Welcome to my tutorial on understanding the UltraStar Deluxe text file. The text file is the backbone of the track for play in UltraStar Deluxe and knowing what's what and how to troubleshoot will help you immensely.
My text editor is what is adding the gray column with the numbers.... this is NOT PART OF THE ULTRASTAR DELUXE TRACK!
The text file has 2 parts. The very top, which contains some basic information about files and basic time stuff and the bottom, which contains all the information about the notation and rhythm of the song along with the lyrics.
For starters, here's a look at a functional text file. You can see the beginning to the end.
The only necessary tags are:
#TITLE
#ARTIST
#MP3
#BPM
#GAP
Other tags, and their uses, are:
#BACKGROUND you specify a background. Must be in same folder as txt.
#COVER album art, in jpg. If you drop a file into the folder, USDX will add this tag itself.
#CREATOR not necessary, but some people like to credit themselves.
#EDITION used if you want to sort by edition. Can be anything.
#GENRE again, used for sorting. Can be anything.
#LANGUAGE language of the track.
#VIDEO have a video? It goes here.
#VIDEOGAP is a way to help line up your song with your video.
But we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves. This is about the text file, but you need to know that everything that pertains to a single track needs to be in the same folder, together.
Open the text file and fill in the first few fields:
#TITLE is the title of your song. What you type is what will show up in game.
#ARTIST is the artist. What you type is what will show up in game.
#MP3 is the mp3 file to be played. Must be in same folder as this txt file.
#BPM this probably will be populated, but check this (see below).
#GAP milliseconds before *lyrics* begin. NOT the beginning of the song. Will edit this later.
For this song, everything is in a folder called "Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer", which is located in the UltraStar Deluxe "songs" folder.
See that my cover file, mp3 and video are all in the same folder as my text file? That's why my head looks like this:
My text editor is what is adding the gray column with the numbers.... this is NOT PART OF THE ULTRASTAR DELUXE TRACK!
The text file has 2 parts. The very top, which contains some basic information about files and basic time stuff and the bottom, which contains all the information about the notation and rhythm of the song along with the lyrics.
For starters, here's a look at a functional text file. You can see the beginning to the end.
The Top of the Ultrastar Deluxe File
The tags at the beginning of the text file will always begin with a #.The only necessary tags are:
#TITLE
#ARTIST
#MP3
#BPM
#GAP
Other tags, and their uses, are:
#BACKGROUND you specify a background. Must be in same folder as txt.
#COVER album art, in jpg. If you drop a file into the folder, USDX will add this tag itself.
#CREATOR not necessary, but some people like to credit themselves.
#EDITION used if you want to sort by edition. Can be anything.
#GENRE again, used for sorting. Can be anything.
#LANGUAGE language of the track.
#VIDEO have a video? It goes here.
#VIDEOGAP is a way to help line up your song with your video.
But we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves. This is about the text file, but you need to know that everything that pertains to a single track needs to be in the same folder, together.
Open the text file and fill in the first few fields:
#TITLE is the title of your song. What you type is what will show up in game.
#ARTIST is the artist. What you type is what will show up in game.
#MP3 is the mp3 file to be played. Must be in same folder as this txt file.
#BPM this probably will be populated, but check this (see below).
#GAP milliseconds before *lyrics* begin. NOT the beginning of the song. Will edit this later.
For this song, everything is in a folder called "Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer", which is located in the UltraStar Deluxe "songs" folder.
You have got to type in file names (mp3, video, cover and background) exactly right. An extra space or spelling mis-key will cause an error).
I chose not to use a background - I prefer a video for all my tracks. However, if I wanted a background, which is just a still image, I would have added it with the #BACKGROUND tag, and it would have had to be placed in the same folder as the video mp4 and cover jpg. If for some reason my video did not load, my background would show up instead. If you have a functioning video, though, your background won't do anything.
If you made a text from a midi file (tutorial for creating a text from MIDI for UltraStar Deluxe here) the #BPM may already be in place. I generally check mine against another BPM calculator such as http://www.all8.com/tools/bpm.htm. Just play the song and tap your space bar to get the BPM.
*If your BPM is about 2 or 3 times what the text file says, be careful... you don't want to double or triple (or conversely, half or third!) your BPM via the text file. Get as close to the original number as you can... for instance if your text file says 45, and you tap out 150 - the correct number to put in would be 50. You can double and triple (and you should) from INSIDE the UltraStar editor.
Let's leave our #GAP at 0 for now.
The Middle of the Ultrastar Deluxe file
Onto the middle of the text file, the meaty part. Mmmm, meaty.
FOR A SECOND TIME... The gray column with the numbers is built into my text editor, those sequential numbers are NOT part of the text file!
You'll notice there's a few things going on here, horizontally.
Our first line reads like this:
: 0 12 19 Hey
This is telling UltraStar the following:
: - I'm a normal note
This column can also say: * - I'm a a golden note (think sparkly stars on the note tube) F - Freestyle note (like the rap meter on SingStar, will NOT be scored)
0 is where the note starts. 12 is the duration of the note tube. 19 is the tone of the note tube (in this case, a "g") . Hey is the first lyric.
The next lines reads like so:
* 16 6 17 hey
That means UltraStar will make this a golden note that starts at 16, has a duration of 6 and a tone of 17 (f). Of course, the second lyric is "hey".
There's a couple more before we get to our first screen break. This ends one screen and brings up a fresh one with the next line of the song. - 57 is how it's made.
When making a new text file you'll have to manually add such a break towards the top of the song in order for UltraStar to load the file at all! Remember this, it can save a lot of headaches when making new songs.
Here's a peek at the first line inside the built-in UltraStar Deluxe editor.
See how it matches up to our text file?
The Bottom of the Ultrastar Deluxe File
How do you end a text file? Don't make a break (- 00), just end it with a capital E. That's it.
Creating an Ultrastar Deluxe Song - Part I: Generating a Text File
Creating an Ultrastar Deluxe Song - Part II: Basic Text File Edits
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