Announcements

  • A new season comes for OutFox Serenity Volume 3, we're going from Spring to Summer

    Trailer

    BGAs shown on the video are not part of OutFox Serenity


    New Songs

    CHEER


    Eradication of Light


    Frenzied Serenity


    Serenity Volume 3 Spreadsheet

    The volume 3 spreadsheet has been updated with the new songs, comment on what you want to work on so others are aware!

    Serenity Page

    The serenity page has been updated to make it easier for new people to know the guidelines and how to submit their content.

    There will be a section for each type of content submission, you'll be sent to a new page showing the guidelines of that specific content telling the user to first register and then join our Discord to submit Charts and/or Graphics, music submission will have an additional link with a form made to submit music only.

    The user register form has been updated not to have music-specific fields.

    "Content" pages have been moved to OutFox Wiki where you can see the History, User Profiles, and Volume Resumes of OutFox Serenity.

    We plan to create a new page that will allow users to download simfile templates without joining our Discord Server.

    Join the Community!

    Give feedback, share your content, discuss and talk with the community not only of Serenity but Project OutFox as a whole, join our Discord Server with over 2200 members!

  • OutFox Serenity

    Heya!

    We're happy to announce that OutFox Serenity Volume 2 Winter Update just released, the second winter update since volume 1, we thank every single contributor for making the project go this far and this big.

    With the launch of this volume, OutFox Serenity will have a total of 560 charts available to play, go ahead and check the OutFox Serenity Page for more info!

    A place to remember

    With OutFox Serenity always growing, so is the number of artists for charts, graphics, and songs, OutFox Serenity was always about the contribution to the community and making your name.

    Because of that, we have started working on something where people will be able to view information about all submissions you and others have made, when possible, we will also include your socials so more people can follow your work elsewhere.

    We're not ready to share more details than that as the project just recently began, but rest assured that your contributions will be documented.

    What now

    As some of you might know, OutFox Serenity Volume 3 has already been in the works for quite some time given how it will have a different development period compared to how we have done it in the past, we're also very close to its reveal it is just a few days away.

    With this announcement, a new category should be available, on OutFox Discord Server, for OutFox Serenity, with a better way to submit content, discuss rates/chart creation, and how find our spreadsheets. We have also updated our outfox serenity guidelines page with new rules and an easier way to register yourself/submit music.

    Keep your attention on any of our socials so you don't lose the Volume 3 announcement!


    Tiny-Foxes

    Ready to see what updates our members have worked on? Let's see them!

    New Projects

    Peters-Noteskins (Tiny-Foxes Fork)

    This is a fork of MegaSphere/Pete-Lawrence's StepMania noteskins repository. The focus of this fork is to focus on adding Project OutFox-optimized versions of its StepMania 5.x noteskins, namely by:

    • Adjusting their code to adhere to its developers' best practices for Lua code style (i.e. removing use of cmd blocks, replacing semicolons with commas, etc.)
    • Adjusting their code to support Project OutFox's Lua timing system (namely, recognizing judgements beyond W1, as well as using a different method to color the note explosion sprite in order to support judgement colors defined by themes)
    • Adding sprites for OutFox-specific notes such as lift holds and mine holds.

    OpenSMOpp

    OpenSMO but updated...TO GO EVEN FURTHER BEYOND! ~ Jous

    OutFox-Translation-Helper

    Translation Helper for Project OutFox

    This program compares a source and target language file, to check for missing keys.

    ComboNumbers-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.

    Project Updates

    Virtua-Steps

    RyutoSetsujin-Customizations

    TF_Wheels

    smtheme-soundwaves-community

    Aozora-Alpha-Noteskins

    kitsu-template

    superuser-outfox

    NEW Theme colors! You can now choose between several (about 25 at the moment?) different color schemes! Highly requested by the community.

    NEW Background brightness! Allows you to dim the image in the background.

    NEW Theme provided judgments and toasties! I included a few to make the theme more theme-like.

    NEW Judgment animation toggles! You can turn on or off animations on judgments if you find them distracting.

    Fixed anomalies in Player Options when using only Player 2

    Fixed course mode breaking in song wheel (still unstable in gameplay, work in progress)

    Added higher-quality grade indicators in the evaluation screen

    Various stability and bug fixes

    JudgeFonts-by-MattMayuga

    That's it for now, see you next time!

  • OutFox Serenity

    Hello everyone!

    The testing weeks for OutFox Serenity Volume 2 just finished, thanks a lot to everyone who contributed, be sure to take your well-deserved rest as the pack releases with Project OutFox Alpha V.

    It has been some time since the start of Volume 2, since then, we had much time to request feedback and take decisions about the future of Serenity and how to better manage the space in which submissions are made, this blogpost will share important information about what we want to do in the future, how/why we decided such things, and how we expect it to benefit you as a player or as a Serenity Contributor.

    Development Time & Submission Space

    With Volume 2, we decided to give more time than usual for contributors to make graphics and charts, we took at face value the number of charts that were made for Volume 1 and how much time everyone had, it wasn't a good idea, many contributors shared their sentiment about waiting till the end to see what others wanted to make and the high timeframe removed some motivation, however, that wasn't all.

    If you aren't a member of our Discord Community, a key decision was made before Volume 2 that made OutFox Serenity a separate server from Project OutFox, this meant that everyone who wanted to contribute to OutFox Serenity would be required to join another server, the reason for such decision was to remove channels and roles from the main server to clear channel navigation and prepare for "plans". After some time, we noticed that fewer people would participate for lack of visibility, a member who joined our main server had no way of knowing that OutFox Serenity was even a thing, while good things came from having a different server, it only hurt the project.

    With that in mind, here are our plans for the future:

    • The next volume, OutFox Serenity Volume 2 Winter Update, will have a timeframe of around 3 months open for graphics and chart contribution. (Not including testing weeks)
    • With OutFox Serenity Volume 3, we will bring back the serenity channels to Project OutFox main server and archive the separate server. (No content will be lost)

    As to how we think this will help:

    • Our latest feedback request showed that many contributors see a 3-month timeframe as the perfect time to produce content.
    • Having the Serenity channels back to our main server will instantly open the visibility to more than 1800 users, it will also help Project OutFox Moderation Team not have to take care of two servers.

    OutFox Serenity Volume 2 Winter Update

    As you have read above, our next volume will be another Winter Update (or OutFox Serenity Volume 2.5 for some), some might remember that we planned to release 2 big packs this year, but we decided to move that content for something different.

    We won't reveal the submission start date as we want contributors to take their time without having to worry about Serenity.

    Just like Volume 1 Winter Update, Volume 2 Winter Update will add a small number of songs (3 songs) to focus more on adding charts for the past large bulk of new songs.

    OutFox Serenity Volume 3

    Volume 3 will be a different from other volumes in every way and will also redefine Serenity works, taking together feedback from the community and some crazy ideas we had.

    Seasons

    Many members shared their interest in Serenity "Seasons" and we always listened to such feedback and decided to take that to the test, here's how Seasons will work:

    • There's no upper limit, you can release updates to a Season even after it has been "released".
    • Each Season comes with 3 songs, they'll be released with a base SSC template, and templates for specific modes will be released when ready.
    • Serenity Volumes will get a new patch at the start of every month after it was revealed.
    • Each Season will add its content into their Volume folder, meaning all 4 seasons of Volume 3 will be added to "OutFox Serenity Volume 3".
    • Each Season will have its trailer of selected songs "jukebox style", but a volume release trailer won't be made anymore.
    • Seasons will follow Meteorological Seasons timing, which means:
      • Spring Season will release 3 new songs on 01/03.
      • Summer Season will release 3 new songs on 01/06.
      • Fall Season will release 3 new songs on 01/09.
      • Winter Season will release 3 new songs on 01/12.

    Having a constant flux of songs will help make the project feel more active, the small number of songs should give a healthy amount of charts for each and each year will close as if we had launched a big pack with 12 songs. It is important to note that we will allow songs to be released without song-specific graphics (which will fall back on their Volume specific Background/Banner/Jacket).

    OutFox Serenity Volume is planned to take place in 2023, expect more details to be shared later.

    Song License

    It is the main objective for OutFox Serenity to make a legal, safe, and full of content pack, this means that you must be allowed to play any chart you want, be it in public at a cab, streaming on Youtube/Twitch, or just having a time.

    The majority of songs included with OutFox Serenity use CC-BY licenses, which grants enough rights to make both the artist and player safe, however, you might have noticed that not all of them are like that and the more popular OutFox Serenity gets, the more non-CC-BY music submissions we get, we came with the following conclusion:

    ARR (All Rights Reserved) music submissions will be accepted by everyone as long we the artist agrees not to strike or go after anyone who streams/records/plays a chart that includes the Artist's song if played from Project OutFox or Project OutFox related products. We will update our submission and guidelines page to make it clear that if one submits music with such a license, you'll have agreed with such rules, otherwise your content will be removed and future submissions will not be accepted.

    Tiny-Foxes

    Now with the Tiny-Foxes news, it has been quite some time since our last blogpost as Project OutFox is working to get Alpha V out with new themes and features for Tiny-Foxes members to develop, but that hasn't stopped new ideas from being created.

    New Projects

    Fini

    A project which allows Project OutFox translators to separate each .ini section into its file.

    Features:


    OutFox-sk

    Created by jose1711, OutFox-sk is a repository that hosts a Slovak translation of Project OutFox!


    Rotwind-Noteskins

    Repository project which hosts noteskins of Daniel Rotwind for Project Outfox.


    Virtua-Steps

    This is a modification of the legacy theme from StepMania 5.0.x to be used as a theming playground of sorts trying to come up with something I personally feel proud of.

    Project Updates

    SM5-Arduino-Lighting

    Has been updated to mention more wiring methods.


    RyutoSetsujin-Customizations

    • Added pump noteskin.
    • Updated README.md

    Aozora-Alpha-Noteskins

    Alpha Noteskin Logo

    Has had a new release with a new kbx noteskin, alpha-kbx!

    This update introduces Alpha-KBX into the fold, a bar-based noteskin for exclusive use for the kbx gamemode.
    Be sure to copy the respective noteskins into the proper folders as to avoid problems!

    For alpha-arrows [Outfox Directory]\Appearance\NoteSkins\global

    For alpha-kbx [Outfox Directory]\Appearance\NoteSkins\kbx


    smtheme-soundwaves-community

    Common splash.png

    Updated to have the same features as Project OutFox 4.15, you can download the new release here.


    JudgeFonts-by-MattMayuga

    • Added pump variant for Side Stars.
    • Added OutFox variant for Side Stars.
    • Added new variants for existing judgefonts.

    Here's an image to showcase how Side Stars OutFox looks:


    superuser-outfox

    Superuser Got a new release, Superuser v1.3.0!

    it's been 84 years...

    Sorry for the long pause on releases! I've been hard at work implementing a lot of things, including a Lua wheel! Big thanks to @Jousway for creating the wheels in the TF_Wheels repo as well as giving lots of help with mine!

    • Scrolling through the music wheel should be much smoother now.

    This new wheel is VERY different from what you're used to. It's not just one wheel either, it's two!

    • Group and song selection is now done through separate wheels.

    You may notice the little colorful chocolate pips on each song. It's a quick way to glance at what charts a song has.

    • "Chart pips" have been added to song panels in the song wheel.

    Not only that, but the group wheel has some neat stuff, too! People looking through packs can now see a short list of artists with songs in it!

    • Artist list, song count, and group banner are viewable on the group wheel.

    And finally, because this new wheel style is weird and confusing and scary, there's instructions on screen to help you through it.

    • Control information is presented on the song wheel and difficulty selection.

    ...oh right.

    • Difficulty selection is separated from song wheel.

    That's about all I have to summarize, be sure to check the commits and compare for more detailed changes!

    See you soon <3
    ~ Sudo

    Project OutFox Steam Workshop

    As many of you might know, Project OutFox will soon come to Steam, and Steam Workshop will be supported, this does not mean Tiny-Foxes will stop being supported, we're still in talks about it but Tiny-Foxes projects added into Steam Workshop will be considered semi-official and secure, this is important as moderation/license requirement will be taken seriously.

    That's it for now, see you next time!

  • We're happy to announce big and fresh news to our biggest community project, OutFox Serenity. Our team has been working very hard to make the future of Serenity even better and keep showcasing our community creativity, knowledge and skills, you'll not want to miss it.

    Serenity Volume 2

    The next major version of Serenity has finally come! As a reminder, since Volume 1 Winter Update all Serenity-related development has been moved to it's own dedicated Serenity server. For Volume 2, 10 new songs from a variety of genres have been chosen to reflect the even bigger number of game modes now available on OutFox compared to when Serenity was created. Here's the list:

    Songs

    chop chop

    Support via Bandcamp. "chop chop" is also featured on RaoulWB's own game, Fech The Ferret, go check it out!

    Sweeteners

    Support via Bandcamp.

    Beatucada

    Into My Dream

    Bounded Quietude

    Phycietiia

    Neutralize (PTB10 MIX)

    CRUSH THE DEVIL (IN MY BRAIN)

    Technological ≠ Emotional

    B-Happy

    Serenity Vol 2 Status Sheet

    In order to facilitate organizing things and communication it's crucial to let other people know what you're working on. With this in mind, make of use this THIS SPREADSHEET to keep track of how development for Serenity Vol 2 is going. Also, be sure to first join our Serenity Discord Server to have a quick and directly channel to talk, share ideas and feedback with other members and quickly get the latest info first hand as soon as possible.

    Serenity Playlist

    To accommodate for songs that are not already publicly available on streaming platforms like YouTube, SoundCloud, Bandcamp, Deezer, etc. we decided to create our Serenity Playlist where you'll find the in-game cut of every song featured since Volume 1. There's links for full/extended versions, ways to support and artists' socials inside each video description for those interested. Check them out here:

    Compatibility

    Shortly after the Volume 1 launch we released a legacy version for use with older versions of StepMania 5, such as 5.0.12, 5.1 and some of its forks. We felt this was an important thing to do for our first launch, but after evaluating our analytics data it's clear not many people are interested in it. Moving forward, we have no plans to release more legacy packs that target those versions. One of Serenity's goals is to showcase and take advantage of OutFox's new features and gamemodes, including fixes and changes made to already existing modes. Naturally, to fully experience and enjoy it, it's always recommended to use the latest OutFox version available.

    Unfortunately, retrofitting Serenity content to create legacy versions is not an easy task. It takes a considerable amount of time and effort to troubleshoot and validate everything. First, all content made for new modes and styles has to be outright removed. Then, we have to manually check all remaining charts for note types, gimmicks, etc that only work on OutFox (which may not behave correctly or cause crashes on 5.x) and figure out what's the best course of action: edit the charts to make them playable, possibly taking away what the original creators envisioned for it, or simply remove those?

    That being said, those who may still want to play Serenity on legacy SM setups anyway at their discretion are free to fork our GitHub repository and do the required edits for their own personal use.

    Chart & Graphics Development Cycle

    Based on feedback and internal discussion, we also decided to give the community more time than ever before. With Serenity Volume 2, we're starting 27/03 till 16/07 with chart and graphics submissions, then we'll enter testing and QA phase from 17/07 to 31/07, resulting in around 123 days of development for our community to create charts.

    After much planning, we believe this will work better for everyone involved as it alleviates the pressure of having very limited time to participate while also having to manage their own personal matters. We expect to release at least 2 Serenity packs per year, both with more than 100 days of development cycle time for charts and graphics, featuring at least 6 new songs on each pack, going up to 10 songs. Of course, this may be subject to changes based on how much submissions the community brings and other factors.

    If you're interested in having your work being showcased, be it music/chart/graphic then come join our Serenity Discord Server.

    Music Submissions

    As we aim to make bigger and bigger Serenity packs, our search for more awesome music contributions from talented people also grows. If you make music or have any friends who create music and wish to be featured on future Serenity updates, please fill our online submission form, after reading our guidelines to make sure everything is cleared and safe for use.

    Music submissions are always open. Regardless if a volume is currently in development or not, we're always checking our submissions backlog and curating possible candidates for use and will contact you if we think something is fit.

  • Dear OutFox Community,

    As we move closer towards the release of Alpha V, and after the issues we had with the release of 4.9.9, we would like to address some of the things that as a team we have noticed over the past few months. As a community, we're not sure if the addition of a Discord server has caused some of these issues and behaviour, or if it's the fact that we are more easily accessible than if we were on a forum or IRC channel. We are writing this post to make our stance and that of our staff and volunteers, as well as those who contribute time or content to make the game better.

    We love OutFox, and still love a lot of the things that StepMania was. The name change was needed so we can sign our MacOS (and soon Windows) builds. There is no conspiracy about moving away from the core playerbase. There are no other issues about us 'abandoning' our dedication and efforts on improving StepMania via it's own repository in the future with some form of update from our team as discussed with Shakesoda. There is also no conspiracy theory about us hating 'dance' based games. Just because 4/5 panel is not literally everything we live and breathe does not make it correct for you to throw out misinformation or treat us in a way that moves toward literal cyberbullying to the team. We understand your passion and drive for the modes that you play, but this does not give you any right to try to enforce that view in a negative manner towards us.

    What we don't love at all is continued demands and entitlement - something that over the past two to three months has begun to get extremely volatile from certain communities and individuals. OutFox is not our life or existence. OutFox also is not our job. We code and develop (and support) OutFox as our fun and to drive us to do better. We will always do our best to fix things or do things as fast as possible, including updates, bugfixes, support, handling feature requests, supporting legacy 5.1/5.0 code, providing support for players who don't even use OutFox, etc. This also is true when that demand is your first or one of your only interactions with our team or server.

    Before you ask us, (or anyone else in your life) to do something for you, please take time to carefully consider what you are asking for, and where this expectation has come from. We are extremely patient and generous here at Project OutFox, so some expectation of us for very little in return is something we have become used to; including community support, bug support, even code support and providing test builds to fix issues folks have. What you are not entitled to however, is to expect some defined service level or response time, or to demand information at a whim. We do things as quickly as constraints of life allow. Whether that be minutes, hours, days or weeks, you have no entitlement to expect one or the other. The game gets improvements as and when - if you cannot see the improvements this brings to your specific mode of play, then that is a shame. As we improve the engine it benefits more than just a specified mode, and this is the future of OutFox. It will become more than what it was when we took the reins, and that is to support a brand new rhythm game sandbox moving forward.

    We thank you for continuing to support the project, but for the sanity of the team, we felt this issue needs to be addressed before it gets out of hand, or worse we suffer from the demands of people who do not consider how their actions affect the team.

    ~Project OutFox Team

  • Today we have not one, not two, but three big announcements:

    Project OutFox Alpha 4.9.10

    Project OutFox Alpha 4.9.10 builds upon the work and bug fixes from the Alpha 4.9.9 hotfix builds, and also contains some new internal features that serve as building blocks for current and future content:

    Alpha 4.9.10 contains a number of new details, features, and bug fixes for some of our game types;

    modes-diagram.png

    • The interactive sync/calibration process now supports other game types besides dance.
    • We have fixed issues with rate mods and the sound resampler.
    • In pump and taiko, we now support timing windows from both games (with pump having Normal, Hard, and Very Hard settings), and have added judgement fonts to them as well.
    • In pump, we also gave the default noteskin a refresh to improve visibility, and changed the design of the center panel graphic in response to feedback.
    • In gddm, we now support the older GDA format for BandJAM/GDAMania-era six-part drum charts. We also fixed a bug that caused crashes when loading DTX charts that don't use all nine lanes.
    • In beat, the noteskins have been updated to have button sprites under the receptor line.
    • As demonstrated in the OutFox Serenity trailer, we now support showing judgments per-column. By default, per-column judgements are displayed in modes that typically use them, such as gddm and popn.
    • We now support displaying a loading screen before gameplay when the game needs to load keysounds in game types such as beat and popn. Previously, this occurred over a black screen with the game appearing to hang, which was just a little disconcerting. The default theme features a reference implementation of this feature, but themers can customize it to their heart's content.

    As always, this is just a recap of the major, user-facing features. For a full change log, as well as a developer note from Squirrel over what had happened with Alpha 4.9.9, see the Alpha 4.9.10 page on outfox.wiki.

    Download

    OutFox Serenity Volume I released!

    serenity-bn.png

    OutFox Serenity Volume I has been released! Formerly known during development as the OutFox Community Pack, it features music by Aspid Cat, Drazil, Jack5, Matduke, mmry, PizeroFox, Seo, and Sevish. Alongside 4-panel (dance) and 5-panel (pump) charts, some of its songs also have beat, popn, techno (8- and 9-panel), gddm, and gdgf, and gh charts.

    More information

    A lot of (out)fox to give

    Project Moondance was a legacy brand used by our team early on, often in parallel with "OutFox" and "Team Rizu" (the name we used to initially refer to our main dev team). As our project and community evolved, however, this nomenclature became confusing, and we began the process of phasing out the "Project Moondance" and "Team Rizu" names in favour of just "Project OutFox", because everyone called it just "OutFox" anyway.

    As of today, we are beginning to migrate our main website from projectmoon.dance to projectoutfox.com. Right now, it is a redirect, but it will become the main URL soon (the old domain will still redirect, though). The site will also be updated over the next few weeks to reflect the new direction of our project, so stay tuned for future details!

  • We have been working on a new documentation wiki known as Outfox.wiki/, to provide in-depth information on how to play, create content for, and develop Project OutFox. We have deployed a new format and framework for the wiki to replace one that the webmaster, in retrospect, didn't think was flexible enough for our needs. While it features the same content as it had before, it also features:

    • A new visual appearance with more continuity with the main site.
    • Better organization
    • Cleaner URLs (no more weird outfox.wiki/#/example, we now have proper subdirectories). This did break all existing links to the wiki, so be sure to update your links if you have been linking to content on the wiki.

    Be sure to check back often, as it will be continually updated with new information as we go. Its content is drawn from a Git repository; commit access is limited to the development team, but you can always perform pull requests.

  • Hello everyone, hope you're having a good day, with the announce of Moondance Team and Team Rizu joining sides to create Team OutFox, we also created a new Twitter account focused only on that, expect everything about OutFox to be announced there too! Here's the link: https://twitter.com/projectoutfox

    Be sure to follow us so you don't lose anything, Narumi and the OutFox Team will do her best to keep you updated!

  • Hello everyone, we recently did changes to our internal team to reduce the amount of confusion related to how many teams we had and their naming. As of now, Moondance is not a thing anymore and we'll reference "Team Rizu" less, we hope this reduces any confusion that has been caused in the past, the new way our team works is the follow:

    • Mainly, there's only "OutFox Team" now.
    • Everyone from Moondance is officialy part of OutFox Team, more specifically the "OutFox Community Team"
    • The only effect on Tiny-Foxes is Moondance naming references removal.

    We have also updated our wiki to reflect easily how our team works now, see how it works.

    This however does not mean you can't join anymore, if you're looking to help with assets, community management, gamemodes..etc you can always reach the OutFox Team.

    Thanks for reading and have a nice day.

    Team Rizu

  • "An Alpha is never late, it arrives precisely when it means to!"

    Project OutFox 5.3 Alpha 4.9.8 has been released! There is a lot to go over with this release, including new game modes, user-facing features, and other internal bug fixes and improvements.

    Gameplay features

    Game types

    One of our major goals with 5.3 has been to improve its various gametypes, and add new ones never implemented in StepMania before. Many of them have been neglected for years or even a decade, so they have been buggy and incomplete.

    modes-diagram.png

    Alpha 4.9.8 contains improvements to a number of gametypes (including new styles, and updates to the parsers for BMS and PMS), as well as one brand-new gametype:

    • gdgf (renamed from "guitar"): We have added a 6-fret style. This mode and its sister drum gametype gddm will support a DTX loader in the future, but you can also use the built-in editor to author drum and guitar charts in the standard .SSC format too.
    • popn: This mode has been around for a very long time, but has not really had any support or been looked at since before 2010. It was side-lined into the BMS loader, which actually broke a lot of the needed changes PMS actually uses, and as a result most PMS files with 7 or 9 lanes, would be added to the game as beat 10-lane or 14-lane charts. We thank the anonymous reporter of this bug, as Squirrel took the time to investigate it and we decided to return a new modernised PMS loader to the game, which now correctly loads PMS songs as they should be. This also removes the oddity and edge crashes when anyone wished to play this mode on OutFox. With these changes. we have been able to load packs such as Colorful Channel with no issue.
      • The new loader can also handle long notes, the 06 (POOR), 07 (BG2) and 0A (LAYER 2) BGA channels, and the ITEM channel.
      • In addition, we have support for 3-lane (battle), 4-lane, 5-lane, and 7-lane charts, while community member Daniel has contributed several new noteskins specifically for popn mode too.

    115632725-40f41e80-a300-11eb-8d9d-479a82dcb6bf.jpg

    • para: A double style has been added.
    • techno: 9-panel and 18-panel styles have been added. In addition, a new version of Broadhead with column-based colors has been added as a global noteskin and as the default for techno.

    techno-double.jpg

    • gh: A new 5-fret (and 6-fret coming soon) gametype based on a collection of popular games that used a guitar-styled controller to press frets and strum along to bass and guitar parts of a song.
      • It can load charts in the .chart and .midi formats, and supports co-operative multiplayer (i.e. one player can play a bass or rhythm guitar chart while the other plays lead guitar, for example).
      • To implement this gametype, new note types were added, and internal changes were made so that its code doesn't have to be squished around dance-centric code.

    StepMania_WBuGwTLnhj.jpg

    All gametypes have access to features such as the built-in chart editor and modifier systems, allowing you to extend your content to as many as 52 styles in 14 gametypes as of this release.

    Most gametypes currently have a "preliminary" implementation, meaning that they are functional but may be missing features. They also run within the default Soundwaves theme, which was primarily designed for the dance gametype and its associated paradigms, and may not necessarily work well with all gametypes. The next phase of implementation will be to give each gametype a tailored theme and user experience, so that they will no longer have to be shoehorned into an interface they aren't meant for.

    Most of these modes are sadly-neglected and have been without support or a maintainer for upwards of a decade, so be a touch sympathetic to them if you decide to take the time to explore, they will be given the love they deserve. We are going to stop the trend of "adding new stuff then doing nothing with it" that was so common in the project we are formed from.

    Given that we now have more gametypes that aren't step-based over those that are, we have also made a decision to reinstate the Project OutFox name for our builds going forward rather than StepMania. None of this means we are abandoning step games, though.

    LiftHolds

    We have added a new option for hold and roll tails known as a "LiftHold", where the player must let go at the end of the hold. You can add them to charts by using DL instead of 3 to end a hold or roll in the .ssc file, while a modifier is available to change all holds and rolls in a chart to LiftHolds.

    lifthold-tail.png

    New pause menu

    Due to limitations in how pause menus are currently implemented in-game (we need to change it in order to support the new BGA layers needed for for BMS, PMS, and DTX. Plus, since it was an actor in ScreenGameplay overlay, it became invisible if a song [such as the majority of mod files] toggles its visibility), we have made a new implementation of one within the fallback theme.

    115640138-27f26a00-a30e-11eb-94f1-6cb697b01ace.png

    It appears instantly once the Back button is pressed; we may restore the existing "Hold Back to give up" behaviour as an option in the future.

    Theme developers can enable the new pause menu by setting the the metric UsePauseMenu=true under [ScreenGameplay]. A basic menu design is provided, but it can be customized by themes. We have maintained backwards compatibility with themes which do not enable it.

    Technical changes

    Timing changes

    Since Alpha 4.9.7GG we have slightly adjusted the renderer pipeline to optimize how we deal with frames within the kernel timer of the OS. This is to prepare for new sound/rendering drivers coming in the near future, but as we've found with a lot in this game, baby steps to fix little blockers before we do major updates. We also have removed more of the Rage engine in favour of modern mathematics algorithms, and this has needed a slight tweak to the order on how we draw things.

    if you find your median timing skews early or late (like the example below) after migrating to 4.9.8, take a moment to re-calibrate your offset.

    115966525-dcb2a400-a525-11eb-9888-538f322ba115.png

    Video upscaler

    We have implemented the ability to change the scaler algorithm used by FFmpeg for videos in Project OutFox, via the preference VideoUpScaleFilter. If you have an older system, take the time to experiment with the different algorithms and see how it affects your performance, as this will add a little load onto your system.

    • 0 - none (default; recommended for Raspberry Pi and low-end devices)
    • 1 - fast bilinear
    • 2 - bilinear
    • 3 - bicubic
    • 4 - X Sharpens + Contrast
    • 5 - Point
    • 6 - Area
    • 7 - Bicublin (recommended)
    • 8 - Gaussian
    • 9 - Sinc
    • 10 - Lanczos
    • 11 - Spline.

    Input

    We have added a new preference, UsingArcadePads, which will allow you to use the input driver for Python boards natively without any freezes. As per the "starworlds" StepMania branch, you need to set InputDrivers=Python23IO,SDL in Preferences.ini. This will set up your board driver, and allow you to use keyboard/XInput/Bluetooth controllers to control the game while you're on your pad (if you exclude SDL as input, you will have no keyboard input!).

    You will need to set UseOldJoystickMapping=0 as well, so the game will initialise the XInput controller driver alongside your Python board. This preference only currently supports the Python23IO driver, but will be expanded to Reflex and other drivers in the future.

    Release notes and download

    You can see the full changelog and download links for Alpha 4.9.8 here on GitHub, which has details on the other improvements and bug fixes featured in this build.

    Give all of the new modes a try and be sure to give us your feedback! You can visit the new r/OutFox for support and discussion of Project OutFox on Reddit, and stream Project OutFox on Twitch.

    OutFox Community Pack

    We are still accepting applications for music contributions, graphics artists, and charters for the OutFox Community Pack project. With the release of Alpha 4.9.8, we have added a series of new channels to the Project OutFox Discord server for organizing submissions, as we formally begin the process of producing the pack!