Wintermute Engine Forum
Wintermute Engine => Feature requests, suggestions => Topic started by: therealmoondevil on January 25, 2003, 09:39:24 PM
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Is it possible to package speech apart from the game package.
just like the vox things.
btw is ogg supported ?
;D
therealmoondevil
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Ogg is supported, but I don't know about the vox thingie ;-)
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Yes, like Cl
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Thnx... all for you reply`s ...
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Mnemonic;
Do you mean put my SPEECH folder at the same level as DATA or a subfolder underneath
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Same level.
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While we're on the subject, will there be support for:
* MIDI (I know, I'm a sucker for low quality sound)
* MP3
* MOD
Just wondering..
Scarpia
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Hmmm, probably not. I believe both MIDI and MOD files are a bit outdated today (at least in terms of computer games), and there is the licencing issue with the MP3 format. I'm quite satisfied with the OGG Vorbis format :)
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Hmm. Didn't know about the licencing thing with MP3. I figured since it's integrated in other engines, it must be free for all, but I guess not. Hmm..
Actually, I don't know OGG at all, I only just heard of it. Compared to MP3 (which we all know), what is OGG like?
Scarpia
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Check this: http://www.vorbis.com/faq.psp#what
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OGG is at least equivalent to MP3, and my tests have all come out slightly smaller and sounding the same or better. ;D
I was considering mod files for my game, actually. It may seem "old-fashioned" now but it was developed specifically as a game music format, and has a few advantages for game music because of that.
impulse tracker or *.it is the best format for mod, because they have what is called "new note action" - so on every new note, you can either sustain, cut the previous note off, or quick fade.
The advantage of mod for games is that every file is only as large as the samples - you can add in repeating sections or more sections and it will only take up as much space as the text for those sections. You make a mod file 10 minutes long for one area of your game, and it isn't much larger than one that is 3 minutes long. You have an audio file that long, and even with ogg at 128, it's still around 10 MB just for that one file!
Also, mod files loop perfectly, whereas true audio has to be "adjusted" for looping, and certain compressing software adds in a second of silence at the beginning and end anyway. :(
If the impulse tracker format could be updated to use a compressed format such as ogg for samples instead of wav... it would be *perfect* for game music! Maybe *.otx for oggtracker? ;)
Sound effects should definitely be ogg, though.
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Ow, one more plus for the MOD files: interactive music. The original Unreal was using mod files and the result was absolutely amazing.
I believe Microsoft's DirectMusic is supposed to have similar characterisitcs as MOD files, but I didn't study it yet.
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I found DirectMusic Producer *really* confusing to write music in. (But I'm definitely more a musician than a programmer, and all that logic gets confusing sometimes. ;) ) Also I didn't like that it wouldn't load a different soundfont in slot 1 inside a different project without conflicting with some other project's slot 1.
MPTrack was pretty easy to pick up. Anyone want to hear my horrible harp theme? It's the samples, honest... ;D
(Actually it doesn't sound too bad.)
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found DirectMusic Producer *really* confusing to write music in. (But I'm definitely more a musician than a programmer, and all that logic gets confusing sometimes. )
I *am* a programmer, but I found DirectMusic Producer confusing as well :)
MPTrack was pretty easy to pick up. Anyone want to hear my horrible harp theme? It's the samples, honest...
(Actually it doesn't sound too bad.)
Sure, bring it in! ;)
I must admit I'm really dumb when it comes to music, so I'm very grateful for any advice. For example, Doctor Jeep suggested having multiple music channels in WME, to allow crossfading. It would also be great for interactive music (well, not as good as a MOD file, but still...).
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Hmm.. I am a programmer too, but I love music and my entire family is musical (royal opera singers, pop/rock musicians and teachers at the highest level of music. I can barely hit a note compared to them.), so I would love a program for absolute newbies who want to create music loops.
Actually, I've only tried one piece of software that lived up to that. AlgoRythm from Space Time Foam (www.spacetimefoam.com) is great and simple for creating rythms.... but I never really got the hang of it anyways.
Any suggestions for game music software?
Scarpia
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Algorhythm looks pretty cool, and possibly equivalent to FruityLoops... will have to check it out, if only for the "royalty-free samples", hehe. ;)
I use Cakewalk, and found it really easy to pick up as well. I started with the Home Studio which came with my soundcard. It was easy to go up to the Pro version, because the interface was pretty similar. The Pro version (now Sonar, I haven't upgraded, though,) uses soundfonts, so you can make midis which sound somewhat decent.
Get goldwave for audio editing, though. Cakewalk's maximum sound volume is quite low compared to most other programs, I've noticed. I red-line and get clipping in Cake, but if I export the wav just below red-lining then take it into goldwave, I can boost the volume by at least 200% without problems.
A friend is getting some AMAZING results with Cubase + Halion + some good samples + some reverb plugin, though.
For free or as low-cost as possible, I'd go with a mod tracker and concentrate my money on quality samples. Most mod trackers also export to audio, then you can convert that to ogg or various other formats with something like dbpoweramp.
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Whoosh, that's a lot of choices... I tried out Goldwave a few years ago, but I didn't really 'get it'. Cubase too, even more years back, but that one was utter confusion at the time, at least to me. I guess that is why AlgoRythm appealed to me, it's designed to be intuitive for non-musicians too. Hmm, but I should probably give it another try..
Scarpia
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Well, like any other program, it depends on what you want to do with it. ;)
I pretty much use Goldwave just for volume maximizing, cutting out leadings and trailing silences, etc. I do midi in Cakewalk and all audio mixing/reverb/eq, etc, as well.
I make beats in Fruity Loops, and I love it's reverb... wish I could get that in other programs. (Just tried Algorhythm, it opened as if for 1024x768 and when I tried to drag it over so I could even maximize it, it almost crashed my system. So... I definitely won't be using it. Fruity Loops is still the ruler of the beatz. 8) )
If you want a free program that you can use to make beats or melodies, I'd pick a mod tracker such as MPTrack, though. It will export to a wav file which you can then convert to ogg. Also, their tutorial in the help file is actually helpful.
For audio convertors, I go with dbpoweramp because it has the best sound of any program I've tried in any codec I've tried to use it with, whether wav, mp3, ogg, monkeys audio, anything. Yamp is pretty good for mp3, though.
It just depends what you want to do with your music program, really.
EDIT: Oh, and here's the harp thing (http://membres.lycos.fr/unknownhero/project/modules/downloads/singlefile.php?lid=5). I converted it to ogg because it was smaller than the original format.