pongmaniaIIDX
How to add extra songs
Unfortunately,
adding songs into pongmaniaIIDX isn't as easy as adding them to a traditional
IIDX simulator. For one thing, pongmaniaIIDX doesn't use the BMS file format,
the reason being that the PMN file format designed for pongmaniaIIDX is a lot
easier to read in for the game. Fear not, though, I've made a (very) primitive
BMS to PMN converter, which can be downloaded here
. There are a few limitations on files that can be used with
this converter, but the biggest one is that it does not support BPM
changes. Maybe someday I'll update this tool, or someone else can if
they want to (trust me, if you're smart enough to do that, then you're smart
enough to figure out the PMN file format on your own).
If you need BMS files, you can
download them from sherl0k's bms terminal,
or you can rip them yourself using SaxxonPike's
BeMedia Suite.
Once you've
downloaded the converter, copy it into the same directory as your BMS files.
Drag the file you want to convert onto the executable. You'll get three PMN
files out, BG.pmn, P1.pmn, and P2.pmn. You can test out your PMN files to make
sure they've converted correctly by using this player.
Simply put it in the same directory as your PMN files and run it. (You'll need
fmodex.dll
if you don't already have
it)
Once you're satisfied with your PMN files, you'll have to rename them
to use in the game. I suggest naming them after the difficulty you've converted,
i.e. Normal7 BG.pmn, Normal7 P1.pmn, and Normal7 P2.pmn, but you can rename them
to anything you'd like, really, as long as they have the BG, P1, and P2 suffixes
(make sure you leave a space before the suffix!)
If you want to add a
music video to your song, you can either find it on the internet somewhere, or
rip it yourself from a PS2 beatmaniaIIDX game using SaxxonPike's
BeMedia Suite. (Rename the resulting VOB file to MPG and you're good
to go.) Or, an even simpler solution, if you have an arcade version of beatmaniaIIDX
that stores its movies on the hard drive, simply rename the .4 movie
file to .MPG. (Yes, it's really that simple.) Please note that you must use MPEG
files for videos.
Once you have all the files you need for the song,
it's time to update your songlist files! Edit the songlist-p1.dat file to add
the song to one-player mode (for 7-key difficulties), or edit songlist-p2.dat to
add the song to two-player mode (for 14-key difficulties).
The songs will
be displayed in the game in the same order they are in the file, so feel free to
sort your songs however you like. The songs that come with the game are sorted
by Normal difficulty, but you can also sort alphabetically, or put your favorite
songs at the top, etc.
Although the songlist files look complicated,
they're not too difficult once broken down:
| 5.1.1. PIANO AMBIENT dj nagureo 1 songs\5.1.1. Normal Normal7 101 77721 songs\5.1.1\5.1.1.mpg -2000 6 songs\5.1.1 Hyper7 101 92600 songs\5.1.1\5.1.1.mpg -2000 10 songs\5.1.1 Another7 101 92600 songs\5.1.1\5.1.1.mpg -2000 |
<-- Song title <-- Genre <-- Artist <-- Normal difficulty level <-- Path where Normal PMN files are stored <-- Filename for Normal PMN files <-- BPM for Normal difficulty <-- Song length for Normal difficulty (in milliseconds) <-- Path to Normal difficulty movie file <-- Normal video offset (in milliseconds) <-- Hyper difficulty <-- Path where Hyper PMN files are stores <-- Filename for Hyper PMN files <-- BPM for Hyper difficulty <-- Song length for Hyper difficulty (in milliseconds) <-- Path to Hyper difficulty movie file <-- Hyper video offset (in milliseconds) <-- Another difficulty level <-- Path where Another PMN files are stored <-- Filename for Another PMN files <-- BPM for Another difficulty <-- Song length for Another difficulty (in milliseconds) <-- Path to Another difficulty movie file <-- Another video offset (in milliseconds) |
Also note that not every field needs to be filled in. This is useful if you're using a song that doesn't have all three difficulties, or if you're not using a video file:
| 5.1.1. PIANO AMBIENT dj nagureo 1 songs\5.1.1. Normal Normal7 100.98 77721 NULL 2000 6 songs\5.1.1 Hyper7 100.98 92600 NULL 2000 0 NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL |
<-- BPMs do not have to be whole numbers <-- Setting a video to NULL will use a generic video <-- Video offsets can be positive or negative <-- Setting a difficulty to 0 will disable that difficulty <-- Since difficulty is 0, these lines will be ignored |
Another important thing
to note is that the songlist files must use Unicode encoding. If you modify
the songlist files that came with the game using Notepad, it should
automatically use Unicode. The reason for this is so you can use Unicode symbols
in song information, for instance, to have Japanese song titles.
And
that's it! Start up the game to make sure your song shows up in the song wheel,
and play it to make sure everything came out okay. Enjoy!