Consensual

A theme for stepmania.

Minimalist in graphics, maximalist in functionality.

Renderer

You must use the opengl renderer for things to render correctly.
If you're not on Windows, you're using the opengl renderer already.
If you are on Windows, find %APPDATA%/Save/Preferences.ini and edit the VideoRenderers line to match this: VideoRenderers=opengl

Minimum StepMania version: 5.0.9

5.0.9 has several bug fixes that affect the logo, crash on d3d from blendmode subtract, the speed of the bubbles, and the image centering prefs.
NPS calculation uses the Notes radar category that was added in 5.0.8.
The screen filter is in the notefield board, which puts it above the judgment in 5.0.7 and under the judgment in 5.0.8 because the TapJudgmentsUnderField metric is true. This is why the render order of the notefield board was changed in 5.0.8.
Transitions and the colored background might have problems in 5.0.6. (untested)

Short feature list:

• Deeper music wheel sorting.
• Mark songs as favorites.
• Tag songs.
• No "select style" or "select mode" screens, goes straight to select music.
• Timed sets. No more getting screwed out of play time by picking a 1 minute song or using a rate mod.
• Auto Set Style.
• Patched songs cost their full amount.
• Every mod can be set to any value.
• Every mod can be set to persist between sessions.
• Customizable pane info.
• Customizable gameplay elements.
• Customizable evaluation info.
• Customizable grading system.
• Customizable scoring values.
• Customizable life values.
• Menu for picking global offset from a list of choices.
• Individual customizations saved to profiles.
• Confetti.
• Customizable color system.
• Unique toasties.
• Random menu music system (if you supply the music and bpm and length data)

Acknowledgments and Thanks

• shakesoda let me walk in and shape Stepmania however I wanted, even giving me direct commit access when he didn't have time to review my pull requests anymore. The only limitation was that backwards compatibility with theme code written for SM5 beta 2 had to be maintained.
• freem still hangs out in the IRC channel to give occasional advice and moral support.
• dbk2 occasionally finds problems and tests stuff for me when he has time away from his thesis. Also big on the moral support.
• Caitlyn designed the reskin and will hopefully pick colors.
• hellrazor funded the kickbox game mode. Now if only he would try it out... ;)
• Midiman polished the SM5 default theme so that I didn't have to.
• roothorick handles lower-level Stepmania problems like versioning and fullscreen on Linux.
• Mad Matt was the other loose cannon adding features to Stepmania's theme engine, until he split off to work on his own fork without the hindrance of maitaining compatibility.
• Vospi read all of the very long release notes I wrote for SM5 beta 4 and Stepmania 5.0.5. This guide is longer than both of those put together, so be warned before you start reading.
• milistisia made various feature suggestions.

Problems/Editing:

Do not try to edit Consensual yourself, its complicated. If you instead submit issues on github, then everybody can have the improved version.
The best place to report problems with Consensual is on the github page: https://github.com/kyzentun/consensual/issues Click the New Issue button and fill it out with all the info you can give.

Profiles:

If you don't normally use a named profile on Stepmania, you should create one. All of the individually customizable things in Consensual are saved to the profile directory, so if you don't have a profile, you're cut off from many useful things.
Profiles on USB drives should work too, if Stepmania is configured to use them.
Some things like Favor values and Tags can have values set in the machine profile. The machine profile's folder is in Save/MachineProfile.

Cursors:

All cursors have icons on them showing the buttons that can be used to move the cursor.
If the Only Dedicated Menu buttons preference is false, Stepmania will translate some of the buttons on the controller to the menu buttons so that they can be used. The cursor will display the controller button instead of the menu button in this case. Check the Map Controllers screen to see which buttons are translated to menu buttons.

Game Modes:

Dance and Kickbox are the primary supported game modes in Consensual. Pump and Techno are secondarily supported.
Other game modes should work, but might have problems that need to be reported.

Menu Music:

The music system in Consensual takes the bpm of the previous song and finds an entry in the menu music list with a similar bpm and plays that entry. Scripts/02 music.lua has a comment explaining how to add menu music entries at the end of the file.

In Depth Guide

If you are already familiar with Stepmania, you will see some things in here that you already know, but that doesn't mean there's nothing useful to you in here. This guide is written to cover every detail so that it fills in gaps for people who aren't familiar with Stepmania as well as introducing new things.
With that said, typical users should be able to play without problems using the on-screen hints like the icons on the cursors and trial and error. The main target of this guide is people looking for an explanation of some part or details on configuration.

Special Profile Fields

In Consensual, a profile has an Options Level and a Rating Cap.
The Options Level is used to hide menu choices that might obstruct inexperienced players.
The Rating Cap is used to hide songs on the music wheel that do not have an easy chart.
Both of these can be set on the Player Options screen.

Version Test Screen

This screen is the first screen that appears when you select Consensual.
It displays the name of the theme with a fancy animation.
It also checks for version compatibility and shows a message if any problems are detected.

Messages:

• "You should upgrade to Stepmania 5.0.9."
  If the problem is severe enough (stepmania version too old to support easily), Stepmania will be switched to a different theme that is less bleeding-edge. (It checks for Simply Love, then Ultralight, and if neither is installed, switches to default).
• "You have the Smooth Lines preference set to false."
  This mostly only matters for the Initial Menu screen, where the fancy animated things are drawn with lines. I have noticed a substantial frame rate improvement from setting the Smooth Lines preference to true on that screen, so this message is to take care of people reporting low frame rates on that screen.
• "If you see errors, report them."
  If you have problems, report them. Otherwise, they never get fixed. The best place to report problems with Consensual is on the github page: https://github.com/kyzentun/consensual/issues Click the New Issue button and fill it out with all the info you can give.

Initial Menu Screen

This screen shows the number of songs and groups loaded, the current time, and a menu for starting the game.
Both players can navigate the menu and select options without inserting credits. When one player picks Single or Versus, then credits are deducted and the credit started.
The options on the menu can be hidden in the Consensual Service Screen, which will be discussed later. This means that if you're using Stepmania at home, you can have all the menu options visible, or if you're using Stepmania in a public setting, you can hide everything you don't want public players accessing.
Each player has their own cursor that they can use to pick stuff in the menus independently. Any play mode or profile choices must be completed before one of the play options is selected, or the defaults will be used.

Special Days

On certain days, you may see a message above the time telling you that it is a special day. This means that some easter egg has been activated, and if you don't like the effects of the easter egg, you can turn easter eggs off in the service menu. Turning easter eggs off does not disable toasties in Consensual, toasties are a profile option instead, so one player can have toasties off while another has toasties on.

Demonstration Screen

If no input occurs for 60 seconds, the screen will transition to the demo screen, where an AI plays a song for a short time before returning to the menu. The demo screen can also be ended by pressing start.

Event Mode

The length of one credit can be set to as to anything, and it is possible to end a credit in the middle, so event mode isn't necessary for home play.
If you encounter any problems while using Event Mode, report them so they can be fixed.

Menu Options:

• Single
  This starts a credit for one player. The cursors for both players must be on this option to use it. The player that pressed start is joined and the profile they selected from the profile menu is loaded.
• Versus
  This starts a credit for both players. The cursors for both players must be on this option to use it. The profiles selected from the profile menu are loaded for both players.
• Playmode
  The Playmode choice opens the Playmode menu. This has the choices for regular play and nonstop play (also known as course mode).
• Profile
  Each player can pick which profile on the machine will be loaded for them from the Profile menu. Profiles on attached USB drives should also appear in the menu.
• SM Conf
  This opens the standard Stepmania Service menu. The Stepmania Service menu is left uncustomized to ensure that it is the same as in the default stepmania theme.
• Theme Conf
  Theme Conf takes you to the Consensual Service menu, which contains the configuration choices that affect everybody. This screen will be discussed near the end of this guide.
• Color Config
  The colors used in Consensual can be individually configured to any color value. If you don't like the col