0.8.2 Preview r1442 - Dramatically Improved Notation

Archived development update discussion from past versions
Archived development updates.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

PREVIEW r1442
Download from the pink box above.
improvedNotation.png
improvedNotation.png (16.9 KiB) Viewed 20067 times
Changes in r1442 since r1409:
  • New page-flip effect that doesn't cut measures off half-way through.
  • New measure/division highlight replacing the red line. Is now always accurate. ;)
  • Key signatures and correct note spelling/accidentals. (New: double-sharps and double-flats.)
  • Time signatures.
  • Staccato notes and other duration filling. (Should eliminate most of the eighth-rest noise.)
  • Crowded notes now get pushed out to the side the way they're supposed to.
  • Track staff selection has been improved (for reals this time).
  • Bar lines now travel between both staffs.
  • Timeline now shows until end of final measure (vs. end of final note).
  • Loops can now extend until end of final measure.
  • Notation should no longer end with an extra empty measure.
  • Removed silly extra bar line between clefs and first measure.
  • Fixed lots of problems in the way rests were generated.
  • Bar lines are now correct: double for section breaks (key changes) and heavy double at end of song.
  • Tweaked glyph spacing overall. Things should look more sheet-music'y now.
  • Reminder from r1409: Staff/measure lines are crisper and uniform.
  • Reminder from r1409: Pick-up measures are now trimmed in sheet music.
  • Reminder from r1409: Scrolling sheet mode is gone.
  • Maybe fixed the weird crash related to having track settings from previous versions.
That's a lot. I want to say the quality of the sheet music just jumped from something like 40% of "perfect" up to something like 75%. It's getting there. Doubtless there are still lots of broken things. Triplets are still missing. 32nd notes. All that stuff. Stems still can't point downward. But man is it a HUGE improvement over the way it was.

I was really hoping to do even more (finger hints on the sheet(!) and a few others) but it was starting to drag on far too long and I didn't want to lose any more momentum. It's already been a few months since the last release and I'm excited to get 0.8.2 out the door! If it wasn't before, this is now officially my favorite release of all time. Having sheet music I'm not embarrassed about is a huge weight off my shoulders.

Try out key signatures with these two files:
major scales.mid
(959 Bytes) Downloaded 313 times
major chromatic scales.mid
(1.39 KiB) Downloaded 293 times
Coming up next: User-assignable input! I've got a couple mini-controllers on their way to help me test that I can support all the various, wacky CC messages that proper MIDI controllers can send. (Velocity sensitive buttons, sliders, dials, etc.) This update is also going to obsolete the graphic shown just as the song is starting, so there will be some updates there too. And while I'm making changes to the pause screen, I'm going to make it so it no longer obscures anything on the screen. Spacebar (or whatever you decide to map it to!) will be the way to still be able to see everything going on. Finally, that suggestion Electrode just made about shimmying the start/end of loops around with Ctrl+Shift+., seems like a good one to slide into this next preview.
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DC64
Posts: 830

Post by DC64 »

Wow. This is great.
The files work perfectly.
When the page turn reaches the end of the screen, the sheet music screen jitters for a second (notisable but small) then fixes itself.
"And now for something completely different."
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Hmm, I haven't seen any jitter. What are your graphics settings? DirectX or OpenGL? Windowed? Which resolution? Thanks!
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DC64
Posts: 830

Post by DC64 »

It was windowed.
"And now for something completely different."
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

What about all of my other questions?! ;)
artur
Posts: 32

Post by artur »

I haven't had the chace to try this out yet, but I can only say it looks wonderful! Great improvements!
aria1121
Posts: 1505

Post by aria1121 »

Nicholas, take a look at this MIDI, maybe you'll find something interesting in Synthesia's sheets.
aria1121
Posts: 1505

Post by aria1121 »

Also, if you pay a little more attention, you'll find out that the sheets are actually "rolling back". We already had that we had non-stop scrolling with the red line. Can we also have something in future that you have something that when it reaches the end of the measureline, it "moves down a line"?
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

aria1121 wrote:... take a look at this MIDI...
Yeah, that is kind of a worst-case scenario, isn't it? That was the worry I'd had all these years about switching to a fixed-page system. Measures 96-98 in particular are pretty nasty. For the new flip effect to work properly, you need to be able to fit at least two measures on the screen. It gets a little jittery when there is only one.

I'm okay with it though. Those cases are rare and I can just tell people to keep making it smaller until it fits. ;)
aria1121 wrote:Can we also have something in future that you have something that when it reaches the end of the measureline, it "moves down a line"?
You mean like the #1 feature on the voting list?
aria1121
Posts: 1505

Post by aria1121 »

Nicholas wrote:You mean like the #1 feature on the voting list?
Yes... no ...sort of :) . Just the half of the screen falling-down notes and the other half sheet but going down lines 1 viewed at a time.

Edit I also noticed if there is only 1 measure per line, we don't get the awesome page flipped :(
Typhlosion
Posts: 82

Post by Typhlosion »

Hey,
When do you fix that stem-direction stuff? For me it's an important thing!!
:cry:
Raymond
Posts: 528

Post by Raymond »

I like it. :D

Although I think there should be more contrast with the blue.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Typhlosion wrote:When do you fix that stem-direction stuff?
It's nearly the very bottom item on the voting list. Compared to something like triplets (3x the votes) it's a lower priority. Why is that one in particular important to you?
Raymond wrote:... I think there should be more contrast with the blue.
Like, darker blue? Depending on some monitor brightness settings, I suppose the blue I have there could almost completely disappear...
Electrode
Posts: 195

Post by Electrode »

There are notation errors in the screen shot. at the end, in the left hand part, last bar - a staccato dot is under each note. There should only be one dot per note or chord. Stems should also be going down in the left hand part, because the notes are higher than the middle line of that staff - so the staccato dot should be in the middle of the staves (opposite to the correct stem direction), not placed on top of the left-hand staff. Dots are small and should be clearly visible, not obscured by staff lines. (This goes for duration dots as well as staccato dots.)

(EDIT: Whoops, Typhlosion got there before me on the stem direction. Sorry for not having read the whole thread before replying! :oops: )

Nicholas, stem direction is important because it allows the staccato dots to be properly placed, as stated before. I have sample pages from a written guide (a PDF of a book) on the conventions of music notation if you would like to see it. It is an extremely complex beast, but from what is in the sample, the guide actually helps you make some sense of everything! (I'm hoping to get the full book at some point, it looks very good, but is quite expensive!)

I'll check out the key signatures with your MIDI files and report back!
Last edited by Electrode on 09-14-11 4:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Electrode wrote:There should only be one dot per note or chord.
Dots [should not be] obscured by staff lines.
Yeah, both of those are known issues along with the stem directions. It's less about me not knowing how sheet music works and more it being an extremely complex beast like you mentioned. Working on the sheet takes forever because it makes me procrastinate :? so I have to do it in smaller doses. Though, I'm really happy with how far I was able to take it this time around.

0.8.3 (where you'll be able to hide the falling notes and use the sheet alone) will give me a chance to make another pass and maybe get that 75% I mentioned above up to 85% or so. :D

EDIT: Regarding that last measure, since those note heads are distinct (one shifted to the side), is it conceivable that one of those notes might be played staccato while the other isn't? Or does one dot force all the rest to be staccato? What about when it's some crazy chord inversion or octave or something? How far away do the notes have to be to warrant another staccato dot?
Electrode
Posts: 195

Post by Electrode »

Nicholas wrote: EDIT: Regarding that last measure, since those note heads are distinct (one shifted to the side), is it conceivable that one of those notes might be played staccato while the other isn't? Or does one dot force all the rest to be staccato? What about when it's some crazy chord inversion or octave or something? How far away do the notes have to be to warrant another staccato dot?
A staccato dot under a chord (regardless of the spacing of the notes in the chord) automatically implies that all notes in the chord are to be played staccato. If one note were meant to be staccato and the other not, then this is solved by making the note that is lower in pitch have a down-stem, and the note higher in pitch have an up-stem, with the staccato dot in the same direction as the stem on the note that is to be played staccato. (The anomaly is that usually staccato dots, as I said before, go opposite the stem direction - except in this case, where there are multiple voices with multiple durations on one staff.)
vicentefer31
Posts: 899

Post by vicentefer31 »

sheet music.png
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Looks very good. Congratulations!
Picasso: I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
Raymond
Posts: 528

Post by Raymond »

Nicholas wrote:
Raymond wrote:... I think there should be more contrast with the blue.
Like, darker blue? Depending on some monitor brightness settings, I suppose the blue I have there could almost completely disappear...
Ya, and more of a blue difference.
As it is it's hard to see the dot and placement bar. Because the blues are too close.
vicentefer31
Posts: 899

Post by vicentefer31 »

I'd like that when the blue line goes to the next note-s it could be "empty", because "old notes" from a chord or something like this make difficult to know what notes you have to play
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Old notes in Blue Line.png
Old notes in Blue Line.png (28.4 KiB) Viewed 19895 times
Nicholas wrote:
  • Track staff selection has been improved (for reals this time).
Image
I wonder why both tracks aren't display on separate staffs correctly.
Picasso: I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

vicentefer31 wrote:I'd like that when the blue line goes to the next note-s it could be "empty", because "old notes" from a chord or something like this make difficult to know what notes you have to play
Yeah, there is definitely some room for improvement there. I'm thinking I could match up the user-played notes with the note-heads they actually belong to (assuming you hit them on time and they registered as a successful note). That would keep good notes from moving past where they should be. So it would solve the problem in that screenshot.
vicentefer31 wrote:I wonder why both tracks aren't display on separate staffs correctly.
At some other point in the song the left hand track goes more than 8 notes above middle-C.

The specific fixes this time were:
  • Allow up to 3 or so more ledger lines before a track insisted on spanning both staffs.
  • Instead of optimizing for fewest staffs, optimize for spread-out tracks. Before, if both parts could fit on the treble staff, it would only show one staff (with the notes all clumped up). Now even in if both parts could fit on treble, so long as one can also fit on bass, it will try to space them out correctly for clarity.
Though, almost as soon as I put up the preview, I realized it wouldn't be very difficult to make the staff-selection decision on a smaller page-by-page basis now. Not only is it correct for most songs now, but doing it dynamically for each page would make it correct almost all the time in all songs, even if they have crazy hand-over-hand stuff.

I've moved on from sheet music tasks for now, but in 0.8.3 when I do the multi-line sheet stuff, that will be a great candidate to finally make that problem go away forever. The only time it'll span staffs is when that specific page must span staffs.
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