(Ingame Music) A couple tracks

[Chojun]

Hi everybody.

I've been busy lately doing things that have taken me completely away from Warzone, but fortunately 15 minutes here and there for the last few weeks has allowed me to put together some new tracks.

My preferred genre is Industrial / Electronic but I thought I'd try my hand at dance and trance. Maybe even some stuff that Euros would like but we'll see.

So, let me know what you all think of these. They are both very much WIP, but I thought I'd post em up here before finishing em to see what everyone thinks.

The first is a dance track, my most recent. I call it Oxidizer.

[Chojun]

The second track does not have a title yet. It is what I would consider "Trance" genre.

It is not quite as polished as the previous one because I spent more time on the last one. There are a lot of things that I want to change in both tracks, but I'm morbidly curious to see what people say.

[whippersnapper]

..

Listened to Oxidizer2. Sounds polished to me. Like your orchestration, the rise and ebb of instrumentation, your counter-point, time sig, tonal contrasts and that sparse effect you used in 2 spots that reminded me of a guitar talk box. I'm inspired to finish a piece hooking my axe to the talk box I haven't used in a mighty long spell - maybe with some backward masking. Good work, Chojun. Glad to see you making some time for your musical passion... I'll listen to your second piece tomorrow... beddy-bye time for me now.

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[Mysteryem]

Wow! Both of them sound really good. I wish I could make music like that.

[whippersnapper]

..

Listened to the 2nd piece a few times. This time sig seems to me to suit "battle" best as far as I
can tell from peeps reactions and comments over time.

I can guess where you will write more music so I won't comment on that. About 2/3rds of the way thru
you introduce a dominant synth lead that counterpoints your other lines in the last third - I like it. It
occurred to me (no doubt a reflection of musical mind) that could also be introduced as a minor
motif in the 1st third at a distant, lower volume line which is entirely dropped in the middle third &
then as you have it dominant in the final third. I'm talking in thirds but I suspect a coda (or "tail") is yet
to be written. But, like I said, won't presume to suggest any details on that score... (pun intended).

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[Per]

Those are really nice songs.

However, for in-game music you really need to avoid attention-grabbing effects like heavy drums and voices. It is sad to put it like that, but in-game music needs to be largely monotonic and ambient. The player is focused on the game, and game that takes attention away from that rather than set a background mood and gets out of the way will more often than not be turned off. This is a also a property of the fact that the in-game song is repeated very many times, and players will tired of songs they consciously notice.

[whippersnapper]

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That modus for game music composition has run its course, I believe..... though it most definitely had a just place in early comp game history.

Many pro game musicians compose game music another way these days - as do I I've written extensively about this myself using my own original music as illustration. But to keep it brief, and less subjective on my part, let me steer you to this recent LA Times article that covers the bases of this new paradigm clearly and is also the view I practice in my work....

Their music for video games depends on play

It requires more work on the game integration side... but the results are well worth it IMO. Actually there are some elegant techniques that make it quite feasible if you're committed to the proposition that looping unobtrusive, homogeneous, music through all player-game engagement states is to miss the opportunity to marshal the power of textured music that can trigger & facilitate nuanced "Flow" or in the "Zone" consciousness....as the best of movie soundtrack music demonstrates. or listening to your personal Ipod play-list mix while focused in a heated contest of 3 on 3 hoops. In these cases richly arranged music is NOT a detraction to performance but rather enhances the experience in a way that is the embodiment of excellence. Indeed, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's pioneering scientific work since the early 1970s on the "Flow" state is currently informing game design & you can check out this fine site on the topic: Flow In Games

Chojun - I believe we have talked about these 2 diametrically opposed approaches before, if I'm not mistaken. ? Are you still leaning the same ?

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Here I found the discussion in this thread: "Custom Music" thread..

Oh my, it's a Yogi-ism- "This is like deja vu all over again."

Re: Custom music? Posted on Fri Jan 12, 2007 2:35 am

Thanks, Per. I think Shaovin is the best track that I've done. I put a lot of time into the "atmosphere" of the song. I've never really considered it 100% complete, so if you would really like to make it a permanent part of the game, then I always could modify it (if desired).

The original idea behind the song spawned from Papa Lazarou's (NEWST) old descriptions of some of the in-story factions of Total War Zone. The Shaovin were supposed to be from a desert land, so I tried to work on an Egyptian "feel." Anyway, the song was supposed to be dynamic menu music, which is an idea that I came up with, that I haven't really seen used in any games.

I don't by any means plan on patenting the idea , and I'd LOVE (underemphasis) to see it implemented in Warzone. It shouldn't be too difficult to implement if the music is specially developed for the concept. This means that any of the music afficionados around here could easily contribute.

Essentially, the idea stems around the song dynamically changing as the user follows the main menus of the game. At the top menu, the music would be low, introductory, and slow. With each mouse click, the song ramps up. This continues until the game is loading, at which time the song will be playing at its fullest/heaviest/loudest/fastest. You get the idea. If the user backs out one menu, then the song slows, etc.

So, I'll apply this to my Shaovin track, since it was essentially written for the idea. I will also explain what the musicians would expect as far as development, if they wished to write a track to implement this idea. Grab out a copy of Shaovin and try to follow along. I'll give track times so it might help if you can pull it up with software that lets you seek to specific times by the click of a mouse (Soundforge, Adobe Audition/Cool Edit Pro).

Keep in mind that the exact sections described are offered by concept only-- obviously Shaovin would need to be written differently to accomodate looping. When in each menu section, the song would continue to loop until a new menu is reached, and the loop has completed playing.

Title Screen: 0:0.00 - 0:18.30

Warzone doesn't have a title screen per-se (title in the sense of copyright/legal info, for Warzone these are FMV which weren't released with the source). This would play over any title splash or whatever. 18 seconds for the loop is a little long, but I assume you get the general feel of this section of the song.

Main Menu: 0:18.30 - 0:36.83

The song picks up a little by introducing a melody or some sort of general sound or feel by which the whole track will be characterized. Nothing special or exciting.. It's only the main menu!

Multiplayer/Single-Player Skirmish/Options/Etc: 0:36.83 - 1:13.75

In most cases, the player has selected the type of game he/she wishes to play (or else they're going to reset the key mappings because a new, righteous patch has been released ). The song increases in complexity.

Game Parameters/Multiplayer Lobby/Etc: 1:13.75 - 1:48.00

The song adds a beat, becomes a little heavier. This is all in anticipation... We're about to start the most excellent game ever created.

Start Game/Loading Screen: 1:48.00 - 2:45.00

The song is at its heaviest. The beat/guitars/drums/synth/whatever is at its loudest and best.

Now, it is important to keep in mind how long it takes an average user who knows what he/she wants to go/do to navigate through the menus. Not very long. Time yourself. If I were to guess, I bet it would take me ABSOLUTE MAX 20-30 sec. to go from main menu to game-loading for a skirmish game. My example above has taken us through nearly 3 minutes of track. This wouldn't work in a real implementation, so it's time for the track writers to sacrifice a little. The idea will work very well, but the only caveat is that the different menu song sections could be MAX 5-10 seconds in length (each). They must be designed to loop, and each different section must be able to smoothly transition between themselves.

So, for instance, say the player starts by hearing the splash/title music. By the time the user reaches the main menu, they have about 5 sec left on the title/splash section before the main menu section will begin playing. Say they either have ADHD or have an urgent need to use the restroom, so they fly through 3 menus and arrive at the multiplayer lobby in 2.18 seconds. They've skipped a bunch of song sections, so once the title/splash section completes its loop, the loop section corresponding with the MP lobby must begin playing. Understand? This is why the song sections must be able to cleanly transition from one to any other.

Anyway, let me know what you all think of this idea. It would be awesome to see it working in-game.

[Zi-Chan]

The Idea of making Music playing in certain Situations, is a really good one IMO. Like a Battle Theme for Battles. Maybe at huge Troops of Units another "harder" and faster one than at more little Battles.

And im for a System, which mixes Tracks together, that the first one doesn't just stop and the next one starts. Like the current playing Track ends, no matter how long it played yet, with getting quieter and at the same Time the next Track (all depending on Situations) begins with getting louder.

I even imagine a complex Music Manager, which analyzes and manipulates the current Music by inserting Sounds, e.g. Drums, futuristic Fanfares or else, matching to the current Song. Would need Configuration for every single Song with each short Situation and Status-Sounds or you make Sounds matching to all used Tracks of the Game - complex as i said. But awesome...

Tested those 2 Tracks. Not my Taste. But maybe i think too much about listening to them like listening to "normal" Music. I hope, anybody knows, what i wanted to say.

[whippersnapper]

I even imagine a complex Music Manager, which analyzes and manipulates the current Music by inserting Sounds, e.g. Drums, futuristic Fanfares or else, matching to the current Song. Would need Configuration for every single Song with each short Situation and Status-Sounds or you make Sounds matching to all used Tracks of the Game - complex as i said. But awesome...

Yes... that would be ideal.

The tech that is currently used is triggers... those commented under descriptive headings could be parsed so that the gamer
could, to some extent, insert their own "smart" play list into the mix utilizing the game developers original triggers, because -

Tested those 2 Tracks. Not my Taste. But maybe i think too much about listening to them like listening to "normal" Music. I hope, anybody knows, what i wanted to say.

Everybody has different tastes that even change with your mood, day to day, week to week, And even if you like the original game score, sooner or later, you are gonna hanker for your own custom tracking..Likely this will lead eventually to "Music Mod Packs".

Some interesting reads on the subject:

Dynamic In-Game Music Experiment

Beyond the Beep: Techniques and Styles of Video Game Music

The Beat Goes on: Dynamic Music in Spore

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[fisk0]

However, for in-game music you really need to avoid attention-grabbing effects like heavy drums and voices. It is sad to put it like that, but in-game music needs to be largely monotonic and ambient. The player is focused on the game, and game that takes attention away from that rather than set a background mood and gets out of the way will more often than not be turned off. This is a also a property of the fact that the in-game song is repeated very many times, and players will tired of songs they consciously notice.

I don't agree. You should never use samples that could be comfused with the sounds of the game (like voices shouting 'Your forces are under attack!'), but the C&C games as well as many other RTS games have proved in my opinion that heavy drums, loud sections of the music, fast paced energetic music could fit perfectly for games like this. The music of Red Alert, especially the Hell March is still considered classic, even though it features voice samples and is far from the ambient stuff common in games.

I even imagine a complex Music Manager, which analyzes and manipulates the current Music by inserting Sounds, e.g. Drums, futuristic Fanfares or else, matching to the current Song. Would need Configuration for every single Song with each short Situation and Status-Sounds or you make Sounds matching to all used Tracks of the Game - complex as i said. But awesome...

I guess that would be hard to do with ogg or mp3 music commonly used in games today (though of course, System Shock 2 managed to do it anyway, with every song divided into about 4 wave files).
Similar things where pretty common during the 90's and early 2000's when many games (especially those by Epic or using the Unreal engine) used module music.
I guess many people are familiar with the format, but for those who are not, it was a format where the music was divided into patterns (commonly 64 rows in 4, 8 or 16 channels, and you could play one note/sample for each row, combined with one or two effects, depending on the format) where you could set in which order the patterns would play, how many times they would play and make several loops within the song as well as variations on the patterns that where outside the default song which could be called by the game depending on situations and then go back into the main song without loading different files.
The games that used mod music for the greatest effect were in my opinion Deus Ex (where the game jumped to different parts of the song depending on if the player was in a neutral situation, or if he had been spotted by enemies, was being attacked, had an conversation, was killed e.t.c.), 7th Legion (pretty bad RTS game with awesome music, it had one main track per file, and generally about 20 variations that played if the player used a super weapon, battle card or was victorious) and Death Rally (which used it for a simpler but still great effect, each mod file had two versions of the song, one main track and a slower variation used for pause music. The mod format also allowed both parts of the song to loop in eternity if needed).
In the early days mod music sounded pretty lo-fi to keep it's file size small (every 'instrument' is one or more samples, the better they sound, the bigger the file, but the lenght of the song has almost no impact on the file size whatsoever), today the mo3 format exist, which allows for ogg compressed samples, reducing the file size considerably. There still exist a problem with that there is no common standard for reverb, delay and other effects (only a few formats support VST's and similar effects), usually requiring the composer to either record the samples using the effect (and maybe have different recordings of the sample using different effect as different instruments in the file) or try to create something that sounds somewhat like echoes by repeating the same sample in several channels slowly fading out.


I'm sorry, I feel I've ventured into the off topic lands as usual.

[Chojun]

However, for in-game music you really need to avoid attention-grabbing effects like heavy drums and voices. It is sad to put it like that, but in-game music needs to be largely monotonic and ambient.

I completely agree. I put (Ingame Music) in the topic because I couldn't really come up with something appropriate. Besides, screw techno/dance/trance music for warzone; Warzone is all ambient/electronic/breakbeat/industrial, IMO

Chojun - I believe we have talked about these 2 diametrically opposed approaches before, if I'm not mistaken. ? Are you still leaning the same ?

Yes, although I don't have the time to code the functionality for it right now and probably wont for some time

Tested those 2 Tracks. Not my Taste. But maybe i think too much about listening to them like listening to "normal" Music. I hope, anybody knows, what i wanted to say.

Heh, no worries Honestly that style or genre isn't really my taste, either. It was more of a "try and do it" kind of thing for me.

How about this..? (See attached) This is closer to my style. It is just a quick 0:18 sample of a new track I'm working on.

Over the Christmas break 2 other guys and I decided to look into forming a new Industrial group. Our first project is to remix To Live and Die in LA by Wang Chung. If things go well and we get some interest, then we might move forward. Heh, that in all my free time..

[lav_coyote25]

that sounds great... how long till its finished? xD

[eyestrain92]

Take it from an industrial\EBM enthusiast-These are gold, your music creation is a talent, and you could make money off this. Taking your talent towards WZ is a saintly act.

/offballs

P.S. Second track, the title Acid Rain came to mind.

[avsa242]

I don't know if any of you folks have access to it (old dusty games collection? ), but if you do, I've found that the soundtrack/expansion pack CD to Mechwarrior 2: Ghost Bear's Legacy (Activision, 1995-1996, MS-DOS/Win95 era) goes really well with WZ (at least some of it, anyway). I was digging through my CDs one day and found it. It looks like Amazon has several copies available for pretty cheap ($4.75 on up) if anyone decided to try it out.

Cheers,
Jesse