Thursday, December 11, 2008

TheGHOST is Out

This contains the original post. FOR ALL FUTURE REFERENCE, GO TO THIS POST:
TheGHOST on Scorehero.com





TheGHOST

Here it is, the first public beta release of - TheGHOST - brought to you by SciFi, Humour4Fun, UnsteadyCarrot, GameZelda and me, Nanook.

Consider this an early Christmas present. ...Remembering that it's not polite to complain about things people give you e.e

The applications contained in the release are all built around TheGHOST core. The core contains all the functionality of TheGHOST and can be used by others to write GH applications. The code will also be released when everything is stable.

Enjoy.

---------------------------------------------------------

Before posting questions always refer to the guide included with the release. We will always try to keep it updated with the latest information with each release.

REQUIREMENTS
- Microsoft .Net 2.0

- Lots of Disc Space :-)

BUGS & EXCEPTIONS
If you report an error without enough information it might just get ignored, Please include:
- The details of the exception message

- What you did to make it happen (so we can make it happen)

- Links to any non copyright files involved (Mid / Charts / Audio etc)

- A screen shot if it will help

MISSING FEATURES
These features will be added over the coming months (I need to slow down)

- WiiScrubber ISO prepping improvements (We ran out of time, but we have a one-time manual work around).

- Full Project saving (including copying all source files so that a project can be reapplied to a disc easily)

- Merging multiple audio tracks in to 1 (for merging vocals, drums etc in to the song)

- Options to force tracks to mono (Song, Guitar, Rhythm)

- Option to blank lights, camera, animations from notes files (like QBGen)

- Create a new app for GH editing
- Tier editing (Names, tracks included)
- Graphics (?)
- Various hacks (adding hidden guitars, changing cheat codes etc)
- Replacing background audio in game

FEATURE REQUESTS
Feel free to request what you like, some may get picked up some will not. Don't Request:
- Guitar Hero World Tour support (it might happen one day, who knows)

- Rock Band support

- PS2 & PC support (someone else can do them, TheGHOST is structured to support them and Queen Bee already supports them)

FEATURES
Interface
- Drag and Drop style GUI
- Support for projects (not fully implemented due to time scales)
- Notes Viewer / Editor (adjusts sync, H.O. / P.O.)
- Saves and restores default project settings to and from a config file
- All audio encoding, file creation and file replacements are performed at the end to prevent waiting around while configuring
Project
- Supports default settings
- Smart mode can be used for populating songs. Support includes FOF folders, audio, Song.ini chart and mid files)
Files
- FSB support (created after encoding audio)
- Wad support (created after creating FSB files)
- Dat support (created after creating FSB files)
- Notes Paks edited using the Queen Bee parser
- Qb Pak edited using the Queen Bee parser
- Seamless Wii Scrubber support for extracting and replacing files in Wii a ISO.
Song (Qb Pak)
- rhythm_track - always set to 0
- hammer_on_measure_scale - set for all songs
- use_coop_notetracks - is always removed if found
- band_playback_volume - is editable
- guitar_playback_volume - is editable
- singer - is selectable
- title - is editable
- artist - is editable
- year - is editable
- artist_text - always set to artist_text_by
Smart Mode (Song import)
- Supports folders containing audio, notes (chart and mid) and song.ini files.
- FOF folders work without alteration.
- Song, Guitar and Rhythm files are picked up, Wav, Flac, Ogg and Mp3 (in that order)
- Notes files are picked up, Notes.mid, Notes.chart, all other mids and all other charts (in that order) are added to the notes screen.
- Song.ini when picked up from a folder will import the "Delay" item and apply it to all notes files picked up from the folder.
Audio
- Decodes anything Windows Direct Show supports (via Codecs)
- Encodes to XBADPCM for Wii audio
- Detect and remove silent/duplicate 'filler' audio
- Create silent audio for Rhythm audio when not present
- Song audio is duplicated (after any filler audio is removed) if the guitar does not exists and the volume is reduced to 50%
- Previews are created from combining all audio
Notes
- Ensure x seconds before the first note is triggered
- Frets before first note are replaced so that if notes are offset that they can be filled with properly spaced frets
- Frets are always created beyond the last note (including sustain), or up to the length of the audio
- Offset notes to ensure frets are naturally spaced (no forces small frets)
- Auto calculates frets from audio / last note + sustain lengths
- Validates and adjusts Star Power etc to ensure all items have the correct note counts.
- Each song can have it's difficulties mapped to multiple charts and mids.
- Auto maps available difficulties to the required Guitar difficulties.
- Generates missing items (Missing difficulties, Star Power, Battle Power, Face Off)
- Boss battles are detected and notes removed according to face off sections
- Optional sustained notes cropping to GH3 mode
Chart
- Hammer On / Pull Off support
- Face Off Support
- Star Power Support
- Sustained Notes accurately calculated
- Time Sig support
Mid
- Face Off Support
- Star Power Support
- Sustained Notes accurately calculated
- Time Sig (denominator always set to 4, like chart) support


Download
TheGHOST Blog
Humor4Fun's Blog

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

TheGHOST is coming...

...tomorrow...

It's been a lot of hard work, but we're finally ready for the big release.

...TeamGHOST