DEVELOPMENT LOG

1.1 - The Theme Update

• CUSTOM THEME TEMPLATES! Available here
• Revamped custom themes / zones page
• Updated themes, and introduced another (Frets on Fire)
• Secret built-in song included!
• (long time coming) Load retail song PAKs (PC AND PS3 ONLY), or even
  ones generated by GHTCP, including default bosses (you can defeat Lou!)
• .SNG support
• Updated chorus userscript to work on the new Chorus Encore;
  go here for more information
• Slightly faster, absurdly smaller Helix MP3 encoder, built with Visual C++
• Faster audio encoding with alternate handling of inter-process communication
• Even faster audio decoding using ffmpeg, if it is installed
• 674 KB qb.pak, 4.46MB global.pak
• Launcher and tools are now 900 KB
• Texture fixes and file size optimizations
• Internal variable naming optimizations
• Different, better .NET EXE compression and size optimizations
  (going to extreme lengths, literally)
• Merged mid2chart and (DotNetZip/SharpZipLib) into launcher executable
• Splitting other external code to more submodules
• Changed log reporting systems
• Fix songs ending early sometimes
• Implemented first run menu to ask for a default controller
  to start playing with, or set to manually choose every time
• New powerup: Star Power, for self defense
• BOT WARS! (not entirely) Autoplay autofires powerups and autowhammies
• Major QB mod releases (a little old): JORSpy, eval
• New redist required UUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
• Updater (might become) deprecated as it was hardly used and kind of broken.
  For a while, a future separate application was considered that could switch
  between development builds easier for bug/broken feature testing
  and changes over time.
• A bunch of stupid fixes for a bunch of stupid bugs:
  • Messed up multitrack normalization in decoder output
  • mid2chart failing to run without reason, sometimes false flagged
  • Graphical errors with highway flashing and open note particles
  • Texture names incorrectly named from decompilation
  • Open note whammy width on lower resolutions
    appearing too big (still not consistent)

1.0

• Post-release changes (Nov 17, 2023):
  • Game mode changer menu (and save to config)
  • Proper audio length reader
  • Launch game early while encoding audio but wait
    for it to finish just before loading the song
  • Fix random crash for when co-op is the startup mode
  • Few code optimizations
  • Fixed face-off marker detection
  • Bot launches attacks in battle mode automatically
  • Select to restart in practice mode for keyboard players
  • Setting to play ExpertDoubleGuitar/ExpertDoubleBass
    tracks in charts when available
  • Fixing tiny typos in code (or however it can be
    described as little easy-to-fix mistakes)

---

• Decompiled qb.pak and rebuilt it's scripts (QUEENBEE IS DEAD!!_maybe)
• Optimized qb.pak (744KB!)
• Faster non-DDS texture loading
• Minimal SoX build only supporting MP3,OGG,OPUS,WAV
• New pause menu
• Player model/PAK files eliminated completely
• Fixed held notes being forcibly cut off upon unpausing
• Practice mode looping (section looping and A>B looping)
• Restored console version of highway animation, and reworked for >60 FPS
• Extras menu with tweaks including:
  • Disable HUD
  • No highway shake
  • Wider range of hyperspeed scales
  • FC Mode
  • Classic cheats such as:
    • Easy expert
    • Precision
    • Performance
    • Large gems (Scalable)
       and many more that were added before.
• Lefty flip toggle without restarting
• Fix for too many misses and hits causing highway to go off center
• Reduced scripts size by allocating blank arrays at runtime
• Removed more unused scripts
• Some encoding fixes + new faster encoder
• Moved almost all user config to INI
• Audio progress bars
• Fix 60 FPS based video calibration menu
• QB mod loader and user config support
• Changeable CBR for compiled chart audio
• (Weird) Fix for frame based whammy wibble animation
• Switched to NSIS for installer
• Read only version of DotNetZip
• Co-operative bot star power
• Properly saving video lag

• Post-release changes:
  • Fixed random game hanging when exiting out (THANKS VISUAL C++)
  • Fixed 7Zip registry error
  • Made a non-elevation friendly solution to exit the game when
    the launcher is converting a new song, and avoid
    the "access is denied" error when copying the FSB
  • (can't confirm still) Fixed FormatText null value error
  • Fixed chart offset value not existing returning null
  • Added default.scn.xen as required for zone swapping
    (originally wasn't copied in build creating script)

---

• OVERLAPPING STARPOWER!!
• Open sustains
• Custom boss battles
• Opus audio support and fresh update of SoX
• COMPRESSED GH3 EXE!!!
• Game size is now 15 MB! (13 MB without the launcher)
• Unified modifiers plugin (to toggle All Strums, All Taps, etc)
• Changeable keybinds
• Background videos (requires Bink encoded video)
• Open 7Z/RAR files in the launcher if user has
  either file type's extractor installed
• Chart downloads through Google Drive / chorus
• Solos are now automatically parsed and scripts
  calculate how many notes belong within the markers
• Parse solo and event markers in MIDI
• Compressed DLLs and plugins
• Zip caching
• Updater (for release builds and dev builds)
• Removed an unused hardcoded font
• No venue models/files needed at all to play
• Press Select to restart in practice mode (controllers only)
• Toggleable highway/HUD intro
• Toggle particles (all, minimal, or none)
• Better controller entry for keyboard mode
• Face-off/battle power markers are now supported
• Various graphical fixes:
  • Particles' velocity and friction are no longer tied to 60 FPS
  • Whammy pixel width now resizes with game
    resolution, which originally depended on 1280x720
  • Fixed leftover starpower particles glitch
• Hide gems upon hitting and activate
  sustains early (turned off by default)
• Easily swap zones, highway GFX, highways, and background videos
• Fixed FPS based battle scripts
• New zones at Custom Themes / Zones
• Open FX on multiplayer
• Frame rate limiter
• Launcher logging
• Launcher error reporting
• currentsong.txt formatting
• Asynchronous NJ3T (drums,vocals,etc) track merging

• Post-release changes:
  • More qb.pak optimization
  • Game can run without ragdoll and skin files
  • Singleplayer doesn't require skeleton files
  • Fixed missing audio encoding DLLs since some
    users don't have them pre-installed
  • Additional audio calibration fix to make the audio play
    ahead of the beginning of gameplay. So, with 200ms, for example,
    the audio starts 200ms earlier than the notes starting
  • Starpower bot uses new beat waiting function and evades
    triggering while hitting a sequence
  • Little launcher fix for Linux users so
    audio encoding script runs correctly

---

• Improved chart converter/song PAK writer
  • Better programmed note and starpower arrays (works in 2D arrays)
  • Less messy code (but also still sort of messy)
  • Some tempo related fixes
• Discord RPC (Separate download) and proper song metadata in PAKs
• New separate PAK to store user configuration,
  which allows more portable and easy settings
  (and makes it easier for me to push updates :D)
• Reduced music tools size and made FSB encoding just a little faster
• Other various encoding related fixes
• More ultra optimization
• Fixed open note animation
• Bot star power/autowhammy (lazy)
• (Cheap) fix for calibrated audio syncing, so
  gameplay doesn't have to slow down to keep up
• Function to disable HUD intro (toggleable with disable_intro)
• Unique file date checker for downloads
• GH3/WT textures can have PNGs/JPGs stored, yay!
  (warning: may slow down loading to due compression)
• Solos (have to be inserted in song PAKs manually for the time being)
• - Removed Herobrine

• GAME IS NOW COMPLETELY PORTABLE!!
• Removed Aspyr registry key check, no longer needing admin rights
• Removed Massive Ad Client (cheaply, so venues won't work here)
• No fail setting with graphical change
• Magically randomly fixed some MIDI error happening on another computer
• Detect multiple files in a song package,
  ask user which one they want to play
• Async FSB building, making multitrack encoding faster
• Removed dbgq.pak and perm_anims.pak

• Reimplemented FSP + allowed easier creation, and web downloads
• More gameplay lock-in
• Disabling VSync independent of another program
• Moved GH3+ loader to execute before window creation
• Rebuilt optimized zones
• Patch launcher to support .chart Offset value
• Song cache viewer + write IDs to list
• Official public release

• Song caching + new hashing method
• New audio and chart converter
• Replaced game program with better executable
• Internally patched windowed mode
• Game fully functional without Soundcheck zone
• Proper data manipulation through launcher
• Rebuilt game data (for the infinith time)
• Dynamic game path
• Removed zones, models

Legacy_bad

• Unknown
• Inherited changes from 0.7

• Optimized game
• Removed zones, models
• Windowed patch through DxWnd/3DAnalyzer
• Uses songlist_editor, Chart2Mid, sox for song converter