Ripping Sounds and Announcers

[travelsonic]

So I'm sitting here, one eye patched after double eye surgery, with all the graphics from DancingStage EuroMix 2 on my computer, SM4, the images for both MAX2JP and EM2, and the burning desire to make a theme.

Problem is, how should I go about ripping menu music from EM2? It has been quite a while since I last tried (and succeeded), many utilities I used to use are long gone, and my eye is throbbing - but that's another story.

[AJ 187]

in before someone throws a shitfit because this is bemanistyle, but did you try VB2Rip already?

Also do you have my MAX2 theme for SM4? That will help you get started
(and yes you can use it as a base for whatever theme you want to make)

[travelsonic]

Tried it - didn't rip the correct menu tracks - the leftovers from MAX instead, some of which missing bytes of audio at the beginning.


Thanks for the offer - I'd rather start on my own path with this theme though.

Since this is my first time dealing with LUA in Stepmania 4, I think the basics I will have no problem getting the hang of, but I am already thinking about slightly more advanced things - including the rotating cube. What would be the best method of tackling this? Would it be possible to take advantage of GetSongBeat to put the song's BPM into a variable that dictates the animation's speed? n00bish Q I KNOW but I'm learning by asking.

[AJ 187]

It's not that noobish of a question, the BPM cube has never been duplicated in SM before.

Anyways, the cube is going to have to be a Sprite (unless you decide to cheat and use a 3D cube, which is a much easier option), with the main problem being that you can't really control the delay times of the sprite dynamically (to the BPM). The code I use in dubaiOne to get the bpm (on ScreenGameplay though) is:

local songBPS = GAMESTATE:GetSongBPS();
songBPS = songBPS * 60; -- beats per minute

[travelsonic]

Thankfully DS EuroMix2's cube is laid out into sprite sheets.

That code is very similar to a piece of the coding I threw together last night (before my previous post to Bemanistyle), the difference being your use of GetSongBPS (as opposed to GetSongBeat). Quite obviously there HAS to be a way to store a song's BPM in a separate variable in ScreenSelectMusic, on the very basis that the song's BPM is already being retrieved for display when the song is highlighted on the wheel. Using it to control the cube will, of course, be the main issue, as you mentioned before.

[AJ 187]

Even in SM4SVN there is no current way to get the value of the BPMDisplay on SSMusic that I know of. The trick that I thought would work (using GetText() since it derives from BitmapText) did not. :x

[Wan]

What? effectclock,bgm doesn't work?

If not, you can create an sprite and use that.

[AJ 187]

effectclock modifies effects, not Sprite frame delay. If travelsonic decided to use a 3d cube + spin & effectmagnitude, then that may work.

[travelsonic]

Originally Posted by AJ 187

effectclock modifies effects, not Sprite frame delay. If travelsonic decided to use a 3d cube + spin & effectmagnitude, then that may work.

A 3D cube may after all be my best bet it looks like.


EDIT: DAMN galbadia hotel being down, if I want the correct cuts of the production BGMs, I'll have to use the tracks from the soundtrack itself, but finding them is ++impossible.

[KKiONI]

mind if i ask a question? (sorry if i am interrupting anything) anyway how do you rip images and the announcer from DDR titles later than SuperNOVA? I have a program (can't remember the name at the moment, i think it began with a 'B') that got the announcer but it was poor quality, sped up, cuts off, and it was the battle announcer (i was ripping the sounds.dat from the SN2 US CS disc). I have researched everywhere on how to rip images and the announcer but I have found no tutorials whatsoever. Is there any programs out there that rips images of the disc for DDR's later than SuperNOVA?

[Wan]

Originally Posted by KKiONI

mind if i ask a question? (sorry if i am interrupting anything) anyway how do you rip images and the announcer from DDR titles later than SuperNOVA? I have a program (can't remember the name at the moment, i think it began with a 'B') that got the announcer but it was poor quality, sped up, cuts off, and it was the battle announcer (i was ripping the sounds.dat from the SN2 US CS disc). I have researched everywhere on how to rip images and the announcer but I have found no tutorials whatsoever. Is there any programs out there that rips images of the disc for DDR's later than SuperNOVA?

To rip the announcer I use a program called PSound. It was originally created to rip audio clips from PlayStation games, but it works great with some PS2 games.
However, only MONO audio clips (like the announcer) get ripped correctly. Stereo clips (like songs) sound bad, and for that you'll need to use BeMedia Ripper

To rip images, you need a program called Cheat Engine, the PCSX2 emulator and lots of patience.

[KKiONI]

thanks! that program was great! i actually tried it that program before but it didn't rip the files with good quality. but since i just used it now on a new computer, it could have been my older computer that made the quality bad.
also for fun i scanned the image.DAT and it actually found 3 files. the program recognizes it's an image because it says IMAGE beside the number instead of SOUND. what format could they be?

also when i browse my DDR CD (SuperNOVA 2 CS US) i find two files called bg.rgb and bg2.raw. could they be the the bg loops in the game?

[Wan]

About the IMAGE filenames, it's just that PSound takes the name of the file you're scanning (unless the files have internal names, something that's really uncommon with DDR). IMAGE.DAT, hello?

And about the BG loops, you NEED to use BeMedia Ripper to rip them. They WON'T get ripped correctly if you rip them with PSound.