Help me figure out the .chart

[hulkhaugen]

If we can understand the .chart, callisto will give gz2 it's support. And if so, we will get all the songs from gh1, gh2, ghe80s, gh3, rockband etc wit 110% correct SP, HOPO's, Song sections, even animations (When that will arrive)...
.chart is suppose to be a very easy format to help people create costum songs for the gh games, and i had a quick look at it, and it doesn't seem that hard.


[Song]
{
Name = "Track title"
Artist = "Artist"
Charter = "HulkHaugen"
Offset = 0
Resolution = 192
Player2 = bass
Difficulty = 0
PreviewStart = 0.00
PreviewEnd = 0.00
Genre = "rock"
MediaType = "cd"
MusicStream = "guitar.ogg"
}
[SyncTrack]
{
// the first numer is where the fuction starts. the letter is which function. B = BPM. TS = "im not sure yet"
0 = B 120000
0 = TS 4
}
[Events]
{
// Here will the events/animations be configured.
}
[ExpertSingle] // difficulty
{
Same procedure here. 576 is where it starts (resolution) N = Note. the secound numer for N is 0 = Green, 1 = Red etc. S = Special, S(pescial) 2 = Starpower. The last numer is where it ends. In this case, all but the first and last note is a SP note. The last one is not a SP note because the S 2 function doesn't pass it's start target = 1920.
576 = N 0 192
576 = S 2 1920
960 = N 1 0
1152 = N 2 0
1344 = N 2 384
1344 = N 3 384
1920 = N 4 384
}

I haven't figured out the HOPO's yet, nor the song sections or the animations. There is a lot of info about it here, just follow the links inside: www.scorehero.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7466

I'm not man enough to figure this out by myself, so any help at all would be epriciated.

[flipsk8r1409]

ok someone here already knows it cause they made a converter

[hulkhaugen]

flipsk8r1409 said:

ok someone here already knows it cause they made a converter

i didn't know. i saw cmk2901's converter thread, som i posted if he got time to explain. would be awsome if he did.

[darthslaw]

I'm just gonna spit out everything I can think of for charts, whether mentioned yet or not. Use it as needed.

The [song] section is pretty straightforward. Some things to note:

• The Resolution is the number of clicks in a beat note (i.e. quarter note)
  
• Offset is measured in seconds, and Feedback does not, itself, support negative offsets. Basically, it tells the reading program how far forward in time to shift the notes (or how far backward to shift the music relative to the notes, however you like to think it).
  

In the [SyncTrack] section, it contains Time Signature changes and BPM changes.

• "c = TS n" indicates a time sig change at click c, and is always in n:4 time (i.e. a beat is always a quarter note, with n beats in a measure).
  
• "c = B n" indicates a bpm change at click c. If I want to assign a bpm of 124.5, then n would be "124500"
  
• "c = A t" -- I'm 90%+ sure this is just for Feedback's use in calculating intermediate bpm values. Feedback uses anchors to hold the specified click c at time t, and seems to use the next following bpm change (usually the same click) as the bpm to hold at that point (btw, the value for t seems to always have 6 decimal place precision, like how bpm value have 3. So, if I had an anchor at 10.542 seconds, it would look like "10542000"). If you change the bpm before an anchor, feedback will change another bpm between that point and the anchor to keep the anchor point at the same click and point in time If that didn't make sense, don't worry about it. Just know that you can ignore anchors as far as having GZ read .chart files is concerned.
  

In the [Events] section, you have stuff like section names, lighting effects, and so forth -- all the good stuff. "c = E s" means at click c, event s occurs. s is a string that is stored as a comment in the GH midi file. The text is identical (except maybe that in the midi it's surrounded by square brackets [ and ] ?).

• Section name strings have the syntax "section <section_name>" where <section_name> can be "verse_1a" or something.
  
• Other events can probably be ignored for now, as they are for animation and lighting purposes only AFAIK. More detailed discussion can be found in the Events guide here
  

And finally the notes area -- [(Easy|Medium|Hard|Expert)(Single|DoubleGuitar|DoubleBass)]

• "c = N f d" -- at click c, place a note on fret f with a duration (sustain) of d clicks
  
• "c = S m d" -- at click c, a special section of duration d clicks; m indicates the "mode," where 0 = player 1 face-off, 1 = player 2 face-off, and 2 = star power. Different sections may overlap.
  
• There can also be track events, with the same syntax as events in the [Events] section, but they're all for animation purposes. Refer to that guide again -- it lists and categorizes all track event markers and song event markers.
  

I'm pretty sure this is everything I've ever encountered. If there's something you see not listed here, or if something is incorrect, please mention it.

Let me know if this helps or confuses you.

[hulkhaugen]

WOW! actually..it confuses me lol. But it seems like you know what you're talking about. Maybe if callisto sees this, he would figure out how to get the .chart support

[I like goat dick]

well...it would be wicked awesome if this could actually work...i sent him a sng and chart...and said to open them in notepad(just like u did)the sng is VERY self explanitory but the .chart is...complicated...u can ask the guy that made dB to give u all the details of the .chart file formatting and whatnot...i just accidently deleted the message that gave me a link to the details...plus i dont wanna be rude and ask him again...i think some1 else that is a frequent flyer to the ScoreHero.com forums should ask him...

[hulkhaugen]

Well, i sent a PM to TurkeyMan at scorehero.com, so let's hope we get what we want

[darthslaw]

[edit]

Yeah, turkeyman might write it up better than me, hehe.

[/edit]

hulkhaugen said:

WOW! actually..it confuses me lol. But it seems like you know what you're talking about. Maybe if callisto sees this, he would figure out how to get the .chart support

Confusion might be due in part to lack of decent examples

I hope it is enough to get callisto started at least. The java chart2dat converter includes the source code, so it may possibly help him and/or whoever a bit also for parsing and processing (Converter.java has the important stuff)

[dreakon]

Yow, thats quite a bit of info. I hope this thread helps callisto.

I honestly can't contribute much... but I would love to see .chart and maybe even .sng support someday. If someone wants to post something like this over at the Scorehero forums, they can probably explain the .chart in painful detail.

[hzac]

moved to devolpment.. this isnt a submission hulk.. come on

[hulkhaugen]

i know, but i didn't have premission to post in the development section when i tried yesterday...

EDIT: This is what i got back from TurkeyMan

TurkeyMan said:

looks like you've already got what you want on that thread..

although if calisto is the programmer of GZ, i expect he could work this stuff out on his own easily enough.

[callisto2002]

Now THAT is a nice description... I'll make sure to put chart support into one of the next versions then.

Except for the one sample file that I already have, can someone send me a .chart version of a GH1 or 2 song? Thanks a lot!

[flipsk8r1409]

i can send you one of a gh3 song

[callisto2002]

flipsk8r1409
Thanks, but I don't have any .ogg files for GH3 songs, so I'd rather have a Gh1 or 2 song.

[flipsk8r1409]

i can send you oggs too cause i have no .charts for gh2 songs Edit matter of a fact www.mediafire.com/?bsymtyt1ami its cliffs of dover accidentally zipped up the dat to dont worry about the dat the hopos and everything are off