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2.0 beta 1

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@macmillan333 macmillan333 released this 16 Apr 22:09
2.0-beta.1
580ff17

About this beta

  • This beta is meant for public testing, and may be less stable than the full 2.0 release. Please read through this release note carefully to understand your risks before deciding whether to install this beta.
  • If you install and run this release, then view or change any option (including no video and background brightness on individual tracks), the options file on your disk will be upgraded to a new format (version "3"). Later if you run 1.1 again, it will be unable to understand the new format, and therefore revert all options to default.
  • This beta does not include any significant new feature compared with 1.1.

Highlights

Most of TECHMANIA's UI is migrated from Unity UI to UI Toolkit, a modern UI framework. This allows the UI to be scriptable, paving the way towards themes.

  • Most of the UI now exists as the "default theme". An option to change themes will be added in a later release.
    • The editor is not migrated at this moment, and will remain on Unity UI for the foreseeable future. When you select a track to edit, TECHMANIA will hide the current theme and temporarily switch back to Unity UI in order to display the editor.
  • When TECHMANIA launches, it will now display a boot screen, where it loads skins, the track list, and the current theme. TECHMANIA will display the theme only after these resources are loaded.
  • While we attempted to recreate the existing UI as accurately as possible using components and styles on UI Toolkit, there may still be minute differences in appearances.

If you are interested in making themes, please note that documentation on the Theme API is not yet complete, but you can start reading what is there in the 2.0 branch of the documentation repo. Keep in mind that there may be significant, undocumented API changes between this beta and the full 2.0 release.

Other changes

  • The game now supports non-integer refresh rates, such as 59.96 Hz.

On shaders

UI Toolkit currently does not support shaders. Therefore, until supported is added, TECHMANIA will be unable to display any skin element that uses additiveShader on UI Toolkit.

  • We see VFX as a fundamental part of TECHMANIA's visual experience, so there is a workaround: VFX will be displayed in Unity UI, in a layer above everything in the theme. This unfortunately means it is impossible for any element in the theme to obscure VFX. For the default theme, it means VFX will be displayed above the pause menu.
  • The combo text is displayed above VFX, so it gets the same workaround.
  • scanCountdownBackground, scanCountdownNumbers and touchClickFeedback in the game UI skin are displayed below notes, so no workaround is available. These elements will be hidden if they use additiveShader.
  • If Unity adds support for shaders in the future, we will promptly update TECHMANIA to fix this issue.

On records set on 1.0 and 1.0.1

If you don't care about records, you can skip this section.

TECHMANIA 1.0.2 changed the way pattern fingerprints are calculated. This would cause all records set on 1.0 and 1.0.1 to become invalid, but special logic was added to recognize these records and fix their fingerprints when you play the same pattern again on 1.0.2 and onward. This causes extra complexity in the logic that reads and updates records, so starting in 2.0, it will be removed.

This means, if you set a record on 1.0 or 1.0.1, and never played the same pattern on the same ruleset again on 1.0.2 or 1.1, these records will no longer be recognized by 2.0. To check whether you have such records:

  1. Open TECHMANIA\records.json in your documents folder
  2. Check if any record contains the line "gameVersion": "1.0" or "gameVersion": "1.0.1"
  3. If such a record exists, take a note of its ruleset and guid
  4. Open the track.tech file inside each track with a text editor, and search for the guid until you find the pattern that contains it

Unfortunately there is no easy way to automate this process at this moment. If there is significant need from the community, we may release a tool for it.

To fix records set on 1.0 and 1.0.1, you need to play the same pattern on the same ruleset (0 is standard, 1 is legacy) in TECHMANIA 1.0.2 or 1.1. You do not need to achieve a higher score than your record. There is no UI to tell you if a record is fixed, but if done correctly, the record in records.json should no longer say "gameVersion": "1.0" or "gameVersion": "1.0.1".

Known issues

  • VFX and combo text may be displayed above the pause menu. Refer to the "On shaders" section for an explanation.
  • scanCountdownBackground, scanCountdownNumbers and touchClickFeedback in the game UI skin will not display if they use additiveShader. Refer to the "On shaders" section for an explanation.
  • After selecting a track to edit, sometimes the entire window stops responding to clicks. A workaround is to press Alt+Tab to switch to another application then back to TECHMANIA.
  • (NEW) VFX and combo text are drawn at incorrect locations when the resolution is not 1920x1080.
  • (NEW) If you currently use a game UI skin with undisplayed elements, changing note / VFX / combo skin will bring up the "element can't be displayed" warning even though these skins are not related to the issue.
  • (NEW) The approach overlay does not display when notes are scanned from right to left.

Which files to download

Because there were recent additions to official tracks, we will release an updated Skins_and_Tracks.zip for your convenience.

Existing players who have already downloaded the new tracks: download TECHMANIA.zip and overwrite the previous version.

Everyone else: download TECHMANIA.zip and Skins_and_Tracks.zip, then extract them to the same folder.

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