Second Underscore Sample
by Nick Palmer · in General Discussion · 04/21/2002 (7:50 pm) · 31 replies
Here is another attempt at an underscore - Underscore 2. I took Phil Carlisle's suggestion to make a more sustained melody rather than use a fragmented one as a possible underscore to an intro. I made this loopable, but it doesn't start as cleanly as I'd like because of that. Therein lies the basic problem in making clean jumps from one track to another dynamically (during the game): basically, the sounds of the jump point must be identical to those of the new track (or jump location if the same track). This would be easier to accomplish if multiple tracks were playing (two or three). With a single track, the idea of musical fragments would work better because there are many quieter segments in the track that are easier to jump from.
Underscore 3 will be such a track: fragmented melody with a jump possible every couple of measures. I think that I'll include some sort of "splice tape" with some percussion to make the transition even smoother. The problem will be going from loud and intense to softer and less intense. Hmmmm...
Nick
Underscore 3 will be such a track: fragmented melody with a jump possible every couple of measures. I think that I'll include some sort of "splice tape" with some percussion to make the transition even smoother. The problem will be going from loud and intense to softer and less intense. Hmmmm...
Nick
About the author
#22
ie...
Loop points, tempo, key signature... (Although we may not need anything but loop points)
I'm guessing that the answer is .wav but of course that is not a viable option since people need to d/l the game.
The next thing that comes to mind is MP3 since it already has extra information stored in it.
But I have one concern...
If you're going to put everything in MP3 format, will there be problems with looping? In winamp there will always be a slight pause of a few milliseconds before playing another track. And no matter how well you cut the loop, it will not loop without that pause. Does the mp3 player in the torque engine suffer from the same behavior? Is this jsut an intrinsic problem with MP3 format audio?
It could be a simple problem to fix, or it could be one of those deceptively seemingly easy to fix problems that due to their nature become insurmountable obstacles.
If mp3 is not an option and adding extra information into a .wav file is easy to do. What about having an installer that will decompress the mp3 files into .wav during the install process thus miminizing the d/l and giving the best performing audio solution.
It would also give the added benefit of freeing up the CPU resources that would go into decoding MP3s realtime. Giving more power to the graphics engine.
Hope I organized my thoughts well...
Does everyone know what I'm talking about? Or am I just tlaking nonsense.
hehe
04/24/2002 (6:17 pm)
Does anyone here know the best format to put audio in for adding extra information into the waveform?ie...
Loop points, tempo, key signature... (Although we may not need anything but loop points)
I'm guessing that the answer is .wav but of course that is not a viable option since people need to d/l the game.
The next thing that comes to mind is MP3 since it already has extra information stored in it.
But I have one concern...
If you're going to put everything in MP3 format, will there be problems with looping? In winamp there will always be a slight pause of a few milliseconds before playing another track. And no matter how well you cut the loop, it will not loop without that pause. Does the mp3 player in the torque engine suffer from the same behavior? Is this jsut an intrinsic problem with MP3 format audio?
It could be a simple problem to fix, or it could be one of those deceptively seemingly easy to fix problems that due to their nature become insurmountable obstacles.
If mp3 is not an option and adding extra information into a .wav file is easy to do. What about having an installer that will decompress the mp3 files into .wav during the install process thus miminizing the d/l and giving the best performing audio solution.
It would also give the added benefit of freeing up the CPU resources that would go into decoding MP3s realtime. Giving more power to the graphics engine.
Hope I organized my thoughts well...
Does everyone know what I'm talking about? Or am I just tlaking nonsense.
hehe
#23
@Jeff
Can we get a seperate Audio forum? Since I think we're going to start inundating these forums with audio posts.
=)
04/24/2002 (6:18 pm)
Oh... BTW... @Jeff
Can we get a seperate Audio forum? Since I think we're going to start inundating these forums with audio posts.
=)
#24
As far as extra info, you could technically add that as another Ogg stream in the file, but I think it would be easier to just have a seperate Torque script file that defines datablocks (kind of like the mission files.) That would be easier for the music engine to use. Of course, we would need to decide on what kind of data needs to go into those datablocks.
As far as looping, my Ogg Vorbis code is able to do seamless looping of the same file. It has the ability to seek to specific sample locations in the stream. We could just seek to the loop points and fill the buffers from there. I think it shouldn't be hard to do that with multiple streams either. We'd probably just open all the streams at the beginning and grab the headers and leave them waiting until the need to be used.
I agree on the seperate Audio forum too.
04/24/2002 (6:50 pm)
Ogg Vorbis is definitely the way to go. MP3 requires royalties for commercial use. Plus, I just added Ogg Vorbis support to Torque :)As far as extra info, you could technically add that as another Ogg stream in the file, but I think it would be easier to just have a seperate Torque script file that defines datablocks (kind of like the mission files.) That would be easier for the music engine to use. Of course, we would need to decide on what kind of data needs to go into those datablocks.
As far as looping, my Ogg Vorbis code is able to do seamless looping of the same file. It has the ability to seek to specific sample locations in the stream. We could just seek to the loop points and fill the buffers from there. I think it shouldn't be hard to do that with multiple streams either. We'd probably just open all the streams at the beginning and grab the headers and leave them waiting until the need to be used.
I agree on the seperate Audio forum too.
#25
Lets say I'm composing an action track that's about 6 minutes long. Given that the player may or may not be engaged in action that lasts those six minutes, I compose the track such that it has two breaks in it (say, roughly at 2min and 4min) and at those breaks I place the loop points.
Now fast forward to that track playing while in game. About 1:30 into the track, the player breaks off from the action and winds up in a calm area where nothing is going on. I assume that the track keeps playing until it hits the 2min loop point and then switches over to a peaceful track until the player gets back into the action. If the player stays engaged in the action, the 6 min track would keep on playing until its end, at which point it would switch to another action track if one is available, right?
I don't mind this whole dynamic music thing as long as I get to define where the game breaks in and out of my compositions.
One more question - what would I use to set these loop points (which seem more like break-away points, actually, if my understanding is correct)?
04/24/2002 (7:45 pm)
What function exactly do these loop points serve, and how would I use them while composing? Would it be anything like the following:Lets say I'm composing an action track that's about 6 minutes long. Given that the player may or may not be engaged in action that lasts those six minutes, I compose the track such that it has two breaks in it (say, roughly at 2min and 4min) and at those breaks I place the loop points.
Now fast forward to that track playing while in game. About 1:30 into the track, the player breaks off from the action and winds up in a calm area where nothing is going on. I assume that the track keeps playing until it hits the 2min loop point and then switches over to a peaceful track until the player gets back into the action. If the player stays engaged in the action, the 6 min track would keep on playing until its end, at which point it would switch to another action track if one is available, right?
I don't mind this whole dynamic music thing as long as I get to define where the game breaks in and out of my compositions.
One more question - what would I use to set these loop points (which seem more like break-away points, actually, if my understanding is correct)?
#26
I'm thinking this would all be defined is a seperate file similar to the mission files in Torque. It would contain datablocks such as MusicDescription that could contain the filename of the song as well as the transition points. We could have a MusicTransitions datablock that could define a transition from one place to another. Then we would need some script code or something take a 'state of the world' and determine if we should apply a transition.
To make it all easier, it would be nice to have some kind of editor.
How does this sound?
04/24/2002 (8:39 pm)
Well, my thoughts so far would be that you would define places, lets call them 'transition points', where we could possibly break from one song to another or another song. Then we could define transition rules to determine when we should jump and to where based on input from the game. I'm thinking this would all be defined is a seperate file similar to the mission files in Torque. It would contain datablocks such as MusicDescription that could contain the filename of the song as well as the transition points. We could have a MusicTransitions datablock that could define a transition from one place to another. Then we would need some script code or something take a 'state of the world' and determine if we should apply a transition.
To make it all easier, it would be nice to have some kind of editor.
How does this sound?
#27
Could you tell me where I can find out more information about Ogg Vorbis? I've never heard of it before.
And what is this about mp3 requiring royalties for commercial use? We have to pay (entity responsible for mp3?)??
I've never heard that before.
Ogg Vorbis seems like the way to go if what you say is true. I think something along the lines of some kind of simple editor would be great. Just something to define loop points. It would be really interesting to have songs that just cut into different sections without any crossfading... hmmm... this could be a very interesting experiment.
04/24/2002 (9:35 pm)
Sounds good to me. Could you tell me where I can find out more information about Ogg Vorbis? I've never heard of it before.
And what is this about mp3 requiring royalties for commercial use? We have to pay (entity responsible for mp3?)??
I've never heard that before.
Ogg Vorbis seems like the way to go if what you say is true. I think something along the lines of some kind of simple editor would be great. Just something to define loop points. It would be really interesting to have songs that just cut into different sections without any crossfading... hmmm... this could be a very interesting experiment.
#28
www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/
and here is a more user-oriented page:
www.vorbis.com/
As far as MP3 licensing, from mp3licensing.com:
I want to support mp3/mp3PRO in my products. Do I need a license?
Yes. As for practically any important technology (and particularly for publicly established standards), you should know that patent rights for mp3 exist. Both Fraunhofer IIS-A and Thomson multimedia have done important work to develop mp3 audio compression (before and after it became part of the ISO/IEC MPEG standards). This work has resulted in many inventions and several patents, covering the mp3 standard. Although others may also hold patents, Fraunhofer IIS-A and Thomson multimedia have an important portfolio of patents related to mp3.
Do I need a license to use mp3/mp3PRO in games?
Yes. Games using mp3/mp3PRO encoded content are licensed on a per-title basis.
However, No license fees are due if less than 5 000 copies of a particular game title are distributed.
04/25/2002 (8:37 am)
Here is the main page (developer oriented):www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/
and here is a more user-oriented page:
www.vorbis.com/
As far as MP3 licensing, from mp3licensing.com:
I want to support mp3/mp3PRO in my products. Do I need a license?
Yes. As for practically any important technology (and particularly for publicly established standards), you should know that patent rights for mp3 exist. Both Fraunhofer IIS-A and Thomson multimedia have done important work to develop mp3 audio compression (before and after it became part of the ISO/IEC MPEG standards). This work has resulted in many inventions and several patents, covering the mp3 standard. Although others may also hold patents, Fraunhofer IIS-A and Thomson multimedia have an important portfolio of patents related to mp3.
Do I need a license to use mp3/mp3PRO in games?
Yes. Games using mp3/mp3PRO encoded content are licensed on a per-title basis.
However, No license fees are due if less than 5 000 copies of a particular game title are distributed.
#29
use 2 audio channels
channe1 1 establishes a baseline something like just bass beat and background this doesnt vary much and its long a basic loop.
channel 2 is a little different in that the action or lack of determines what gets played this has an internal loop so you have
transition in
loop
transition out
its short but adds to the baseline it can loop as much as needed while the 'state' is in effect
bah its past my bedtime.
04/25/2002 (9:06 am)
okay dont flame me too bad since i'm neither a composer or a decent programmer so this might be stupid, my terminology may be off, and/or i'm missing the point completelyuse 2 audio channels
channe1 1 establishes a baseline something like just bass beat and background this doesnt vary much and its long a basic loop.
channel 2 is a little different in that the action or lack of determines what gets played this has an internal loop so you have
transition in
loop
transition out
its short but adds to the baseline it can loop as much as needed while the 'state' is in effect
bah its past my bedtime.
#30
I'm a go for the Ogg Vorbis.
Now... if we only had our own forum....
:P
04/25/2002 (5:44 pm)
Ahh.. Ogg Vorbis... hmm... it looks very cool to me. I only had time to take a cursory glance at it... But I tested out the drag and drop converter and it sounded very similar to the mp3. If there is a difference it's small enough that I couldn't tell if it was really there or if I was inventing it in my head. heheI'm a go for the Ogg Vorbis.
Now... if we only had our own forum....
:P
Torque Owner Kurtis Seebaldt