BRACKET 1 - DISCUSSION

[CoreyBlaze]

S.P.A.M. - Good for a quick laugh, but a failure as a simfile.

Care to expand on this?

The whole joke gimmick didn't do much for me. The stepchart was technically "correct", but the synching was all over the place since it sounds like it's a live recording. I come to these contests to find ddr quality simfiles, if I want to laugh, I'll go watch some tv or something. Even if the chart is good, the simfile as a whole isn't at the same level of the best sims in the bracket.

[Zounder]

Nothing I've played so far has really stood out to me. I mean, they've been solid files for the most part, but not anything I'd ever want to play again.

[BLueSS]

Wow, pretty harsh reviewing.

[cpubasic13]

Nothing I've played so far has really stood out to me. I mean, they've been solid files for the most part, but not anything I'd ever want to play again.

This is my sentiments exactly.

Other than Son of Sun and You Can't Beat Airman, I don't really care for the song choices this bracket.

[Super_Ray]

Nothing I've played so far has really stood out to me. I mean, they've been solid files for the most part, but not anything I'd ever want to play again.

what about your file? :p
I liked your file and Back2Back a lot. So far, Son of Sun is my favorite.
I thought the steps in that one were great. I really like the mixture of Afronova and exotic ethnic in the patterning.
I'll try and get some public reviews up pretty soon here.

[Spork!]

Kachoufuusetsu - Being a IIDX player myself, I found the ending to be extremely abrupt, but someone who hasn't heard the song before probably will not miss the real ending, so it's ok. Steps were pretty decent.

Gah, being a IIDX player too, it was kind of tough for me to decide to toss that ending out. In the long run, it worked well, since all I could really do is add another 8th note run for 15 more seconds, but that would have ruined the flow of the song, and probably ended up hurting my score more than it saved, so it had to go.

That being said, I included some extra graphics and full Double Charts, so everyone should go look at them.

[lrxevan]

I recommend that, if possible, everyone play the files in Stepmania 3.9. I had problems going back and forth between them and I think most people still do their editing in 3.9.

[will-i-am]

Okay, Angelier's .mp3 is still corrupt even after I re-downloaded the pack multiple times.

Stepmania, for whatever reason, has this problem sometimes on my computer when the .mp3 comes from a source that wasn't initially a music file, like an .flv file, the .mp3 skips around as if it were corrupt, when I can play the song fine in an .mp3 player. If you convert an .flv file, say, from youtube, into an .mp3 file and try to play it, Stepmania will recognize it as an .mp3 file, but won't play it normally and will skip parts of the music forcing the entire simfile to be completely unplayable.

That might not be the root of the problem, though. Where did you get the music file from, D A N T ., and did you ever convert it from one file type to another?

I understand most or everyone else isn't having any problem with this file, and I've noticed in the past that I get files with corrupt .mp3's while playing Stepmania on my computer that others have no problem with. It might be a codec that I have to download, but I'm really quite unsure of how codecs work and affect how a music file plays on certain programs.

[cpubasic13]

will-i-am, see if you have an updated version of the LAME codec. If you already do, go get Audacity, load it up, and save it as an MP3 again. It might fix it. Some of my MP3s crash Sony ACID and doing this makes them editable. If that doesn't work look at the Music Quality setting in Stepmania. Believe it or not, that fixes things sometimes.

I recommend that, if possible, everyone play the files in Stepmania 3.9. I had problems going back and forth between them and I think most people still do their editing in 3.9.

SM4 Alpha 4 is stable on Normal play and Edit and only has crashed on me with BGAs like Anjelier this competition, and that wasn't even a crash. It just lagged the hell out with one of the videos due to FFMPEG or whatever for 4 being bugged last I heard.

Which is probably why that one animated banner studders horrendously on song selection.

[jammitch!]

Video reviews will be up tomorrow. A quick summary:
* The mean score on heavy was 6.7. That seems harsh on a video game scale, but I'm aiming for 5 for "Meh" and 7-7.5 for "probably worth not deleting", and only five files missed that cut. I've always been a bit of a harsh judge anyway. Nothing was mind-bendingly bad, although there are two charts that I particularly disliked.
* I need to replay Kachoufuusetsu on keyboard to judge it fairly because it's too much for me to do on feet.
* I haven't done presentation scores, but I can't see anything getting less than a 3.

[Hainaut]

I don't really think my file is anywhere close to my best ever. I kind of came into this contest without a massive amount of interest in simfile designing anyway, and I'm not feeling competitive this time, either. It looks like there are some fairly good comments for it so far, but if it ultimately doesn't go anywhere far, then that's okay with me.

I'll post a public review for the first bracket once I arrive home from Hawaii and get a chance to download it.

[lrxevan]

I hope I'm not breaking any rules by saying this but jammitch!'s file kicked ass. I've only reviewed three so far, so I don't know what my favorite is but I definitely liked Back2Back.

[cpubasic13]

Back2Back is a very solid simfile. It surprised me.

[will-i-am]

Agreed. +1 jammitch!

Kachoufuusetsu definitely surprised me. I wasn't expecting much from a boss file this time around.

And thanks for the advice, cpu. I'm leaning towards it being a codec problem, but I'll try every possibility as well. If worse comes to worse, I'll just have to look over the file in edit mode while playing the song outside of Stepmania's editor.

[BLueSS]

Okay, Angelier's .mp3 is still corrupt even after I re-downloaded the pack multiple times.

I have uploaded an *unofficial* re-encoding of Angelier.
http://best-mix.net/BM3/Fixes/

See if that might help? I have not tested it, as my original one works fine.

Also regarding codecs, the K-Lite Codec Pack always plays whatever I've needed, so I recommend installing it.
http://www.free-codecs.com/download_sof ... 5250&s=775

ADDITIONALLY: The original link has been updated to include the AVI for Son of Sun (which should have been included). If you don't have the avi, you can download just it in the fixes link above, or the link posted on page 1 of this thread.