GuiguiBaah Music

Samples of sound/music, ideas or suggestions related to the development of audio assets for FreeOrion.
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guiguibaah
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GuiguiBaah Music

#1 Post by guiguibaah »

-= New May 1st =-

I've composed a few sountracks that could be specific to a race of that type of genre. Thanks to PD for hosting the space to put up the files.

The Noble humans
The Ancients
Content alien ambassador #232
Upset alien ambassador #232
Remix of Stratcaster's Warhorn.mp3
The Traygeagoggra (ver 2)
The Tusk
The Kangishans
Type 1 midis, zipped of above songs

I still have all the music I posted about 8 months ago - as well as all the planetary background .oggs and the sound effect .wav's. Please let me know if you wish to access them and I shall make them available.

(Oh, and I'm aware that humans.ogg has a "BRZZRZZ" around 1:03 - recording error on my part).

Feel free to make corrections to the midis if you'd like. Any suggestions?[/url]
Last edited by guiguibaah on Mon May 02, 2005 2:47 am, edited 18 times in total.
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iamrobk
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#2 Post by iamrobk »

I know Halo has that first option, and it's damn good. The music REALLY adds to that game. I just love how it is so seamlessly integrated.

LithiumMongoose
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#3 Post by LithiumMongoose »

Hi and welcome.

To answer your first question, I was definitely planning around what you call dynamic music. Ideally I want different themes for the galaxy map, ship design, space combat, and ground combat; those are the four basic categories for in-game music (not counting intro movie, title screen, victory screen, and end credits). Ship design is semi-optional, MOO3 didn't bother with a seperate track for it, MOO2 did, I happen to think it's worth it when done well.

I agree event-driven is cool, if you can pull it off. However, in a game like MOO, there really aren't a lot of different changes and triggers that come to mind -- maybe for the galaxy map 3 modes of neutral, peace, and war. Exactly how you define these is tricky though: does it go into war music mode when you just start a war, or when you're at war with anyone, or when you're at war with more than two or three players, or when you're at war with a majority of players? Then for space combat, 3 more music modes of quiet, skirmish, and full engagement.

The main problem I see with doing it this way, cool as it is, is that I was hoping for different themes for each race. I don't think the details have been nailed down yet but it's probably safe to assume there will be at least 8 races or so ultimately; I happen to think that's a good number, enough for diversity but not so many that they all start to feel similar and watered-down like with MOO3, which had 16-ish. And writing that many seperate themes for, at a minimum, the galaxy map, and making sure they're all really good is by itself going to be daunting. Let alone having different pieces for each race's space combat. I certainly wouldn't want to tackle seamless event-driven transitions that many seperate times.

That being said, I am also open to doing the event-driven modes as described above for both galaxy map and space combat. But it would severely limit how much giant-melting-pot incorporation of other people's compositions we could do. And since I already have several pieces posted that I really like, I would probably work on expanding those rather than using other people's work if we were going to do it this way. Personally, I think the replayability and feeling of real racial diversity from having seperate themes for each race outweighs the coolness of event-driven changes in the background music during gameplay. And it wouldn't really work to have event-driven changes in the themes for some races but not others.

As for what we need... thus far I've been working under the assumption I would probably wind up suppyling most of the music for the game. So I've been trying to write a little bit of everything. Please have a look at them (see the Mongoose Music thread) for an idea of what's already out there. Thus far I only have one galaxy map theme I'm really happy with (AI), so that's probably the area that still needs the most attention. I would recommend a variety of styles and genres depending on the race. An empire of lizards ala Saakra should have drums, exotic sounds, maybe some warhorns like Star Trek Klingon music. An empire of elves should sound very passionate and stoic and moving, maybe go classical with deep choir here. An empire of humans should be some combination of techno (I've said it before and I'll say it again, Starcraft Terran music is one of my all time favorites) and industrial, but don't overdo it. Etc. Biggest thing to keep in mind for galaxy map themes is they need to be SLOW. Stay in the BACKGROUND, with possible surges now and then. You're managing a galactic empire while this is playing, there needs to be an epic feel while staying relatively relaxed. (Not necessarily happy, just relaxed, save stressful for combat music.) Also try for something that's at least 5 minutes long and preferrably 10+; the longer it goes between repeats the, umm, less repetitive it sounds. :p And that's important.

Hope this helps. If you read the "Announcement" thread I talk a little about trying to minimize the number of ppl doing the actual production ie synth playback, which I suppose I should probably clarify at some point and put all this into a sticky... but anyway, suffice it to say composition assistance/submissions are welcome, but I'd prefer MIDI files so that I can at least try producing them off my synth hardware. For now though this is not required and feel free to post mp3s if you prefer.

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Ron_Lugge
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#4 Post by Ron_Lugge »

NitpicK: Fortisimmo doesn't have anything to do with rough, it just means very loud.
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PowerCrazy
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#5 Post by PowerCrazy »

You could also do different space combat music depending on the number of ships involved. For the occasional Scout v Scout encounter you have a sort of empty sounding soft music. For a quick skirmish of say 10-15 ships per side you have a faster, more urgent sound, but still background. Than for large fleet encounters, you have a full orchestra, with drums, and an Epic feel to it. That would be easy to program, though hard to come up with, but thats you guys problem. :D
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LithiumMongoose
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#6 Post by LithiumMongoose »

Tsk tsk, not paying close attention to my thread eh PowerCrazy? Hehehe. This is exactly what I've been working on doing with Collision and Only One, and Encounter which is still yet to come. Overall I like engagement size better than both player race and current state of the battle for choosing which combat music to play. Assuming it's only practical to do one of the three, I mean. That approach offers more variety than the same racial combat music over and over for a whole game, and conveys more immersion by adjusting for the battle size than you would get with the approach that varies it based on what the ships are actually doing at the present moment.

LithiumMongoose
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#7 Post by LithiumMongoose »

I can't find your music sets on either of the two sites you linked to... could you say how exactly to find them or provide a more direct link?

Also, it's been a while since your first post, are you working on any music for FO? (I assume your MOO3 efforts aren't available for reuse here?)

LithiumMongoose
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#8 Post by LithiumMongoose »

Your post about hosting belonged in this thread, not mine, since it was in regards to your work. I tried to move it but the best I could do was split it off into its own topic, so I wound up having to deleting it. Sorry.

To answer your question, this site right here is just a forum, nothing more. There is a sourceforge.net site for Free Orion, but we are hoping to conserve the limited space there for official projects only. Therefore I would recommend looking into any of the various free web hosting services available elsewhere. Or, if you prefer, you can email me the files and if I like them enough I will post them on my site until you find your own hosting. Thanks.

guiguibaah
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Files

#9 Post by guiguibaah »

Thanks for the info - I'll look into a few free website stuff, I guess if worse came to worse I could get a geocities account or something like that. Hmm, I should check to see how much webspace my ISP provides, proably can upload them there. I'll let you guys know when it's all done, thanks!
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guiguibaah
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Combat1

#10 Post by guiguibaah »

I wrote this song a couple of months ago, after reading the FO posts. I have another 4 to post, but I'll have to check how much room is available on the server.

http://webhome.idirect.com/~fokpjjjyu/combat1.mp3

The others are different styles.

Anyhoo, please criticize, since after listening to this one I already know a few things that should be changed. I can also post the .mid if need be.

thanks!
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Tyreth
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#11 Post by Tyreth »

I like it - should make a good combat sequence, in particular I can see it for an aggressive technology race. Not sure.

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Zanzibar
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#12 Post by Zanzibar »

no real ending... is this meant to be looped?

Xardas
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#13 Post by Xardas »

Oh it sounds great, I really liked it.
But if you want to loop it, the end and the beginning dont fit yet.
And after 2.00 Minutes it is becoming a bit solemn, heroic.
Hopefully you ve won the battle, but if not it is not the right music for this time.
I like the idea how to develop and to stress the music, but after 2.00 it should be a bit more agressive or be so like it is.
Maybe you can use the end partly as a victory.mp3 .
just my 2cent

LithiumMongoose
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#14 Post by LithiumMongoose »

I like it too. Let's see, looks like a soft square wave, hihats, a strong bass, a nice atmospheric synth, something in the background beat I can't really place, a lead synth that starts at 1:02 (interesting line), and some great synth strings that start at 2:25. I'm really curious where you got these instruments from, they sound terrific.

Okay, love the strings towards the end... I agree with Xardas it sounds more like a victory theme version of the same track from there on, but only when you compare it with what came before... I think if you made the whole piece sound stringy like that it'd be great.

I don't like the lead synth line so much (1:02), but only because the awesome background and the later string part are just so beautifully synthy and techno-atmospheric that the really edgy grating hard synth ruins the feel. The notes in the line themselves are fine.

No, you don't have to post the midi's, but I love taking a crack at these things just for the heck of it so I'd definitely appreciate it. :) I would definitely encourage you to post the other 4 asap though, and again, if you don't have room on there I'll be happy to host them myself for a while. But yeah this sounds very promising, thanks for contributing. :)

Pasi
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#15 Post by Pasi »

I'm going to turn the music/sound off from the game and listen to Future sound of london instead :D
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