If you were linked here from the forums, then you probably know where the Frets on Fire Fan Forums are.
First, lets talk about the forums. Here are the first 4 things you want to do:
1. Take a look around the forums, and get used to them.
2. Sign up! You can't download songs, customize the forums to your likings, share what you've made for frets on fire, or share your opinions on things.
3. Read the rules! If you follow these, you make the forum a better place for everyone, and you can stay on the forums. (Not get banned!)
4. Read the faq! These will answer most, if not all of your questions regarding the game.
After that, you want to start getting fof set up to your personal likings. Frets on fire is a guitar hero clone where you can customize the game, and make note charts for all your favorite songs and play them!
Frets on fire has 4 main versions. You can download your favorite here.
So now you may see that frets on fire looks a bit bland. This is where mods, or themes come into play. The three most popular mods these days are:
RF Mod:
RF-mod is a source code enhancement to Frets On Fire.
The goal is to add features, and bugfixes to Frets On Fire that enhance gameplay, and improve performance. There is a high amount of flexibility in what you can turn on and off. It doesn't work like a normal mod, so be sure to read the readme.
Major features include:
Multiplayer (split screen, and party)
Multi part selection (Lead, Rhythm, Bass)
Much improved HOPO
Additional customizations to support theme mods (GHmod, etc)
Download or get more information here.
Hering Mod:
This is a mod that edits the source code of frets on fire, and adds:
-Drum Track support
-The Fail feature:
-Alternative Song choosing settings
-Song queue
-Custom board speed
Download or get more information here
FoFix:
This is the most actively worked on mod. The list of fixes and additions are probably longer then this whole thread, so just take a look at the thread for the information. If you saw a youtube video and said, "Hey, isn't that Rock Band?" or "Hey, isn't that Guitar Hero?" Well, this is the mod your were looking at. The important thing to remember is that the mods for this are called themes, and only some things work with the newest versions, so if you have version 3.0 FoFix, then the theme should say "Theme compatible with FoFix 3.0 and up" or something of the like. This went through a lot of versions. The current person leading the project is MyFingersHurt, or MFH as people call him. This mod used to be called a lot of different themes, so if someone told you to download:
-Ultimate Mod
-Ultimate Coffee Mod
-DS~ Alarian Mod
-Alarian Mod
-MFH Alarian Mod
or
-MFH Mod
then download this.
To download or get more information go here
After you snag a mod:
Now, you probably want to play, or make note charts for your favorite songs! So how do you go about doing that?
If you want to download songs, you need to make sure you are able to open .rar files, or .zip files. If you don't know if you can open these types of files, then try downloading these files and opening them:
.zip Test
.rar Test
If you can't open these files, then you should download 7-Zip. It is a freeware program that can open a number of different compression types, including .zip's and .rar's.
So now go around the tune posting section of the forums, or around the song database in this very wiki. Search for a song, then download it, extract it with your fancy 7-Zip, and put it in your songs folder.
Quick note: you are putting a folder in your songs folder, not a bunch of files, make sure when you download a song to put all the files you get into a folder, if it isn't in one already.
So what happens if you want to make a note chart? You need to have the following programs:
-A notes.mid editor (EOF, FeedBack, or FL Studio)
-An .ini generator (Advanced Ini Generator, ini Generator, MS Notepad will also work (If you want to manually create the song.ini))
-A .OGG converter (Audacity, Xilisoft)
-A .zip compressor (7-Zip)
Explanations of each file:
- notes.midi
- This is what the notes you play are. AKA the note chart.
- song.ini
- This is the file the game reads that tells the game the song name, the name of the artist, and other similar data.
- guitar.ogg
- This is the audio file. You may have mp3s on your computer, pop them into a converter and you get an ogg. Rename them to use them though! The smallest error could get you frustrated.
- <Song name - Artist>.zip
- This is a compressed folder. You can't send a letter to someone without an envelope, and this is that envelope.
Here's the last step to make a song… Upload it!
Some popular file hosting web sites are:
http://www.mediafire.com
http://www.filemojo.com
http://www.ifile.it
http://www.rapidshare.com
http://www.fof.hellmark.org
So that's it. Remember, the more nice you are, the nicer people will be to you, the more you'll be respected, and the more fun you'll have! Be nice, occasionally give a "thx" to people who chart/fret songs you like, and contribute as much as possible.
