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This tutorial covers the following topics:
For other helpful informations please visit FAQ. DDR Basics (Tempo & Phase)
To play a song in anyMania, you need the correct tempo and phase. anyMania provides an effective tempo detecting method including both automatic and manual analyzing. Check the following section to learn more. Mania Studio & Tempo DetectingThe Album Play mode is an important feature in anyMania. It allows you to play your favorite songs continuously in your favorite order. Mania Studio is a powerful tool to create and manage anyMania albums. It also provides intelligent tempo detecting utilities with high performance. Typically, to create an album you just need to click Add Track button and select some tracks. Those tracks will be processed automatically by the detector before being added into the album. Unfortunately the automatic detecting is not smart enough to make wise computation everytime. There're always exceptions. For example, the default sample segment accidentally locates into a blurred section of the music, or there're some unexpected bands of noises making too much disturbance. In these cases the automatic detecting won't reflect the exact bpm value. And we have to rebuild the track using manual settings. The Manual Building Panel is divided into several sections as below:
For better gaming performance, we recommend that the songs you choosed to play has clear and constant tempos above 100bpm. Songs of low tempo are not suggested. For example, rock/techno music has proved to be an ideal choice by our experience. <Tips> Only use manual building when needed! Automatic building can do well in most of the situations. For those exceptions, to narrow the Tempo Range might be the most effective approach to improve the accuracy of tempo detecting. It works for songs of any styles with a success rate of 100% closely in practice. Score System and RankinganyMania's score system is generally like other traditional DDR games: the more exactly you hit the notes of the song, the more points you gain. A rating term displayed after each note denotes how accuratey you hit on that beat. For example, a "MARVELOUS" term indicates a highest step timing while a "GOOD" mark indicates a lower one (Rating terms can be customized in localized languages in future versions, by the way). Extra technical bonus like Max Combo will be given as a reward after the song is completed. The Difficulty Level (titled as Foot Rating or Footer in DDR words) also plays a heavy part in score counting. In anyMania, a high tempo always generates a high difficulty level. Therefore the tempo decides the maximum score you can make in a song. However the length of the song does not count much relatively.
<Tips> Use Gear Shift to speed up/down the playback rate, which will consequently change the tempo and the difficulty level. anyMania supports smooth rate shifting with a multiplier resolution of 10%. You can even use it during the game play! With Mania Ladder, anyMania provides a great place for DDR fans from all over the world to post mania scores of their own, which makes anyMania a world-wide DDR arena. When a song is completed, the completion bonus screen comes up and bonus starts to be added to the score. You can either wait for the adding process to finish or just skip by tapping an arrow key. If your score is high enough to set a new 1st Machine Record, you'll see the Submit Button below the Machine Record Box. Click the button to start the submission. It just takes 1 or more seconds depending on your network traffic. When the submission is completed successfully, you'll receive an echo of your place in Mania Ladder and now everybody can see your score in the ladder list!
Join the tournament and make your place in Mania Ladder NOW! Network PlayanyMania supports Network Play mode since version 0.14. Built based on Microsoft DirectPlay® technology, netplay enables players from different places in the world to play anyMania together. To play network games, you need to have at least one network adapter and DirectX 8.1 (9.0 recommended) installed in your system. Also, to avoid game lags, the latency between you and your peer player should be no longer than 100ms (The peer player window displays the ping value during game play). Broad band connection is a must to play anyMania over the internet. Click Netplay menu item or toolbar button to show the Netplay panel. A typical Netplay game starts as below:
Media Formats & CodecsanyMania supports the widest media formats without providing any codecs of its own. It uses Microsoft DirectShow® open platform to accomplish this. So if you don't have any 3rd media codecs installed, the formats anyMania can only play are wave, mp3, wma, wmv, asf, mpg, just like Windows Media Player®. For these codecs are provided within Microsoft Windows products. To support more media formats such as cda, rm, rmvb, ogg, and some types of avi, etc., you must install special codecs for them. Most of these codecs are free. Here are some useful websites providing codecs downloads: We recommend the K-Lite Codec Pack which supports a lot of popular media formats. |
The tempo and phase (also known as bpm
and gap) is the most important
pair of factors in DDR games which will appear in high
frequency in this page. The tempo of a song
represents how many beats pass through every minute while the
phase indicates the gap before the first beat occurs in a song.
The game system depends on these two elements to decide the manner
that dance steps are composed in, the speed that arrows moves
on screen and the difficulty level in score counting. The tempo of
the current song being played is always displayed at the left-bottom
corner of the anyMania game screen.
Sample Segment specifies the starting point to sample from.
All analysing will be performed on this segment displayed as the highlight
selection in the slider. Numbers below the slider indicate the duration
in seconds. The default sample segment starts from half
length of the music and extends 10 seconds long. You may drag the
thumb to seek to a new starting position.
Frequency Band specifies the frequency bands of the song
to be analysed. All six bands are covered by default. You may switch off
one or more of them to reduce some unexpected noises as mentioned above.
Turning off some bands also results in a faster detecting process.
Tempo Range. Detecting results are limited to this boundry.
The default ranges from 60bpm to 180bpm, which is a common range
for DDR games. Adjustments can be made with a resolution of 10bpm. Note
that the thresholds of supported bpm are 30 and 240.
Building Results. When analysing is completed, 3 pairs of the
results are listed from most approximate to less approximate. Each pair
contains the two factors mentioned before: the bpm and the
gap. The radio buttons indicate the active result.
You may compare among all the 3 pairs and make the choice you prefer.
You can even reset these results manually if you don't like them at all.
When playing in network mode, you can see the peer player's real-time
game screen by the side of yours, which seems like you two are playing
side by side. If the network condition is not so good as system demands,
however, you will probably get 'chokes' at intervals during the game play.
The peer player game screen also shows the current ping value and network
status in the left-top corner.