WORK IN PROGRESS

One of the things that makes Rock Band customs unique is the ability to create highly customizable stage shows for your charts. This page will help you understand how this works.

The stage show is authored in the VENUE track, allowing you to pick camera cuts, lights, post-processing and pyrotechnics.

This is primarily done via Reaper, using text events and some MIDI notes. The guides on the wiki will refer to this method primarily.

Add info here on how to do this and what program to use

Will add pictures

• Singalong Notes - Place these when you want other characters than the vocalist to also use lipsync animation. Be aware that if you have Harmonies authored, by default Guitar will always be HARM2, Bass will be HARM3 (or HARM1 if no HARM3 is charted), and Drums will be HARM1. Keys will take over for either Guitar or Bass's lipsync.

• Spotlights - These creates a spotlight at the desired character for the duration of the MIDI note. The spotlight takes a short moment to activate fully, so we recommend having them start a 16th triplet early to account for this.

• Text Events - Where you put most of the authoring for the venue.

Creating the venue is essentially like being a music video director and stage show programmer at the same time, with your goal being to make something that fits the song and makes for a better experience for players and spectators alike.

Here are some tips about how to achieve this:

• Camera cut density - A common trick in film making is to use quick changes in camera cuts for intense parts, and long drawn out shots for more mellow parts. This can be used to great effect to help match the mood of the song.

• Camera cut variety - Try and focus a little bit on everyone in the band across the song. Try mixing up which type of shots you use during repeating parts to make it feel more dynamic.

• Map out big camera moments first - Find out which moments of the song needs some big dynamic camera work, and then add filler shots between those to make the process easier.

• Play around with lights and post-processing - You can create some truly artistic and fantastic effects and colors using these. Just be careful about stuff like strobing lights and the red/blue post-proc filter, as to not give any photosensitive players a seizure.

• Take inspiration from official music videos and live recordings - Sometimes it can look real nice to try and recreate memorable visuals from real life performances of the song. Even if you can't recreate something 1:1, having an approximation of it can still serve as a fun reference and a good way to create the bedrock for your venue.

Further down we will go into more detail about what each camera, light and post-proc event looks like in-game.

You can add pyrotechnics to your stage show using one of two text events:

• [bonusfx] - Makes the pyro go off
• [bonusfx_optional] - Only makes the pyro go off if you're in the green on your performance meter

Adding pyro can add a nice, dramatic flair to your venue, especially in Rock and Metal songs. Put them at the start of choruses, breakdowns, solos and wherever you want to make it pop. The pyro also goes off automatically at the end of a Big Rock Ending if you hit the final note, wether or not you have an event for it in the venue.

Pyro looks different between different stages, for example having firework sprinklers on smaller stages or huge fireballs on bigger ones.