buildgh3 - PS2 custom GH3 (update 2008/06/30)

[tttttttt]

Current version : 0.8 (release of 2008/06/30)

Rather than continuing to post in the GH3 PS2 tutorial, I've decided to make a new topic along with a tutorial.

I've made (with some of GameZelda's code) a library and a minimalist front-end to build GH3 customs for PS2.

The program and the source are posted on http://buildgh3.dnsalias.org/ , with http://buildgh3.dnsalias.org/buildgh3-current-exe.zip Staff edit: this link has been down a while and the creator of this hasn't posted since July 08, so I'll post this savefile mirror link here: http://www.savefile.com/files/2004989 being the current executable program and http://buildgh3.dnsalias.org/buildgh3-current-src.tgz being the corresponding source.

Current features :
. support for ogg, mp3 and FLAC
. support for sections names
. support for loading screen text replacement
. support for previews
. support for songlist editing
. support for cameras (see http://buildgh3.dnsalias.org/cameras.txt)
. support for lightning events (see http://buildgh3.dnsalias.org/lightning.txt)
. support for crowd events (see http://buildgh3.dnsalias.org/crowd.txt)
. support for Leff's way of forcing HO/PO
. support for negative offsets
. support for image replacement (see below)
. support for 4 and 6 channels ogg and flac ("master tracks")

The purpose of this tool is to let one create a custom GH3 disk with the most ease and the less work required. This means that the program will try to guess the most it can, and is meant for batch creating a full new disk rather than offering a point and click interface to do step by step modifications.
To (try to) achieve this, it will for example automatically update song lists, previews, etc ...
For the songlist, it will by default read your .chart, and take if present the Name and Artist infos; if not, it will look in your music file for tags and try to get the name of the song and artist in there.
For previews, it will by default read your .chart to take the PreviewStart and PreviewEnd infos, if not, it will default to a preview starting at 0:30 and lasting 20 seconds.

Tutorial on using the program

(mattdylan99 has made some video tutorial on his youtube profile : http://www.youtube.com/user/Mattdylan101)

Prequises
First, download the program here http://buildgh3.dnsalias.org/buildgh3-current-exe.zip Staff edit: this link has been down a while and the creator of this hasn't posted since July 08, so I'll post this savefile mirror link here: http://www.savefile.com/files/2004989
Unzip it somewhere (in this tutorial, it's unzipped in j:\gh_tools).

You might also want to download the following tools :
foobar2000 (for volume normalization)
imgburn (for creating the ISO)
droppix (for burning the ISO)
The last two programs are well documented in the official GH customization FAQ, so go read it.

I am now assuming that your charts and your sound files are already synchronized. If not, please refer to the many stickies about that, you can also refer to this post.

Preparing your input files
You'll then need to place your charts+sound files in the input directory that was created when unzipping.
Note that naming is important.
Your files should be named like this :
m_01_whatever.mp3
m_01_whatever.chart
where the number (01 in this example) is the index of the song, and the first letter (m in this example) should be one of :
m : main songs
s : single encores
c : coop encores
b : bonus songs

Your input directory should look like this :


Volume tagging
Now, you should tag your files with replaygain information. This is needed so that each of your files sound at about the same volume in the game; this step is not mandatory but is highly recommended. To do that, use foobar2000, making a playlist of all your sound files. You then right click on them, replaygain, scan per file track gain. foobar2000 will scan your files and update their tags with standard replaygain tags. Confirm you want to tag the files when asked.
This should be like this :


Optionnal custom modifications
Next step is optionnal and consists on editing a "definition" file that will tell the program of modifications you want to add that are not per song. Currently, this means changing the texts of loading screen and replacing images. Edit the buildgh3_example.definition file with notepad.

Launching the program
Now, we need to launch the program. To do this, open a dos command (by going to start menu, execute, and typing "cmd". Browse to the directory where you unzipped the program and type :
minibuildgh3 e:/ input/ output/ temp/
where e: is the letter of your dvd drive that contains original GH3 PS2 dvd.
If you edited the definition file, use the -d youfile.def switch.
This should look like this :


Now wait, depending on your PC, it could go for a few minutes to one hour.

Preparing the ISO
When everything is done, you need to copy the rest of the music files of original GH3, making care not to overwrite the files that were just created. The destination should be the output directory. Like this :


Now, you need to create the ISO of your custom disk. Use imgburn (see official FAQ). The files should be place in that order :
IOP
MOVIES
MUSIC
SOUNDS
STREAMS
DATAP.HED
DATAP.WAD
DATAPD.HDP
DATAPH.HDP
SLES_549.62
SYSTEM

This MUSIC, and all DATA* files should come from your output directory, the rest from your original DVD. This should look like this :


Burning
Final step is to burn the resulting ISO, for example with droppix :


You're now ready to play.

When you make another custom DVD, be sure to delete the content of both temp and output directories !

FAQ
I have decided to collect the principal questions and the answers so far to avoir the need for people to read every posts.

Are 4-6 channels songs supported ?
Yes, but only for ogg and flac. There is no standard way of supporting them for mp3, so it's only ogg and flac.
The 4 channels songs must be : left-lead, right-lead, left-band, right-band.
The 6 channels songs must be : left-lead, right-lead, left-band, right-band, left-bass, right-bass.
If you have the tracks as 3 separate ogg, a simple way to form a 6 channels flac is with sox, like that : sox -M codemonkey_lead.ogg codemonkey_band.ogg codemonkey_bass.ogg codemonkey_join.flac

Are .vgs supported ?
Not yet, but they will, one day

Do I really need foobar2000 or can I use other programs ?
For ogg and FLAC, you can use whatever you want. For mp3, there is no standard way of representing replaygain and buildgh3 only supports TXXX tags. So for example winamp works, but not mp3gain.

Does it support Leff's ho/po ?
Yes, as of v0.7. However, I wish that db supports a better way to add forced ho/po.

What about offsets ?
Positive offsets are supported like in feedback. Negative offsets (ie silence at the beginning of the song) are supported as of v0.7, but without feedback's support, it's up to you to find the correct offset.
And note that in the .chart, offsets are represented in seconds _not_ milliseconds.

I added lots of long songs and now the ISO is too big, what can I do ?
First, understand that reducing the bitrates of your songs won't change anything. The audio is converted to GH3 format which is uncompressed.
Now, you can delete the audio of the practices which are under MUSIC/125, MUSIC/150 and MUSIC/200 (delete the files, not the directories). This saves 1gb.
See also :

[tttttttt]

Current version : 0.8 (release of 2008/06/30)

Rather than continuing to post in the GH3 PS2 tutorial, I've decided to make a new topic along with a tutorial.

I've made (with some of GameZelda's code) a library and a minimalist front-end to build GH3 customs for PS2.

The program and the source are posted on http://buildgh3.dnsalias.org/ , with http://buildgh3.dnsalias.org/buildgh3-current-exe.zip Staff edit: this link has been down a while and the creator of this hasn't posted since July 08, so I'll post this savefile mirror link here: http://www.savefile.com/files/2004989 being the current executable program and http://buildgh3.dnsalias.org/buildgh3-current-src.tgz being the corresponding source.

Current features :
. support for ogg, mp3 and FLAC
. support for sections names
. support for loading screen text replacement
. support for previews
. support for songlist editing
. support for cameras (see http://buildgh3.dnsalias.org/cameras.txt)
. support for lightning events (see http://buildgh3.dnsalias.org/lightning.txt)
. support for crowd events (see http://buildgh3.dnsalias.org/crowd.txt)
. support for Leff's way of forcing HO/PO
. support for negative offsets
. support for image replacement (see below)
. support for 4 and 6 channels ogg and flac ("master tracks")

The purpose of this tool is to let one create a custom GH3 disk with the most ease and the less work required. This means that the program will try to guess the most it can, and is meant for batch creating a full new disk rather than offering a point and click interface to do step by step modifications.
To (try to) achieve this, it will for example automatically update song lists, previews, etc ...
For the songlist, it will by default read your .chart, and take if present the Name and Artist infos; if not, it will look in your music file for tags and try to get the name of the song and artist in there.
For previews, it will by default read your .chart to take the PreviewStart and PreviewEnd infos, if not, it will default to a preview starting at 0:30 and lasting 20 seconds.

Tutorial on using the program

(mattdylan99 has made some video tutorial on his youtube profile : http://www.youtube.com/user/Mattdylan101)

Prequises
First, download the program here http://buildgh3.dnsalias.org/buildgh3-current-exe.zip Staff edit: this link has been down a while and the creator of this hasn't posted since July 08, so I'll post this savefile mirror link here: http://www.savefile.com/files/2004989
Unzip it somewhere (in this tutorial, it's unzipped in j:\gh_tools).

You might also want to download the following tools :
foobar2000 (for volume normalization)
imgburn (for creating the ISO)
droppix (for burning the ISO)
The last two programs are well documented in the official GH customization FAQ, so go read it.

I am now assuming that your charts and your sound files are already synchronized. If not, please refer to the many stickies about that, you can also refer to this post.

Preparing your input files
You'll then need to place your charts+sound files in the input directory that was created when unzipping.
Note that naming is important.
Your files should be named like this :
m_01_whatever.mp3
m_01_whatever.chart
where the number (01 in this example) is the index of the song, and the first letter (m in this example) should be one of :
m : main songs
s : single encores
c : coop encores
b : bonus songs

Your input directory should look like this :


Volume tagging
Now, you should tag your files with replaygain information. This is needed so that each of your files sound at about the same volume in the game; this step is not mandatory but is highly recommended. To do that, use foobar2000, making a playlist of all your sound files. You then right click on them, replaygain, scan per file track gain. foobar2000 will scan your files and update their tags with standard replaygain tags. Confirm you want to tag the files when asked.
This should be like this :


Optionnal custom modifications
Next step is optionnal and consists on editing a "definition" file that will tell the program of modifications you want to add that are not per song. Currently, this means changing the texts of loading screen and replacing images. Edit the buildgh3_example.definition file with notepad.

Launching the program
Now, we need to launch the program. To do this, open a dos command (by going to start menu, execute, and typing "cmd". Browse to the directory where you unzipped the program and type :
minibuildgh3 e:/ input/ output/ temp/
where e: is the letter of your dvd drive that contains original GH3 PS2 dvd.
If you edited the definition file, use the -d youfile.def switch.
This should look like this :


Now wait, depending on your PC, it could go for a few minutes to one hour.

Preparing the ISO
When everything is done, you need to copy the rest of the music files of original GH3, making care not to overwrite the files that were just created. The destination should be the output directory. Like this :


Now, you need to create the ISO of your custom disk. Use imgburn (see official FAQ). The files should be place in that order :
IOP
MOVIES
MUSIC
SOUNDS
STREAMS
DATAP.HED
DATAP.WAD
DATAPD.HDP
DATAPH.HDP
SLES_549.62
SYSTEM

This MUSIC, and all DATA* files should come from your output directory, the rest from your original DVD. This should look like this :


Burning
Final step is to burn the resulting ISO, for example with droppix :


You're now ready to play.

When you make another custom DVD, be sure to delete the content of both temp and output directories !

FAQ
I have decided to collect the principal questions and the answers so far to avoir the need for people to read every posts.

Are 4-6 channels songs supported ?
Yes, but only for ogg and flac. There is no standard way of supporting them for mp3, so it's only ogg and flac.
The 4 channels songs must be : left-lead, right-lead, left-band, right-band.
The 6 channels songs must be : left-lead, right-lead, left-band, right-band, left-bass, right-bass.
If you have the tracks as 3 separate ogg, a simple way to form a 6 channels flac is with sox, like that : sox -M codemonkey_lead.ogg codemonkey_band.ogg codemonkey_bass.ogg codemonkey_join.flac

Are .vgs supported ?
Not yet, but they will, one day

Do I really need foobar2000 or can I use other programs ?
For ogg and FLAC, you can use whatever you want. For mp3, there is no standard way of representing replaygain and buildgh3 only supports TXXX tags. So for example winamp works, but not mp3gain.

Does it support Leff's ho/po ?
Yes, as of v0.7. However, I wish that db supports a better way to add forced ho/po.

What about offsets ?
Positive offsets are supported like in feedback. Negative offsets (ie silence at the beginning of the song) are supported as of v0.7, but without feedback's support, it's up to you to find the correct offset.
And note that in the .chart, offsets are represented in seconds _not_ milliseconds.

I added lots of long songs and now the ISO is too big, what can I do ?
First, understand that reducing the bitrates of your songs won't change anything. The audio is converted to GH3 format which is uncompressed.
Now, you can delete the audio of the practices which are under MUSIC/125, MUSIC/150 and MUSIC/200 (delete the files, not the directories). This saves 1gb.
See also :

[GameZelda]

Great job with anything! I will use it in my next GH3 build

BTW, if you don't want to write a GUI, I think that a good option is that, if the user doesn't write any command line parameter, the program will request them in the console.
_________________

(Ok, I failed to do it in 24 hours... ).

GH:WT-PS2 Customization Progress
[100%] Make it work (w/songs loading) in a DVD5 (thanks psychospacefish!)
[100%] Modify audio (Finally done 25/11/2008)
[100%] Modify charts (Done 26/11/2008! Customs finally )

[GameZelda]

Great job with anything! I will use it in my next GH3 build

BTW, if you don't want to write a GUI, I think that a good option is that, if the user doesn't write any command line parameter, the program will request them in the console.
_________________

(Ok, I failed to do it in 24 hours... ).

GH:WT-PS2 Customization Progress
[100%] Make it work (w/songs loading) in a DVD5 (thanks psychospacefish!)
[100%] Modify audio (Finally done 25/11/2008)
[100%] Modify charts (Done 26/11/2008! Customs finally )

[tttttttt]

Good idea, I'll add that.

[tttttttt]

Good idea, I'll add that.

[bobmat4]

So. can we add more songs than in the original game???

[bobmat4]

So. can we add more songs than in the original game???

[SixStringedBass]

could we use winamp for the replay gain or does foobar do something different?

[SixStringedBass]

could we use winamp for the replay gain or does foobar do something different?

[tttttttt]

[tttttttt]

[SixStringedBass]

Next question,

I know your program makes necessary changes to the songlist by using tag info, however is there a way to override that or do we simply have to specifically edit the tags in the file? For example, I add silence to .mp3 tracks and save as .ogg to get synchronization correct, but I don't edit tags in these files. Would I have to in order to get your program to make these changes in the songlist?

[SixStringedBass]

Next question,

I know your program makes necessary changes to the songlist by using tag info, however is there a way to override that or do we simply have to specifically edit the tags in the file? For example, I add silence to .mp3 tracks and save as .ogg to get synchronization correct, but I don't edit tags in these files. Would I have to in order to get your program to make these changes in the songlist?

[tttttttt]

[tttttttt]

[GameZelda]

[GameZelda]

[howlong]

no way. badass badass dood. keep up the good work =D

[howlong]

no way. badass badass dood. keep up the good work =D

[tttttttt]

I've released a new version, with among other things support for cameras settings in the songs. See top post for the details.

[tttttttt]

I've released a new version, with among other things support for cameras settings in the songs. See top post for the details.

[GameZelda]

Ok, I have one doubt before I use this... what's the order of the songs?

So if I call a file "m_01_mysong.ogg", it will be "Slow ride"? Or what?
_________________

(Ok, I failed to do it in 24 hours... ).

GH:WT-PS2 Customization Progress
[100%] Make it work (w/songs loading) in a DVD5 (thanks psychospacefish!)
[100%] Modify audio (Finally done 25/11/2008)
[100%] Modify charts (Done 26/11/2008! Customs finally )

[GameZelda]

Ok, I have one doubt before I use this... what's the order of the songs?

So if I call a file "m_01_mysong.ogg", it will be "Slow ride"? Or what?
_________________

(Ok, I failed to do it in 24 hours... ).

GH:WT-PS2 Customization Progress
[100%] Make it work (w/songs loading) in a DVD5 (thanks psychospacefish!)
[100%] Modify audio (Finally done 25/11/2008)
[100%] Modify charts (Done 26/11/2008! Customs finally )

[tttttttt]

Yes, a file named m_01_* will be slowride. It's not the easiest part to explain so i'll try again :
the program looks for the first few characters in a file name, with the very first ('m' in your example) determining the general type of song : main song, encore song, bonus song etc...
then an underscore,
then a number representing the position inside the general type of song, so for example m_01 is slowride and m_32 is one.

[tttttttt]

Yes, a file named m_01_* will be slowride. It's not the easiest part to explain so i'll try again :
the program looks for the first few characters in a file name, with the very first ('m' in your example) determining the general type of song : main song, encore song, bonus song etc...
then an underscore,
then a number representing the position inside the general type of song, so for example m_01 is slowride and m_32 is one.

[Qwertyuiopia]

So it doesn't support vgs at this time?
_________________

Thanks scorehero! Anything else possible?

"Before the internet existed, people expressed their love for heavy metal in the bathroom stall" - Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's

[Qwertyuiopia]

So it doesn't support vgs at this time?
_________________

Thanks scorehero! Anything else possible?

"Before the internet existed, people expressed their love for heavy metal in the bathroom stall" - Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's

[tttttttt]

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