Add "Synesthesia" mod for osu! ruleset

[jtbiddle]

This is a mod for osu!standard that colors hit circles and sliders based on their beat division in the song. For example, objects that are on full notes are white, half notes are red, and quarter notes are blue. This is a simple implementation using the function for the snap coloring preference in osu!mania, and shares the same colors. I implemented this in an attempt to make reading complicated rhythms easier, especially for low AR or hidden.

snapcolour.mov

Compatibility with other mods has been tested. I could imagine this being combined with the "Incognito" mod which also changes hit object colors ( #22271) to avoid cluttering the mod menu.

[peppy]

It's a touch weird that this is introduced as a mod while it exists as a setting in osu!mania. Not necessarily the wrong approach, but food for thought.

[ItsShamed]

Quick code quality check

[bdach]

It's a touch weird that this is introduced as a mod while it exists as a setting in osu!mania.

I really think this is the big issue here and one that doesn't really warrant per-ruleset considerations. The way I see it, either toggling the colour snapping is visual preference and as such should be a game setting, or it actually changes the difficulty of gameplay, and as such should be a mod. I'm not sure it should be allowed to be a setting in one ruleset but a mod in the other.

[bdach]

Additionally:

[peppy]

I really think this is the big issue here and one that doesn't really warrant per-ruleset considerations. The way I see it, either toggling the colour snapping is visual preference and as such should be a game setting, or it actually changes the difficulty of gameplay, and as such should be a mod. I'm not sure it should be allowed to be a setting in one ruleset but a mod in the other.

From that angle it could be argued that the mania setting is moved to exist as a mod. It's the kind of thing I think should be shared in replays, so that might be a good direction?

[bdach]

From that angle it could be argued that the mania setting is moved to exist as a mod. It's the kind of thing I think should be shared in replays, so that might be a good direction?

I can't say I have particularly strong feelings as to which one it should be, personally. I'm mostly looking for consistency of treatment if possible.

I wouldn't disagree in principle with moving the mania thing to a mod, if only to unclutter the settings sidebar just a tiny bit.

[jtbiddle]

Thanks for the reviews so far, let me know if there are any changes you would like to see to it. I wanted to keep this PR simple and to see if there was interest in this addition.

Some ideas for this mod that I would be happy to refine with the team and implement in the future:

• Moving it to a preference instead of a mod if that is more appropriate
• Color customization, possibly with an option to read colors from the current skin. (Fixing Cannot show or hide a popover without a parent PopoverContainer in the hierarchy #23684 would make adding a color picker to the mod customization menu much easier)
• Either disabling or implementing the "Combo Colour Normalisation" and "Beatmap Colours" options when the mod is selected
• Allowing beatmap colors to be used if the number of different time divisions in a beatmap is equal to or less than the number of beatmap colors (would require pre-processing the beatmap on loading)
• A toggle to disable slider tail coloring. It currently provides more timing information as it is, but may look nicer if sliders are a uniform color

[bdach]

Let's keep away from the scope creep mentioned above and focus on what we have right now - still a few things I'm not sure about

[bdach]

Not sure on the naming of this thing. The existing mania setting is named "timing-based colouring". I would like to keep that naming consistent, but "timing-based colouring" a bit too much of a mouthful to use for a mod name. "Snap" is a bit of an editor term and I'm not sure it should be used in the mod name.

Maybe something like "Coloured Rhythm" could work? Or - going off the wall a bit - "Synesthesia"?

[jtbiddle]

Yeah, the name was just taken from the function name - I figured that was some "standard" name for it in VSRGs but I'm not tied to it at all. I really like the suggestion of "Synesthesia", a cool reference and in-line with the other mod names. I've renamed it to Synesthesia in the latest commit.

[bdach]

I don't have any problems with this anymore, but I also don't feel confident enough to proceed with this mod as it is written on the basis of my judgement alone. Going to need a second approval for this to go forward.

[peppy]

@bdach please double-check my changes. I wanted to avoid the expensive colour lookup (including a TimingPointAt) multiple times per frame.

[bdach]

Fixed one more issue with slider tails that was only visible on legacy skins (see discord conversation). As stated there, not sure what the reaction to differently-coloured slider pieces is going to be, but let's try this and see what it will be.