So I've been working on tagging some 2sf sets with some people, and wanted to include some additional information than the current tag implementation. Instead of just throwing the information in the comment= tag, I decided it would be better to make new tags, in case a future vio2sf chooses to support them. Even if none of them are ever supported, it's still a way to better organize the extra information I want to include in the Comments field.
For example, FLAC has ORIGALBUM and ORIGYEAR to give users insight on songs that are part of a compilation. It's always interesting to me where a song originally came from in games as well. This would be particularly important if there ever was a Smash Bros. released for the Nintendo DS.
Here are the tags I'm using, I tried to make them mimic other common tag syntax that I know of: ORIGGAME= the game that the song first appeared in ORIGTITLE = the title of the song in the game that it premiered in ORIGYEAR = the year that the song first existed TITLEJP2EN = the song title when translated to English from the original Japanese, as a way to supplement the localized titles I use (important for people like Prime Blue who prefer the Japanese character and place names) ID= the original filename of the ripped mini2sf file before it's changed to the tagged track number and title.
Questions for whoever can answer: 1. Does anybody have any other tags they would like to see? 2. Does anybody have better ideas for a more standardized way to label the tags listed? 3. Is there a way to copy and paste Japanese characters from VGMdb into a Winamp field? 4. What exactly is the hexadecimal at the end of the mini2sf filename a reference to? 5. If somebody else ripped the same DS game, would the hexadecimal be consistent? 6. How are 2sflib filenames determined? 7. Would people consider the hexadecimal ID redundant with the code included in the mini2sf file, or would it somehow be nice to have if it's not in the filename? 8. How long can a post be edited before it's locked? HCS, could you make it to where a post doesn't have a limited time before it can no longer be edited?
I strongly doubt that vio2SF is going to support additional tags. This is because, rather than doing it correctly (creating their own GUI with which to display information, like 64th Note, Highly Advanced, or Highly Experimental (most emulated formats, actually) do), they are using Winamp's default info. display, which is used for OGGs, MP3s, and a variety of other formats. Essentially, it's a "general display" instead of a (what I consider to be more useful) specific display.
As for questions, I can answer some of them.
2: I'm fairly content with the tags as they are. However, I do think I see your point. Though, depending on the game, perhaps SONGORIG would be better than ORIGGAME. Ex: The song might originate from a movie, or a TV show, or something else. On a similar vein of thought, perhaps SONGYEAR would be better than ORIGYEAR.
I like to read it as Song Origin, instead of Original Game (or Original Year), because it seems to be more specific.
3: Don't use Winamp to tag 2SFs. Use PSFPoint. Create a batch file (*.bat, it's a text file), and run it through PSFpoint. It's not nearly as kludgy as Winamp's input method is (this is due to vio2SF using the default "generic display" instead of a specific display), and you can edit an entire directory at once, instead of modifying the tags for the files each individually.
Also, PSFpoint will support whatever custom tags you want to create. Ex: "psfpoint "-game=Final Fantasy 9" *.psf" (see documentation) will set the game to "Final Fantasy 9" (you don't need to capitalize the tag name). If you want to set "songorig" then you'd simply do this - "psfpoint "-songorig=Fancy Pant's eXtreme RACING!" *.2sf" (of course, exclude the external " marks. Only the stuff inside the external " marks is what you'd want).
4: Generally speaking, it's how that particular sequence was ripped. Basically, when ripping a game, code is altered (via a hex editor) until all it's left doing is playing music. Then, a specific address is found that, when modified, the song being played (the sequenced being accessed) is changed. If I recall correctly, the hex code you see is simply based on the hex that was altered to get that particular sequence data playing.
5: Depends on how it's ripped. If they use the generic rip kit, then yes. If they rip it correctly (only 1 or 2 games have been ripped correctly), then almost certainly not.
6: Knurek originally named them based on release number (what number the ROM received when it was released), but changed it to internal serial number. Ideally, this way you can specify *exactly* which game was ripped. Personally, I'm not a fan of this method, but I can see his point. Though, perhaps hypocritically, I do like the SNESmusic.org naming scheme.
7: I consider file names from ripped files (not streamed files) almost entirely useless, because they don't in any way match the name the ripped file might have had. I see only one reason to keep those names around. If you create a batch file for PSFpoint, then that batch file could be distributed and used by other people. It will only work though, if the file names are consistent.
8: 24 hours. If UF's forum is still around, I think he upped the amount of edit time to either a week, or ten days. His version of the forum uses the same backend, so anything you do on his is reflected on HCS's. In other words, yes, HCS could do that. As for a link to UF's forum, I'm not even sure it's still up. Even if it is, I don't remember the address.
Hopefully that was useful to you. Mouser X over and out.
they are using Winamp's default info. display, which is used for OGGs, MP3s, and a variety of other formats. Essentially, it's a "general display" instead of a (what I consider to be more useful) specific display
i'm assuming you're referring to the unified alt+3 dialog. they don't have to use that but it's better for integration but they can very easily implement an additional page that allows for more control/display of more fields to be more on a par with (or better than) 64th Note, Highly Advanced, or Highly Experimental.
doing that would remove the 'kludgy' nature of things and also make it work better with other areas of integration :)
good thing i just don't have the time at the moment to do something like that to 64th Note for a unified alt+3 intregation (but with pre 5.5 fallback ;) )
my forum is gone dude, and it's going to remain gone because i'm lazy.
anyways, general psf tagging guidelines are summed up best on gsf central. two loops, manually timed for timers, with a fade time of 10 seconds (although I don't care about fade times). tags should credit ALL of the composers, and track titles should be pulled from the OST or sound test: providing those aren't around, name them what's going on in game at the time.
highly whatever has a "classic" psf tagging dialog similar to what's in highly experimental et al, but it's a broken piece of crap and i still don't feel like fixing it because i'm lazy.
just my two cents...
here is some recommended reading courtesy of neill: PSF Tag Format
also, the "tagger" tag (e.g. tagger=penisbot) indicates who tagged the set and is used by several players (highly advanced, 64th note) and is also supported by HW, so keep that in mind when tagging sets.
"How long can a post be edited before it's locked? HCS, could you make it to where a post doesn't have a limited time before it can no longer be edited?"
As Mouser said, 24 hours. This is a discussion forum, not a wiki.
Gentlemen, can we please attempt to not derail threads? This time started with you, Elven, but without the rest of you adding unhelpful crap it wouldn't have been as egregious.
Thank you everybody, especially Mouser for the thorough response. I think ORIGALBUM could be a tag for the purpose you mention (if it originates from a non-game music album or soundtrack). ORIGGAME would just be a specific way of saying that this song appeared in a previous game. SONGORIG would just encourage a more colloquial than systematic way of labeling. Sticking to the ORIG___ naming scheme would also have the advantage of familiarity to the people who care about ultra detailed tagging in the first place.
And thanks for the PSFPoint recommendation. I was using regular expressions and EditPad Pro before, but that should allow me to more easily make a prompt front-end for the others I'm working with. Too bad it's labeled malicious, probably because it's purpose is to aid in 'hacking' right, not because it actually has a virus? How likely do you think it has a virus?
It may just look like a virus. If Neill used UPX on it as he did with some other things a lousy virus scanner might flag it because packers can be used to hide things from lousy virus scanners.
So how about Japanese characters? I tried copying and pasting them into EditPad Pro, selecting "Windows-932 Japanese Shift-JIS" encoding, and trying out different fonts. I can't seem to get one to display something other than wrong characters.
If I did manage to figure out how to display the characters in a text editor, and used a PSFPoint batch file to save the Japanese titles, would anybody actually be able to read them (such as Japanese music players?
xSF tag standard allows for japanese characters when utf8=1 tag is present (obviously, you need to have the text encoded in UTF-8).
Not sure if it's actually supported by vio2sf, but that's your best bet.
//Edit
Also, don't bother with manual timing files, at least for current 2SF rips. SSEQ2MID (and snakemeat's 2sftimer which uses it) works pretty much perfectly - didn't work properly on two games out of, uhh, 600 or so rips.
And contrary to what unknownfile says, pretty much every xSF format with exception of USF has an auto-timing tool available (some more automated than others). And neither produces timers as crappy as some of the 'manual' timing jobs out there (like F-Zero - GP Legend rip on GSF Central).
edited 11:59 AM EST February 10, 2009
by unknownfile at 1:27 PM EST on February 10, 2009
Thank you Knurek for the info. Here's VGMToolbox and sseq2mid for those who are also interested. Where can one find the other timing tools you mention?
snakemeat, could you make an option in VGMToolbox to time for one loop? I'll contribute tagged sets with 2 loops for Manly, but I want to be able to rip both 1 loops and 2 loops to give people options. Plus for converting to mainstream listening formats, it helps to have 1 loop capability to half the amount of bandwidth. I'm going to offer both, but I need the option to turn off 2 loops whenever bandwidth is a problem. Not to mention I've found that there are a plenty of people who prefer the 1 loop download.
edited 4:16 AM EST February 11, 2009
by unknownfile at 9:41 AM EST on February 11, 2009
if it's any indication, i don't really care about timing of sets, which is why everything that i've posted to gsf central has times that may not be correct
good thing for infinite loop though, which is what is enabled in all of the xsf players i use