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GH3 PC Customs Beginner Tutorial ( Updated )
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lowang  





Joined: 09 Aug 2007
Posts: 58
Location: New Zealand

PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 6:02 am    Post subject: GH3 PC Customs Beginner Tutorial ( Updated ) Reply with quote

THIS TUTORIAL WAS WRITTEN FOR SOFTWARE THAT IS NOW NO LONGER USED , PLEASE USE THE NEW SOFTWARE CREATED BY MAXKILLER AT THIS THREAD --> http://www.scorehero.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=69818 THIS TUTORIAL NO LONGER APPLIES, THANK YOU














First off all credits etc go to TomPudding, MaxKiller, Leff, Tma, and whoever else i forgot which had something to do with the possibility of adding customs to GH3.

I have absolutely nothing to do with the creation of these applications but it's getting tiring reading the same problems over and over in the application thread so i have whipped together a quick tutorial.

This is just a basic tutorial to get you going on adding customs to your game


Things you need to know:

You need an mp3 of your song, and a notechart so guitar hero knows where to place its notes, the game doesn't automatically create a note chart for you to play. Notecharts can be found Here

- Dont use VBR mp3's
- Preferably use 128kbps MP3's
- Do not use multi channel ogg's
- These tools are all still in very early development and are improving almost daily. (Credit:Spoonman)
- People are having problems adding multiple songs in multiple sittings (Credit:Spoonman)
- some songs just simply don't work at the moment (Credit:Spoonman)
- There's a maximum number of songs you are able to add to each list, experiment and find out [Maximum amount reported working; 105 songs in career and 105 in bonus songs](Credit:Spoonman)
- If this does not work, please note your exact steps and then post a bug report in the support forum (Credit:Spoonman)
- For each new release of the songlist editor, please start over from a fresh copy of GH3 (credit:locks)
- if your running Vista, make sure you run the editor as ADMINISTRATOR (also on XP you may need to run as admin if your account dont have admin rights already) (credit:locks)
- Make sure your regional setting are in english US (control panel / regional setting) (credit:locks)
- Make sure you install the game in english (credit:locks)
- If when loading a song you get an infinite loading screen, then there's something wrong with your mp3 or mid file (credit:locks)
- if you can play the notes but there is no sound, mp3 is bad (credit:locks)
- how do I fix my mp3? well load it up in audacity and convert it to MP3 at 128kbps & 44.4khz and try to reimport the song with the editor (credit:locks)
- Keep the names of the song, mp3 & midi files short, otherwise the game may crash (credit:locks)
- Don't use weird characters in your song names, as this can cause problems too
- Sometimes note charts are only written for one difficulty ( usually just expert ) so when its played on a lower difficulty you will either have a complete duplicate of the expert chart or no chart at all, either find a different chart or start playing on expert ;-)

BACKUP ANY SAVE GAMES YOU HAVE BEFORE STARTING ANY EDITING

To create a backup of your save game, go into your "my documents folder" and create a copy of the ASPYR folder and store it somewhere safe.


Optional Step To Avoid Having To Reinstall when you mess up or you want to revert to a previous change

Credit goes to locks on this

1) Browse To C:\Program Files\Aspyr\Guitar hero III\DATA\PAK ( unless you installed it somewhere else )

2) Copy qb.pab.xen and qb.pak.xen somewhere safe



3) if you want to restore from a previous backup, just copy the backed up files ( qb.pab.xen & qb.pak.xen ) back into the Data\PAK folder overwriting the old ones



First off, you will need the following applications:

- Guitar Hero 3 for PC
- Chart2Mid Here
- GH3 PC editor Here
- Lame.exe Here
- MP3info Here
- An mp3 of a song you want in the game
- A Note Chart for the mp3 of the song you want in the game.


For Testing purposes I am going to use Buckethead - Nottingham Lace for this tutorial.

You can either rip the song off the cd or "acquire" it from somewhere, i will not go into detail on how to do that.


-- THIS TUTORIAL IS BASED ON A CLEAN INSTALL --



1) Install Guitar Hero 3 ( and v1.1 patch if you have it )
2) Download GH3 PC Editor Here
3) Lame.exe Here
4) MP3info Here
5) Extract GH3 PC Editor into a folder on your desktop
6) Extract lame.exe from step 3 into your GH3 PC Editor Folder
7) Extract MP3info from step 4 into your GH3 PC Editor Folder
8) Get your mp3 and a notechart for it ( A Notecharts Index can be found Here)
9) Once you have your mp3 and a notechart for it we will need to convert/prepare the .chart file you have downloaded to a .mid so GH3 Pc Editor can import it into the game

10) GET Leff's Chart2Mid Tool Here
11) Once you have downloaded it, extract it to a folder, run the .jar file and select your .chart and convert it to .mid
12) Basically right about now you are supposed to have an mp3 & and notechart in .mid form

13) Fire up GH3 PC Editor now ( by using the songlist_editor.exe )
14) Select File > Open > it should automatically find your GH3 folder, Click ok


15) it should now display a list of all the songs in the game


16) Click the insert song button at the bottom and another window will open

17) Give the song a name ( in this case, buckethead )

-- NOTE, what you choose as the song name will be the identifier for the gh3customs pc editor program --

18) where it says guitar click browse and navigate to your mp3
19) follow the above steps for rythm & song
20) Select your freshly created .mid file
21) Enter the Artist And Song name in the fields below

It should look something like this


22) Click ok, it'll convert your mp3 into a format GH3 can use, this should only take a few seconds

Your Song should show up in the list of available songs now


23) now that is done, click edit setlist below
24) Select Bonus songs

25)Next to the songs per Tier section click the "up arrow" button to increase the number of songs in the bonus songs section
26) It will create a slowride entry at the bottom of the song number drop down list

27)
Select Slowride
28 ) Now under SONG Select your newly added song ( in this case, buckethead)

29) Click the ok button which will return you to the main menu where you click file then save

30) you will see this prompt


31) Click OK
32) Now Fire up the game, go into the cheats menu THEN GO TO ENTER CHEAT, A GUITAR WILL APPEAR and strum the Green fret twice
33) Go to quickplay > bonus songs and go to the bottom, you'll find your new song there



34) Enjoy


How To Keep Your Savegame & Current Highscores

- Once again, i take no responsibility if you screw up your savegame or game itself, personally i don't really bother with this since i don't care much for my scores on the pc version -

1) Firstly, Backup your current savegame ( Copy the aspyr folder in my documents somewhere safe )
2) After you have done all your editing in the editor on your setlist ( and saved ) rather than closing the songlist editor keep it running
3) Fire Up Guitar Hero 3
4) It'll complain about the savegame being corrupt etc, delete your save game
5) Go into the game options and manually save your game
6) Alt-TAB from the game back into the editor and click the update save game button
7) When the window opens up point it to your backup of your savegame, then to your newly created savegame.
8) Go Back to game options and load your savegame, then enter the unlock all cheat and you should be good to go.


Song Out Of Sync ( E.g. Song plays before notes show up )

During implementing custom songs you will probably encounter songs being not in synch with the note chart, This usually occurs because a notechart is written with an offset and your mp3 doesn't automatically include the offset.

Usually when people post charts you will see that they have an offset included in their post which needs to be applied to a song in order to get it synchronized.


Here's an example.

Someone has written that an offset of 3 seconds needs to be used for the song to be synchronized, basically that means you need to generate 3 seconds of silence at the beginning of the mp3. ( if an offset has not been supplied, you'll have to figure it out on your own )

To do this:

1) Get audacity Here
2) Open your mp3 in audacity which should look like this

3) Click Generate
4) Click Silence
5) Enter how many seconds of silence you want to generate
6) Click ok
7) Once done Click File > Export, Mp3 128kbps constant bitrate
8) Import back into song editor and see how you go.

Sometimes note charts are only written for one difficulty ( usually just expert ) so when its played on a lower difficulty you will either have a complete duplicate of the expert chart or no chart at all, either find a different chart or start playing on expert ;-)

Any suggestions are welcome.



PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE ASKING QUESTIONS:

If you have done everything above and you go into your game and load up the song and no frets/notes to play appear - Thats because your notechart has been written for a certain difficulty only ( USUALLY EXPERT ). PLEASE, IF YOU PLAY ON EASY/MEDIUM OR HARD GET A NOTECHART FOR THAT DIFFICULTY, CHECK http://www.scorehero.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17403 )

IF YOUR SONG IS OUT OF SYNC (e.g. notes playing too early or too late ), YOU WILL HAVE TO PLAY AROUND TO FIND THE OFFSET, read through the software forum to find answers.

IF YOUR MP3 DOES NOT LOAD / COMES UP WITH AN UNHANDLED EXCEPTION USE AUDACITY HTTP://audacity.sourceforge.net
TO EXPORT THE SONG TO 128KBPS STEREO MP3. IF IT STILL DOESN'T WORK, TRY A DIFFERENT MP3 OR JUST COMPLETELY FORGET ABOUT THAT SONG FOR NOW.

PLEASE STOP PRIVATE MESSAGING ME QUESTIONS THAT HAVE ALREADY BEEN ANSWERED IN THIS TUTORIAL.

DON'T REQUEST CUSTOM SONGS IN THIS THREAD
DON'T ASK WHERE TO GET MP3'S FOR THE SONGS IN THIS THREAD
DON'T ASK QUESTIONS THAT HAVE BEEN ANSWERED IN THIS TUTORIAL
BE POLITE WHEN SOMEONE ANSWERS YOUR QUESTION
IF THIS TUTORIAL DOESN'T WORK FOR YOU, EITHER RE-READ IT OR WALK AWAY TILL SOMEONE HAS MADE AN EVEN EASIER SOLUTION.

!!! read this !!!!!

IF FOR SOME REASON THE WHOLE TUTORIAL WORKS FOR YOU BUT YOU CAN'T ENTER THE UNLOCK-ALL SONGS CHEAT OR YOUR SONGS DO NOT SHOW UP IN THE BONUS TRACKS ( AND YOU HAPPEN TO BE USING VISTA ) MAKE SURE YOU ARE RUNNING THE PROGRAM AS ADMIN AND POSSIBLY EVEN LOGGED IN AS ADMIN.

Thank you :P


Last edited by lowang on Fri Sep 12, 2008 7:06 am; edited 12 times in total
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SpoonMan  





Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Posts: 3631

PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 6:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

very well done. also, lol 2091.

i would suggest adding a note that the tool is still in very early development, and people are having problems adding multiple songs in multiple sittings. also some songs simply don't work by any means. also there's currently a limit on the maximum number of songs per list.

because this guide is based on optimal conditions, there should be some disclaimer saying if it doesn't work for you please take your exact steps and post a bug report in the support forum.
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lowang  





Joined: 09 Aug 2007
Posts: 58
Location: New Zealand

PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 6:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks SpoonMan, had no idea what year that song was from :P

I will add those to those items to the tutorial now, thank you ;)
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locks  





Joined: 06 Dec 2007
Posts: 77

PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 6:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice,

I suggest you add a section on the begining on how to backup the file modified by the editor and how to backup the savegame

Also you should continue the tut with how to do the update savegame trick,

and finally add in some common rules that everyone should know, like if on vista you need to run as admin, keep the name in song name field short as too long will make it crash the game, I try to use < 16 character, no space.... also i think name of the mp3/midi name need not to be too long... and about the actual limit of song you can have in your bonus setlist... and any other small tips you can think about...

this will help a lot of people


Last edited by locks on Fri Jan 04, 2008 6:27 am; edited 1 time in total
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kid-ego  





Joined: 01 Jan 2008
Posts: 10

PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 6:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

great tutorial.. really great.
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lowang  





Joined: 09 Aug 2007
Posts: 58
Location: New Zealand

PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 6:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

locks wrote:
Nice,

I suggest you add a section on the begining on how to backup the file modified by the editor and how to backup the savegame

Also you should continue the tut with how to do the update savegame trick,

and finally add in some common rules that everyone should know, like if on vista you need to run as admin, keep the name in song name field short as too long will make it crash the game, I try to use < 16 character, no space.... also i think name of the mp3/midi name need not to be too long... and about the actual limit of song you can have in your bonus setlist... and any other small tips you can think about...

this will help a lot of people


Thanks locks, I have taken your post which was burried already in the pc editor thread and added it as well as given you credit, i hope that is alright with you.

I will update with the savegame trick soon

Thanks again
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jewstin  





Joined: 04 Apr 2007
Posts: 5

PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 6:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi, I've been having a problem I noticed quite a few others in tom's thread were having but no one got a response..whenever I try to put in the unlock cheat, it doesn't work, and whenever I try to add a song in the game, it doesn't work. I followed all the steps properly and it showed everything ran smoothly in the command prompt, no errors etc. when I added the song and changed the setlist. In the other thread it was mentioned that when you run the game, you're supposed to get a thing asking you to delete a corrupt saved file, but I never got that. It seems like the program is just not writing to my GH folder. Help please!
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lowang  





Joined: 09 Aug 2007
Posts: 58
Location: New Zealand

PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 6:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

jewstin wrote:
Hi, I've been having a problem I noticed quite a few others in tom's thread were having but no one got a response..whenever I try to put in the unlock cheat, it doesn't work, and whenever I try to add a song in the game, it doesn't work. I followed all the steps properly and it showed everything ran smoothly in the command prompt, no errors etc. when I added the song and changed the setlist. In the other thread it was mentioned that when you run the game, you're supposed to get a thing asking you to delete a corrupt saved file, but I never got that. It seems like the program is just not writing to my GH folder. Help please!



Did you make sure you did the File > Save ( Step 29 ) after you have done everything else?

It is right, you are supposed to get a delete corrupt saved file, if you aren't getting it im guessing you have not saved after adding all the songs in etc. OR you have multiple copies of Guitar HERO installed and its writing to a different folder, not the one you are actually playing from.
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jewstin  





Joined: 04 Apr 2007
Posts: 5

PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 7:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

lowang wrote:
jewstin wrote:
Hi, I've been having a problem I noticed quite a few others in tom's thread were having but no one got a response..whenever I try to put in the unlock cheat, it doesn't work, and whenever I try to add a song in the game, it doesn't work. I followed all the steps properly and it showed everything ran smoothly in the command prompt, no errors etc. when I added the song and changed the setlist. In the other thread it was mentioned that when you run the game, you're supposed to get a thing asking you to delete a corrupt saved file, but I never got that. It seems like the program is just not writing to my GH folder. Help please!



Did you make sure you did the File > Save ( Step 29 ) after you have done everything else?

It is right, you are supposed to get a delete corrupt saved file, if you aren't getting it im guessing you have not saved after adding all the songs in etc. OR you have multiple copies of Guitar HERO installed and its writing to a different folder, not the one you are actually playing from.


Yes, I've followed all steps accordingly. I have GH installed in one place, C:/program files/aspyr/guitar hero III. I should have the editor, lame, and mp3 info all in one folder right? Does the folder I have to have them in be the main Guitar Hero III folder in the Aspyr folder? Currently I have all 3 of those in aspyr/guitar hero/gui.
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lowang  





Joined: 09 Aug 2007
Posts: 58
Location: New Zealand

PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 7:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Updated; Section "things you need to know"
Added; Section on how to retain your current career scores.
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SpoonMan  





Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Posts: 3631

PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 7:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

the songs limit is generally hit at 105 songs per list right now, that's 105 in the main setlist, and 105 in the bonus setlist. there may or may not be a way around this since to my knowledge no one working on the tool has looked into it yet.

some people have hit the limit at a little more or less than 105, but it's usually not much variance.
_________________
My stupid GH achievements
My stupid RB achievements
Participate in the Master FC Breakdown Project! GH1 - GH2 - GH80s - GH3 - GH3 DLC - GHA - GHWT - GHM - GHSH - WTDLC - GHVH - GH5 - BH - GH5 DLC
All Guitar-Only Games
WINNING.
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lowang  





Joined: 09 Aug 2007
Posts: 58
Location: New Zealand

PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 7:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

jewstin wrote:
I should have the editor, lame, and mp3 info all in one folder right?


Yes

jewstin wrote:
Does the folder I have to have them in be the main Guitar Hero III folder in the Aspyr folder?


No, Preferably outside of the Guitar Hero folder, like on your desktop, mp3info & lame are not to be in subfolders, just directly inside the song_editor folder.
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jewstin  





Joined: 04 Apr 2007
Posts: 5

PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 7:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

lowang wrote:
jewstin wrote:
I should have the editor, lame, and mp3 info all in one folder right?


Yes

jewstin wrote:
Does the folder I have to have them in be the main Guitar Hero III folder in the Aspyr folder?


No, Preferably outside of the Guitar Hero folder, like on your desktop, mp3info & lame are not to be in subfolders, just directly inside the song_editor folder.


Okay gonna fresh install and try that..should I still get the delete corrupt saved game message if it's a fresh install and I haven't played any songs or played any part of the career yet? And if not, do I still "manually save my game" and then alt tab out and save in the editor? I'm just confused as to why I'm not getting the delete corrupt save prompt. Thanks for the help
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locks  





Joined: 06 Dec 2007
Posts: 77

PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 7:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

lowang wrote:
locks wrote:
Nice,

I suggest you add a section on the begining on how to backup the file modified by the editor and how to backup the savegame

Also you should continue the tut with how to do the update savegame trick,

and finally add in some common rules that everyone should know, like if on vista you need to run as admin, keep the name in song name field short as too long will make it crash the game, I try to use < 16 character, no space.... also i think name of the mp3/midi name need not to be too long... and about the actual limit of song you can have in your bonus setlist... and any other small tips you can think about...

this will help a lot of people


Thanks locks, I have taken your post which was burried already in the pc editor thread and added it as well as given you credit, i hope that is alright with you.

I will update with the savegame trick soon

Thanks again


Thats alright

I will add...

How to backup your DATA\PAK\qb.pab.xen and qb.pak.xen files before doing any modification (those are the files the editor replace)

and maybe how to revert back the modification by restoring the backup files

In fact I use this to make multiple songlist, I have my originals files, I have the ones where I did replace the bonus list with GH2 song, and another set of files for other customs... That way I just have to copy the songlist files I want to play to the data\pak folder and it allow me to have more song than the actual limit we have, but to change sonlist you have to quit the game... but still a nice workaround for thoose who want to add tons of song... of course a have a different save game for each of the songist files set I have...
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locks  





Joined: 06 Dec 2007
Posts: 77

PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 7:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

jewstin wrote:
lowang wrote:
jewstin wrote:
I should have the editor, lame, and mp3 info all in one folder right?


Yes

jewstin wrote:
Does the folder I have to have them in be the main Guitar Hero III folder in the Aspyr folder?


No, Preferably outside of the Guitar Hero folder, like on your desktop, mp3info & lame are not to be in subfolders, just directly inside the song_editor folder.


Okay gonna fresh install and try that..should I still get the delete corrupt saved game message if it's a fresh install and I haven't played any songs or played any part of the career yet? And if not, do I still "manually save my game" and then alt tab out and save in the editor? I'm just confused as to why I'm not getting the delete corrupt save prompt. Thanks for the help


When you reinstall your save game should still be there so yes it should ask you to delete, look in your documents folder for the savegame...


Are you running Vista? if yes make sure you run it as admin or else the file wont be changed...

Alright so you did all that and still not working, ok look in your game folder in the DATA\PAK folder there's 2 files that the application need to edit qb.pak.xen & qb.pab.xen, look at the last modified date&time, does that correspond to the time you click file/save in the editor? if not, then your files are not saved, most likely a windows security setting, look in your files permission and make sure you (or administrator if running as admin) have write permission to it...

hope that help
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