Beats Tapbox Layouts and Scroll Up

One of the most requested features for Beats is different tapbox layouts (aka the area where you tap to hit falling notes). Ever since Beats 1.0a, notes always fall down from the top of the screen to the arrows at the bottom, with the tapboxes being invisible rectangles on top of the arrows. This is akin to the Beatmania/DJ Max “reverse” scroll where notes fall down and the same setup I’ve always used when I play StepMania (for which I usually play with 3.0x, Reverse, Notes+ and Dark modifiers). The majority of new users, however, are only familiar with DDR-style scrolling up and a D-pad like arrangement. And so after playing around with the code, I’ve added two new settings that will be available in the next major Beats release (1.5b): “Direction” (scroll direction of notes) and “Tapbox Layout” (arrangement of tapboxes).

Settings

The current placements are as followed (keep in mind that the grey boxes are just temporary placeholders that will be replaced with actual pad graphics once I get around to making some). The “Tapbox Overlap” and “Tapbox Placement” (previously called “Arrow Placement”) settings control the size and Y-axis shifts of these boxes.

D-Pad and Standard layouts w/ Standard/Up scroll

Reverse-V and Fullscreen layouts w/ Standard/Up scroll

D-Pad and Standard layouts w/ Reverse/Down scroll

Reverse-V and Fullscreen layouts w/ Reverse/Down scroll

These will be the new tapbox layouts you can expect to see in Beats 1.5b (which, as you can see in the FPS counters in the screenshots, is much faster and smoother).

Any other possible layouts you guys would like to see?

~Keripo

BeatsPortable: http://beatsportable.com/2011/01/tapbox-layouts-and-scroll-up/
BeatsPortable Forums: http://beatsportable.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=294