Super Mario Paint

[RehdBlob]

Haha thanks for being worried - I'm currently completely swamped in everything...
I have 2 final projects to worry about this week as well as 4 finals to worry about next week...
This last month has just not been that good to me, but rest assured, come December 15...

[RehdBlob]

Having lots of fun with real life again. I'm still working though! It shall be done!

[GuitarMaster72]

how close is it? like can u give us a completion percentage?

[RehdBlob]

Counting all of these things that I have on the list with equal weighting... (Which they aren't - Look how long it took for some of the milestones versus how long it's taking me now. Getting a note placed onto the staff correctly in code is significantly harder than for example getting the window to appear.)


If you look at github.com/DC37/Super-Mario-Paint at the README.txt file when you scroll down, you'll find this:

Tasklist:

Window appears (done - August 12, 2012)
JavaFX migration (done - August 17, 2012)
User interface draft (done - August 17, 2012)
Sounds play (done - August 22, 2012)
User interface draft II (done - August 22, 2012)
Sprites rework (done - August 30, 2012)
Latency fix (done - September 6, 2012)
Settings framework (done - October 31, 2012)

Place notes on the staff
Navigate the staff
Play back notes on the staff
Save songs
Load songs
Primary stage done
Options dialog
Splash screen is actually a splash screen
Import MPC songs
Bookmarks
Speedmarks
Import AMS songs

There are 20 items and I've finished 8 of them. So you could say that I'm 40% done.

There's also the extra secret stuff that I'm adding in, which is after I'm done making the program import AMS songs.

I'm making edits all the time, though, and the progress can be tracked on this page:
github.com/DC37/Super-Mario-Paint/commits/master

[adirmaymon]

I couldn't open this!

[RehdBlob]

Well, of course not! I haven't finished programming it yet!

[RehdBlob]

Wow, sorry about completely missing this message.. (I'm usually better at this stuff)

I will put provisions into the program for getting audio recordings in the program then.

An update for y'alls, though:
Recently, I've broken ground with being able to actually place notes on the staff, with support for flats and sharps. We now await the day when we can actually place notes and navigate the staff as well.

Man... I'm a slow programmer.

[Volcan]

Slow and Steady wins the race! :3

[RehdBlob]

Aug 24, 2013 2:36:10 GMT -6 RehdBlob said:

Just got staff navigation working. The next step after that is playing back the notes. Then we get to do some testing!

You can now hit play and listen to a song play.

[bally]

im excited 4 this

[RehdBlob]

Update November 16, 2013: I've been releasing SMP v0.73 on Skype to those who ask, since it is now functional enough to test, though it isn't functional enough to actually do too much with.

Update December 17, 2013: Mute notes and volume control work!


Update December 25, 2013
Merry Christmas, everyone! I'll release more detailed instructions about how to use this later, but here is v0.9, the alpha of Super Mario Paint, as promised! It runs in Java 7.
sourceforge.net/projects/supermariopaint/

[Koi]

Dec 25, 2013 20:38:24 GMT -6 RehdBlob said:

Update December 25, 2013
Merry Christmas, everyone! I'll release more detailed instructions about how to use this later, but here is v0.9, the alpha of Super Mario Paint, as promised! It runs in Java 7.
sourceforge.net/projects/supermariopaint/files/

Awesome! I'm gonna try it out.

[tommy73]

Just finished an arrangement using this. Here's some feedback I'd like to make:
- I super like it. Much more fluent than version 0.7 and, although a little stiffer compared to MPC (due to the shadow notes before you click on the staff), it's much better as it seems more organized and less chance of making a mess of notes by accident.
- Takes a little white for SMP to get going, since it lags a lot when I play the song, but after a minute of playing, the playback becomes smoother and eventually normal (my laptop's not the fastest though).
- Unlimited notes. Oh my God. So good. I think this opens up lots of opportunities to learn techniques and freedom to experiment whatever.
- Volume control is more free, but I use them randomly because there's lots more volume. The mute notes are a life saver, but what's the difference between the two mute (note and instru)? They do the same thing, but I think the note one should stop the note itself, not the instrument.
- I'd like to see numbers above the staff as they sort of help me indicate where I am on the staff and figure out patterns without having to go back and count if I forget.
- Arrangement mode would also help, but I presume you're planning that anyway. And expansion on files too if I run out of space, I'd like that too (like in Triple MP).
- I can't copy and paste sections so I have to either re-use files or open another SMP and copy notes from whatever file I'm copying. But, again, I'm presuming you're adding the mpctools thingy in.

Anyway, I'm loving it, and hope you continue to improve it and more people using it.

[FC]

Neat.

[Volcan]

Dec 27, 2013 10:44:55 GMT -6 tommy73 said:

Just finished an arrangement using this.
- Volume control is more free, but I use them randomly because there's lots more volume. The mute notes are a life saver, but what's the difference between the two mute (note and instru)? They do the same thing, but I think the note one should stop the note itself, not the instrument.

I assume any of this information you've either found out or already knew;
Those two mutes are seperate for when you have the sustain locked for an instrument. [By holding shift and clicking the instrument] When the sustain is on, the note mute will stop only a single note and the instrument mute will stop all sounds of that instrument. While the sustain is not turned on, both mutes act the same way and just mute the instrument. Again, if you already knew this by now then hopefully this may help somebody else. xD

[cheesecakemilitia]

I'm super psyched for this Rehd, I'm just kicking myself for being so distant from the community that I only found out about this recently.

Unfortunately this error bars me from trying it out for myself.




I don't know if these are already in the works, but I've long thought of improvements in the engine that may renew my interest in MPC:

• Click-and-drag along with ctrl+click to select multiple individual notes so that you may cut, copy, paste, or delete multiple notes. Huge potential there.
• A replacement mechanism for dickspeed I call note expansion. To my knowledge, there's no instrument limit per note, but this would be useful for importing dickspeed songs from MPC and allowing for multiple volume levels per note. I imagine selecting a column and clicking an "expand" button that shifts trailing notes back 4 spaces and puts "sub-notes" in their place which, when collapsed, would play simultaneously with the main note. I imagine each having its own volume bar and, depending on how many subnotes you used, when collapsed the main note would show all volume bars next to each other and all the notes in one column. I say 4 subnotes because that would mean 5 volume bars because I'd imagine that's the visual max that could fit under a note column.
• Lots of keyboard shortcuts and also an options dialog to edit them all. I also imagine a "minimalist" view that just shows the staff because there are enough keyboard shortcuts to warrant such a view.
• I'd also like to see a "Master Volume" tool in the composer window so that I could adjust an individual song's overall volume if I found one part was too loud or soft in the arrangement.
• Marker system like AMS's, except better (like the ability to delete markers or something, I don't remember why I was adversed to them in AMS)
• I know databases are hard (especially with copyrighted sounds), but I'd really love a soundfont database, along with the ability to tag songs as using a certain soundfont. Multiple soundfonts per arrangement ooh la la!
• I noticed a bass clef in the sprite sheet, but my idea a long time ago was some means for placing instruments 2 octaves higher or lower, with maybe a lighter or darker color scheme for an instrument that's in a different octave. This would eliminate most of my need for custom soundfonts (then again I dunno how'd that work with instruments like the boat)
• Someone already mentioned a little number hovering above the volume bar when adjusting it. I second this.
• Someone already mentioned WAV or another free-liscensed lossless audio export. I second this.
• On the topic of audio export, video export would be nice too, but I know that'll be difficult as hell.

I know that's ridiculous as I have yet to play it, but I'm just so abuzz about this project Rehd I had to post these ideas I've had for forever. I'll try it again tomorrow on another computer.

Edit: Got it working on another computer, I'll post a video here later, but here's some comments I had:

• One thing I did like about AMS was the unlimited song length. Now it was a bit messy in AMS, but even with an arranger I always really hate it to find I need just an extra 2 or 4 measures to finish one portion of a song, so maybe if the song started at the current default state but you had the option of adding 32/64 extra measures afterward that'd help.
• I'm sure this is planned, but TIME SIGNATURES! I worked on a song that was noting but triplets; it still turned out fine, but get this added soon.
• I found the secret button! Now if only changing the window size would actually be useful, like changing the amount of notes you can have on-screen at once.
• It's a bit annoying that which notes are set to sustain isn't saved with the songfile. It'd be even more annoying with the arranger too because then you wouldn't be able to change which instruments are sustained for an entire arrangement (except manually while the song is playing)
• This one I'm iffy about, but sidescrolling would be nice like in AMS. Or maybe an option to switch between the two view formats. I know implementing that would be a bitch, but still. Also, I LOVE the fact that one column of notes isn't lost during playback like in MPC, it's very refreshing.

Edit: just uploaded this...

[Antylamon]

Could it be possible to change the volume of individual notes?

[RehdBlob]

Dec 31, 2013 3:31:21 GMT -6 cheesecakemilitia said:

I don't know if these are already in the works, but I've long thought of improvements in the engine that may renew my interest in MPC:

• Click-and-drag along with ctrl+click to select multiple individual notes so that you may cut, copy, paste, or delete multiple notes. Huge potential there.
• A replacement mechanism for dickspeed I call note expansion. To my knowledge, there's no instrument limit per note, but this would be useful for importing dickspeed songs from MPC and allowing for multiple volume levels per note. I imagine selecting a column and clicking an "expand" button that shifts trailing notes back 4 spaces and puts "sub-notes" in their place which, when collapsed, would play simultaneously with the main note. I imagine each having its own volume bar and, depending on how many subnotes you used, when collapsed the main note would show all volume bars next to each other and all the notes in one column. I say 4 subnotes because that would mean 5 volume bars because I'd imagine that's the visual max that could fit under a note column.
• Lots of keyboard shortcuts and also an options dialog to edit them all. I also imagine a "minimalist" view that just shows the staff because there are enough keyboard shortcuts to warrant such a view.
• I'd also like to see a "Master Volume" tool in the composer window so that I could adjust an individual song's overall volume if I found one part was too loud or soft in the arrangement.
• Marker system like AMS's, except better (like the ability to delete markers or something, I don't remember why I was adversed to them in AMS)
• I know databases are hard (especially with copyrighted sounds), but I'd really love a soundfont database, along with the ability to tag songs as using a certain soundfont. Multiple soundfonts per arrangement ooh la la!
• I noticed a bass clef in the sprite sheet, but my idea a long time ago was some means for placing instruments 2 octaves higher or lower, with maybe a lighter or darker color scheme for an instrument that's in a different octave. This would eliminate most of my need for custom soundfonts (then again I dunno how'd that work with instruments like the boat)
• Someone already mentioned a little number hovering above the volume bar when adjusting it. I second this.
• Someone already mentioned WAV or another free-liscensed lossless audio export. I second this.
• On the topic of audio export, video export would be nice too, but I know that'll be difficult as hell.

I know that's ridiculous as I have yet to play it, but I'm just so abuzz about this project Rehd I had to post these ideas I've had for forever. I'll try it again tomorrow on another computer.

Edit: Got it working on another computer, I'll post a video here later, but here's some comments I had:

• One thing I did like about AMS was the unlimited song length. Now it was a bit messy in AMS, but even with an arranger I always really hate it to find I need just an extra 2 or 4 measures to finish one portion of a song, so maybe if the song started at the current default state but you had the option of adding 32/64 extra measures afterward that'd help.
• I'm sure this is planned, but TIME SIGNATURES! I worked on a song that was noting but triplets; it still turned out fine, but get this added soon.
• I found the secret button! Now if only changing the window size would actually be useful, like changing the amount of notes you can have on-screen at once.
• It's a bit annoying that which notes are set to sustain isn't saved with the songfile. It'd be even more annoying with the arranger too because then you wouldn't be able to change which instruments are sustained for an entire arrangement (except manually while the song is playing)
• This one I'm iffy about, but sidescrolling would be nice like in AMS. Or maybe an option to switch between the two view formats. I know implementing that would be a bitch, but still. Also, I LOVE the fact that one column of notes isn't lost during playback like in MPC, it's very refreshing.

Apologies for not responding sooner...

A lot of these suggestions are really cool! I'll detail what I have planned for the upcoming Beta release. I've also released v0.91 (Located here), which includes measure line numbers, a click-to-type-in tempo box, and unlimited song length!

Beta release:

• Arranger. This is the biggest part of the beta release. It should give the program at least MPC2.0 functionality.
• Copy/paste/delete/mass edit functionality. I'll figure out some of the trickier mouse gestures, but the main functionality should be there.
• Import MPC function. Also possibly an export MPC option.
• Options dialog. This will be the crux of the program, which allows one to edit note limits, change different preferences, edit defaults, change other limits, etc. There might not be too many options to begin with in the beta release, but more will be added as I make more releases.
• Time signatures should be implemented. If not, the default will as always be 4/4
• Volume bar numbers (if not beta, then v1.0) (this is a really good idea)
• More stable save-files (Current schema is not scalable. I'll make it better.)

v1.0 release:

• Time signatures for sure
• Bookmark/speedmark system akin to AMS.
• Import AMS function

More notes:

• That note expansion thing is actually something I've been thinking about. I don't know how/when it will be implemented, but I am actively working out some schema for it. Volumes for individual notes should come naturally with this.
• Keyboard shortcuts are already in the works. I haven't put them in yet because the more major functionalities have to come first.
• Resizing the window is ludicrously difficult. Probably not as difficult as audio/video export, but enough that I really didn't want to deal with it. While the code framework is in for this, I don't know when this might / could be implemented.

As for the soundfont database... Cynagen already has one
www.cynagen.com/mprecord/?page=soundfonts


Hopefully this answers peoples' questions!

[Wikkid Vömmit]

You saw me on YouTube, right? I want a high F (double sharp for G) with shy guy and flower for a pokemon track.

[RehdBlob]

That might not be implemented as soon as you might like.