Making Themes for Stepmania

ArchWolf · Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2005 3:16 pm Post subject: Making Themes for Stepmania

I've been wanting to construct a theme for Stepmania (DDR Gametype), but I am having absolutely no luck in finding any sort of guides, tutorials, ANY sort of understandable (to me) documentation regarding the subject...

Does anyone know of anywhere I could go to get some help in figuring this stuff out? I read the README already, but I don't understand enough of it to do anything. I really want to do a theme bad.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

GeeForce · Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2005 5:33 pm Post subject:

First off: I suggest you change your name if you wish to be active in a Stepmania community

Second: I'm not sure how hard you looked, but there is a site very similar to DDRFreak with an entire forum dedicated to exACTLY what you are looking for. Take a look around, have some fun.

P.S. Making a theme is extremely difficult and time consuming, as I'm sure dieKatze88 or Nerosuferoth will point out when they see this thread.
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ArchWolf · Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2005 6:40 pm Post subject:

I completely forgot about BemaniStyle somehow. I'm really new to the whole Stepmania thing, and I've seen that before, it just skipped my mind somehow.

And, as for my name...I don't see what that would have to do with anything. This has been my net handle for years, and I don't plan on changing it anytime soon. =)

SNK · Trick Member Joined: 31 Jul 2003

Extremely difficult? Hardly. Extremely time-consuming? Very.

Tutorials don't exist on the subject just yet, although I know there will be plenty when BMS 7.0 goes up.

As to make a theme, look inside the folders of your themes and see what's in them. You'll probably notice graphics, but the thing you'll need to learn to make things animate and go in place is metrics.

So if you want to make an entire theme, I recommend a graphics editor (preferably PhotoShop or PhotoImpact), an audio editor like Goldwave, and a text editor like Notepad (Win) or TextEdit (Mac).

With the graphics editor, you probably want to create mockups of how you want things to look and get a solid feel for it. When you're ready to put those graphics in your theme, make sure all your images have even-numbered dimensions, preferably a multiple of 4. SM will usually change your images to even dimensions if they're odd-numbered, blur the graphic, and playing in Windowed Mode will be HELL.

Metrics is probably the only part that's difficult, other than making sure your theme works without a problem. It will take some time to learn, but try copying the default theme, change some things, and see what they do. It's all about trial and error.

At least that's a minor description of things. It may not be the most help for now. Experimenting will be a BIG help.

AMxJM · Trick Member Joined: 01 Dec 2004

SNK · Trick Member Joined: 31 Jul 2003

Now if he named himself ArchW0lf, I might be a bit suspicious.

Arimasen · Trick Member Joined: 14 Feb 2003

It's just the whole Arch thing, because A0 has been called Arch before, I bet.
Anyways, Im currently making a theme that rocks balls right now, and I've never seen one tutorial before (I've had a couple people help me along the way, but it's quite easy). Mainly it's just graphic editing, placement of elements on the screen, and animations.

ArchWolf · Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 6:32 am Post subject:

Thanks for your help, everyone.

I guess I'll just start throwing things together and hope for the best.

The graphics editing should be really easy for me to figure out, since I've been messing around with photoshop for like 4 or 5 years now.

The only thing I have no experience with is the "metrics" thing, and I guess I'll eventually figure that out once I get some actual work done.

Later tonight, I'm going to start working on a theme (mockup, at least), and try to get a feel for what I'll be doing. So...I guess look forward to a post from me regarding that later on today, or possibly tomorrow morning (EST).

I'll be looking over BMS, also...hoping things can help me there, as well.

I'm assuming with custom metrics, I can completely change the layout of ALL the screens (metrics are responsible for element placement on the screen?)

I'll start looking into things more and more as time goes on. I finally might have a use for the abstract artwork I've been doing in my spare time recently!

-ArchWolf (not to be confused with Arch0wl.)

ArchWolf · Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 11:07 am Post subject:

I decided to get started making part of the "main menu" page of the theme, and rendered a 3d abstract thing that I might use. The antialiasing needs to be a little better but it is, but here's the general idea:

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. It may or may not have too much 'stuff' in it to be able to read a menu... I'm still wanting the same sort of idea, I think... Still can't really decide.

josh loves macho gang · Trick Member Joined: 18 Sep 2004 Location: w00dbridge

sorce of pic? or what program did you use for that

ArchWolf · Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 12:19 pm Post subject:

I used Bryce 5 to do that background.

ArchWolf · Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 4:33 am Post subject:

The more I think about this, I'm not going to use an 'abstract' looking thing, but probably more of a metallic texture of some kind.

My next post regarding this topic will probably be on its own thread...so it'll be easier to keep my thoughts organized and such.

I still hafta figure out how this 'metrics' poopy works sometime, but I guess I can do a mockup of what I'd like to do first, and get help with that from someone later.