Beats 1.6.Xa-r536

[Philip Peng]

== Info ==
- Report bugs/oddities here
- If you are interested in helping translate Beats, see below
- Include explanations with tweak suggestions
- Post large feature suggestions on the Beats Portable forums
- Check the To-Do list at http://beatsportable.com/todo/

== Install ==
Uninstall any previous official release and install the latest test
build from below
http://beatsportable.com/static/testing/beats-r536.apk
http://beatsportable.com/static/testing/ will list all old test
versions/files while
http://beatsportable.com/static/releases/ will list all released
versions.

== Translate ==
If you are interested in translating Beats to a non-English language,
please join the translation project at crowdin:
http://crowdin.net/project/beats
The strings are separated into three files:
arrays_trans.xml - these are the options used by settings
settings_trans.xml - these are settings names, descriptions,
categories
strings_trans.xml - these are game texts
Note that translations do NOT have to be approved (for the time being)
but if you notice any mistranslations or phrases that could be better
translated, feel free to change them.

== Changes since r519 ==
- translation update
- tablet support
- use screen resolution-based scaling
- improved noteskins and hold graphics
- rearranged settings menus a bit
- removed frequency cap (always update fastest possible)
- updated with Immersion MOTIV Haptic Effects, Version 3.4.73
- removed MobFox

== Comments ==
The big things to test here is scaling! After seeing Beats run
terribly on my new Galaxy Tab 10.1, I went ahead and changed all the
hardcoded values/dimensions so everything should scale directly with
your phone's physical dimensions now. Unfortunately I only have two
devices (Galaxy Tab 10.1 running stock 3.1 and Galaxy S running
CyanogenMod 7 nightly), so I'm in real need of responses on how well
everything scales on other devices! One thing I do notice is that the
framerate is EXTREMELY slow (e.g. max 25 fps) on my Tab if I have the
background image on - please tell me if this is also an issue on other
devices.

I also re-did all the graphics since I decided that things really
didn't look nice on tablets. I've changed the default noteskin to a
hybrid of sm-ssc's midi-note skin and StepMania 3.9's holds, and I've
also remade all the osu! graphics. Please give feedback on how you
feel about the new graphics.

UHL has also been updated, so please check if there's any issues with
that.

My summer internship has been keeping me quite busy, thus the major
lack of updates (I only just started working again on Beats after I
got my Tab. There's unfortunately been no work on Beats2 <http://
code.google.com/p/beatsportable/> but I did write up a rough draft of
format notes and styles, found here:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?pli=1&hl=en_US&hl=en_US&key=tVaxOn5hcuL1Gl_25RgquBQ&authkey=COOs2cAE#gid=4

Will probably end up releasing Beats 1.7b just because of tablet
support, but I'll also be experimenting with osu! sliders and finally
getting around to Scoreloop before school starts. Beats2 will probably
end up being my senior design project for univ.

~Keripo

[XWing Ace]

Yay, new version of Beats. Now that's something to come home to!

> arrays_trans.xml - these are the options used by settings
> settings_trans.xml - these are settings names, descriptions,
> categories
> strings_trans.xml - these are game texts

I've noticed some phrases in the menu/settings names or descriptions
that I can't actually find in the menu. Maybe I didn't look hard
enough?

On another note of 'maybe I didn't look hard enough', where has the
screenshot feature gone?

> == Comments ==

> I'm in real need of responses on how well
> everything scales on other devices! One thing I do notice is that the
> framerate is EXTREMELY slow (e.g. max 25 fps) on my Tab if I have the
> background image on - please tell me if this is also an issue on other
> devices.

The main menu text is incredibly *tiny* now on my Samsung Galaxy
Apollo (GT- I5800)
I haven't had trouble yet with selecting the wrong menu option, but it
feels like I will every time.

No framerate issues, though. Even with full background, I noticed no
lag in the few songs I played.

> Please give feedback on how you feel about the new graphics.

I'm... not sure about the new SM-style graphics. I think Stepmania
itself actually has fairly ugly graphics, and these resemble them a
bit too much for my comfort. But that's a very personal thing. I liked
the old, rounder arrows and the 'blank line' holds.

Osu! mod looks great, although I still have issues with the different
scaling of the 'falling' circles depending on whether I'm in landscape
or portrait mode. In portrait, the circle is big enough, but in
landscape it's tiny.

> UHL has also been updated, so please check if there's any issues with
> that.

Not found any yet, but I don't think I've played enough yet to be sure.

Thanks for another great update!

XWA

[Keripo]

The strings list isn't completely cleaned up (due top laziness for the most part actually). Settings menu had been rearranged a bit though so screenshot mode is under Display -> Game.

If you can take a few pictures of your screen (menu, step, osu, landscape and portrait), that would be great. I had a feeling that density pixels would screw scaling up (both my devices are hdpi).

For the skin, I think I will work on customizable skins for this version (e.g. load pngs from file). The reason for the prompt for skin change was that the originals round arrows are all 64x64 and I don't have the original psd file to scale it up.

Thanks for ths feedback!

~ Keripo
--
Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

[XWing Ace]

On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 9:43 PM, Keripo <k.dar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The strings list isn't completely cleaned up (due top laziness for the most
> part actually). Settings menu had been rearranged a bit though so screenshot
> mode is under Display -> Game

Found it now, thanks!

> If you can take a few pictures of your screen (menu, step, osu, landscape
> and portrait), that would be great. I had a feeling that density pixels
> would screw scaling up (both my devices are hdpi).

I've attached a screenshot each of osu!portrait, osu!landscape and
step mode. But of course I can't take a screenshot of the menu screen,
the most important one, with the inbuilt screenshot feature. :-( I
don't have any cameras lying around either, unfortunately. And all the
other screenshot apps don't work on my non-rooted phone.

Sorry.

There's nothing wrong with the sizes of the arrows or the tapboxes
during gameplay. But as you can see from the screenshot, the timing
circle is almost twice as large in portrait mode as it is in landscape
(probably because the vertical screen size is taken as some sort of
scaling constant somewhere?)

On the menu screen, the menu text only takes up about 20% of the
screen, instead of a little over half in the previous version. (Screen
resolution is 240x320, I believe. It may be 240x400. Physical
dimensions are ~4.3x7.0 cm)

Sorry I can't help with the most important one.

XWA

[k.dar...@gmail.com]

The difference in the circle size is because of how early on the osu beats themselves are loaded. The entire osu! Mod is a hacked version of the normal SM gameplay, where arrows only get loaded when they appear on-screen. As you would expect, they appear later in time if the screen is landscape, so the rings don't appear either until much later. This is an issue with the game engine itself and thus not something I plan on fixing (Beats2 though will be written with osu! in mind, so it won't be an issue there).

Will investigate the menu font size issue but I'm pretty sure I know where the problem lies. A photo or rough sketch nevertheless would still be helpful.

~Keripo

[k.dar...@gmail.com]

Beats 1.7.Xa-r540

== Install ==
Uninstall any previous official release and install the latest test
build from below

http://beatsportable.com/static/testing/beats-r540.apk

http://beatsportable.com/static/testing/ will list all old test
versions/files while
http://beatsportable.com/static/releases/ will list all released
versions.

== Changes since r536 ==
- improved screen updating and scaling
- custom loadable graphics
- new SM-based default noteskin

== Comments ==
It seems that I really should have taken a closer look at the API demos back then, because things definitely run a lot smoother on tablets now that I've put canvas updating on a separate non-UI thread. Interesting to note that for some reason, the framerate drops on my Galaxy Tab 10.1 when I play the game in landscape mode (~30 FPS) compared to portrait (~55 FPS). This is probably an OS issue though, but even then, 30 FPS is plenty smooth anyway so its not worth investigating.

I've offloaded all the graphics files to Beats/NoteSkins and Beats/Backgrounds folders so all graphics are now loaded from file instead of from within the package (meaning hello customization!). I've also included the old rounded graphics as the "Original" noteskin whereas the StepMania graphics are the "Default" noteskin. Added a "Custom" noteskin option for those who want to mess around with using their own graphics (as a preliminary to proper themes in Beats2).
Also changed the menu font sizes back to hardcoded values and tested it on various different screen sizes via emulator.

Actual device feedback is still needed of course. And for translators, there's a few new strings to translate at http://crowdin.net/project/beats ; )

Yes, it's 1.7x now since tablet support and loadable graphics is enough to warrant a major version upgrade. Working on osu! sliders next although don't expect it to be a proper clone (just like how holds were an ugly hack, osu! sliders are probably going to be messy too). Aiming to get Beats 1.7b out before I'm back to univ at the end of August.

~Keripo