Introduction

Custom rockmeters are something that have been in development since the beginning of FoFiX 4. They allow themers to take the in-game visuals even further than before by no longer being restricted to the Guitar Hero or Rockband style. This even helps us as programmers because we no longer have to be the ones to get the rockmeters looking as close to the originals as possible. Changing from hard-coded to flexible .ini files really helps code maintainability as well as allows the community to be way more creative with FoFiX than ever before. So let's take a look at how this is done. All examples given will come directly from MegaLight v4 which is packaged with all copies of FoFiX 4

• Introduction
• The Layer
• The Header
• Common Parameters
• Layer Specific Parameters
• Image Layer
• Font Layer
• Circle Layer
• The Effect
• The Header
• Incrementing Effects
• Common Parameters
• Slide/Scale Parameters
• Fade Parameters
• Other Effects
• Replace
• Animate
• The Group
• The Header
• Group Specific Parameters
• List of Available Variables
• Advanced Variable Manipulation (ADVANCED TOPIC)
• About Custom Layers (ADVANCED TOPIC)

The Layer

Let's start of with an already made layer from MegaLight v4

[layer0:Image]
texture = bar.png
yscale = 270
xscale = 100
inPixels = xscale|yscale
valignment = bottom
rect = (1.0/3.0, 2.0/3.0, 1.0-rock, 1.0)

This layer is actually very basic in terms of what you can do, which makes it a perfect example for explaining.

The Header

The header of the layer defines which layer number it is and what type it is.

• numbers can range from 0-99
• there are 4 types: Image, Text, Circle, and Custom, all of which I will explain later

[layer<Number>:<type>]

Common Parameters

These are parameters shared across all layer types

Layer Specific Parameters

Image Layer

Font Layer

Circle Layer

The Effect

Effects are applied each time the layer is updated. Effects can be as simple as sliding the layer across the screen to animating explosions if you feel like it.

[layer18:fx0:Fade]
color = #FFFFFF00
fadeTo = #FFFFFFFF
transitionTime = 1000.0
condition = self.stage.scene.countdownOK

This layer fades in the timer once the countdown starts

The Header

The header of the layer defines which layer the effect belongs to, which effect it is, and what type it is.

• effects numbers can range from 0-5
• there are 5 types: Slide, Scale, Fade, Replace, Animate

[layer<Number>:fx<Number>:<type>]

• Things to take notice of: the higher the number of the layer or group, the further front it will be when rendered! As for effects, the higher the number the greater its priority.

Incrementing Effects

These effects are special in that they will smoothly transition between start and end values in a specified amount of milliseconds. The effects that are capable of doing this are Slide, Scale, and Fade.

Common Parameters

Slide/Scale Parameters

Fade Parameters

Other Effects

These effects are very closely related in how they are programmed, but their function is a bit different.

Replace

Replace will replace the layer's contents with that specified by the effect

Animate

Animate only works with ImageLayers and will automatically parse the image's rect horizontally for it to scroll through.

The Group

Groups are designed to be like layer groups in applications like photoshop. Groups are a subclass of layers themselves, so certain effects can be applied to them (Slide, Scale, and Fade) and can have all the common parameters applied to them as well.

[Group1]
layers = 8,9,10,11

[Group1:fx0:Slide]
startX = 1.3
endX = 1.0
startY = .145
endY = .145
transitionTime = 1000.0
condition = self.stage.layerGroups[2].position[1] >= .05

The Header

The header of the group defines which group number it is.

• numbers can range from 0-50

[Group<Number>]

• Remember: All parameters, headers, etc. are CaSe SEnSiTivE!

Group Specific Parameters

List of Available Variables

Advanced Variable Manipulation (ADVANCED TOPIC)

Not satisfied with the variables provided? You can go even further when referencing variables if you know enough of the code base. Use self.stage to get access to the rockmeter class's variables and self.stage.scene to get access to the GuitarScene class. Example of a possibly important one for you?

self.stage.scene.boardY

That variable is the tracker for the time into the animation for the fretboard transitioning in before the song starts. Another example is given earlier in the examples for effects and groups. Hope this cleared things up for you if you saw those values and had no idea what they were. Congrats, you just learned a bit of python.

About Custom Layers (ADVANCED TOPIC)

Custom Layers are for when you want to do something that the code that is already available to themers isn't capable of doing. You need to know python if you want to do this, and you need to be familiar with the code of the Rockmeter.py. If you are not careful you can break your game. This is fully executable code read in by the engine.

To start creating a custom layer you first need to make a file in your theme's folder called CustomRMLayers.py. To have access to all the rockmeter's code and global variables you need to add this to the top of the file.

from Rockmeter import *

From there on just start working your programming magic. We're not here to teach you python, but if you already know it you can take advantage of your knowledge and freely use it in your rockmeter. Remember, because Groups extend the base Layer class for rockmeters, you can even have custom groups!