We’ll illustrate how we sculpted this piece

Background

Link to Map

sculpteur d’émotion is one of my more unique entries. It’s mapped for osu!mania 4K French Tournament (therefore the difficulty name).

The approach, as mentioned in the description, is to have singular focus and negative space.

Singular Focus

Many maps, especially harder maps, tend to achieve difficulty through more layers. This approach, while valid, tend to over-saturate the playfield. Take for example below:

451130|3|R,
451130|0|R,
451262|1|R,
451393|3|R,
451393|2|R,
451525|0|R,
451656|3|R,
451656|1|R,
451788|2|R,
451920|3|R,
451920|0|R,
452051|2|R,
452183|0|R,
452183|1|R,

451218|2|P,
451306|0|P,
451481|1|P,
451569|2|P,
451744|0|P,
451832|1|P,
452007|1|P,
452095|3|P,

The pattern layers a 1/4 stream (in red) and 1/6 fill (in purple). For this, it plays well as long as you don’t accidentally throw in a 1/6 or 1/4 jack. On the surface, this seem fine, but the intended perspective by the mapper often differs greatly from what the player sees.

451130|3|R,
451130|0|P,
451218|2|R,
451262|1|R,
451306|0|R,
451393|2|P,
451393|3|P,
451481|1|B,
451525|0|B,
451569|2|B,
451656|3|B,
451656|1|B,
451744|0|R,
451788|2|G,
451832|1|R,
451920|3|G,
451920|0|R,
452007|1|R,
452051|2|R,
452095|3|R,
452183|0|B,
452183|1|B,

The above is how the player would break down such a complex pattern, by glue-ing together neighbouring notes. In the end, the player likely didn’t even notice they were playing 1/6 and 1/4 together.

Commonly, a remedy to this is to glue 1/6s and 1/4s together, so it’s easier to see.

451130|3|P,
451218|2|P,
451306|3|P,
451393|2|P,
451481|3|P,
451569|2|P,
451656|0|P,
451744|1|P,
451832|0|P,
451920|1|P,
452007|0|P,
452095|1|P,


451130|0|R,
451262|0|R,
451393|1|R,
451525|1|R,
451656|3|R,
451788|3|R,
451920|2|R,
452051|2|R,
452183|3|R,
452183|0|R,

However, the more you try to separate denser patterns, the more likely you’ll get unintentionally difficult patterns. Here we introduced 1/4 jacks and 1/6 trills. If it’s truly impossible to separate them such that it’s both easy to play and easy to understand. Just remove notes.

Players have limited Cognitive Capacity

Sometimes, the simpler solution is to remove notes.

But there are sounds there!

flowchart TD
  Z((Start Here)) --> A[Are those sounds important?]
  A ==>|No| F((Don't map them))
  A -->|Yes| B[Are there more than 1?]
  B -->|Yes| C[Can you fit them without making a mess?]
  C -->|Yes| Y((Map them))
  B -->|No| Y
  C -->|No| D[Can you pick the most important one?]
  D -->|Yes| Y
  D --->|No| E[Can you at least make them play well?]
  E -->|Yes| Y
  E ==>|No| F

I roughly follow the above train of thought when considering what to map, what to ignore, and such. Remember that people, while complex, likes simple.

We show some variants that can be achieved, if we just skip some sounds entirely