho/po's so we have less forced notes.

For forced ho/po's, does the flag follow the length of the note, such as a 1/4 note forced ho/po has a flag that's 1/4 note in length as well?

[David]

For Phase Shift it's not important if the forced HOPO note length maches that of the note. Because it's possible to have the marker span multiple notes. As long as the the on time of the gems are within the range of the forced HOPO note then it will become foced. I think this is the probelm with the chart now you bring it up. Each of the extended sustains have Forced HOPOs which are trying to match the length of each note. When really you'd want a single forced hopo spanning all of them. Or start and stop them when the next note comes like you would if you were preventing extended sustains.

David

[raynebc]

Regarding the drum problem, is this only happening for charts imported into EOF from Guitar Hero files? Is it known to happen for both pre-GH5 and post-GH5 charts? Just to make sure I understand the problem, are you referring to Guitar Hero lane colors where green is the right-most drum lane and orange is the second-to-right-most drum lane? Or are you referring to the lane colors used in Phase Shift? Do the gems show in the correct lanes in EOF (based on placement, not color, since the color set is changeable)?

Regarding the extended sustain HOPO marker problem, I had written logic to track which notes were on or off when writing the MIDI tracks during save, but I hadn't implemented logic to avoid writing a note off for a note that's already off or a note on for a note that's already on. Four lines of code I added to EOF should prevent this bug from occurring.

[David]

Regarding the Drum Notes I was just given a file. I haven't tried the import option or anything so hopefully Bluzer can fill you in on that. All I know is the positions they are marked in the chart appear to be flipped.

Thanks
David

[raynebc]

I compared how the chart for "Bulletproof" looked in EOF compared to a Youtube video of the drums as they display in Guitar Hero, and it appears correct. The only noticeable difference I see is the color set for the lanes being different. I may go ahead and make an option in EOF to use the Guitar Hero color set:

Drums:
Bass drum = Silver (Purple in some versions of GH)
Lane 1 = Red
Lane 2 = Yellow
Lane 3 = Blue
Lane 4 = Orange
Lane 5 = Green
Guitar:
Lane 1 = Green
Lane 2 = Red
Lane 3 = Yellow
Lane 4 = Blue
Lane 5 = Orange

If there are remaining drum issues, I'll need more information about what's wrong.

Regarding the use of forced non HOPOs, it was requested to get the import to be as faithful as possible, but perhaps I could work in a prompt during import asking about whether or not to add HOPO off markers. Or, I could add a menu function to remove just remove the forced HOPO notation for selected notes that are marked as "HOPO off". Or perhaps both. Let me know what you guys think.

[Bluzer]

Hey dudes.

So I went and extract 3 songs from each game including the DLCs(minus Band Hero). Imported them into EOF and they all looked fine(drum chart wise). I have not saved them yet, to midi format to test in PS. I'll have to do that later on today as I am headed out pretty soon.

Rayne, perhaps EOF & PS are using different midi markers to specify the drum lanes. You can load a fresh *.pak.ngc in EOF and it looks proper but once you hit save...to test it in PS. In PS, the green & orange lanes are switched(only for drums). You can then load that saved midi into EOF & the drums would show up as they were suppose to be.

[raynebc]

I'm away from my computer that has Phase Shift. Could anybody make a screen capture or short video showing the beginning of that drum chart being played in-game? I still can't determine if EOF is doing anything wrong in regard to those drum gems.

[Bluzer]

Here are a few screenies. Should explain what we are trying to get at.

SPOILER: Click to show

(Import of a GH chart and then saved to midi)



(Loaded newly saved midi in PS to test, green & orange are different then 1st image)



(Loaded midi file into EOF, looks normal)

[David]

If you are just outputting them in the lane order then it's not going to work. In the MIDI Orange and Green have to be backwards for backwards compatibility.

This is how it's been from the start and is detailed in the song advancements thread.

RB_DRUM_EXPERT_BASS = 96
RB_DRUM_EXPERT_RED = 97
RB_DRUM_EXPERT_YELLOW = 98
RB_DRUM_EXPERT_BLUE = 99
RB_DRUM_EXPERT_GREEN = 100
RB_DRUM_EXPERT_ORANGE = 101

Thanks
David

[vandorb12]

A bit off topic, but will Phase Shift have 5 to 4 lane conversion logic for those who don't have 5+ lane kits?

[David]

It's had that for almost 2 years now but it may need to be tested as it's never been properly. Currently it moves the Orange Notes to Green on a 4 lane kit. I think the charts are desgined to let this happen and leave a space. But I seem to remember somewhere that they changed the space form blue to green at some point. But I'm not sure so it might need some extra code to look for a free space.

Thanks
David

[raynebc]

EOF leaves the chart as close to the original as possible during import, and it looks like all gems are in the appropriate lanes in EOF. At this point, am I right in concluding that it's all a matter of how the drum track is displayed in Phase Shift? If this would become a problem, I could try to add a function in EOF to swap the gems on any two lanes in the chart, just let me know if that would actually be useful.

[raynebc]

I probably don't understand the backwards compatibility issue as much though, so if you determine that EOF should write 5 lane drum tracks differently, I can accommodate that. After all, Phase Shift is the only rhythm game that would play those 5 lane drum MIDIs anyways, so I don't see much need to worry about how it would work on other games. Worst case scenario, I can make it a user preference whether or not to write 5 lane drum tracks with gems swapped.

[Oddbrother]

You could have it ask upon import, the same way you did for open bass notes.