Tips to Beatmap (Part 1)

NolanM's WIP (work in progress) in editor, Remote Control by Kagamine Rin and Len

This is Part 1. In this post, we will be going over some tips before and if you want to start beatmapping.

Beatmapping is a time-consuming process. If you are a fast beatmapper, meaning that you make your maps very swiftly, then chances are, there will be a lot of flaws in it before it can get anywhere close to being ranked. After you are even done with the map, which feels like you've accomplished something great and wonderful (which you have), and feels a lot like finishing a program in Java, there will be a few things that modders would like changed. This part, takes even MORE time. Before you know it, you will realize that you've spent A LOT of time trying to get one map ranked. I won't delve deep into the topic of beatmapping, though, because I haven't gotten any beatmaps ranked.. yet!

You WILL beatmap the difficulty you're comfortable. Don't take this literally. You can beatmap any difficulty, but you will only be really good at beatmapping the difficulty that you are used to, because you play it often. You'll remember a lot of styles of beatmapping while playing so often, and you'll incorporate it into your own beatmap. 

Some things to consider: First, you need a song. Then, you'll need to fill out some lines on the information of the song, and how hard you would like it to be (with OD, AR, CS, and HP), and the audio, etc. Next, you need to find the BPM of that song to time it properly. After that, you can start beatmapping. Finally, you can make it look nice by designing it, using backgrounds (how Kagamine Rin and Len are in the background in the above photo), hitsounds (make the notes hit sound different), or a fully customizable storyboard (small animations that appear on top of the background (or behind it), that enhance the gameplay a lot.

These are just a few of the many things you need to know about the beatmapping process. To learn more, visit this.

If you still have more questions, or requests on what you would like for me to explain or tell you next, leave a comment below! ;) Have a wonderful day.