Music files, need help.

from Sins Forums

I've recently revived a project to bring an EVE Online feeling to the game while playing Sins of a Solar Empire. I am not going to make an official announcement thread of the mod until I finish Amarr bar models.

I require assistance at this moment. Any help will be appreciated.

I've been trying to introduce new music. What I've done so far is. . . 

1. Place new music files in Mod Directory\Mod\Sound (only one of which overwrites a previous music file; opening theme has been changed). No regard has been made toward what the music files should be named except for my own organizing purposes.

2. modify SoundMusic.SOUNDDATA by adding. . . 

 

music

name "MUSIC_*"

fileName "**.ogg"

isLooping FALSE

actionLevel ***

actionRange ***

emotionLevel ***

emotionRange ***

Where * is the remainder of the tag used in PlayerRace.entity, ** is the filename of the music to be played, and *** is a value of which I have not the slightest clue how the mechanics work. I made all the values for *** 0.0 as recommended by a certain thread found through google.

 

3. Then I've subtracted all music from PlayerRace.entity under musicThemeData, and added in the ones which belong to this new race. 

4. I added the music to Game.MUSICDATA.

5. I finally checked the count for modifed lists. SoundMusic.SOUNDDATA, check, PlayerRace.entity's musicThemeData, check, Game.MUSICDATA, check. I double checked. . . 

The results from these steps produced the music desired, but the music for the new race would switch quickly between tracks. If I left my screen still, it would remain on one track. Make a slight movement, particularly in zooming, it would change. I decided that *** probably had something to do with this, so I went to SoundMusic.SOUNDDATA to look at those values again. I decided that perhaps Range indicated how much interface action would be needed before it switches tracks.

If this is true, this has to be the most annoying mechanic in the game. It should switch when the track is complete or when Battle is zoomed into, or discovery/advancement occurs.

I decide to switch both actionRange and emotionRange to 1.0. This worked and the music would change when the track is complete. Music never changed for battles, however.

I've gone a little further and found ways to screw it even more up. For example, I deleted everything except the new files in Game.MUSICDATA. Battle music was still never present in the new race. Additionally, battle music for the original races switched to all the regular tracks of the new race (not their battle tracks, or any track specifically, just any track on Game.MUSICDATA).

I read in a thread somewhere that the tag (called name in the SoundMusic.SOUNDDATA file, but used as the tag in PlayerRace.entity's musicThemeData) needs to fall within certain parameters in order to be used as battle music. It suggested that the parameter is this BATTLE_##, where ## is any number 15 or greater (as all numbers 14 or less are already used). I assume they mean to include MUSIC, making it MUSIC_BATTLE_##. I've tried it with MUSIC_BATTLE_##, and it did not produce the result they suggest it should. I made sure to change the name in PlayerRace.entity under musicThemeData, as well as in Game.MUSICDATA.

 

If anyone here can point me in the right direction after having reviewed this data, or if you can explain this to me thoroughly even without doing so, then please do.

 

 

modding
8,419 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

When I introduced new music themes into Requiem, I simply copied the Tech entity file music definitions (including their action and range values) and simply replaced the name of the track.

This was the only way I could reliably get the right music type to play at the right time - and yeah the action/range values are obscure to say the least and after a lot of tinkering I never really figured out how to tweak them exactly.

 

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Nice Avatar.

Thank you for your suggestion. I tried that. I will try it again. I suppose TECH would be more reliable than any other, because ADVENT seems to sway into nonstandard territory.

One thing I just now noticed is that all scare Music is also listed under theme Music for all of the original races. Perhaps this has something to do with it. It must first be recognized in theme and then classified as scare.

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Also, has anyone ever successfully used more than just the original Announcement music files.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

I'd like to bump this (seeing as it's not terribly old) to see if you have made any progress in your research.

I plan to add 20 peace and 20 battle tracks for each race in my mod, and when I started putting research into the files, I came across these lines

 

music
    name "MUSIC_PIRATE_ANNOUNCEMENT"
    fileName "Pirate Announcement.ogg"
    isLooping FALSE
    actionLevel 0.6
    actionRange 0.4
    emotionLevel 0.0
    emotionRange 1.0

 

That don't make much sense at all.

I speculate that action range has something to do with the gravity well or perhaps the actual ranges of the ships themselves that are engaged in order for a cue to be changed. Action level could potentially be related to the number of ships involved (why it's present on the pirate announcement file I have no clue). The emotion settings I have not a clue at all.

I hope not to run into major problems when I get into the thick of this, but of the few threads that exist for customizing music none of them present very promising premonitions.

I'm hoping that in your efforts you have discovered how these files work, and how to avoid problems with them.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

The music system in general is not very well understood in Sins. I've found you get the best results by finding a Sins track that can play in the same environment that you want your new music to and just copy the values.

 

Quoting purdyaw, reply 3
Also, has anyone ever successfully used more than just the original Announcement music files.
End of purdyaw's quote

 

Not to my knowledge, but it looks like it should be able to be done as they are defined in the SoundDialog file.