Ever wanted to play a song on Taikojiro or convert an authentic chart for use there? This simple guide will help you get to grips with the basics. Thanks to Saturn Ring for making this wonderful tutorial!
1.Choose your song! Then download them or record them. Convert it into an ogg file by using a site called media.io. Choose your song using browse, an click OGG and High Quality, then click the convert button. Wait until it is uploaded and when it has finished uploading, download the ogg file from the site. If your music file is already ogg format, proceed to step 2.
2.Make a folder in the simfiles folder and name the folder as the song title of your choice. Then "borrow" a .tja file (notechart file) from any song in the simfiles folder. Copy and paste into the folder of your song, rename it into the same song title as the one you put on the folder, and then move the ogg file you have downloaded to the song folder.
3.Open the tja folder with notepad. Make you have selected all files instead of txt files.
4. Upon opening the .tja file on Notepad, you'll see the following lines:
TITLE: The title of the song you want to use
LEVEL: Level of the song (7/8/9/x stars)
BPM: Song's BPM
OFFSET: The offset of the song, or in simpler terms, when you want the metronome to start ticking according to the BPM. Input different values here through trial and error till it syncs (the value is in milliseconds, so 1000 is exactly one second after the song starts, and so on). Negative and positive values can be used.
WAVE: The EXACT filename of the music file you wish to associate this map with (EG: Saitama2000.ogg)
BALLOON: How many hits to make a balloon note pop(if there are any, if the are no balloons this should be left blank). If there are three balloons, separate their numbers with commas and in order. First balloon corresponds to first number and so on.
SCOREINIT: Initial score of the first note. This value is halved in a 可 hit, and doubled in a big note.
SCOREDIFF: Score increment after 10 combo, 20 combo, and so on.
SONG VOL and SE VOL: Master volume control of the BGM and Taiko sounds respectively. Set to 100 unless you feel they're a bit too loud.
COURSE: Name of your difficulty level. If you made an Oni chart you can just call it Oni.
SUBTITLE: (not shown) The subtitle of the song
DEMOSTART: The preview point of the song, at which point it starts playing when you have it on song selection screen.
5.Now the important part...The mapping.
After the #START, you will see lines of numbers that end with a comma (,)
Those numbers represent the notes and rests of the song. There should be 16 digits until it ends with a comma. 1 line of numbers represent 1 beat stanza. Edit the numbers to your liking.
(I recommend that you test the notechart after 2 stanzas)
0=no notes
1=don
2=kat
3=large don
4=large kat
5=where the drumroll starts
6=where the large drumroll starts
7=where the balloon note starts
8=where the drumroll/balloon ends
For example, a simple 'don, don, kat, kat' pattern that follows the beat will be '1000100020002000,' on the simulator. 0s are used to fill in the spaces between notes, all of them.
Between the drumroll and balloon numbers, add 0s. The more you add, the longer it becomes, eg 5000008, 6000008, 70000008. When the notechart is finished, end it by typing #END and clicking Save (Do not click Save As, it will turn the .tja file into a .txt file!)
Special things
-Go-Go Time
type #GOGOSTART above the 1st stanza of the notes you want to be in Go-Go Time, and to end it, type #GOGOEND below the last stanza.
ex.
#GOGOSTART
1000100010001000,
2000200020002000,
#GOGOEND
3030304040404011,
The first two lines of notes are in Go-Go Time, and it ends on the first note of the third line.
-Simple Triple Beat
For songs that follow simple triple beat (3/4), type #MEASURE 3/4 below #START
There should be only 12 digits until it ends with a comma, instead of the usual 16.
ex:
#START
#MEASURE 3/4
100010001000,
200020201010,
-Scroll Speed
To change the scrolling speed, type #SCROLL(space)(multiplier) above the stanza you want to change
To change it back to normal, type #SCROLL 1
ex.
#SCROLL 2
1000202010002020, (this stanza will be 2 times faster)
#SCROLL 1
0000000010001010,(this stanza will be at normal speed)
The scroll speed can carry a negative value as well if you want to be a troll.
1/3 and 1/6 notes
Change the number of digits per row for these if you're making a chart using simple quadruple (4/4) beats.
For 1/3 notes, 12 digits per row, i.e. 100010002000,
For 1/6 notes, 24 digits per row, i.e. 100000200000221010211010,
For 1/8 notes, 32 digits per row.
The general formula is: bottom number of the fraction times 4 will give you the number of digits you need to fill in per row. If you wanted to go mad and have say, 1/64 notes, how many digits would you need in one row? 64 times 4 is 256!
It's the same rule for a simple triple (3/4) beat, but instead of multiplying by 4, multiply by 3.
1/3 notes in a simple triple is 3 times 3, 9 digits in the row.
1/6 notes is 6 times 3, 18 digits, and so on.
For mixed notes, especially 1/3, 1/4 and 1/6 together at the same time, the smallest divider that can accommodate the both of them is 1/12, so you'll need 48 digits in one row for any stanza that has mixed clusters. 1010102 is a 1/6 cluster, 1001002 is a 1/4 cluster, and 100010002 are 1/3 notes. (1112 is a 1/12 cluster and is not used)
-Forked paths
Type #BRANCHSTART (p or r), X, Y
The three things at the back are to decide the conditions of path change.
If the first letter is 'r' (roll), the path change is determined by drumroll, and then X and Y would represent the number of hits on the drumroll you need in order to get to Advanced and Master Notes, respectively.
For example, in Garyoutensei, where <1 hit = normal, 1 hit = advanced, >2 hits = master:
#START
0000000000000000,
5000800000000000,
#BRANCHSTART r, 1, 2
If the first letter is 'p' (perfect), the path change is determined by accuracy, X and Y are percentages of accuracy to get to Advanced and Master Notes respectively. Accuracy isn't just hit or miss; the number of white and yellow hits also change the percentage slightly.
For example, in a song where 75% is required to switch to Advanced, and 85% for Master,
#START
1010101030403040,
1110112011101120,
#BRANCHSTART p, 75, 85
To force 100% yellow hits for path change like in Metal Hawk BGM1, 2nd digit is 100 (#BRANCHSTART p, 60, 100)
To force path change to Master like in Joubutsu 2000, both digits are negative because player accuracy can only be between 0 and 100. (#BRANCHSTART p, -2, -1) <-- therefore player accuracy at beginning of song is 0, which is higher than -1, hence the change to Master Notes.
Likewise, to force path change to Normal, the two digits should be higher than 100 (#BRANCHSTART p, 101, 102) and for Advanced, first digit is negative while second digit is higher than 100 (#BRANCHSTART p, -1, 101).
In a case like Soroban 2000 where not a single note has to be hit to get to Advanced? Try to think outside the box a little bit! Hint: Accuracy can be decimals and not just whole numbers. I'll let you figure this out for a while before I reveal the answer.
So, leaving that behind for a bit, what happens after BRANCHSTART? You do the notes for Normal, Advanced and Master, labeled as #N, #E, and #M respectively. And then to swap paths again, add another #BRANCHSTART tag with the new conditions, then #N, #E and #M again.
For example:
#BRANCHSTART p, 60, 75
#N
1000100020002000,
2020202010101110,
#E
1010102020202010,
2220221011101120,
#M
1111222022221110,
2211221122112210,
#BRANCHSTART p, 75, 90
#N
(notes)
#E
(notes)
#M
(notes)
#BRANCHSTART p, 75, 90
Remember, the number of rows in all three per branch section MUST BE THE SAME!
At the end of the notechart, remember to add #BRANCHEND
#GOGOTIME can be added inside the branches, add it for all three if you want all the paths to have Go-Go Time.
-BPM shifts
To change BPM, add #BPMCHANGE (number) at the moment you want to change BPM. This number can be whole or decimal as well. Example:
1000000010002020
#BPMCHANGE 200
5000000008003010
2nd line will be at 200 BPM. To swap back to original BPM or another BPM, just add another #BPMCHANGE tag with the first BPM or whatever value you want.
Figured out the Soroban 2000 puzzle yet? Well, here's the answer. Since you're forcing into Advanced, the first digit is negative, and since hitting even one note takes you to Master, set the second digit as 0.001! Simple, isn't it?
Have fun making maps!
