Articles

  • The winter is coming, have you heard the song yet?

    Heads up!

    Serenity Winter Update is currently open for chart and graphics submission, want to know if there's anything you can help with? Check out these:

    If there's anything here that you would like to help with, please read our Winter Update blogpost.

    Moru Personal Note (Tiny-Foxes Owner)

    As the year comes to an end, our member's life becomes busier with life stuff, OutFox Team has never been in such high production before, as a result, don't be surprised those last months have few updates besides members personal projects, for myself I can barely take care of what I could when this project started...I got a job sooner than I expected and I wasn't aware of the time I would then lose not doing things I want to do. However, next year will be a big year, both for Tiny-Foxes and Project OutFox, many kinds of stuff are in the works that even we can't believe is happening so let us know you're with us and share our hard work with your friends, they won't want to miss out on what is to come.

    Project Updates

    JudgeFonts-by-MattMayuga

    Added new Luminousity judgefont

    Tiny-Web

    Added Oct Monthly post.

    superuser-outfox

    Fix Konko module implementation.

    Aqui-Alpha-Noteskins

    November 2021 Update.

    TF_Wheels

    Added dummy masks to fix wierd behavour in modfiles.

    kitsu-template

    • Updated Kitsu Template version to 3.1.0
    • Made entire modfile environment local
    • Add proxywall node type
    • Add support for multiple player proxies
    • Add note type ActorCamera

    That's it for now, stay safe out there and be ready for the winter!

  • OutFox Serenity Volume I was our first-ever pack release, and we would like to thank everyone who took time to contribute or check it out! We are planning to formally launch the submissions process for Serenity Volume II in early-2022. But to help lead towarrds it, we're taking chart and graphics submissions for a Winter Update to Volume I that consists of three new songs:

    If you're not familiar with them, please be sure to read the Serenity submission guidelines.

    We've created a new Discord server specifically for Serenity development, In addition, we will now be using pull requests on a branch of Serenity's Git repository as our preferred method of submitting contributions, in order to keep things organized and make it easier for us to identify possible issues. If you're not used to GitHub, you can still send us chart files manually through the Discord server too.

    You can also submit new charts for existing songs in game types that don't have them yet. Submissions close on December 29, 2021, and we plan a final release in January 2022.


    Don't forget, music submissions for Serenity are always open, even if a new pack is not currently in development; we're constantly revisiting and reviewing the submission backlog as new submissions come in.

  • It's spooky out there, and yet you're here for the news, stay safe out there, now time to read!

    New Projects

    superuser-outfox (Created/Hosted by Sudospective)

    Superuser is the 4° theme hosted on OutFox but the first one isn't a fork or "community edition", it was created with a lot of effort and love from Sudospective.

    kitsu-template-libraries (Created/Hosted by Sudospective)

    Here you will find a list of approved libraries for the Kitsu Template, separated by version number.

    ComboNumbers-by-MattMayuga (Created by MattMayuga)

    This repo hosts the data files for combo number graphics made by MattMayuga, with some of them here to accompany the respective judgefonts.

    SM5-Arduino-Lighting (Created/Hosted by 48productions)

    Use an Arduino to get game-controlled lights in StepMania 5/Project Outfox!

    Project Updates

    JudgeFonts-by-MattMayuga

    New judgefont: Side Stars

    Tiny-Web

    Update Sudospective profile

    Add ComboNumbers-by-MattMayuga and superuser

    kitsu-template

    StepMania-Archive (Fork updates only)

    Started initial translation code.

    OutFox-ja, OutFox-zh-CN, OutFox-Translations, OutfoxPTBR, Outfox-fr

    Updated to reflect new OutFox lines.

    New Members

    48productions which joined to share the SM5-Arduino-Lighting project!

    DysKoneko joined to learn and help with OutFox translations

    With those updates, Tiny-Foxes now hosts 47 open source projects, with the help of 34 members, I can't thank the community enough for making all those projects, and thank you for supporting us, that's it for now!

  • Believe it or not, di bus can't swim!

    Common splash.png

    Project OutFox Alpha 4.10.0 has been released! This build has a collection of various bug fixes, as well as technical improvements to multiple game types!

    Game improvements

    beat/BMS

    In beat, we have made several improvements to the BMS parser:

    We have adjusted the way the game reads BMS difficulties. As a lot of the charts are seen as the same difficulty we would end up losing a lot of the information in them, and half of the charts would be missing and unplayable. We are in the process of improving this further for the new BMS theme for Alpha V, so it will be better in time.

    The BMS parser also now supports the Land Mine channel for the first time! In previous versions there was a blanket math overflow, which meant that a lot of the channels were not being identified correctly, and thus flagging for extended channels was not being used. Mine damage based on the channel value will be added next alpha.

    mines-bms.png

    Captured using Alpha V BMS theme in development.

    We have also improved its handling of Long Notes; we did not seem to parse these correctly due to the flag sometimes being applied in the wrong manner, which meant some of the holds were not being applied in charts.

    We have also restored #RANDOM support again this alpha, as it was still using a legacy codepath we did not clear up in 4.9.10, apologies for that! This alpha allows for the #RANDOM n where n is 1 onwards.

    This alpha also includes several behavioural changes in the way the files are parsed, allowing for the correct Base to be used in reading channels, and allowing us to enable the missing hidden sounds as well as the missing channels that were inaccessible before.

    po-mu/PMS

    Im po-mu, the PMS parser has been similarly updated to improve its handling of difficulties. We have been able to adjust the channels used for po-mu to support Land Mines for the first time as well, and this also includes BME based po-mu files are properly supported as well in this alpha. Though without locale emulation, they will not load in native Windows 10 at this time. A fix for this is coming soon.

    gddm

    gddm has had an internal reworking due to recommendations from members of the DTXMania community (thanks APPROVED!), to ensure that we do a few things a little bit more to how players expect.

    One of the important features is the ability to change the lane setting from 10 to 9 lane, or 9 to 10 lane, depending on the e-drum kit you have. We were already able to read and support multiple lanes in older alpha builds depending on the ‘dominant’ right hand lane, but now if the game does not spot it as the style you wish, you can change this in the options menu.

    135681903-45440040-29ac-4251-88eb-21a39da2f8fd.png

    Real mode is 10 lane, and New mode is 9 lane; this gives you the flexibility to play the game how you wish moving forwards with the new theme and makes things less awkward if you do not have a 10-piece e-drum kit.

    This alpha has also worked a bit more on the latency issues plaguing some users, we have tweaked the keysound flow a lot this build, so please give it a try and let us know if this has improved gameplay for this mode.

    This build also has had work on the Channel 02/BL support to remove the old BMS era restriction. This means any measure change/time signature change is now respected, and thanks to APPROVED to making this chart which was a literal BPM Change/Time Signature Change Spam Chart we were able to effectively fix this for good. This change is also reflected in the gdgf mode as well as the GDA parser.

    135686294-d108a3f1-888e-4332-ad2d-166432b1f178.png

    gdgf

    Before this alpha, all the game was able to use on this mode was Autogen-based charts, or charts made with the default SSC format. Thanks to Squirrel and Jousway, the parser has been finally fixed and implemented to allow 3-fret and 5-fret guitar and bass charts to finally load natively in-engine.

    gdgf is based on a row system. Our internal mechanism is column based, and has been for some time, so ensuring this methodology is carried over was important. We still have a lot to do before simulation is better here, so please bear with us. We do NOT support the holds that were introduced in DTXMania AL yet; these will be done at a later date.

    This mode also now supports full up, down, and forward wailing controls, as requested by members of the community. To map this you will need to ensure your controller has the options to allow for wailing, as many newer guitar controllers have special ‘button’ modes for wailing. We will add new controller pages to the wiki to help players set up their games in due course.

    StepMania_Fy7dNg8Cjx.png

    Guitar chart loaded from a DTX file. Captured using Alpha V gddm/gdgf theme in development.

    This mode also has the 6-fret custom mode that we promised back in the spring, as we know a lot of folks wanted 6-fret availability in OutFox. We have chosen cyan as the sixth fret to follow the colour scheme from the original.

    Due to these changes, we have changed the styles and noteskins used for gdgf, so existing charts and noteskins will have to be updated. We will be releasing a patch for our Serenity pack later this month.

    Thank you all for your patience while we worked on this, it was a slog to try to transpose the system to something our game recognises!

    We have also begun a project to develop a BMS-like BGF based parser for this mode, which will include all 6 frets. Squirrel will be adding the information for this on the wiki for discussion; feedback is more than welcome!

    gh

    We have continued to work on the internal mechanics on this mode, so do forgive us while we fix things!

    We have added a new Backplates directory to the Appearance folder (thanks Jous!), which can be used for scrolling textures applied to the notefield. In gh backplates are used for the note highway, but they can be enabled at the theme level in other game types as well.

    StepMania_TgivJsQzh6.jpg

    There is also new noteskin support within the engine, while the measure lines and textures now behave as expected. Thanks to those of you that requested these features. The internal notefield and scrolling system has seen some updates as well as we move towards Alpha V.

    dance

    The RNG system was given a revamp, the stageseed generation was also fixed, as well there is also better audio parsing. Thanks for all the reports of the odd edge cases with some of the odd ‘stuttering’ bits and pieces you sent in; this was due to an undesirable response in the sampler expecting a calculation from the ‘old’ resampler path that didn'’'t exist on the new resampler, so we tweaked it to stop this.

    There have been other engine adjustments too; we discovered a few other weird bugs in how the buffer works due to the new keysound code for BMS and po-mu, and this has resolved a bug for dance modes.

    techno

    We fixed the methodolody of the lifebars and the odd crashes with the styles and different play styles available to this mode. There were a lot of edge case crashes which we have fixed for now. In regards to styles, we WILL be fixing the ability to play different styles per player. It’s disabled for now to just prevent arcade cab crashes.

    Platform support

    macOS

    In addition to being signed and notarized, as of Alpha 4.9.10 our builds for macOS are now also a universal binary.

    Download

    This is just a recap of the major, user-facing features and technucal changes. You can read the full changelog on the Alpha 4.10.0 page on outfox.wiki.

    As always, be sure to report any bugs you encounter on either our issue tracker or Discord. Be sure to provide us with as much information as you can whenever you report an issue. We won't be able to fix bugs that aren't reported to us.

    Download Alpha 4.10.0

  • It's September time! Welcome everyone, time to see your monthly blogpost, this month has been a bit chill as we're getting close to the end of 2021, now let's do this:

    TinyFoxes Status

    Speaking as the TinyFoxes creator, this project/organization has become bigger and more than I ever expected it to be, at the moment of writing this, we have 43 open source projects that range from translations to themes/noteskins/judgments/guides/tools/templates..etc. To think that this started as an organization to host OutFox language files, it obviously became more than that, and it reflects on the community vision of Tiny-Foxes.

    As a community manager of Project OutFox, I always keep a look at community comments, ideas, and how they see us and that gave me the opportunity to also see how TinyFoxes is seen as, some believe that it was created to control modding on OutFox so we can control the quality of those contents as an Alpha product, I want to clarify that this isn't my or OutFox Team intention, no content is forced to be on TinyFoxes to exist or to be considered by us, TinyFoxes is content approved and looked upon that will be showcased as officially verified community content, it's why we showcase at our official website.

    Anyone can submit content to TinyFoxes, you only need to contact the OutFox Team to verify if the content is allowed. Now, let's clarify some things:

    • Any content that is made for OutFox will be considered to join.
    • Content that is not made for OutFox but works will also be considered, but we will expect maintaining content to be future proof. (For example: CMD removal)
    • "What is considered OutFox content/Allowed on TinyFoxes?"
      • Themes
      • Tools that interacts, creates, updates, deletes OutFox files.
      • Noteskins
      • Judgments
      • Chart Pack(s)
      • Announcers
      • BGAnimations
      • Backgrounds
      • Toasties
      • OutFox related Guides.
      • Programming code made for OutFox.
      • OutFox Documentation (Research also counts)
    • "What is NOT considered OutFox content/Allowed on TinyFoxes?"
      • Exclusive SM5.1/5.2 or lower content made explicitly not to work on OutFox.
      • Non-original edits of created content.
      • Unlicensed content.

    With that out of the way, I'd like to announce that starting next year, TinyFoxes blogposts will be released every 4 months instead of each month, I hope this gives the community more time to finish their content before being featured.

    Project Updates

    OutFoxPTBR

    Archived lines for OutFox Alpha 4.9.10.

    Aqui-Alpha-Noteskins

    Had a major September 2021 update

    <- 2021 UPDATE ver 2.1 ->

    • Revised 8th note colour to better contrast against holds
    • Reverted Holds and Rolls to colour-coded blue and green
    • (help aozora can't reconcile with it for some reason)
    • adjusted mine colours

    New 2.1 tag created.

    RyutoSetsujin-Customizations

    Added new "popira" noteskin.

    Tiny-Web

    Updated RyutoSetsujin member information.

    OutFox-Web

    Updated to math recent website changes.

    Tiny-Webini

    Updated to match OutFox-Web.

    Released 1.9 Beta

    Matches websites changes after serenity pack release.

    • Removed FAQ page. (We have wiki now)
    • Updated About Page
    • Added Serenity Pack page (You can't translate everything)
    • Fixed missing "=" on elements properties.
    • Updated home page to showcase latest website elements
    • Removed the old move-freely page, will be supported again later.
    • Updated home page title (and as such, the program title)

    OutFox-zh-CN

    Updated contents for OutFox alpha 4.9.10.

    OutFox-Translations

    Updated zh-CN content for OutFox alpha 4.9.10.

    smtheme-soundwaves-community

    • Updated theme to match 4.9.10 soundwaves content/features.

    a4.9.10 tag created.


    That's it for now everyone, hope you all have a nice month, see ya.