I saw some old threads, but I'm unaware if anything has changed in the understanding in the mysterious ways of ToEE engine. From what I read it's possible to add new music tracks to the game and to assign them to a specific map area. Correct? Can you have a specific combat music for a given map area? The only limitation is that you can't change between tracks while in a map correct? ToEE music has some amazing tracks, but sometimes it gets a bit repetitive. It would be great to have some new music. No, I'm not a bard. But even if no musician comes along, maybe adding some music from BG, IWD, or maybe some other game, could enrich the game.
Music and SFX are actually really easy in ToEE, with the only limitation being what you listed above. However, we don't want to use stand in music from IWD or BG for the regular modpack for the same reasons as the map and portrait art, etc.: it's technically a copyright violation, and it's inconsistent aesthetically. As far as consistency goes, music is IMO even more sensitive an issue than say portrait art, simply becuase it's impact is arguably much more significant. It basically informs every aspect of the game, since music is almost always playing throughout. Therefore, to have music from two different genres playing at different times (e.g. ToEE's ambient synth stuff and an orchestral score like in BG) could potentually be very jarring and inappropriate. So we stick with the original ToEE Fisher score, although we've spread it out more than it was originally in order to try to address the sameness issue. I think in order for additional custom material to be added, it would have to be done with the specific intent of sounding very similar to the original score, which would be very restrictive and limiting for the composer. Also, as with the standards for our other additions, it would have to be of very high quality, and that frankly is a rarity. Anyway, if you want to self-mod (sub the IWD score in your game or something), I'd check out Ted's soundtrack tutorial. Or if you like I can help you with it here. As I say, it's quite simple, assuming you already have the material you want to use. p.s. - I can also tell you from experience that people are generally not very receptive to new music (probably because everyone has their own concept of what it's supposed to be). I played hell trying to pull that off for KotB.
At this point I was mostly curious about this subject. I haven't even considered what tracks to choose from, much less assigning them to specific maps. And as you pointed out there is the issue of having different genres of music playing out (ToEE's ambient synth vs. BG's orchestral score). I miss looked that obvious "detail". An option (from a personal POV) would be to replace all music with BG and IWD music. But then that also removes the identity from the game. No way I could replace the Hommlet and Moathouse tracks Does anybody knows Ron Fish? :grin: I'll see if I can find some amateur music forum and ask if anyone would be interested in composing some musics; with the disclaimer it's non profit and may not be included at all. mmm... now that I think about it this may not be a bad idea at all. Maybe some contest where the winner wins a GOG copy of the game. (the soundtrack is on youtube so they could always listen it there to get some inspiration and maintain the artistic direction) EDIT: maybe *cough*Taluntain*cough* could sponsor that j/k
@all Considering the fact that it's not possible to change between tracks while in a map, what maps/locations do you think that would mostly benefit from new tracks? For example, assume that we could only get 2 or 3 new themes.
I would be cautious about that (the amateur music forum). You may get lots of takers among people you don't know who are in reality not particularly competent, and then it will become your job to gently hurt their feelings and ruin their dreams by turning them down. (Been there done that ... it's no fun and invariably people will think you are an asshole.) Music is a lot like voice acting in that regard - lots of dreck out there with many people thinking they are great at it but few who actually are, and when dreck music and VA appear in a game it drags everything else down with it in a way that few other mediums can do so comprehensively. Frankly I don't think it's necessary anyway. We don't often get complaints about the soundtrack, and anyone who wants to is free to adapt it however they like for their own play. (I tend to dislike forcing aesthetic changes on players.) A good operational philosophy for a modding endeavor like ours here at Co8 is: when in doubt, do nothing. When you do uneccesary stuff that can potentially offend players' aesthetic sensibilities, you very often catch a lot of sh*t for it. Next comes "Co8 added a bunch of crap* new music to ToEE for no good reason!", and suddenly we're catching hell for something when all we would have had to do to avoid that is do nothing. As it stands now, we are not on the hook for the ToEE soundtrack. People can love it of hate it and whichever it is they can blame or praise Atari for it, not us. *It could be the score to LotR and I guarantee you somebody would think it was crap. That's just the slippery slope nature of hyper-subjective aesthetics like music.
I understand the touchiness of music, and the current stuff in ToEE is great as it is. However, I don't see what could be wrong with putting new music into the new content areas of the game that never had their individual ambient music in the first place. The major problem is finding something that almost everyone would like, which is like Gaear said.
