The goal of this tutorial is to be as short as possible while teaching you the essentials of making a good chart for osu!mania.
It's not as short as I wanted it to be, but it's short enough to be tl;dr for somebody who really cares about making a good chart.

Before charting:
Go over all the options in the editor. Learn what all of them do.
The five minutes you spend on doing this will allow you to finish charting something in two days that would've otherwise taken two weeks without knowing all the hotkeys and shortcuts the editor has that you didn't even realize they exist.

How to make your chart fun:
1. Make sure no part is too easy or too hard, keep the difficulty as consistent as possible for each pattern.
2. Put notes in a way that fits the music in a clear enough way that people can understand it while playing. If you need to explain to somebody how your notes fit the music, then it's not clear enough, and you should delete and place new ones.
3. Be consistent with the music. If the music repeats, your chart repeats. If the music changes, your chart changes. Analyze the entire song before you start putting notes and put markers for yourself with green lines or bookmarks to know where segments repeat or change.
4. Make parts of your chart stand out. Especially slow parts that are low-density in the music and thus in your chart, use this chance to make a unique pattern shape that will be memorable for the player. Make a chart that people can recognize while watching the notes scroll with music muted.
5. About jacks: keep them for special occasions. Jacks play bad. Only use them for really unique or rare sounds in the music that stand out a lot.
6. Playtest your own chart to find whether it's fun. Use speed mods if you need. DT if it's too easy, to know where the diff spikes are. HT if it's too hard. If you can't even playtest it on HT, delete and start over, because it's most likely bad.
7. The trick to not run out of motivation and not finish your chart, is to not chart chronologically. Instead, pick out parts of the song that you like at random, and chart them. Linking all the parts you charted in random sections of the song will be much faster afterwards.

Hope you find this guide concise and to the point, and covering issues that people actually need help with.

Aqo wrote:

If you can't even playtest it on HT, delete and start over, because it's most likely bad.

waw so r00d.

Ok, i'm not very talkative on this forum, but this time it's just too much for me...

Aqo wrote:

1. Make sure no part is too easy or too hard, keep the difficulty as consistent as possible for each pattern.

Eh... I mean, no needs to undermap an intense part/overmap a slow one because of "music consistency". I know what you want to explain, but this is actually not a rule to follow, you can create really good maps without making it at a constant same diff from A to Z.

Aqo wrote:

2. Put notes in a way that fits the music in a clear enough way that people can understand it while playing. If you need to explain to somebody how your notes fit the music, then it's not clear enough, and you should delete and place new ones.

Ok for the first point, but I mean explaining why your notes are like this or like that is not a bad thing actually. For example I have a lot of trouble understanding Agka's patterns sometimes but I don't go like "Kmon theses pattern are too weird delete then and remake".
Explaining your patterning is actually a good thing because peoples can give you tips and make you a better mapper, if beginners mapper don't try new patterning and stay in the "safe zone" they are mostly never gonna progress.

Aqo wrote:

3. Be consistent with the music. If the music repeats, your chart repeats. If the music changes, your chart changes. Analyze the entire song before you start putting notes and put markers for yourself with green lines or bookmarks to know where segments repeat or change.

I kinda agree with this one, but one more time you can actually make anything looks good with some experience. Some peoples are probably gonna say "You can chart the same "part" (for example a chorus) different time with complete differents style without making it worse" And that true. So yeah, I don't think this is a real rule to follow (even if I personally apply it on my maps).

Aqo wrote:

4. Make parts of your chart stand out. Especially slow parts that are low-density in the music and thus in your chart, use this chance to make a unique pattern shape that will be memorable for the player. Make a chart that people can recognize while watching the notes scroll with music muted.

Yeah you're right on this one, but the final objective is to make the whole map memorable ? No ?

Aqo wrote:

5. About jacks: keep them for special occasions. Jacks play bad. Only use them for really unique or rare sounds in the music that stand out a lot.

LOL. Really ? I mean for real ? jack is one of the most important pattern in mapping, you can use it to emphasize sounds, make a pattern less repetitive... Or just because jacks are fun ? It's like saying handstream is bad because it's harder than jumpstream or whatever others stupid thing. Seriously wow.

Aqo wrote:

6. Playtest your own chart to find whether it's fun. Use speed mods if you need. DT if it's too easy, to know where the diff spikes are. HT if it's too hard. If you can't even playtest it on HT, delete and start over, because it's most likely bad.

So you mean I should delete 3/4 of my maps just because I can't play them ? Don't be abble to play your maps doesn't make them bad, instead you can like just ask for testplay or review from another mapper... No you're probably right, it's time for Jinjin to quit mapping xd.

Aqo wrote:

7. The trick to not run out of motivation and not finish your chart, is to not chart chronologically. Instead, pick out parts of the song that you like at random, and chart them. Linking all the parts you charted in random sections of the song will be much faster afterwards.

I personally use this trick and it's working pretty well tbh, you're right about this.

Oh and one last thing, if someone really want to get into mapping, I don't think he is gonna be in the "tl;dr" mindset. If you want to make a guide, make a real one, and ask others mappers what they think about it.

Bye! xd

Aqo wrote:

The goal of this tutorial is to be as short as possible while teaching you the essentials of making a good chart for osu!mania.
It's not as short as I wanted it to be, but it's short enough to be tl;dr for somebody who really cares about making a good chart.

Before charting:
Go over all the options in the editor. Learn what all of them do.
The five minutes you spend on doing this will allow you to finish charting something in two days that would've otherwise taken two weeks without knowing all the hotkeys and shortcuts the editor has that you didn't even realize they exist.

How to make your chart fun:
1. Make sure no part is too easy or too hard, keep the difficulty as consistent as possible for each pattern.
2. Put notes in a way that fits the music in a clear enough way that people can understand it while playing. If you need to explain to somebody how your notes fit the music, then it's not clear enough, and you should delete and place new ones.
3. Be consistent with the music. If the music repeats, your chart repeats. If the music changes, your chart changes. Analyze the entire song before you start putting notes and put markers for yourself with green lines or bookmarks to know where segments repeat or change.
4. Make parts of your chart stand out. Especially slow parts that are low-density in the music and thus in your chart, use this chance to make a unique pattern shape that will be memorable for the player. Make a chart that people can recognize while watching the notes scroll with music muted.
5. About jacks: keep them for special occasions. Jacks play bad. Only use them for really unique or rare sounds in the music that stand out a lot.
6. Playtest your own chart to find whether it's fun. Use speed mods if you need. DT if it's too easy, to know where the diff spikes are. HT if it's too hard. If you can't even playtest it on HT, delete and start over, because it's most likely bad.
7. The trick to not run out of motivation and not finish your chart, is to not chart chronologically. Instead, pick out parts of the song that you like at random, and chart them. Linking all the parts you charted in random sections of the song will be much faster afterwards.

Hope you find this guide concise and to the point, and covering issues that people actually need help with.

how to make your charts incredibly unoriginal, have no voice, and be incredibly generic and boring feat. aqo

the generalizations in this thread are absolutely pathetic and hold absolutely no place here; there are plenty of good mappers who break your rules and do a good job

Extremely biased towards types of charts that you like. Also you are basically saying that people don't have the freedom to not make the generic charts that you want.

1) While keeping consistent difficulty may be nice, there is no reason to overmap or undermap any part just to keep that consistency.
2) People have different styles. Whether it is pitch relevancy, focused on making a chart fun, for a high difficulty, etc. A chart doesn't need to follow a basic structure that everyone can understand the placement of each note.
3) Consistency in this way is good, but you don't need to use the exact same patterns for a same sounding part. That can get kinda boring if parts are really repetitive.
4) You don't have to go out of your way to make easier parts super creative, but I guess some creativity is nice.
5) Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I guess you just don't like jacks? A good use of jacks can make a map fun and also less repetitive.
6) You don't need to be able to play your map to be sure that it is good. Not at all. That's a really bad assumption.
7) I like this, and use it often actually.

Mappers don't need to function like machines, everyone can map their own way.

XeoStyle wrote:

No you're probably right, it's time for Jinjin to quit mapping xd.

To be fair, I can play all of the maps I've made on nomod without getting an atrocious score :p (the only maps that I've made that I can't play myself are joke maps like wrath of ET Blocko or Blue Planet)

[tl;dr] hey I bet you didn't notice but I L O V E BMS and want to make every single game just like it, except take out the charts that I don't like

Please, for christ sake, if you enjoy those charts the most, support them, map them, play them, but don't shove your ideals down our throats like it's God's wisdom

halogen/gekido/kamikaze I'd like to see you link charts here that don't follow these guidelines that play good.

sounds to me like you're dissatisfied because you wrongly assume this guide leaves no room for freedom when in fact it does leave a lot of room while setting boundaries that help yourself design chart in a reasonable way.

a chart that doesn't follow this guide has:

1. random difficulty spikes, and long easy parts.
2. the notes have no connection to the music (aka a dump file)
3. the patterns are all copypaste of each other, nothing stands out.
4. there are a lot of random jacks.
5. it's probably only half finished.

is this the kind of chart you like to play?

i'm going to say this really clearly, and i'm hoping that you get it through your head: if you're going to make some sort of "guide" on how to make a good chart, don't use a bunch of really stupid generalizations

counterpoints to all of yours:

1.) so, if a song is really intense in a specific section and has very calm and otherwise slower melodies, it's automatically going to be a bad chart? your logic is flawed beyond belief here

2.) connection to the music is incredibly subjective and just further indicates to me that you're trying to shove a particular ideal down everyone's throats here because you don't even attempt to identify what a "dump file" is -- the level of "connection" a map has to a music is something that you're not going to be able to fairly assess and i'm willing to also bet that you're one of those prudes who also doesn't even attempt to respect the concept of a "semi-dump" structure -- for those of you unaware, something that can be identified as a "semi-dump", at least in sections, is something that relies on over-emphasis in sections to keep a general pace for structuring on a specific difficulty. There are numerous charts that engage in this "illicit" construction and are more enjoyable by a good majority of players. I'd be willing to argue that Fullerene-'s dreamless wanderer map is an awesome example of this and a perfect counter example to your #1 point as well.

3.) a chart that doesn't follow this guide has copy-paste patterns of each other? lol i'm not even going to respond to this generalization, that's just stupid

4.) while i have partial agreement here, you can't automatically assume that jacks are "random", especially when dealing with a lower key-mode - on occasion, you'll have mini-jacks that form as a result of accenting/pattern contouring - you also have to double-check as to whether or not a jack is truly random or if it is done for a more implicit purpose (for example, a fast k-k-s [kick/kick/snare] could use a mini-jack for a more jarring emphasis in situations where it might not be needed).

5.) ... lol; "half-finished"

-Kamikaze- wrote:

[tl;dr] hey I bet you didn't notice but I L O V E BMS and want to make every single game just like it, except take out the charts that I don't like

Please, for christ sake, if you enjoy those charts the most, support them, map them, play them, but don't shove your ideals down our throats like it's God's wisdom

quoted for truth and emphasis: if you want to make a guide on how to make a good chart, don't make a bunch of stupid generalizations - you should be making a thread that is like this one - even if there are bits and pieces missing, it is a substantially better resource than what you have here because it actually talks about things on a more technical level, and in a way that doesn't completely eliminate/bias against particular styles

2. the notes have no connection to the music (aka a dump file)

Jacks play bad.

oh hey discussion over guys!

Oh hey, Aqo made pathetic generalizations again. throwback tuesdey. Almost feels like when he was still trying to convince everybody of his eternal wisdom in osu!.. and CtB...

halogen-, my statement remains. post a chart that cannot be molded into my guide that plays good. I'd like to see that.

I think you're misunderstanding completely by what I meant when saying the chart should follow the music, or that difficult should be consistent. It would be pointless to elaborate further because it should be obvious to anyone who actually plays this game.
If you disagree with my guide, post charts that contradict this guide. If you can't find many charts like this, then accept that this is a good general guide for people who want to dwell into charting. Nothing is set in stone, but this guide is meant to give you key points to remember while charting.

Halogen- wrote:

i'm willing to also bet that you're one of those prudes who also doesn't even attempt to respect the concept of a "semi-dump" structure -- for those of you unaware, something that can be identified as a "semi-dump", at least in sections, is something that relies on over-emphasis in sections to keep a general pace for structuring on a specific difficulty.

this is quite amusing. can I take your bet? you haven't even seen any of my charts have you

none of your childish ad hominem is going to matter when you look at all your own favorite charts and realize they all follow my guide

Aqo wrote:

none of your childish ad hominem is going to matter when you look at all your own favorite charts and realize they all follow my guide

hey there mr. prophecy please teach me how to not enjoy 90% of my favourite charts that do not follow your guide (not that anyone is willing to follow it anyway)

-Kamikaze- wrote:

Aqo wrote:

none of your childish ad hominem is going to matter when you look at all your own favorite charts and realize they all follow my guide

hey there mr. prophecy please teach me how to not enjoy 90% of my favourite charts that do not follow your guide (not that anyone is willing to follow it anyway)

so are you going to post actual chart links or is this entirely theoretical?

I mentioned a chart right in my second counterpoint to you, which very much breaks multiple points of your guide and plays quite well to players who are more than capable in speed. Fullerene's dreamless wanderer uses 1/6, 1/8 and occasionally 1/12 bursts at a very high tempo to emphasize swells in the synthesized bass to keep a pace with a strong difficulty, and it doesn't "directly" follow the music. ecafree2's DEBSTEP, which was recently used in the round of 16 for my Springtime osu!mania Free for All tournament does something very similar and has 1/8 and 1/12 walls at a lower speed for similar reasons - swells in bass. Many breakcore maps generalize bursts for overtoning (buzzes) that are otherwise indiscernibly spaced or too fast to be represented normally, and therefore "don't follow the music".

You also continue to generalize that I don't understand your points when you failed to explain why my counterpoints are incorrect. So please, do us all a favor and just stop posting, because you're doing nothing more than proving your inability to make a legitimate point.

If you think this is a good "general" guide, you're out of your fucking mind.

EDIT: and speaking so matter of factly also makes you look like a jackass.

If somebody "really cares" about making a good chart they won't look for a tl;dr guide either imo.

tl;dr if you really care about the quality of something don't make this kind of guides or read those. If you want to bring a specific charting style you have to explain your reasoning instead of just "jacks plays bad" "diff spikes are bad". Why you say this? Why other stuff is better in all the cases?

Halogen- wrote:

If you think this is a good "general" guide, you're out of your fucking mind.

You forgot to drop the mic.
Inb4 aqo checks the maps and just says they aren't good and therefore don't contradict his point :^)

halogen didn't provide any links and I'm not going to go out of my way to search for them myself, but if they're fullerene charts then based on what I've already seen from him before I'm already 100% sure they're good charts, and they also do fall into the description I provided. At no point I said you have to "directly" follow the music, it just has to make sense while listening to the song. When posting this guide I assumed people have the brain to know where to draw the line but apparently this isn't the case with some.

I agree with juan that somebody looking to make a great chart is not somebody who's looking for shortcuts, but nobody just goes and makes the best charts on their first tries, most people start small and build it up over time. If somebody is already an experienced charter, they're not going to look for guides on the forums. For somebody with next to zero charting experience, this guide is more likely to help give them an initial push towards creating charts that people would enjoy than other broader suggestions people may provide like "this isn't the only way to make a good chart" which, for a novice charter, is just going to give the wrong idea.
"oh so I should put random jacks that don't follow the song" yeeeaaah way to go. If you already know what you're doing after gaining some charting experience you will know where is the right place to use liberty outside the boundary of those guidelines. But this IS the general base guideline you should be following no matter if you're charting SM or O2 or anything else.

Aqo wrote:

Halogen- wrote:

i'm willing to also bet that you're one of those prudes who also doesn't even attempt to respect the concept of a "semi-dump" structure -- for those of you unaware, something that can be identified as a "semi-dump", at least in sections, is something that relies on over-emphasis in sections to keep a general pace for structuring on a specific difficulty.

this is quite amusing. can I take your bet? you haven't even seen any of my charts have you

lol

Aqo wrote:

halogen didn't provide any links and I'm not going to go out of my way to search for them myself, but if they're fullerene charts then based on what I've already seen from him I'm already 100% sure they're good charts, and they also do fall into the description I provided. At no point I said you have to "directly" follow the music, it just has to make sense while listening to the song.

you're too busy trying to find arguments rather than realizing that your guide is completely useless, so I'll take it one step further

i'm not finding links for you, i've given you the beatmappers and the names of the songs - get off of your lazy ass and prove my point incorrect by getting the maps rather than using my inability to give a link as an excuse to why my points are wrong - so let me give you counterpoints YET AGAIN

1. Make sure no part is too easy or too hard, keep the difficulty as consistent as possible for each pattern.

This point on its own guarantees that your map will be substantially more boring. Certain parts of a map merit having stronger difficulty based on their accenting -- are you going to sit here and tell me that a pleasing-to-the-ear sounding scale/arpeggio should have the same pattern contouring as something with melodic dissonance because we should be so fixated on keeping difficulty consistent? if you want to do that and keep it that way, that's your prerogative, but by no means should you be advocating your situation as a be-all/end-all solution -- p.s. if a pattern is doable by players and is jarring but has a reason behind why it's jarring, it becomes memorable for that section and gives your chart a bit more of a notoriety for that section; take that as you will - I see that as a reason to replay, as an opportunity to obtain mastery for a section. not everyone is going to agree with me, but that's why i'm not the one making ridiculous generalizations in the first place.

2. Put notes in a way that fits the music in a clear enough way that people can understand it while playing. If you need to explain to somebody how your notes fit the music, then it's not clear enough, and you should delete and place new ones.

I've already presented my case for this multiple times, even through your density and refusal to understand that there are cases where people will understand how/why something is done. I could show a coherent beatmapper dreamless wanderer/DEBSTEP as mentioned in my posts before, and while they might understand the fact that those bursts are done for a specific way, that doesn't mean that they won't question whether or not the intensity is merited, or whether or not there should be extra notes in the first place. Your point of "if it's not clear enough, it should be deleted" is completely ridiculous.

3. Be consistent with the music. If the music repeats, your chart repeats. If the music changes, your chart changes. Analyze the entire song before you start putting notes and put markers for yourself with green lines or bookmarks to know where segments repeat or change.

this is not a one-case-fits-all situation, and it leads to something that you left out in your guide that is incredibly crucial (and honestly, proof that this shouldn't exist in the first place): chart consistency is one thing, but when you're dealing with an incredibly long song, you're going to want to have varied structures that cater to the player so that they don't get bored out of their mind. You don't even bother to mention that there are some situations where it is not feasible to retain a similar structure without being uninterested at all -- song cutting is very important. And before you make the nonsensical point of "well you shouldn't chart long/unchanging songs", just don't - some people prefer to preserve the originality of the song in the first place.

4. Make parts of your chart stand out. Especially slow parts that are low-density in the music and thus in your chart, use this chance to make a unique pattern shape that will be memorable for the player. Make a chart that people can recognize while watching the notes scroll with music muted.

While the back half of this point is reasonable, the first part is not: making certain parts of the chart stand out seems to directly contradict your first point: if the difficulty is intended to be left as consistent as possible with each pattern, you're failing to make any sort of memorability. When your guide is implicitly breaking points within the guide in other points, it's a pretty tell tale sign that it was haphazardly put together and in a way that is useless.

5. About jacks: keep them for special occasions. Jacks play bad. Only use them for really unique or rare sounds in the music that stand out a lot.

really dumb point, above all of them. I'd rather have pitch-relevant mini-jacks here on top of layering to bring out merited and sadistic stamina difficulty in a way that is almost certainly going to be memorable and scare the shit out of players than I would using a generic stream that could be blasted through. And I'm allowed to say that for this particular song because I did the latter, and I want to do the former in the near future. Yes, there is a necessity for keeping jacks tame, but if there's a reason to use them and it fits the difficulty contour of your map, then do it. Don't be afraid to utilize jacks in a way that they are perfectly usable.

6. Playtest your own chart to find whether it's fun. Use speed mods if you need. DT if it's too easy, to know where the diff spikes are. HT if it's too hard. If you can't even playtest it on HT, delete and start over, because it's most likely bad.

hey guys, let's stop all of the weaker players from making potentially more difficult maps and exploring and potentially improving as well - your point is as ad hominem as the people you are accusing of calling your guide bad and improper; yes, to a degree there should be a check on difficulty, but the ceiling in difficulty needs to be able to grow as players improve, and having players immediately stop what they're doing because they can't play it is horrible and you should feel bad for suggesting that

7. The trick to not run out of motivation and not finish your chart, is to not chart chronologically. Instead, pick out parts of the song that you like at random, and chart them. Linking all the parts you charted in random sections of the song will be much faster afterwards.

while I personally engage in this kind of map building, it does not prove to be effective 100% of the time; the worst part is that if you leave the chart for too long, you may end up misunderstanding the previous structure that you made (sometimes it helps to have a document of the layering structures you have in place and how they work so that you can return to them later) - some people can go through a song and map it from start to finish, and in many cases, those who go through the process chronologically will have a better structured map because they basically pieced it together from beginning to end and preserved continuity - this is not something that you should be putting in as a guide for people, but rather as a suggestion

I won't even bother addressing the 5 points you made in response to me again because I've done it once; not sure how long it's going to take for you to realize that this guide is really stupid

Halogen I think you have a big misunderstanding, and since it seems like you tried to put effort into writing something that actually has content even while still being a personal attack in every paragraph, I'll write a short and conclusive response and hopefully you can take a moment to understand this.

Every person needs the ability to know where to draw the line. At no point I said anything absolute in my guide, I just gave general guidelines, and assumed people know where to draw the line on their own. If a song has a calm part, of course you're not going to try to chart it as hard as an intense part of the song, but at the same time, if you're making a set for example, the amount of layering you'd do on the calmer parts would also be within relative difference between the diffs in your set. Everything has to be done with the correct level of moderation.

You said that you like little random too-hard parts / weird patterns during what could be the easier parts of the chart because those weird difficulty spikes make the chart more memorable, and I agree with this, that's exactly what I said to do in my guide. As a side effect, those little quirks also go towards keeping your chart difficulty consistent, even when the song isn't.

Halogen- wrote:

While the back half of this point is reasonable, the first part is not: making certain parts of the chart stand out seems to directly contradict your first point: if the difficulty is intended to be left as consistent as possible with each pattern, you're failing to make any sort of memorability. When your guide is implicitly breaking points within the guide in other points, it's a pretty tell tale sign that it was haphazardly put together and in a way that is useless

The point of this guide wasn't to spoonfeed you on where to draw the line. "Consistent difficulty" does not mean "cut the chart into segments of 2 seconds and make sure each one has exactly the same star rating". There's going to be ups and downs, but they have to follow a general rule, and that rule is up to you to decide as a charter. This is how many people can produce different charting styles that all play good. For instance putting a jack section on that song you linked falls exactly into what my guide advocates because that's exactly how I said you should use jacks. You can't just go "oh you said jacks are bad i.e. NEVER USE JACKS", I said specifically to place jacks with care while taking into account the fact that they don't play as naturally as non-jacks.

I mean you literally linked me while saying "you're wrong" and then proceeded to say what you would do that is "right" and described exactly what I said you should do.

It seems like you enjoy the same types of charts as me based on the points and charts you mentioned, you just wrongly assume anything in this guide is a hard constraint when it's really just what it is - guidelines for a beginner mapper that needs a quick heads up.

So you are saying that, while guides are actually existent to make people learn the ropes, that they should "not be spoonfed" (therefore: learning the ropes)

Your "guide" is more like "hey, I am telling you up from my horse what sucks and what does not." You are not guiding anyone, you are not open mindingly showing people the directions they can go. Also your guide is beyond judgemental, full of inconcrete fluff and implicate stuff that never gets concretized. And whenever peopel get concrete, you just go like "PROOF IT", "BRING EXAMPLES". A statement like "jacks play bad" is like "your mom is ugly". Why is she ugly? You don't know? "BECAUSE SHE IS". Okay.

You are stubborn, dense and ignorant. This leads to nowhere. Please disappear into the void again instead of pointlessly trying to put your view on everybody without even putting the effort to elaborate them and as soon as people doubt then, asking for proof. You are obviously making the tough claim, you are giving the vague sentences, you must be the one confounding them, instead of saying "I say that this is true until proven otherwise". This is not how it works. It works the exact other way around. You have to show, that what you say is true. Until then, it is wrong.

Locked.