Creating Stages

Stages are defined via XML files, similar to Creating characters. By creating an XML file in ./data/stages, you officially created a stage.

The default stage XML looks something like this:

<stage zoom="0.9" name="stage" folder="stages/default/" startCamPosY="600" startCamPosX="1000">
    <sprite name="bg" x="-600" y="-200" sprite="stageback" scroll="0.9"/>
    <sprite name="stageFront" x="-600" y="600" sprite="stagefront" scroll="0.9"/>
    <girlfriend/>
    <dad/>
    <boyfriend/>
    <sprite name="stageCurtains" x="-500" y="-300" sprite="stagecurtains" scroll="1.3"/>
</stage>

There's a lot to pack but we will explain what's going on here.

First, to start with the "parent node", which is the <stage> node, that is where stage options are being defined.

<stage zoom="0.9" name="stage" folder="stages/default/" startCamPosY="600" startCamPosX="1000">

Noting options that you can set there:

• zoom which controls the default zoom of the stage.
• name, name of the stage when you look for it in the Chart Editor.
• folder which changes the destination of where the sprites are taken from (like images/stages/default/).
• startCamPosX, startCamPosY set the destination of where the camera starts from (before countdown)

As for the other nodes, there's about 7 types of them (and more if you script them in, see Character/Stage Scripts), we'll go through each of them.

(note that it's important which order you put them in because they will take the same order in-game too)

Sprite node (<sprite>, <spr>, <sparrow>)

The sprite node defines the basic sprites in a stage.

<sprite name="bg" x="-600" y="-200" sprite="stageback" scroll="0.9"/>

The options are:

• name which defines the internal name used for scripting.
• x and y define it's position in-game.
• sprite is the name of the sprite in the files. (keep in mind if you set this to point to a sparrow spritesheet it will automatically make an animation of all the frames in the spritesheet)
• scroll, scrollx and scrolly determine the scrollFactor of the sprite (how much it moves with the camera)

Other options include:

• skewx and skewy skewes the sprite.
• antialiasing determines whether or not the sprite has antialiasing. (true by default)
• width and height determine the width and height of the sprite's hitbox. (does not affect the sprite itself)
• scale, scalex and scaley are size multipliers for the sprite's width and height. (setting it to 2 means double the size)
• graphicSize, graphicSizex and graphicSizey determine the width and height of the sprite.
• updateHitbox determines whether or not to update the sprite's hitbox.
• zoomFactor defines how much the sprite should scale with the camera's zoom. (setting it to 0 will make it stay to the original size no matter what)
• alpha is the "opacity" of the sprite
• color tints the sprite in the color you set it to (example #FF0000 will tint the sprite in full red)
• playOnCountdown tells the sprite whether or not to play it's animation during countdown or not.
• beatInterval, beatOffset, honestly, I don't even know what this shit is okay.

You can also define animations by giving it a child node called <anim>. A sprite node with an animation node looks something like this:

<sprite name="dancer1" sprite="limoDancer" type="onbeat">
    <anim name="danceLeft" anim="bg dancer sketch PINK" loop="false"/>
    <anim name="danceRight" anim="bg dancer sketch PINK" loop="false"/>
</sprite>

An <anim> node can define these options:

• name defines the internal name of the animation (used for scripting)
• anim is the prefix for finding the animation in the spritesheet.
• indices indicates which frames to play from the previously found frames.
• type determines the type of the animation. either beat or loop.
• fps is the framerate of your animation.
• x and y are the animation offset. (offset is only applied when the animation is played)
• forced whether or not to force animation playback while a different one is already playing.
• loop to make your animation loop.

Defining advanced properties is also possible. Like this:

<sprite name="clouds" sprite="clouds">
    <property name="moves" type="bool" value="true">
    <property name="velocity.x" type="float" value="40.0">
</sprite>

Solid node (<solid>, <box>)

Solid nodes are sprites that is, unlike a Sprite Node, composed of only one select color. This node has less parameters since it doesn't use images.
Creating one of these looks something like this:

<solid name="void" color="#FFFFFF" width="1280" height="720">

(there's a difference between using <solid> and <box>, while <solid> offers more performance, it might break with shaders and other stuff, so if that happens, use <box> instead)

Accepted parameters:

• name internal name.
• color which colors the solid/box.
• x and y determine the position in the stage.
• width and height defines the size of the solid/box.

Character nodes (<boyfriend>, <bf>, <player>, <girlfriend>, <gf>, <dad>, <opponent>, <character>, <char>)

Character nodes are used to position characters in the stage. A Character node looks something like this:

<boyfriend x="200" y="400"/>

Accepted parameters are:

• x and y for positioning.
• camxoffset and camyoffset for changing the character's camera point.
• skewx and skewy for skewing.
• alpha which determines the opacity of the character sprite.
• flip for if you want to flip the character for specifically for the stage.
• scroll, scrollx and scrolly to change the scrollFactor of the character.

For the <character> and <char> nodes only use them if you want to change a specific character (ex. if you want to change pico's positions)

<character name="pico" x="400" y="200">

Keep in mind that where you put these nodes is important as the character will be layered depending on that.

<boyfriend/>
<sprite name="stageCurtains" x="-500" y="-300" sprite="stagecurtains" scroll="1.3"/>

(this will put boyfriend behind the stageCurtains sprite)

Ratings sprites node (<ratings>, <combo>)

This node is only used to position the rating sprites and does nothing else (atm). Positioning in nodes doesn't matter here.

<ratings x="200" y="400">

The only parameters are x and y.

Stage Extensions (<use-extension>, <extension>, <ext>)

<use-extension script="example" />
<extension script="example" />
<ext script="example" />

<ext script="example" folder="data/scripts/" isShortLived="true" importStageSprites="true" loadBefore="false" />

Accepted parameters:

• script which is the name of the script to load.
• folder which is the folder to load the script from. (defaults to "data/scripts/")
• isShortLived which determines whether or not the script is destroyed after the stage has finished loading. (defaults to false)
• importStageSprites which determines whether or not to import the stage sprites into the script. (defaults to false)
• loadBefore which determines whether or not to load the script before going through the other stage's nodes, exactly like the default stage's script allowing for example to call onStageXMLParsed. If instead you want the script to load after a certain node or such, set this to false. (defaults to true)

All of these attributes above get stored inside a list, singular Imported XML scripts can access their infos easily through a variable called scriptInfo (this variable uses a XMLImportedScriptInfo class and it's automatically imported into these scripts).

This allows you to load custom scripts for your stages, that allow for adding custom stage nodes, or whatever else you can think of.

Check out the Stage Extensions page for more information.