new music for Oblivion

[slavatrumpevitch]

so, I just replaced the battle music from Oblivion with segments of Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring". It is sooo good! the intense ferocity of the music really gets in my head when I'm in the battles. Although i liked the music originally written for Oblivion, it's pretty hard to beat Stravinsky. I'm currently trying to put some Mahler in there too, but all my Mahler recordings are "protected AAC" and nothing I do seems to let me change it to mp3. anyone know if it's possible to change "protected AAC" files?

 

(Protected AAC files are the format you get when you buy music off iTunes)

[STiFU]

I can't help you with that, but I can talk about custom ingame music... I recently played a Multiplayer shooter - that I don't want to entitle here any further, because it will end up in endless discussions again, whether or not to play war games - while listening to "The Matrix Reloaded - Motion Picture score". It was awsome!! Makes you feel so majestic with your weapon. You almost felt like you could dodge bullets...

[Ratty]

ITunes is replacing its entire library with unlocked versions of its songs. It *was* letting you do it for songs you already own for something like 20 cents per song. I think I heard someplace they're letting you do it for free now, but I haven't checked on that. So you select the song you want to convert then do something or other--I forget what exactly, sorry--and it will replace the song in your Itunes. MP3 is one of the options.

 

Your Mahler may not be available in this form yet though. Go to http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2006/11/..._songs_o_2.html for several different options for getting songs off your Ipod and Itunes into MP3 and other formats.

[phide]

I use MyFairTunes, which now supports iTunes 7.5.0.20 with a patchfile. Open up iTunes, open up MyFairTunes, select the songs you wish to strip and go. Copy protection circumventation of this nature is likely illegal where you live, but this is Fair Use practice. You can encode to MP3 via MFT, but it's better practice to use LAME or another better-optimized encoder.

 

I did the same thing with Morrowind, by the way, except that I cut up certain parts of Howard Shore's score for LOTR and a couple tracks from Braveheart. I thought Soule did a decent-enough job with Oblivion, but I don't really understand why he's so in-demand these days. Sascha Dikiciyan's so much better

[oDDity]

Are you guys mental?

If you want to listen to music, then listen to it, but don't put it on as background noise while you're playing a game. It's an insult to Mahler, and he'd despise you for it.

[STiFU]

Well, it's all about creating a deeper (or more versatile) gaming experience. If you like to play with the default tracks over and over again, it's you deal, but if we chose to listen to different music while playing, for any reasons we (also) chose, we may do so. It seems like you got way to much free time... I don't have all day to listen to music. I got a job and my studies, so I see my free time as a priviledge which I may design as I wish and I don't care what anyone says how I should spend it. I hate to say it, but I'll do it anyway: LOL!! Are you seriously critisizing us because of listening to music while playing?! :D:D

[oDDity]

Tell me exactly how listening to Mahler while playing oblivion either makes Mahler sound better or makes the gameplay better.

The first thing I do in any game is turn the music off. It makes no sense to have music playing in a gameworld. It's just a gimmick game developers thieved from movies, however, it's not the same thing, since the music in movies can be made specifically for each scene, even down to a second for second relationship. Music in games is just generic, repetitive noise.

[phide]

Tell me exactly how listening to Mahler while playing oblivion either makes Mahler sound better or makes the gameplay better.

Most would find Mahler less objectionable than Jeremy Soule. Ergo, Oblivion is made less objectionable by replacing Jeremy Soule with Mahler.

 

I don't believe he said anything about it making Mahler "sound better" or about it changing gameplay for the better. Was that rhetorical question, by any chance?

[Crispy]

The first thing I do in any game is turn the music off. It makes no sense to have music playing in a gameworld. It's just a gimmick game developers thieved from movies, however, it's not the same thing, since the music in movies can be made specifically for each scene, even down to a second for second relationship. Music in games is just generic, repetitive noise.

Interesting point of view. What about dynamic music that changes based on the state of the game?

[Sotha]

Tell me exactly how listening to Mahler while playing oblivion either makes Mahler sound better or makes the gameplay better.

The first thing I do in any game is turn the music off. It makes no sense to have music playing in a gameworld. It's just a gimmick game developers thieved from movies, however, it's not the same thing, since the music in movies can be made specifically for each scene, even down to a second for second relationship. Music in games is just generic, repetitive noise.

 

-You probably regard phrase 'sometimes the whole is more than a sum of its parts' as rubbish that must be despised.

 

In my opinion music usually improves the gaming experience. However, it must be used skillfully and it has some downsides, the biggest being the fact that many games start playing combat music as soon as an enemy spots you, tipping the unsuspecting player that someone is attacking him. Still, I like good music with a good game, and I like Jeremy Soule's music even outside the virtual world.

[Gildoran]

Interesting point of view. What about dynamic music that changes based on the state of the game?

Unfortunately, it seems like most games interpret "dynamic music" as having a normal song and a combat song and starting one whenever the game state changes.

 

I'd love the see a game that actually altered its music, but they tend to be few and far between... Mario 64 (and Banjo-Kazooie) faded in/out instruments based on the player position, which actually worked quite well - it altered the feel of the music enough to improve ambiance, yet was subtle enough to not feel artificial; the first time I played the sunken-ship level, I thought it was a wonderful coincidence that I entered the water or the cave right as the music appropriately transitioned.

 

I've often thought it'd be cool to have conditionally branching music, but I don't think I've ever seen that implemented.

 

I guess the next step up would be algorithmically generated music... I know classical music can be randomly generated by computer programs - perhaps a musician with a CS background could write some algorithms to randomly alter/branch a background theme, kind of like how Farcry has randomly generated sound environments instead of playing one long wave.

[STiFU]

Ambient sounds and music create a better atmosphere in games in most cases. It's really neat to wander through big cornfields that are lighted red by the downgoing sun and listening to the chillout oblivion soundtrack and then all the sudden all heaven breaks lose, you see a gate to oblivion and many monsters. Dramatic moments like this are well captured by the soundtrack I think.

 

"Enter the Matrix" had really well dynamic Soundtrack by the way. I was always amazed how good it fit to the gameplay. Definitely worth checking out...

Edited December 21, 2007 by STiFU

[oDDity]

Gildoran - computer generated classical music?

*faints*

See, that's the problem with you guys, you don't even listen to the music anyway, like I say, it's just generic background noise while you concentrate on killing mudcrabs.

In which case, I'd much prefer you use computer generated noise, than music that some great composer has poured his heart and soul into.

[Gildoran]

Regarding computer-generated music, I was responding to this:

[Music is] just a gimmick game developers thieved from movies, however, it's not the same thing, since the music in movies can be made specifically for each scene, even down to a second for second relationship.

Two of the problems with current videogame music are that it's highly repetitive (because there's at most an hour or two of music to fill at least 20 hours of gameplay) and that it isn't tailored to suit the situation second-for-second; I was suggesting that both of these problems could perhaps be addressed by computer-generated music. This could transform videogame music from a stolen gimmick to something more analogous to cinematic music.

 

See, that's the problem with you guys, you don't even listen to the music anyway, like I say, it's just generic background noise while you concentrate on killing mudcrabs.

That simply isn't true. In the case of particularly enjoyable music, I've paused levels or delayed completing/leaving them so I could listen to the music a while longer without having to concentrate on other things. I collect favorite songs from videogames and enjoy listening to them long after I've completed or abandoned the game.

 

I'm not saying every game should have music, just that I don't believe it's automatically a bad idea.

[Domarius]

so, I just replaced the battle music from Oblivion with segments of Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring". It is sooo good! the intense ferocity of the music really gets in my head when I'm in the battles. Although i liked the music originally written for Oblivion, it's pretty hard to beat Stravinsky. I'm currently trying to put some Mahler in there too, but all my Mahler recordings are "protected AAC" and nothing I do seems to let me change it to mp3. anyone know if it's possible to change "protected AAC" files?

 

(Protected AAC files are the format you get when you buy music off iTunes)

Yep - use iTunes to burn songs to a CD-RW (so that you don't waste a CD-R) and then use any appropriate program (eg. Windows Media Player) to rip the audio tracks into unprotected MP3s.

[Tels]

Regarding computer-generated music, I was responding to this:

Two of the problems with current videogame music are that it's highly repetitive (because there's at most an hour or two of music to fill at least 20 hours of gameplay) and that it isn't tailored to suit the situation second-for-second; I was suggesting that both of these problems could perhaps be addressed by computer-generated music. This could transform videogame music from a stolen gimmick to something more analogous to cinematic music.

 

Which is funny, because even Ultime Underworld (an ooold game) had music that changed tune to the current situation (attack or not etc.)

 

I'm not saying every game should have music, just that I don't believe it's automatically a bad idea.

 

What he said

[Nyarlathotep]

I've often thought it'd be cool to have conditionally branching music, but I don't think I've ever seen that implemented.

As a CS major with a background in music, I've often thought about this as a way of making a better transition between different musical pieces, rather than simply (and annoyingly) cross-fading. E.g., if nextBar == barX, use this transition.

 

As an alternative to randomly generating the music, have you ever considered playing short "bursts" corresponding to the player's actions? A long fall could be accentuated by flutes descending chromatically, for example, or every clash of swords punctuated by bass drums. Not necessarily appropriate for a Thief-like game, but it could definitely be fun.

 

Actually, the Thief-style ambient music could probably be easily generated randomly/pseudo-randomly. It's built up pretty simply (sort of like layers of cake), and with a large stock of sounds, it could easily provide hours upon hours of "unique" music.

[Komag]

Far Cry did a reasonable job with it's dynamic music transitions

[Crispy]

I've heard of proposals where you have two (or as many as you like) looping music pieces which are identical in key, length, etc. and very similar in composition, except that some have additional tracks, or a different mix, to give the piece a different feel. For example, the combat music might have an additional drum track, louder bass, etc., but would otherwise be similar to the ordinary music. Then to transition between them, you'd cross-fade from one to the other, keeping them in sync with each other.

 

So if you started transitioning from "normal" to "combat", and the normal music was currently 32 seconds in, then you'd start playing the combat music at 32 seconds in, with 0% volume. Then over a few seconds, you fade the normal music down to 0% simultaneously with fading the combat music up to 100%.

 

In theory, the effect would be quite seamless since you'd basically just be fading individual tracks in and out. I've never heard the idea in action though (or if I have, then I didn't realise it at the time).

[STiFU]

I think everyone here knows what a crossface is, Crispy... Anyway, "Enter the Matrix" did exactly that and also enhancing the fades with instrumental effects IIRC. It's been a long time since I played that game, so I am not 100% sure, but what I am sure about is that it was amazing... I think the music even changed a little when you switched to bullet time. I really cannot understand why that game has such a bad reputation. It's endless fun!!

 

A friend of mine was planning to do a horrorscifi-shooter and we had plans that I should create a soundtrack like that for him too, but then he decided to do mulitplayer shooter and I don't give away my time for creating music for a game, in which most people will disable music anyway... =)

 

In case you are interested, his name is namespace, which some of you might probably know from the GTK Radiant 1.5 - and I think he also helped a little here, didn't he? - and here is the homepage for his engine: www.panic-dev.net . By now the team consists of three very capable coders and the engine is coming along really nicely, but they got the problem that they don't have any graphic artists. So if anyone here is interested in such work and doesn't work for The Darkmod yet: This could be your step into professional gamedevelopment...

[Crispy]

I think everyone here knows what a crossface is, Crispy...

Yes. This is a cross face:

 

 

Seriously though... I know everyone knows what a crossfade is. I elaborated with the example just to emphasise that you'd cross-fade while keeping the music tracks at corresponding locations, rather than always fading the second track in at its beginning.

[Sotha]

By now the team consists of three very capable coders and the engine is coming along really nicely, but they got the problem that they don't have any graphic artists.

 

-No wonder they have difficulties getting help, if their pages are only in german, limiting their possibilities to only GER -people.

 

There were some videos of some strange robots shooting star wars -looking slow lasers at each other. Didn't seem too exciting..

[STiFU]

Hehe good point. I didn't realize that so far. If you visit a homepage you don't specifically notice which language it is, just that you understand it... That's a little stupid of him and I'll tell him about it.

 

The video you have seen doesn't look too good, I know. It was shot because of a german hobby gamedevelopers convention and the whole thing was just put together real quick with a dirty robot mesh a friend of mine modeled in a couple of hours. What you spectated was LAN-multiplayer. If they already had graphics artists, it would look a lot better...

[slavatrumpevitch]

Oddity, I understand why it is that you prefer games without music, and that's fine. But don't act like I'm somehow a worse person for liking to listen to Danse Sacrale (the finale of the Rite of Spring) as I battle Minotaurs. You may think that this is somehow proof that I lack musicality or somthing, but, I can assure you, quite the opposite is true. I happen to be a classical music performance major at one of the top music schools in the world. Mahler and Stravinsky are my 2 favorite composers. I never said Oblivion added to my enjoyment of Mahler, I simply said Mahler added to my enjoyment of Oblivion. I see nothing wrong with this. And if Mahler would be upset by this, that reflects on him, not on me.

[oDDity]

Well no, you can't say 'that's his problem'. It's also his music, and his wishes have to be respected in the matter.

We can't ask him, but I doubt he'd be happy having it used in such a trivial and frivolous way, as background ambience for a kids game.

I love the way you give yourself the right to use his music in whatever nefarious way you want, just because he's dead and can't say anything about it.