Organism Played Music

Player made organisms will have vastly different bodies and shapes, and one of the challenges this presents is that of in-game music. Music is an incredibly important cultural aspect and it's absence from the game would be unexcusable, yet this creates the issue of how to get our organisms to match up to our sound files in a manner that looks plausable.

It's conceivable that we could program a system that identifies the right pooints in a song to pluck a strink or hit a drum, but such a system would be buggy and incredibly hard to do.

We could hard wire cues into a specific number of songs, but this would limit variety and prevent players from adding to the library. Not to mention that we'd have to do a significant amount of work every time we wanted to add a new song to the game.

We could have basic animations that play for all music, regardless of the music itself, but next to our planned player-designed animations and demand for high quality procedural animations, it would look awkward and poorly done.

My solution comes from an archaic source: Mario Paint. If we were able to integrate a basic music editor, than we could program animations for each note. Mario Paint's continued popularity ensures that such a system would mean we'd be full to the brim with quality music via crowd-sourcing, and animations would line up perfectly as the would be part of the system. Admittedly it would likely be difficult to make, but once done it would never ever need to be touched again.

This wouldn't work for vocals unfortunately, but we should be able to use sound recognition if they are added seperately, and animation quality depends how much detail we want to go into for facial (Or equivalent) animations.

Thoughts?

I'd have thought it would be easier to do it the other way round, by adding in the different animations and noises to go with them, then making a song from them...

Although, is it really that important to have organisms play the music? I would have thought background music would do, having all the songs require animations and procedures to go with them would just limit things... Or maybe I just don't like music enough.

I like your idea- I have a friend that's made some really cool compositions with mario paint. however, I think we'll have to wait and see about music creation.

The Uteen wrote:

I'd have thought it would be easier to do it the other way round, by adding in the different animations and noises to go with them, then making a song from them...

Although, is it really that important to have organisms play the music? I would have thought background music would do, having all the songs require animations and procedures to go with them would just limit things... Or maybe I just don't like music enough.

Music has caused wars. It's preserved languages and nations. It's reshaped religions. It is responsible for the 12 hour day. It has brought about revolutions, and rights. I have accepted that all other arts will not exist in game. I will not budge on this one.

~sciocont wrote:

I like your idea- I have a friend that's made some really cool compositions with mario paint. however, I think we'll have to wait and see about music creation.

Of course! We don't even have a fully fledged engine yet. I do not expect to see even thew vestigages of Awakening Stage for years to come. I put this down more so I don't forget the idea than anything else.

I totally agree with you tenebrarum. For a civilization to thrive, art is always a plus. I mean look back at the harlem renasissance and the european renaissance. These time periods came to shape culture and society as a whole. Music at the very least should be incorporated into the game.

Maybe the instrument can be a button. Like a drum, if anything hits that drum it will make a sound. So each part of the instrument would make a different sound. Even if the creature didn't hit with the hand, a fruit falling on top of it or a bad spy could make a sound, alert the tribe...

It could be used in various ways now that i think of it! Putting a drum inside a hole that a tribal made would say that the trap worked. Take the atention of the other tribe to steal their food.

It would need the reaction of certain creatures to certain sounds. I think a creature with deep voice would like a drumm instead of a flute. I was thinking that when I was plaing spre the other day. They have only 3 instruments, and all creatures that you enconter like them. I think music will be the best part of tribal stage. Imagine your creature preparing for battle with a song made by the drums in a cave. Caves should make eco too, right? There is that reaction too. The sound in different places and how does it propagete.