Custom songs

How to create custom songs for Ragnaröck (beta)

Disclaimer

This feature is intended for private use only, and thus will only work in solo mode.
The leaderboard will not be available.
It’s still in beta and some use cases may not have been thoroughly tested, come chat with us on Discord [discord.com]if you find any bug.

Tools

Needed

• An open source editor, we recommend Mediocre Map Assistant 2[git.bsmg.dev] “MMA2”

Optional

• A tool to find out the tempo of the song (this one[www.all8.com] for example)
  
• A tool to format json files for easier manual editing (this one[jsonformatter.curiousconcept.com] for example)
  
• An audio editor (this one[www.audacityteam.org] for example)

How to

You’ll need basic knowledge of MMA2 to proceed, which can be learnt here[bsmg.wiki].
Everything explained below will be the specific process for Ragnaröck.

Install

First, create one of the following folders :

• In the Documents folder :
  

  (pathToDocumentsFolder)\Documents\Ragnarock\CustomSongs

• In the game's install folder :
  

  (pathToRagnarockInstallFolder)\Ragnarock\Ragnarock\CustomSongs

  (next to "Binaries", "Config", etc.)

Then, install MMA2 and configure the songs path to the folder you just created.

Using MMA2 for Ragnaröck

• Create a new level (song) with at least one difficulty map (3 max). The “difficulty” and “characteristic” parameters don’t really matter (see below for details)
  
• Warning! Your song name (and thus folder name) can only contain alphabetical characters! (and no spaces)
  
• Don’t forget to put your song (ogg format) and cover (jpg format, 512*512 pixels max recommended) in the folder that has been created and make sure the filename matches the MMA2 settings
  
• “Note jump speed” is taken into account, 10 is quite slow, 20 is very fast for example
  
• Create your song by using only red blocks, arrow pointing down, on the middle layer
  
• If the songs features BPM changes, don’t forget to add them on the effects track on the right : it will make mapping easier and notes will have the correct rune on them in the game

Optional : Set medals value

If this step is not done, the game will try to compute medals depending on various parameters of the songs.

• Back in songs info, open the “extra fields” panel on the right, then the “informations” tab
  Add three fields with the following format :
  

  medal_0=5000
  medal_1=5150
  medal_2=5250

• Set the values of each medal (bronze/silver/gold) with the corresponding value in meters

Difficulty levels

In Ragnaröck difficulty levels go from 1 to 10, for now you’ll need to set it by hand.
One way to make this step easier is to use the “difficulty” setting in MMA2 but it only set “odd” difficulty levels : Easy (1) / Normal (3) / Hard (5) / Expert (7) / Expert+ (9).

• Make sure MMA2 is closed
  
• Open the “info.dat” file in your song’s folder
  
• Optional : paste the content into a json formatter to make it easier to read and paste it back in the file
  
• Locate the "_difficultyRank" parameter for each difficulty level and set it to the correct number (1-10)
  
• Save and quit

Optional : Set the song’s duration

This value is used to display the song’s duration in the menu, not setting it will result on the menu displaying “0:00” but will not be a problem in game.

• Make sure MMA2 is closed
  
• Open the “info.dat” file in your song’s folder
  
• Optional : paste the content into a json formatter to make it easier to read and paste it back in the file
  
• Locate the "_previewDuration" parameter in the first section, and add the following line under it :
  

  "_songApproximativeDuration":155,

• Set the value to be the length of the song in seconds
  
• Save and quit

Optional : Set the song’s default environment

This value is used to determine which environment will be used by default for this song. If it's not set, it will default to Midgard, the first environment released.

• Make sure MMA2 is closed
  
• Open the “info.dat” file in your song’s folder
  
• Optional : paste the content into a json formatter to make it easier to read and paste it back in the file
  
• Locate the "_environmentName" parameter in the first section
  
• Set the value to "Midgard" (ice) or "Alfheim" (forest) :
  

  "_environmentName":"Alfheim",

• Save and quit

Optional : Create an audio preview

If no preview has been created, the game will play the first 10 seconds of the song when the song is selected in the menu.

• Load your song in your favorite audio editing software
  
• Select the part you want and cut it to be less than 15 seconds
  
• Add a fade in and fade out
  
• Export it as “preview.ogg” in the song’s folder

[YGBHawk]

This is hard to follow, but with a bit of computer know how you should be okay to fill in the gaps. It just takes a lot of time, and the editor's UI is terrible. However, once you get in to editing the map part it's not too bad, I like the default beat saber editor better than this though. I really hope the devs come up with something fast. I've completed all the songs and I am hungry for some custom songs. They want to strike while the iron is hot, before people just shelve the game for 6 months.

From what I see, custom maps are the bread and butter of beat games. Games that lack a good, clean editor miss out on sales due to a lack of custom content. This is the real reason beat saber does so well. It feels good, like ragnarock, but also has a big custom song library thanks to a purpose built editor.

[Cheekiro]

@R1PFake yes according to their FAQ in the site you can do it by loading them onto a folder in your quest

https://www.ragnarock-vr.com/faq

[R1PFake]

Does the Quest version also support custom songs?

[Fenris Valren]

@PKBeam Tank you! Just gave it a go yesterday and it's amazing. First song already done and I can't wait to make more.

[PKBeam]

Hey all, I've made a dedicated Ragnarock map editor that you can find here -https://github.com/PKBeam/Edda .

I've tried to make it easy to use, so if you're finding it difficult to make maps then feel free to check it out.

[Drotar]

> This feature is intended for private use only, and thus will only work in solo mode.

Do you intend to enable custom songs for private multiplayer servers? That way friends can compete with these songs without offering them publicly.

[RhoKapa]

Hi mappers & players, I made a new website https://ragnacustoms.com to list custom songs and an app tha goes with it to download easily.
Please have a look to it, it's only the start, so we don't have a lot of songs, but i have no doubt we get a lot soon :D

It's completely free. And i'm listening to every comments, suggestions on our Discord.

Mapper : you ca upload your song freely, I moderate them as soon as possible (max 24h after upload) and after few uploads you can get the "confiance badge" and pass through moderation.

Player: be free to use our app, it place song on the right place, and you can onclick download from the website. The app is available in english and french (soon the website must be in french too).

[Mud Punk]

I followed the above and it worked fine for me. I took a slightly different route on a few applications, but I don't agree with the comments saying it's difficult to set up. MMA2 is the only program that has a learning curve to it, and even that's not bad.

However, I have friends and family that are not computer savvy, so I decided to write up my own guide on exactly what I did, with screen shots, in the hopes this helps others.

Any suggestions and constructive criticism on how to make it better is welcome, it benefits us all if more people map songs and share them.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2431532667

[TheGrimReaper0011]

Yeah this is just ... no.
Hopefully this gets an actual proper custom editor that allows for much easier custom songs because this ain't it.

[Zicman]

Intéressant, je jetterai un coup d'oeil