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Feature Request: Music Playlist Expansion

Hi all!

So, I'm really digging the new music handling from 1.51.  My composer and I are chatting about how we're going to deal with music in Arkhangel, and had some requests to expand the music playlists a little more.

Right now, the Music Playlist/Storage is super high-level, which is awesome, but we wanted to see if we could get a little more micro with it.  Our idea is that each scene would have it's own little container playlist that could be fully randomized and then turned off when going into a different scene.

The idea is that in addition to having "Add new music clip" in the Music Storage window, we would also have "Add new music container" (or something like that) which would, essentially be another playlist that you could add an intro cue, several short phrases/loops that could be randomized, and possibly a resolve/ending cue for a specific scene...all in one location.  Now, we can almost get there right now, although it takes a lot of elbow grease to make it happen, plus we don't get true randomization.  It would be really awesome to have one call where you could setup a container that has all cues for one scene wrapped up into single place and can be triggered once rather that having a spaghetti of actionlists that are triggered all over the place.

I know it's a pretty specific ask and you have tons of stuff on your plate, but this would be really awesome to give more dynamics to music in our title.  There's a lot of exploration with Arkhangel, so having more randomization with music calls would be really great.  Keeps the music from being too repetitive and predictable.

Thanks a bunch!
-Zack Q

Comments

  • edited August 2016
    Ummm... isn't that what dynamic tracks are for? i.e.: you compose several segments of the same loop with differing intensities, and a few bridges if necessary, so you can change between them depending on the intensity of the action -important parts of a conversation or battle, etc- (Music composition and orchestration is one of my fortes so I understand this stuff...). 

    Well, I'm not much a fan of randomized music(specially of small phrases)... as it tends to kill themes if there's any and it makes for forgettable music... but from a programmers point of view, wouldn't it be a better idea to just code a custom action for the randomization? (or a MonoBehaviour script). As far as I see there's no need to modify the whole playlist system, all you got to do is ask for a list of tracks (Array or List), ask for one track for starting and one for ending and then work the randomization of the main list directly in the script. Maybe using a gVar to keep track of when to end or do some changes if necessary.

    Still, I've personally never manipulated music in code using AC, so maybe Chris can assist in the creation of the action/script. I can't deny It could be a very interesting addition to the current features.
  • I think having a "sub-container" could make things messy for an official change, but you ought to be able to get somewhere with a custom Action.  The code for the Music Storage window isn't actually in the Action - instead the data is stored in the Settings Manager - so a new Action could manipulate the Music Engine without a hassle.

    To get the Music Engine, you just need:

    Music music = KickStarter.stateHandler.GetMusicEngine ();

    And the Scripting Guide's entry for the Music Engine is here.

    I can certainly look to make the current music Action work with parameters - which will allow you to create a generic chain of "Intro", "Loop", "Outro" chain of Actions in an ActionList, that you can then call whenever you want - and set which tracks are run at the time that you call the ActionList.
  • @Alverik - Yeah, it's basically a method of me being able to leverage a few assets in a more dynamic way to try and combat overt repetition.  Getting more for less.  I have quite a bit of experience with this stuff, but not in code (usually using something like Wwise or FMOD Studio).

    @ChrisIceBox - That would be great if you could look into setting the music action up with parameters.  Not sure how much I'll be able to do on my side with a custom Action.  Not the best coder on the planet, so I'd probably need to have someone look at it for my whilst I attempt to unbury myself from the mountain of work on this game.  :D  Thanks so much for thinking about it!  Most appreciated! 
  • @themightzq - Would Master Audio be able to accomplish this?
  • edited August 2016
    @Deckard_89 - Perhaps, although I am trying to refrain from adding new systems to the project at this point unless they are natively supported by Adventure Creator.  I'll give it a look!  Thanks!
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