Using music programs to hit links accurately (example included)

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
1

Other than being an aspiring but crap vega player, I’m also an electronic musician… so I decided to put the two together and program .wav files of the exact rhythms for vega’s one frame links. I thought other new players could benefit from this as well, so I thought I’d post one of the .wavs and also the technique that I use to make the file.

Here’s the first wav - it’s the rhythm used for Vega’s c.LP x 4. The same rhythm is used for linking anything else after a c.LP - i.e. c.MP.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/pytq0d
edit: these don’t work very well in VLC Media Player. Try another media player.

This is more than just a simple metronome, this is frame exact timing. If you already know the timing, go listen and try it for yourself. I promise it’s accurate. For those of you who are musically and technically inclined, the way I did it is below - if you don’t understand, it’s fine… I can make combo files like these for you if you’d like.

The way I did it is as follows - open a music program with a step sequencer (I use FL Studio), set the beats per minute to 600, set the beats per measure to 10, and the individual steps (i.e. possible clicks) per beat to 6.

6 steps per beat at 10 beats a measure is 60 steps a measure. At exactly 600 beats per minute, this times out to 60 steps per every second of music. Set the sequencer to only play one measure at a time and then stop, and voila - you have a step sequencer running at 60 fps.

Then you go into the frame data and find your links. c.LP for example has 4 frame of startup, 2 frames of active, and 8 frames of recovery. Being a light move, it also has 8 frames of impact freeze when it hits. You can find more about Impact Freeze on Maj’s guide… lights have 8, mediums have 10, hards have 12.

So put a note on step one, skip 3 frame steps for the remainder of startup, 2 more for active, 8 more for recovery, and 8 more for impact freeze, and then put another step down on the step sequencer. Record it… and you have a frame-exact measurement of the timing for your links.

Hope this helps, guys - let me know if you need any combo .wavs made.
I know it’s totally possible to learn combos without this, but being musically inclined, this is the path I took, and it’s working out well.

2

Pandable…thanks for this…i’d download it and am going to try it once i get home…it apears that i was doing it too fast…i’m going to fallow the rithm and see how it goes…i wanted to ask you if you could do one of these for Jhp–>cstHP–>Ex rcf—>cmp–>ex fba…there was a time…(for about a week or so)…when i was able to do it pretty consistently but then i just lost it…the cmp is a one frame link after a long pause and right now it looks imposible to do in real matches…if you could come out with something it would be greatly apreciated…thanks again…

3

That one is a problem for me, too. I don’t fully understand the frame data enough on special moves to program it at this point - I’m fuzzy on a few things. Namely impact freeze… it seems that specials have different impact freeze times in comparison to normal moves, so my normal system of 8 for light, 10 for medium etc doesn’t translate. If someone can get me a good working knowledge of how impact freeze works on specials, I could do that.

Speaking entirely from a practical perspective, however - I can hit the ex rcf > c mp > ex fba in real matches as it is with about 75% accuracy. My advice (until I figure out the numbers and do an mp3/wav file for the combo) is to play online and try to punish whiffed ultras with a simple ex.RCF > c.MP xx ex.FBA without worrying about the rest of the combo. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work - but once you finally get it to work, SAVE THE REPLAY, and go watch it in slow motion in comparison to your inputs on the side of the screen until you figure out where to press the button. That’s how I got my accuracy up to 75% or so with it.

The next wav I post will be c.MK > c.MP which is essential for j.HP > c.MK > c.MP > ex.FBA. The MK to MP is the hardest part of the combo (comboing after jump ins is fairly lenient and so is special canceling), so I intend to post the rhythm for that link here in a bit.

These were originally just for my own use, but I figured this was far too useful to keep to myself. :smiley:

4

Sometimes in a pure state of reactions I get up to 3 links but that its…so today I downloaded your .WAV file and hopped on training mode and tried it out. Seemed really helpful, regardless of whether your horrible at linking or exceptionally good at it, other Vega players should try it…thanks for posting this =]

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Very cool. Thanks. I’ve thought about something similar myself, but I don’t have the know-how so I never made it happen. Can you do c.lp x 2 > c.mp?

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Nice job, the file is pretty short though, and it isn’t designed to loop. The timing is right though, 0.3666… seconds between clicks (22/60). I opened it up in Audacity and extended the file to over a minute long, making sure the timings stayed exact to 0.00012 from start to end - so here is that. It’s still a WAV though so it’s like 26MB haha. (It wasn’t much work)

I’m still able to time my links a smidgen better without it though, and there’s an interesting reason that we need to be aware of.
SSF4 runs at 60 frames/second, but SSF4 can receive your input relatively early or late on a frame too. This means that when your press a button, sometimes you are right on the cusp of a different frame in SSF4, and even if your timing may only be 0.0001 off of exact, there’s a chance you will miss the link because you might be hitting the buttons right on the divide between two frames, and your small error of 0.0001 gives you a 0.6% chance of missing links that are 1 frame (0.01666 seconds) apart.

Your eyes and ears, however, will pick up subtle clues from the game visuals and sounds that help you press your buttons right in the middle of frames (giving you more leeway). Listening to a metronome is PHENOMENALLY helpful for first learning the timing, but perfection doesn’t end with mere 1-frame timing accuracy, haha.

Thanks a lot for the original file, Pandable, and you taught me the exacts of impact freeze which I did not know : ).

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Meteo2 - Yeah, you’re right that it doesn’t loop… I never thought about making it loop because for some of the larger combos (I.e. if I made one these files for Seth) it would have so many different rhythms in it that looping it would be pointless. So it never crossed my mind… it is a good idea though. Next time I upload one, if it sounds loopable, I’ll go ahead and loop it. Also thanks for that info about frame inputs… very interesting. Like you said, though, a metronome is still very useful, so a frame-exact metronome should be great for new players, regardless. :smiley:

Clawww - The rhythm is the same for c.LP x2 > c.MP as c.LP x3. So that file should work fine. You’re pressing the c.MP at the very end of the impact freeze of a c.LP, so the spacing in that rhythm file is the exact same. Enjoy :smiley:

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An interesting way of learning these difficult one framers, nice :slight_smile:

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i thought that the game music was the right timing… i always try to hit the game rhythm, maybe double the beats, or at least as fast as is divisible by the beats present and it seems to work for me quite alot

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Hey, are any of these music files still lying around? I’ve been playing Vega for about half a year, and these look like they would be a helpful training tool. The links in previous posts seem to have expired.

(apologies for the threadomancy, but I’m genuinely interested)

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Ten Zen - it has nothing to do with the game music’s timing, no offense - I was just pointing out that if you REALLY know what you’re doing, you can use music composition software to make helping aids for links.

Lughtigern - Give me a few days and I’ll put some things up for you. Need to find the original files and re-record them. What links are you having trouble with? Get me a list and I’ll see what I can do. It’s hard to make files for jump-ins because the timing varies as to how deep you hit them, but starting from the first grounded normal, I can make files for you.

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Pandable - too kind! Take your time on it!

The links I’m having trouble with are:
[LIST]
[]cr.lp - cr.lp - cr.lp - cr.lp - ex fba. (as per trial 18)
[]cancelling c.hp xx ex rcf.
[]cr. mk - cr.lp - cr.mp - ex fba.
[]cr. mk - c.lk - c.lk - cr.mp (as per trial 23)
[/LIST]
I can get some of the links, but very unreliably (1 in 5 success %). I’d love to see how helpful your works are!

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Could you hook me up with this file? It seems it has gone down on sendspace.

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Also requesting this.

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This the one Meteo2 uploaded: http://www.mediafire.com/?8iuco6cwd9odezr