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Jimmy

Please support your favorite content creators.

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2 hours ago, Edward850 said:

That

 

Curb your passive-aggressiveness chief, it ain't welcome.

 

"Job" is the word that doesn't only mean "a paid work", but also means person with a job has responcibilities and duties he has to answer to, while hobby makesyou answer to noone but yourself. And also not every job can be a hobby, and not every hobby can be a job, plane modeler won't always make a good plane constructor, and a builder may not like legos.

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^hell yes :3

 

a retooled .IT or .XM driver would be helpful for dynamic music, the game sending the driver the message to move to different closed loops of the same song or to mute/unmute certain channels

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11 hours ago, Jimmy said:

- Vertical layering, or additive composition, involves having the layers of a track fade in and fall away at certain points. Essentially you're playing maybe three or more audio tracks at once, but in less intense situations all but one are silent; then more gameplay intensity means more layers become audible at once, until all of them are playing.

If I'm understanding this correctly, this is one of my favorite (if not the favorite) music style(s) that just drags me in for more.  This goes back to the way the Zone Of The Enders music worked.  More recent examples I can come up from the top of my head are LoZ: Skyward Sword and Celeste, and I'm sure there are plenty more.  I just never knew what the style was called.

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There's another alternative to the vertical layering which is where you swap out instruments entirely to give the music a new feeling. For example, in the 90's 3d platformer Banjo Kazooie, when you go underwater the lead instrument would swap out for something for fitting for an aquatic environment, which is pretty cool in my opinion! :)

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558 midis and counting. If that doesn't deserve support, nothing does.

 

22 hours ago, Jimmy said:

@kb1 I actually did some reading on the subject of "dynamic music" for a university presentation. There's a few different ways to go about it:

 

- Linear looping is the way it works in all Doom source ports. Track starts, track ends, track loops back on itself. Not dynamic at all, really.

- Vertical layering, or additive composition, involves having the layers of a track fade in and fall away at certain points. Essentially you're playing maybe three or more audio tracks at once, but in less intense situations all but one are silent; then more gameplay intensity means more layers become audible at once, until all of them are playing.

- Horizontal resequencing also entails multiple audio files, with each getting played sequentially. A change in gameplay then means that the audio file being played must be swapped out after the currently-playing file is finished. Each file is therefore only a few bars of music.

 

The most straightforward means of composition is obviously the first one, while the most arduous is the last one. The middle technique therefore makes a nice middle-ground between the two and I think it's how a lot of game music these days works.

 

All of this and more is in "A Composer’s Guide to Game  Music" by award-winning game composer Winifred Phillips.

 

Horizontal resequencing should be used more often imo. The only FPS I can name from the top of my head that used this was Descent 3, where each individual segment would loop like a linear looping track, but it would then switch over to the next once you progress past a certain point in the level. It worked really well (probably aided by the fact that the music in Descent 3 is awesome, heh)

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On 5/17/2019 at 6:07 AM, Jimmy said:

@kb1 I actually did some reading on the subject of "dynamic music" for a university presentation. There's a few different ways to go about it:

 

- Linear looping is the way it works in all Doom source ports. Track starts, track ends, track loops back on itself. Not dynamic at all, really.

- Vertical layering, or additive composition, involves having the layers of a track fade in and fall away at certain points. Essentially you're playing maybe three or more audio tracks at once, but in less intense situations all but one are silent; then more gameplay intensity means more layers become audible at once, until all of them are playing.

- Horizontal resequencing also entails multiple audio files, with each getting played sequentially. A change in gameplay then means that the audio file being played must be swapped out after the currently-playing file is finished. Each file is therefore only a few bars of music.

 

The most straightforward means of composition is obviously the first one, while the most arduous is the last one. The middle technique therefore makes a nice middle-ground between the two and I think it's how a lot of game music these days works.

 

All of this and more is in "A Composer’s Guide to Game  Music" by award-winning game composer Winifred Phillips

There are some technical aspects that would drive the possibilities. I haven't really thought it through, but let me present my initial ideas on this:

  • You have your basic, soft, slow tempo track which is the default music. This plays at the start of the level, at the end of the level, and inbetween any "action".
  • The engine itself has a metric that it regularly updates, in some method as of yet not determined, but essentially is a measure of the level of excitement being experienced by the player. It could be number of monsters visible, maybe combined with average number of shots fired, etc. Let's call it ExcitementLevel, 1 to 3, where 1 = boring, and 3 = a massive fight taking place :)

Let's say that this default song is, maybe 4 minutes long, with various repeating sections (chorus, verses, bridge, etc.) The engine would have some knowledge of the structure of the song, and the engine would have some way to detect which section of the song was playing.

 

Now, instead of having 1 song, imagine having 3 songs with the same number and position of bridges, choruses, etc. On each transition from verse to chorus, or maybe after each bar, there's an opportunity to switch from the slow "boring" song, to the "exciting", or the "crazy fight" song at the proper section. Each song could have a different tempo, but would have to be in a comparable key, to allow smooth transition from one song fragment to the other.

 

Basically, this should allow you to have smooth transitions from ExcitementLevel 1 to level 2 or 3, and back again, in a way that sounds completely natural, without missing a beat.

 

Do you think you could compose a triple song like this, complete with the data stream needed by the engine to identify the location of the music player within the song? And, does this sound interesting to you? I think the ability to dynamically transition the music would add a whole new depth to Dooming!

 

I'm no composer, but I can probably throw together a couple of convincing demos to showcase the technology. I just wanted to get your thoughts on the matter, and be able to access your "ExcitementLevel" :)

 

On 5/17/2019 at 5:58 AM, Pooh said:

 

Curb your passive-aggressiveness chief, it ain't welcome.

 

"Job" is the word that doesn't only mean "a paid work", but also means person with a job has responcibilities and duties he has to answer to, while hobby makes you answer to no one but yourself.

So, to you a "hobby" is a non-serious work, and, somehow you think answering to yourself is a lesser responsibility than answering to an employer.

I, for one, take *all* work that I do seriously. And, if I share my work, yes, I am responsible for it. In fact, that's my reputation on the line.

 

That's why your definition sucks. Jimmy is obviously very serious about his "hobby", and that's why his "hobby" is every bit as prestigious as any career. And if someone values his work, by definition they place a value upon his work. If the listener and the creator can agree on terms that both parties see as valuable, then a transfer of value is in order. And, if doing so allows Jimmy to continue to generate the media for which value transfer makes sense, then, yeah, please support your favorite content creators.

 

And, don't try to belittle their accomplishments by calling them "hobbies", because a hobby is just a job where you don't get paid. If something is worth listening to, by definition, it has worth, therefore half a transaction has taken place. By supporting, you're providing a space for creators like Jimmy to continue generating worth. It's the right thing to do.

 

Quote

And also not every job can be a hobby, and not every hobby can be a job, plane modeler won't always make a good plane constructor, and a builder may not like legos.

Again, you're making an assumption that "hobby work" is of less worth. Legos? Seriously? Quit while you're ahead. "Plane constructor"? Who says his plane is any good? You're arguing for the sake of arguing, and you're not very good at it." Is arguing your "hobby"? I don't even know what you're trying to say...

 

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That sounds doable. I would keep all three tracks at the same tempo, though - or everything, particularly noticeable things like the drums/rhythm section, will get badly out of sync, and ruin any player's immersion. These systems tend to have to be designed so that these changes are perceptible but not invasive to the gameplay experience.

 

But yeah, what you say makes a lot of sense and I'm pretty sure Doom 2016's dynamic music system is very similar to this. Can it be done with MIDI, though? I'm not sure. Whether there's an easy way to allow for multiple streams of MIDI playback to occur at once, even if only one should be audible at a time and the individual streams should be crossfaded between, I don't rightly know. It's absolutely possible for audio files, though.

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I remember seeing some ZDoom Mod that allowed you to have multiple tracks and it would switch between them depending on circumstances in the map. Can't remember what it was called though.

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3 hours ago, Jimmy said:

But yeah, what you say makes a lot of sense and I'm pretty sure Doom 2016's dynamic music system is very similar to this. Can it be done with MIDI, though? I'm not sure. Whether there's an easy way to allow for multiple streams of MIDI playback to occur at once, even if only one should be audible at a time and the individual streams should be crossfaded between, I don't rightly know. It's absolutely possible for audio files, though.

 

Ghetto solution - convert midis to MP3/OGG/WAV or whatever :P

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13 hours ago, Jimmy said:

That sounds doable. I would keep all three tracks at the same tempo, though - or everything, particularly noticeable things like the drums/rhythm section, will get badly out of sync, and ruin any player's immersion. These systems tend to have to be designed so that these changes are perceptible but not invasive to the gameplay experience.

Naw, that's the purpose of being able to track which measure of the song is currently being played. When the ExcitementLevel variable changes, that change is queued until the music player finishes up the current measure. Once the last beat is played, the player should be able to seamlessly transition to the corresponding measure of the other song.

 

Actually, maybe switching between 2 or 3 complete songs may not be enough to create the effect I'm looking for, I am prepared to build enough complexity into this system to be able to accommodate whatever rules are needed to produce the effect I'm looking for. Maybe, for each measure of the 'default' song, there's a special rule that determines how the transition should occur. Unfortunately, I don't really know how complex such a system needs to be.

 

It should be generic enough that it can be applied to multiple songs - one per level. I think I need to create a demonstration or two. I could hard-code the functionality for a single demo, or even just mix a song manually, and play it alongside a Doom demo.

 

To best describe what I'm looking for: Are you old enough to remember the good, old Saturday morning cartoons? The ones that typically had very little dialog. Typically, it was big band/classical stuff, like the Coyote and the RoadRunner. The music applied to every action of the cartoon: When Coyote tip-toed over to his machine, you'd hear a violin plucking each footstep. And, when the chase began, the music picked right up. Every note was carefully orchestrated, and it was a work of art!

 

I'm looking for something much less complex: Ammo/health gather stage, and fight stage. I'll see if I can create a simple demo. Done correctly, this could really add a lot to the game, I think.

 

13 hours ago, Jimmy said:

 

But yeah, what you say makes a lot of sense and I'm pretty sure Doom 2016's dynamic music system is very similar to this. Can it be done with MIDI, though? I'm not sure. Whether there's an easy way to allow for multiple streams of MIDI playback to occur at once, even if only one should be audible at a time and the individual streams should be crossfaded between, I don't rightly know. It's absolutely possible for audio files, though.

It's very do-able with MIDI - my Doom port is doing MOD to MIDI conversion on the fly, vs. the common solution (doing the conversion on level load). So, yes, music generation can be code-driven in realtime, without much overhead.

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How was I not already following on twitch. This oversight will have to be corrected immediately.

 

Jimmy you are an absolute legend, literally beyond compare. I wish you all the best now and in the future.

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19 hours ago, Jimmy said:

hellhole of a city called Perth

1. To get this out of my head: HELL ON PERTH

 

2. Glad I grab albums of yours off Bandcamp when I can! Will be sure to keep supporting and spreading the word.

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Oh Jimmy is from Perth? Well it's a couple steps up from Darwin I suppose.

 

I call a few Western Australian businesses in my job and they are all like "there's no work here!"

Did you know during the mining boom some WA people wanted to separate from the rest of the country so they can depend on the mining industry alone?

 

I wish you all the best Jimmy.

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What a capitalist shitpit this side of the world truly is. "Let's depend on coal mining forever". Yeah sure, buddy.

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17 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

What a capitalist shitpit this side of the world truly is. "Let's depend on coal mining forever". Yeah sure, buddy.

Sounds like the American South.

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2 hours ago, Chris Hansen said:

Come to Denmark, Jimmy. Bicycles and windmills everywhere! And buttercookies.

The danish buttercookies tins' are widely used in my country by old ladies to store their sewing tools for some reason. The cookies are delicious though!

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43 minutes ago, Andromeda said:

The danish buttercookies tins' are widely used in my country by old ladies to store their sewing tools for some reason. 

 

LOL yes.

 

That is the butter cookie tin's real purpose. Containing butter cookies is only a temporary thing on the road to true sewing-kit glory.

Edited by reflex17

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i tried to read the thread, but it seemed like it was getting weird only a few posts in. so forgive me if i am repeating what someone else said. 

 

my thought is, why dont the best, commercial quality projects like eviternity or btsx have some means of paying/donating? 

 

eviternity for example is certainly worth $25 bucks. would be great if there was a “one stop, heres my money” and you guys figure out how youre going to dole it out amongst yourselves. trying to keep track of everyone individually is too much. 

 

to you, jimmy, i say youre a boon to the community and i hope something works out for you soon. 

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1 hour ago, rampancy said:

my thought is, why dont the best, commercial quality projects like eviternity or btsx have some means of paying/donating? 

 

It gets very complicated very quickly. Firstly there's the problem of who controls the income and the payroll any why would you trust them, followed immediately by the problem of who deserves what piece of the pie... do we reward volume of product, quality, man-hours...? The only sane way for content creators to get coin is to go in to a project with some kind of agreement before-hand of services they'd provide and for what - i.e. what Jimmy is doing here (well kinda, he's done mad amounts of stuff pro-bono)

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On 10/3/2019 at 7:23 PM, rampancy said:

eviternity for example is certainly worth $25 bucks. would be great if there was a “one stop, heres my money” and you guys figure out how youre going to dole it out amongst yourselves. trying to keep track of everyone individually is too much. 

 

 

I for one make maps and mods for the love of the game and the community, and mostly for my own enjoyment. People recognising the work and taking time to enjoy it is payment enough for me. Also, as Vorpal said, how would you dole it out fairly? A project such as Eviternity had a large core team, and then should money go towards the 'extended contributors' such as sprites, music, so on and so forth who weren't a part of the team but who's work was used? :)

 

Also Eris, good to see you rockin' the shirt! :D

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it can be done, but its a job in itself managing these things. i cant blame someone for not wanting taint their hobby and creative experience with too much business. 

 

hypothetically, who gets what percentage would be determined at the outset. and ultimately people either agree to participate in the project or they dont. 

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I know I'm a Doom Noob, but I definitely want to show my respects to this community. All the time and energy put in to create so many masterful maps, mods and other user-generated content is astounding! Doom as a game series will always be timeless by heart in my book.

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