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Ambient Music


Gildoran

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Hi... This looks like a great Thief-style mod and I eagerly await it! I'd love to do anything I can to help out (well, once summer vacation starts) and/or get earlier access to the toolkit.

 

I was trying to think of any excuse to apply to the team, and then it occured to me that maybe I could try making some kind of slightly Thief-ish ambiance music. I make no claims of quality, but I figured it couldn't hurt to try...

 

Crypt/Catacombs Ambiance

 

In truth my personal preference is usually for making maps and programming, but making some background-ambiance seemed like the least time-consuming thing I could have something to show for (also, my map-making experience is mostly limited to HL1, though I intend to remedy that once school is over). Hmm... that just reminded me I have a screen-shot of a map I had started for Day of Defeat a couple of years ago: (The tree textures are my own.)

 

Bunker

 

No hard feelings if this isn't what you're looking for. I just had to try. ;) Thanks for listening!

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Unfortunately, not yet, since school has been pretty hectic, and I had been concentrating on getting wearable items to work in my T:DS map before starting on the architecture. (I didn't want to get too far only to end up corrupting my gamesys) ...hopefully in a few weeks, though. Perhaps I'll ask again if/when I get a reasonably good map working.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Ok... now that school has been out for almost a week, I've been playing with the Doom 3 editor, and here's a quick little room I managed to make. Granted, I still have much to learn about Doom 3, and the texturing in many places is poor, but I wanted to have something to quickly show off. With time I could improve the quality of the room (the ceiling in the catwalk area could probably use some support beams, and the electrical tress could be improved at the edges where it meets the walls, etc), but I'm hoping this might be enough so far to show that I'm capable of learning. :)

 

delta.pk4

 

The idea behind it, is you're an engineer on Mars, and your boss walked in on you while you were showing off your talented impersonation of him, so he decided to move your office to a storage closet... well, not so much of a storage closet so much as a tunnel access point that's being used to store stuff. Then you find out that you've been volunteered for the Delta Experiments, so you need to find a way off Mars.

 

It's just a single room, not a whole map. To view it, just do the following:

1. Put the pk4 file in a folder.

2. Play Doom 3 and select your folder from the mod menu.

3. Pull down the console (CTRL+ALT+`) and type "map volunteer".

 

As for optimization, I've tried to keep most surfaces lit by 1-3 lights, and only a few small areas lit by 4. There are also some tiny slivers lit by 5 lights. Also, although I haven't used area portals yet, I beleive I understand them just fine.

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  • 1 year later...

I know you say you're filled up with music guys, but if you ever want somthing a tiny bit less ambient, I can help you out. I can compose, arrange, and perform. And if you want some more ambient sounds, I can give you some recordings of a really ominous/mysterious sounding solo trumpet (but it's not the in-your-face trumpet sound, it's more subtle, and would work well as background music to a foggy cemetary, or spooky forest or whatnot.)

 

personally i think too much of the music for most of the thief games is done with synthesizers, and at best an electric guitar. trumpets are a very idiomatic 'thief-universe' sound and i think they would fit well, if used sparingly.

Milestones approaching:

Recital: 3-24-12

ToughMudder: 4-15-12

Release first FM: ?-?-20??

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I like that Thief utilizes synthesizers as it does. But there is an 'oboe' sort of sound in Thief 2, so I guess it's not too far out of the realm of possibility that a trumpet sound could theoretically work. Do you have a sample? If the trumpet by itself wouldn't work, then digitizing it with synthesizers probably would :) EDIT: Come to think of it, I think there is subtle trumpet-music somewhere in Thief, isn't there? Either way, I think a sample would be neat to hear.

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Aye, please post a sample so we can hear!!! :D pleeeeease...

 

i'll get right on that. it might take a few weeks, b/c i'm currently moving, so i'm using a temporary computer that doesn't have any of my stuff on it. but you can expect somthing by mid july

Milestones approaching:

Recital: 3-24-12

ToughMudder: 4-15-12

Release first FM: ?-?-20??

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I like that Thief utilizes synthesizers as it does. But there is an 'oboe' sort of sound in Thief 2, so I guess it's not too far out of the realm of possibility that a trumpet sound could theoretically work. Do you have a sample? If the trumpet by itself wouldn't work, then digitizing it with synthesizers probably would :) EDIT: Come to think of it, I think there is subtle trumpet-music somewhere in Thief, isn't there? Either way, I think a sample would be neat to hear.

 

yes, there is some brass soli stuff in the Bonehoard.

 

"so I guess it's not too far out of the realm of possibility that a trumpet sound could theoretically work."

 

and trumpet isn't at all out of the realm of possibilty. aside from drums, trumpets (athough they were primitive (known as sackbuts which had no valves)) were some of the earliest instruments, and are very 'thief-universy', much more so than oboe in my opinion. Oboes weren't invented until the 18th century i beleive. and trumpet like instruments have been around since biblical times. "think shofar, and wall of jericho). virtually all medieval music was choral, percussive, or played on trumpets(fanfares, Processionals, wedding marches, etc...) and although the thief universe isn't entirley medieval, I would imagine that trumpets would still have freatured prominently in the music of the time. (it sounds kind of silly to say that about a made up city in a made up world in a made up time-period, but you know what I mean)

 

sorry about the diatribe, i understand the reasons that trumpet/other brass instruments are often avoided for ambient music b/c they can be overpowering when not played tastefully, but I think there is a large amount of potential in that area.

Milestones approaching:

Recital: 3-24-12

ToughMudder: 4-15-12

Release first FM: ?-?-20??

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I agree there's great potential, which is why I was hoping to hear a sample. A solo-trumpet can have a lonely, solo, moody feel to it; which could fit very well in Thief. All the talk about 18th century instruments, etc. isn't really necessary, considering synthesizer sounds (heavily used in Thief) weren't out until the 20th century :) When I mentioned oboes, I was more referring to the quality of sound they can make (solo, lonely, moody) versus what time period they came out.

 

Don't forget that The Dark Mod is a toolset with some pre-made stuff, including sounds... but fan mission authors will be able to add their own sounds and music, including trumpets, however they see fit. :D

 

Looking forward to mid-July, though...

Thanks!

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Oboes definitely have that lonely feel about them. I think that the English Horn has even more of a melancholy feel about it. The Baroque oboes first appeared around the 17th century but were descendants of the overly-loud shawm from the Medieval period. So, maybe a shawm with a lot of reverb! ;)

 

The trumpet does have a certain sound that can be melancholy and empty, but played solo it tends to evoke too much of a feeling of the military (since most armies use a trumpet for calls, reverie, taps, etc.). Natural (straight) trumpets without valves lend more of an authentic air to earlier music since there are only certain intervals/notes which can be played by the trumpet. The boneyard, if I remember correctly, used the "horn fifth" for the eerie sound of "The Horn of Qunitus."

 

Have any of you guys ever noticed that the sound guy from the original Thief series used samples of Mozart's "Requiem", some J.S. Bach pieces, and what sounds like a part of Gustav Holst's "The Planets" reversed? It's amazing what a reversing the audio file and adding some extra reverb does to a sound.

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."- Frank Zappa

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and one of the tunes the hammerites hum is a 99% direct quote from Pictures at an Exhibition (by mussorgsky)

Milestones approaching:

Recital: 3-24-12

ToughMudder: 4-15-12

Release first FM: ?-?-20??

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Trumpet is one of my favourite instruments actually. Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis.. Great album! I'm also a big fan of mariachi which is very not-Thief but awsome nontheless. Watched Calexico live last month. Heaven! :)

 

Anyway. I'm sure a lonely trumpet would fit in well with the universe if played properly. A sample would be, as others have said, appreciated.

 

Also, I'm guessing you're sitting on a quality microphone if you do your own recordings? Would you be able to help out with SFX as well?

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