Background Music

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Davy Jones
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Background Music

Post by Davy Jones »

Well, i know there are sounds on Bzflag (They are very nice)

But woudn't it be cool if there was a soundtrack playing in the background as well? As well as having the user being able to turn it on and off...and how loud etc. etc. I think it should be server and universal based.

a public server with no Music add-ons would play the Universal music that could be found on all public servs. Of course, the server owner could add his own music to the server,

I was thinking it should have a new tab all for music/sounds to change during game play. What do you guys think?
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Post by Triumph of the Soul »

This has been discussed before. Putting in server supported background music would take up a lot of bandwidth. It would in turn create a lot of lag for players with lesser connections, and maybe even cable connections.

However, a universal background music (possibly some sort of package) could be made into the user client, and installed with BZFlag. And maybe you could have a bunch of different background songs to choose from. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but this would not put a huge strain on a server, but it may make a single player lag.

Any other thoughts?
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Post by Davy Jones »

That was what i was thinking, you download the music when you download the client... the public servers could add their own music by adding it to their download sites of textures, except it would be MP3, not textures. You would then be presented with options about playing it, etc. etc.
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Post by joevano »

and this music would all be non copyrighted... I don't think so...
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Post by Triumph of the Soul »

donny_baker wrote:and this music would all be non copyrighted... I don't think so...
Maybe you could use midis instead.
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Post by blast »

A Distraction wrote:
donny_baker wrote:and this music would all be non copyrighted... I don't think so...
Maybe you could use midis instead.
MIDI? Wow, yes, let's make BZFlag looks more outdated.

Anyway, the current audio code does not really have support for this sort of thing. Right now, it just plays .wav files. However, it was discussed earlier about an alternative sound engine. For instance, FMOD allows SHOUTcast streaming. The server could send the address/port of the stream, and the client could decide to play it. The other thing would be to let users specify a music directory, and let the game play those files. Of course, this requires that someone actually do it.

Personally, I just fire up my media player in the background while playing BZFlag. Then I use my Hauppauge remote control and/or hotkeys. :P
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Post by The Red Baron »

blast wrote:
Personally, I just fire up my media player in the background while playing BZFlag. Then I use my Hauppauge remote control and/or hotkeys. :P
ditto - and I don't have it as background volume either :)
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Post by Albino Blacksheep »

Im usually listning to my own music on iTunes when im playing, and that would kind of interfere with it (of course i can always turn the game volume down)
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Post by Longhair »

Sure, why not? So long as I can turn it off when I want to!

Regarding the copyright question, I imagine that me have a few musicians amongst us, and somebody could come up with some music and be willing to contribute it to the game. Battle for Wesnoth certainly has decent music - heck, it's freaking awsome music considering that it's a GPL'd game. I wonder how much commercial game makers spend on their music.
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Post by Winny »

Longhair wrote:Sure, why not? So long as I can turn it off when I want to!

Regarding the copyright question, I imagine that me have a few musicians amongst us, and somebody could come up with some music and be willing to contribute it to the game. Battle for Wesnoth certainly has decent music - heck, it's freaking awsome music considering that it's a GPL'd game. I wonder how much commercial game makers spend on their music.
I can see it now... Someone opening up Finale (Music program) and entering boop...bop...boop..bop...

I don't like it, I highly doubt that it would
a) be music that interests me
b) be of any high quality (Good speakers put to waste)
c) probably be distracting from the game

The only type of music that I can stand while playing BZ are things with strong steady beats.
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Post by meeba »

See my sig for a cool song to listen to while playing BZFrag.

made it myself. I like it, it's pretty cool. For two-step, that is.
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Post by Longhair »

I can see it now... Someone opening up Finale (Music program) and entering boop...bop...boop..bop...
Since you're quoting my message, I'll reply that nowhere in my post did I mention MIDI music. It wouldn't have to be. Just like you seem to like rendering artwork on the computer, I imagine that some server owners are interested in composing music and would like to share.

I don't like it, I highly doubt that it would
a) be music that interests me
b) be of any high quality (Good speakers put to waste)
c) probably be distracting from the game

The only type of music that I can stand while playing BZ are things with strong steady beats.
Fine, so you hate other people's music. So long as you can turn it off, you would have nothing to complain about. I don't recall anyone asking you to contribute music or code, so why the complaints?
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Post by ducktape »

Wheres the yeah It would be cool do-it yourself optian
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Post by meeba »

Longhair wrote:
I can see it now... Someone opening up Finale (Music program) and entering boop...bop...boop..bop...
Since you're quoting my message, I'll reply that nowhere in my post did I mention MIDI music. It wouldn't have to be. Just like you seem to like rendering artwork on the computer, I imagine that some server owners are interested in composing music and would like to share.


--snip--
Like me! Of course there should be an OPTION in the client to disable music, but it might be nice if it let you specify a background song for bzflag.
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Post by whispershadow »

maybe an integrated interface with itunes, or would that violate copyrights or some crap like that?

i have sizzleing keyes on my mac. its a program that allows me to set function keyes for itunes. However i cant use them thru bzflag. An integrated acceptace w/ itunes would be nice for me.
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Post by Saber »

It won't be nice for players with a bad connection to have to download a song file when they try to join a server. A song file, even MP3 takes time to download and when I want to play, I don't want to download a song if I won't even listen to it. And people would have to pay to join a server because of all the law thing about music sharing.
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Post by Triumph of the Soul »

Who cares if the game sounds outdated? If midis were used, the download would be much speedier. And hey, Lego Star Wars 2 got along just fine using midis.
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Post by Lan »

This isn't Pathways Into Darkness or Marathon 1. I don't see how music would blend into the game or make the game more pleasant for me, considering how I would be in no control of what music it is. Additionally, the game already has plenty of sounds. Join any server that has a good amount of players and it is rare--almost non-existant--to hear pure silence. If you propose that I am in control of what music it is, as blast said, just open up your own media player--problem solved.
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Post by Longhair »

Given that the chances of this getting implemented in our lifetimes is slim to none, here are some thoughts, anyway :)

It won't be nice for players with a bad connection to have to download a song file when they try to join a server. A song file, even MP3 takes time to download and when I want to play, I don't want to download a song if I won't even listen to it. And people would have to pay to join a server because of the law thing about music sharing.
Sad that we're at this state of mind due to the mafiaa lawsuits. The mafiaa method of licensing music isn't the only model out there! Have you ever heard of Creative Commons? Some music is also released GPL. I'm not sure what licensing scheme is used for all the Unreal Tournament music that comes with custom maps, but there seem to be no licensing issues with distributing it!

Regarding your thoughts about slow network connections: How the heck to you play on a connection where downloading a mp3 or ogg would be such a problem? I had dial-up service when I first discovered BZFlag, and I basically couldn't play except on rare occasions. Mind you, it was dial-up in a city environment with the phone company literally a few blocks down the street. Anyway, in case there are more dial-up players than I think there are, perhaps it would be useful to have a preference set in the option menu to not download any music that may come with a server. When you log on to the server, it checks if you have the "no music download" flag set, and you won't have to download the music if it is.

Regarding MIDI files, yeah, I'm not too big into those either. If you're going to compose and record music (as well as go to the trouble to code a music system), you may as well do a good job at it. MIDI went great with Castlevania back in the '80s, but they are a tad dated.

To all the nay sayers: There are a number of games that supply music. Some of it is actually good. (thinking of Unreal Tournament and Wesnoth, both of which I play regularly) I've never come across a game with a music system that didn't allow you to turn if off.
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Post by urbanracer34 »

Im usually listning to my own music on iTunes when im playing
That was what I usually did, before my system started acting up and I had to go fullscreen (I was in windowed mode) :evil: So now I don't listen to any tunes while I play.

I was thinking that maybe a iTunes controller can be integrated. It would be controlled by several key combinations. In the chat log it would say (occasionally) what song is playing.

The only problem with the idea is there are no modifier keys left (control and alt)
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Post by blast »

I had an old BZFlag 1.7 client that I modified to have a built-in Winamp control. It would show the current song artist/title, the song position, and the playback status (playing/paused/stopped) on the screen. It also had keys to control playback and the playlist from in the game. Of course, that was a Windows-only modification, and a real hack job at that.
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Post by Think_Different »

whispershadow wrote:maybe an integrated interface with itunes, or would that violate copyrights or some crap like that?

i have sizzleing keyes on my mac. its a program that allows me to set function keyes for itunes. However i cant use them thru bzflag. An integrated acceptace w/ itunes would be nice for me.
You can use iTunes and control it within bzflag with this mod (this works while in fullscreen too):
http://my.bzflag.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=8292
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I'll try it!

Post by urbanracer34 »

I think it would work, with a bit of custom tweaking for Windows :| . Thanks for the help. :)
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Re: I'll try it!

Post by Hannibal »

urbanracer34 wrote:I think it would work, with a bit of custom tweaking for Windows :| . Thanks for the help. :)
If you get that working, could you post it here? That'd be awesome.
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Post by Red Cobra »

blast wrote:I had an old BZFlag 1.7 client that I modified to have a built-in Winamp control. It would show the current song artist/title, the song position, and the playback status (playing/paused/stopped) on the screen. It also had keys to control playback and the playlist from in the game. Of course, that was a Windows-only modification, and a real hack job at that.
If you could ever do that again for 2.0.8 that would be great. :D
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