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Clean up rule about cutting unmapped audio

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Total Posts
16
clayton
1,928 posts
Joined November 2013
Topic Starter
clayton
If you do not beatmap the last 20% of your beatmapset's audio file, it must be cut. The intro time is not included. This does not apply if more than 20% of the outro is occupied by a storyboard/video.


20% is arbitrarily defined, and there's no obvious intention stated along with this rule. the intro is also arbitrarily excluded

two routes for resolving this one:
1. remove it because it's not consistent with (the lack of) other requirements about excess content. it's common to waste multiple megabytes on shitty/misinformed JPEG encodes, lossless formats for lossy content, poor tuning of AVC encoders, etc., yet audio is required to be shortened for possibly much less of a benefit in beatmap size
2. define the "20%" better and make the reasoning of this rule more apparent (those probably go hand-in-hand). then probably open discussions about similar excess content problems
Serizawa Haruki
1,696 posts
Joined June 2015
Serizawa Haruki
I'm pretty sure the reason for this rule to exist is that people used to map only half the song and leave the rest unmapped which isn't good because the map would end in the middle of the song. While it's not really a thing nowadays, removing the rule would allow mappers to do this again, potentially to avoid the cut length guideline.
clayton
1,928 posts
Joined November 2013
Topic Starter
clayton
this rule alone doesn't prevent maps from abruptly ending in the middle of the song. it just means that'd have to happen in the last 20%, which isn't any better
Noffy
Nomination Assessment Team
1,685 posts
Joined April 2012
Noffy
What would you propose in place of 20%? I can't agree with removing the rule entirely since it's important to avoid people mapping tv sizes on 4 minute audio files, or doing things such as mapping only a minute of a normal when the hard-insane would be three minutes. We of course can add this kind of explanation to the rule though.

I do agree it'd help to clarify what it's for - this would also prevent people like 2017/2018 noffys going "but the audio is mapped in one diff and is therefore used, people that read the rules well enough would know it doesn't explicitly outlaw mapping only half of the lower diffs!" (I definitely said something along these lines in the spread rules rework thread)

edit: found it https://osu.ppy.sh/community/forums/topics/726474?start=6570940 www
Last edited by Noffy , edited 1 time in total.
clayton
1,928 posts
Joined November 2013
Topic Starter
clayton
sounds like u want to go with option 2 then

"20%" could probably be swapped out for the definition of "significant cut" in discussion of https://osu.ppy.sh/community/forums/topics/917043. then this weird clause about the intro could be removed too

another sentence (just for clarification) could be added along the lines of "don't map significantly less of the song in any difficulty compared to the others"
Last edited by clayton , edited 2 times in total.
pishifat
osu! Paragon
3,812 posts
Joined August 2013
pishifat
for reference, its original intention is to reduce filesize https://i.imgur.com/5MnQmiC.png (screenshot of initial proposal years ago)
as far as i remember, intro isn't included because it can be skipped (and is "expected to be listened to"). not exactly correct but yeah

i'd go for route 2 since route 1's better alternative is using less wasteful filesize stuff. post above here describes something that sounds fine to me
clayton
1,928 posts
Joined November 2013
Topic Starter
clayton
I'll probably suggest adding some guidelines for file encoding in general in a different thread then. like said in OP, a slightly-longer mp3 is usually not the biggest culprit of wasted space in modern beatmaps

sometime next week i'll try to get all these threads closed, if you don't do it first
clayton
1,928 posts
Joined November 2013
Topic Starter
clayton
I lied (will wait on other discussion about cuts instead)
Last edited by clayton , edited 1 time in total.
tatatat
923 posts
Joined March 2015
tatatat
I have to disagree with this. I find it perfectly reasonable to not have 20% of the audio be unused. I think it should even be extended to the intro as well. 20% of the intro shouldn't be unmapped either. If its pure silence, theres no harm in removing it. And if its music, it should be represented in the map in some way, whether its a spinner, or simple rhythm.

20% is just a nice number. The line has to be drawn somewhere. Having a vague ruling such as "significant amount of music" just opens the door to interpretation down the line. What is a significant amount of the music unmapped? 20%? 30%? 50+%? Leaving it up to the nominators to decide on a case by case basis is just inconsistent. There needs to be a number. Just like how marathons are defined as 5 minutes in length or longer, not "a significantly long song."

Either the number can be percentage based, or it can be seconds based. Like 15 seconds.
Last edited by tatatat , edited 2 times in total.
clayton
1,928 posts
Joined November 2013
Topic Starter
clayton
precisely why I'm waiting on the other thread now. there will be a good definition of "significant cut" to use
pishifat
osu! Paragon
3,812 posts
Joined August 2013
pishifat
if the other thread doesn't go through, what would need to be done here? is it just the addition of the "significant cut" glossary entry?
pishifat
osu! Paragon
3,812 posts
Joined August 2013
pishifat
there isn't a glossary anymore so let's rethink this

main thing this rule prevents is maps like beatmapsets/12997#osu/51767 (normal/hard cut off after 2 minutes in a 5 minute song). people havent done this with the intro, which might be partially why it's not included in the original rule (?)

we could reword the rule to say something about musical sections, but that's also super arbitrary because every song is different

so the options are using an arbitrary number (% of song unmapped, seconds unmapped, etc) or reference some music structure thing that could be misleading depending on the song

for simplicity i'd go with an arbitrary number that people agree with. this could remain at 20% unless people have other suggestions. noffy also mentioned that it isn't clear that this applies to every diff, so that can be clarified too

an attempt:
Every difficulty of a beatmapset must start before the song's 20% marker and end after the song's 80% marker, except when those sections feature a storyboard/video. This avoids unexpectedly short difficulties relative to the song's length. If the intro/outro exceed 20% of the song and are not reasonable to map (e.g. ambient noise), the sections should be cut.

(i dont think "% marker" is the right wording, but im also not sure what you'd call it)

clayton wrote:

this rule alone doesn't prevent maps from abruptly ending in the middle of the song. it just means that'd have to happen in the last 20%, which isn't any better
this sounds like you want a rule/guideline saying "dont stop your map abruptly" which mihgt not be entirely relevant to this rule?
Dialect
1,535 posts
Joined May 2018
Dialect

pishifat wrote:

an attempt:
Every difficulty of a beatmapset must start before the song's 20% marker and end after the song's 80% marker, except when those sections feature a storyboard/video. This avoids unexpectedly short difficulties relative to the song's length. If the intro/outro exceed 20% of the song and are not reasonable to map (e.g. ambient noise), the sections should be cut.

(i dont think "% marker" is the right wording, but im also not sure what you'd call it)

i get what clayton is saying, but imo i feel like the rule is good as is. the problem is, is that there's going to be disagreements with the last part, because what's considered mappable to mappers won't be mappable to other mappers. in this song, the intro part is technically mappable, but in most ranked versions, i don't see anyone mapping the intro, even tho it goes past the 20% mark.
Last edited by Dialect , edited 2 times in total.
Dialect
1,535 posts
Joined May 2018
Dialect
bringing this back now, i really agree and disagree with this. as i said before, what is considered mappable might not be considered mappable to other mappers. i understand the original intent, because some songs have parts that, as mappers, are a pain to map, but this might cause a bit of drama. and i feel like this rule won't be enforced unless you're as famous as sotarks, where modders will find a way to criticize you when other mappers do the same (take chuchu for example)

i really think the original intention is a good intention to make mapping more convenient, and to prevent players from boring sliders at the end of songs, but this might cause more controversy as it's really hard to determine what can be considered mappable and what can't
Noffy
Nomination Assessment Team
1,685 posts
Joined April 2012
Noffy
Forgot about this thread

there's a related change in a currently open pull request now

https://github.com/ppy/osu-wiki/pull/4181

this makes the rule a guideline (because it has exceptions) and specifies unmappable 20% exceptions to be fadeouts and timing issues

If this needs other changes lmk
clayton
1,928 posts
Joined November 2013
Topic Starter
clayton
with this being a guideline now and the difficulty of making real definition instead of "20%", i think this can be closed
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