I've been a fan of clonk for a long time, and I was quite exited to hear it's gone open source.
I was even more exited to hear you guys are looking for musicians, and although I never participated In a video game project, I really hope that I can contribute to this project.
I went and made a small concept track.
It's not amazing, I've made far better stuff, but I hope I can contribute music in the future.
This is the link:
http://www.2shared.com/file/12627151/3033b5e2/Video_Game_Concept.html
It's short. made to play in a loop. It's in MP3 format for comfort, but I can always convert.
tell me what you guys think (:
Anyway, sounds relaxing. Not sure if it fits the current action-paced scenarios. But having music would be really cool regardless, maybe for the title screen?
Yeah I noticed that, Next time I'll upload somewhere better, this was only an example.
"Anyway, sounds relaxing. Not sure if it fits the current action-paced scenarios."
I can also write things that fit better into the action part of the game, should I create a track with more action-like atmosphere?
"But having music would be really cool regardless, maybe for the title screen?"
If you need a title theme, I can definitely write something more complex or interesting, something with more of a "Theme" feeling.
this brings me to another idea - imo we should not have one great music folder, but several smaller ones, for different themes. so we could have a folder for melees and one for settlement. maybe we also need more folders, maybe for puzzle-scenarios.
Well composing music is one thing, but composing music for clonk is a bit complicated. Clonk creates many different situations while playing, and therefore the players get confronted with different feelings all the time. A track for clonk needs to be something that can easily switch feelings between different situations.
There will most likely be music packets - and the scenario designer will choose the music packets which fits the best for his scenarios. But even with that we can't just compose anything we like.
Furthermore, game music is played in the background. The former Clonk composer HCK (soundtracK=10years old) stated that he disliked the high amount of different melodies in his tracks. Because of that the tracks became annoying after some time of playing.
The point is: We need to keep it simple for staying in the background of the game, but we have to make the tracks interesting at the same time - nobody is gonna like the soundtrack if it always sounds the same.
Concerning your track:
The tense mood is created by the 3rd appregio or chord in the theme, this sounds great 1 or 2 times. But you can't create a whole track on one simple theme switching only the instrument leading the melody (and different background instruments). This track will become boring after like 3 minutes of listening. Furthermore the melody gets stuck in the head (because of the striking sound of the 3rd chord), this will even fasten the short time a listener isn't annoyed by it. Well of course it depends on the situation the track is played in. The solo fits quite nice into the track on the other hand.
I think the loop is not necessary, if too tracks won't fit one after another we could create a FadeOut/In-Script that connects the different songs (like radio channels do it).
Well anyway, I'm glad we have a professional in our ranks :)
You're absolutely right, video game music in general is very difficult to create.
It's especially difficult to create video game music, because the music has to be in sync with the game, the rhythm of the characters, environment and more.
but both the first and the second tracks are sketches for what I have in mind.
The trick is making a track both static and dynamic to avoid the listener getting bored\annoyed\distracted
I'll keep working on it, Thank you for your comment (:
The Music engine generates a random beat (between 80 and 200 bpm), a hi-hat rhythm and a melody that plays the tones of the harmonics (3 or 4 tones per harmony)
the problem with this was, that the harmonys itself could bore, too (http://opensvn.csie.org/gwxsource/Music/) and the schemes, a computer can play to it are not that colourful than a human instrumental solo. You can either have many "wrong" tones with a high risk to get something not sounding good or you can force all played notes being in the scheme, but thats too boring because then you are only allowed to play 3 or 4 different notes.
What happened after that? did you stick with it or did something else?
You would have to sort of tell the PC what sounds good and let him "compose" it's own music afterwards.
But it's rather complicated, I think :)
But it sounds - yes, procedural/random
The computer has a basic key and is playing around with the appregios (chord patterns) and a couple of instruments. But he can't build tension and release it - an essential skill for every song.
(Although of course we haven't reached the human level everywhere yet, but for me this is just a matter of time until machines start passing the Turing test).
Of course if you just say "this is impossible", then you are not able to recreate it artificially. You just have to start with what is possible and continue working on.
I should specify myself: All the computer has to know is harmonics.
Harmony itself (by the way only one of at least over 10 other subjects in university) can be very advanced and complicated - and not mathematical logial. A bad sound, may sound good in certain circumstances which a computer can't grasp without beeing taught much about human feelings and artistic expressions.
Trust me, a computer which could compose some stuff which is worth hearing is a lot of work and more work.
But procedural would fit other game, even if it doesn't make "sense" in a composing way. I think about very abstract games like Love
>Trust me, a computer which could compose some stuff which is worth hearing is a lot of work and more work.
And if something like this would exist, other componists, bands and singers will loose their jobs. :P
The last one being paid by the government, the taxes would plummet, leading to a less poor population with lower criminality.
Gogogo, someone make a good compositing program :D
Edit:
Oh by the way, It's meant to play in a loop, but I messed up a little with making it run smoothly, so it's not perfect, I'll perfect it when I can, you can still listen to it, it just has a little problem with looping (:
I hereby license the following file(s) under the CC-by license
While the track fits in a certain situation (like in an adventure) it won't do in the general gameplay, it is too catchy again. And try to compose something with more themes in it (I know that connecting to themes is one of the harder parts, in this song I would try a cool down part in the middle or a slow middle part that will boost in the solo finish).
I couldn't attach the file so I uploaded it to sendspace
I hereby license the following file(s) under the CC-by license
http://www.sendspace.com/file/5l2kmj
But it is really hard to describe how I would change it. For me it all is still one theme with variations, even the slow part. It all sounds more like the composition of a band which is having a great time jamming.
Well it is not boring or something, it also fits the scenario quite well. But I don't think this will do in the long run. I somehow like it as well...
Is there a possibility to release it as a midi file with your programs for fast changes? I can't operate professional music software though, if midi won't work I may try a rearrangement to show you the things I don't like.
Although It would be great to collaborate with you, I simply can't.
If you want me to export all the midi clips and put it in a .rar file and send it to you, it's possible, but it'll be hours of work to make it sound right for you, and then hours of work for me to make it sound right with my instruments.
although we don't need to do all that, you can just tell me where in the track I need to make changes and I will, I understand your point, it evolves slowly and stays in the same overall groove, creating a "Jam" feeling, best way to solve this, would be if you could send my an example of what kind of genre direction openclonk is looking for.
Also, don't forget - every level in clonk can last a LONG time, and one track repeating itself won't work, Which would probably lead us to change tracks in mid level, like in the previous clonk games.
This is an assumption though, I do not know what the plans are for the sound engine are.
another way to go around this is for a few musicians would work on different aspects of a track (midi), then one musician will take it all, arrange it, and export it.
>best way to solve this, would be if you could send my an example of what kind of genre direction openclonk is looking for.
The style of the new soundtrack is still a big question in dispute, there exist dozens of opinions regarding this topic.
I for my part promote a funky or a calm jazz based sound for the tracks because they have the the characteristics which I think we need (Your sentence fits perfect here: "The trick is making a track both static and dynamic to avoid the listener getting bored\annoyed\distracted"), mixed with the elements we build the track for (a settlement scenario/a race/action etc.).
Also there is the advantage that it is possible to mix a jazz like feeling with almost any feeling a enviroment or an object pack would require. It easily adepts most of the styles... although this may be very hard.
I also made positive experience with the eke-midi-package for clonk while playing (~which was like 5 or more years ago, but I still have it) that was filled with a mixture of groove and jazz tracks (James Brown or Hello Mrs Robinson e.g.). It's hard to describe the influences outside of clonk, I'm some sort of soundtrack geek having listenend to a few hundred fantasy soundtracks mainly.
This is only my opinion. There are a lot of others, and there are a lot of other methods too which may result in good tracks as well.
I've started composing again today, I may upload a sample midi in a few days. But the problem with me is that although I'm working on music a lot (I plan to study film music and I'm currently working to have the money to approach it in one year or something), I'm some kind of peculiar (mostly self taught and in dispute with the teachers I had).
>Also, don't forget - every level in clonk can last a LONG time, and one track repeating itself won't work, Which would probably lead us to change tracks in mid level, like in the previous clonk games.
This is an assumption though, I do not know what the plans are for the sound engine are.
I'm pretty sure this will be the case, but the option to try loop based tracks is possible either.
>another way to go around this is for a few musicians would work on different aspects of a track (midi), then one musician will take it all, arrange it, and export it.
Yes we had this in mind already, Shadow is buying a new soundcard for his computer and will hopefully boost into project after that :)
Perhaps it's too early to talk practical, since there are barely (if any?) musicians working on the music right now.
Better for me to wait a bit until music goes up in the priority list, so that I can help a bit more.
It was fun making this track, so I hope it will be soon(:
> It seems it's to early to say anything frankly, Music seems to be at the bottom of the priority list of the project
Why do you think that? This is definitely not the case. As Music.c4g is currently empty we really need some tracks :)
> Better for me to wait a bit until music goes up in the priority list, so that I can help a bit more.
Your work is very much appreciated.
Seems like this is the perfect moment to change this.
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