topet2k12001

I see. I actually tried to add one "old" song and I agree with the effort involved - just to even get that one song added. How much more if we're talking about say, a hundred? I failed in adding it by the way, hahaha! I just used my intuition in my attempt since I don't know who to ask. I have much respect for the work of others that's why as you guys can see, I try to do things on my own as much as I can. But of course I have very limited knowledge; I have to ask someone but the information is so elusive (and perhaps with good reason, as already explained by @B4SH-T). I want to be able to add songs for my personal collection (not to publicize/make money out of/not giving credits). I have been an avid DDR Player for about 20 years now, so you guys can just imagine how passionate I am about this game (and yes I still actively play, you can even search my DDR Username in the e-Amusement website if you want to "Rival" me. ). And just like you said, I want to rescue/preserve that DDR History (any DDR fan would understand why). I just hope there's someone who can teach me how to properly add songs, or how to find the right "offset" to hex edit to turn on/off that pesky "Grand FInale" curtain for example...basically stuff for my own/personal consumption and (again, to emphasize) not for making money without giving proper credits due. I'm not going to even ask others to "do it for me" and that's just not my style anyway. .

Hello Got it; thank you for your response. Wow, manual estimation? Tough work then! And...we appreciate your share all the more if that's the case.

@One Eternal Ash @kanor @tw3nz0r @B4SH-T @bman@FeelTheXtasy Guys, I renamed the latest release from 1.1.2 to 1.2.0; please visit my previous post about it for the details.

Thanks @B4SH-T...I watched the video and couldn't hold my laughter. Works on me everytime I see this video, even on the arcades. Question about "movieoffset" value, as I kind of noticed this in a lot of the song entries in the musicdb.xml: is it because the movie/video is shorter than the song? Is there like an "approach" or "procedure" for determining the movie offset, or do you guys just do it "by hand" (e.g. manual estimation)?

Oh yes I remember this event now...so that's the name of the event, EXTRA SAVIOR. I remember at the arcade playing a lot of songs in EXTRA STAGE only and you have to fill up a "bar" (representing 100% completion). Once you do, the game becomes playable as a normal song. I remember this. Hm, no I haven't seen it yet here while playing via PC/data dump yet. Would be interested to get it working though! ALrighty need to take a nap now...I'll catch up with you guys later. Kudos to all of you!

Oh okay, sorry for being a bit slow in understanding at this time, need to catch some sleep. In that case, what you're doing is interesting! Looking forward to it!

Oh okay, hm...I haven't given it a shot yet. I'll catch some rest first and will try later, I'm woozy now. I think I might have misunderstood what @bman was saying, sorry...I think I really need to sleep now.

Ah okay, so it is "triggered" by a certain event. Which we can do the "manual way" by playing the game...or, programmatically. Did I get it right? I like to do it manually though because the very inspiration of @One Eternal Ash and myself is to have a "close-to-life" arcade experience. EDIT: what fields are needed? We might be able to contribute...

Baby-Lon's Adventure is actually the first event (so this would be the "oldest event") and I'm finished with this. Right now I'm on Rinon's Adventure, the part where I'm unlocking the Challenge Steps of songs (I believe this is the longest because the sub-events such as "EXTRA EXCLUSIVE" are part of this). The screenshot of Astrogazer in my previous post is part of Rinon's Adventure. @One Eternal Ash has posted a screenshot of Endymion as an EXTRA STAGE so it looks like he started earlier than I did. But yeah, considering what we're seeing so far...it looks like we figured it out! Reference of events: https://www.remywiki.com/AC_DDR_A We figured it out due to 2 factors combined together: My updated Butterfly build (1.1.1 for Java 14, or 1.1.2 for Java 8) with some changes to functionalities (written in detail here) The discovery of @One Eternal Ash to simply extend the table data of "ddr_16_global_events" to 200 rows

Hi @tw3nz0r, Sorry for the delayed response (been awake since yesterday). We tested Butterfly 1.1.1 on the available data dump which is 2019042200 (the one on the first page of this thread). The Butterfly that I built (both 1.1.1 and 1.1.2) starts off as blank on the "ddr_16_global_events" table and then we just manually import the data to fill it up, after the database gets created by Butterfly on first run. I made an "update pack" (self-extracting zip) that contains basically the files that will overwrite the ones from the dump. I originally created this for my personal convenience since we already know what files to replace. Please see if this works for you. I have already edited this to include Butterfly 1.1.2 (same as Butterfly 1.1.1 but built using Java 8). Also I included the table and a .bat file ("global_events_import.bat") that you just click to import the data (make sure to run Butterfly for the first time so that it can create the database first). DDR A Update Pack 1.0.0 EDIT: to be sure, I just finished testing one game of DDR A with the 1.1.2 Butterfly and it works just like 1.1.1 (I'm currently on Rinon's Adventure, and I just unlocked Astrogazer Challenge Steps). In case you need only the data to be imported, I'm attaching it as well (and also sqlit3.exe and the .bat file so that importing can be done "one-click" via CMD). ddr_16_global_events.sql global_events_import.bat sqlite3.exe

You're welcome! Please do test (especially test with DDR A data dump because that's where we can test "events" for now) and let me know. It should work exactly like my previous publication (version 1.1.1) since I didn't make any changes to the code; I only changed the "build tool" from Java 14 to Java 8 in order to make it more compatible (for example, Windows Server used in a cabinet like @tw3nz0r).

Hello @B4SH-T We would like to have a copy as well. Also, here's an updated build of Butterfly (I am versioning this to 1.1.2). Everything should be exactly the same as 1.1.1 that I published a few days ago; the only difference is that 1.1.2 is built using Java 8 (for better compatibility). I only did a quick test as I built this quickly so please do let me know if there are issues/differences (versus 1.1.1 only). @tw3nz0r, @One Eternal Ash, @kanor...FYI. Butterfly folder EDIT: I'm renaming the release (made with Java 8) to version 1.2.0 to conform to standards on semantic versioning (basically there's a guideline on how you write versions on software). The MEGA link remains the same; I just renamed the sub-folder and the file. Specifically, this rule applies to the change I made to Butterfly (highlighted portion of text below): https://semver.org/#spec-item-7

@tw3nz0r really appreciate all the help you've given our group here and couldn't thank you enough! I'll make that Butterfly build you specified as a token of appreciation. Although I have to run off for a quick errand. Will update you.

Understood. In other words this is like a "snapshot" of DDR A/A20 at a specific point in time. Thank you!

Got it; thank you! Whew...now I can (re)build Butterfly. Will just run out for an errand and in case we don't get to catch up later, I'll send you a message or I'll tag you in a post when the updated build is ready.

Hello, Thanks for the tip! The thing with Butterfly though is that it's not yet in a "finished" state...specifically the feature/capability of saving events. But hey, no suggestion is a bad suggestion, we're open to trying anything that will solve it! Actually just now, @tw3nz0r has been providing us with the correct files to use so this is also another way of solving it. Just do a back-read to see the links that he provided and give it a shot. As for me I'm re-building Butterfly..."same everything" as version 1.1.1 that I built but I just need to downgrade the Java version used to build it. @tw3nz0r actually has a DDR machine so it runs best on Butterfly that is made with Java 8. How cool is that right?!? I wish I had a machine too!

I agree about releasing a single pack...this will avoid confusion and multiple versions that get customized to the point that it's getting difficult to track which one is the clean/correct version. Off-topic: do you have a copy of Oracle Java 8 installer that I can use? Apparently Sun Oracle changed their terms of use...they require you to create an account just so you can download (but on Java 14 download they didn't require me to create an account though). MEGA link will do.

Oh okay, got it and thanks for the clarification!

Wow! Thank you so much @tw3nz0r!

Noted, and thank you! Downloading Sun Oracle Java 8 now...

@tw3nz0r Sorry; follow-up question. What Java 8 do you prefer? Sun Oracle? OpenJDK? AdoptOpenJDK? Also for my additional knowledge and appreciation, what is the advantage of each over the other? I remember you mentioned earlier that AdoptOpenJDK is better. Also for AdoptOpenJDK, do you want to use OpenJ9 or Hotspot? Thank you!

Alrighty, thank you. Will build again and release another version to suit this requirement. Will update this thread once I'm done.

Hello @One Eternal Ash @kanor @tw3nz0r I can recompile my build to use Java 8, no worries. Sorry I wasn't aware of the requirements, but I can change it. I can start doing it now. No worries about the other changes I made, I believe the other changes are not dependent on the Java version being used anyway. Thanks by the way for your insights. Just like the others mentioned, we don't have access to an August 2019 data dump. If possible, may we ask you for a copy of those versions of the arkmdxp3/4.dlls?

Got it; thanks for sharing your insights. About this part: ...we actually found a way but so far we were able to do it only for DDR A. @One Eternal Ash and I actually tested and it works. You may also see my last post in the DDR A thread (post with pictures as evidence). @kanor compiled the key differences of the various gamemdx.dll files available so far and I believe he was able to note down a few differences that may seem like "hex edits." Perhaps we can test these observations, maybe one of them is the hex edit that we're looking for? He shared a spreadsheet attached to his post.

@B4SH-T you mean you contacted the author? Maybe I can try to ask him for help too? Had to scrap my message after realizing that last line with the * Hmm...so, following that logic based on that statement...if, let's say, we play the game using a different method of "local server" (we have ealocalserver.exe as an example or maint.exe), then the "Grand Finale" shouldn't appear, right? I'll try to do some tests later, hopefully we can find out something.