Are we still in need of new music?

Create music and sound effects for mainline or user-made content.

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Tyler Johnson
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Are we still in need of new music?

Post by Tyler Johnson »

I've got some time to compose some stuff, I previously composed a few of the tracks years ago, Casualties of War, Into the Shadows, Sad, I think one or two more.

I haven't been active in years because I've been busy but are we still looking for new musical content?
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vultraz
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Re: Are we still in need of new music?

Post by vultraz »

Welcome back! Indeed, new music is always welcome! I was just thinking recently we could use more ambient/background tracks so all our scenarios don't constantly have battle music blasting at all times. :lol:

What is your rate for commissions?
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ghype
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Re: Are we still in need of new music?

Post by ghype »

I am not sure wether I was taken seriously earlier or not, though I think my commitment to other project here in Wesnoth prove I am not the one to joke about this kind of stuff publicly.

I have been part of the music industry my entire life and even though I have worked in different departments for Universal / Sony, I was just as much trained in classic / traditional composition as one might except from someone being so dedicated to music as art and a form of life.

When I said, I would be glad to contribute to BoW with music, I was obviously meaning I'd do it for free - commission free.
RolfDhew
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Re: Are we still in need of new music?

Post by RolfDhew »

For what my opinion is worth, I think some more music would be great!
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doofus-01
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Re: Are we still in need of new music?

Post by doofus-01 »

Tyler Johnson wrote: June 9th, 2019, 5:27 pm I've got some time to compose some stuff, I previously composed a few of the tracks years ago, Casualties of War, Into the Shadows, Sad, I think one or two more.

I haven't been active in years because I've been busy but are we still looking for new musical content?
Your tracks are great, we'd love to have more. Along the same lines as what vultraz said, we could use some non-"epic battle" tunes. Even 30-60 second mood or ambient pieces could be good resources for intros & dialogues.

ghype wrote: June 10th, 2019, 9:22 pm I am not sure wether I was taken seriously earlier or not, though I think my commitment to other project here in Wesnoth prove I am not the one to joke about this kind of stuff publicly.
I'm not sure what you are referring to. Maybe I just missed something. Could you state it again in a new thread (so we don't hijack this one)?
BfW 1.12 supported, but active development only for BfW 1.13/1.14: Bad Moon Rising | Trinity | Archaic Era |
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TyraNoah
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Re: Are we still in need of new music?

Post by TyraNoah »

Definetly yeah, new music is always a plus.
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egallager
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Re: Are we still in need of new music?

Post by egallager »

Personally one of my favorite things in game music is when a JRPG boss kills one of your characters in a cutscene, the music gets all sad, and then that sad music continues playing thru the following bossfight with that boss. So if someone™ wants to compose a sad song that also works as bossfight music for Wesnoth, I'd find that pretty cool.
TylerJ
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Re: Are we still in need of new music?

Post by TylerJ »

The trouble with this as a composer is with Wesnoth, we don't have the exact visuals in front of us to compose to, for timing purposes (clicking through dialog, timed events etc.), they are all arbitrary in Wesnoth. So we have to compose more in a 'stylistic' approach rather than a "Compose this for this length of time, and then this for this length of time."

With the way the Wesnoth engine is setup, I don't know if dialog is unskippable, which would make timing cues much easier for us. You don't want sad music bleeding over into an epic boss fight is what I mean.
shevegen
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Re: Are we still in need of new music?

Post by shevegen »

Music can be quite difficult to "get right". I tend to play games in a muted/silent way and
just have youtube in the background play things instead. :P

Perhaps two years or so I played Baldur's Gate 2, enhanced edition. Was fun to do so when
you never played it before. I listened to the music and audio tracks too on the first play
through. Afterwards I always muted/silenced it.

Perhaps some interested folks could get together and create good audio tracks / music /
sound effects for a campaign, as showcasing that can be done. But as you said it's harder
than e. g. graphics since you get much faster feedback via visual stuff (e. g. when
something is not correct in an animation; that's easier to spot, whereas in music it's
harder to evaluate).
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doofus-01
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Re: Are we still in need of new music?

Post by doofus-01 »

TylerJ wrote: June 24th, 2021, 7:12 am The trouble with this as a composer is with Wesnoth, we don't have the exact visuals in front of us to compose to, for timing purposes (clicking through dialog, timed events etc.), they are all arbitrary in Wesnoth. So we have to compose more in a 'stylistic' approach rather than a "Compose this for this length of time, and then this for this length of time."

With the way the Wesnoth engine is setup, I don't know if dialog is unskippable, which would make timing cues much easier for us. You don't want sad music bleeding over into an epic boss fight is what I mean.
To some extent, this shouldn't be on the composer to worry about, it should be the campaign author (script writer) who needs to figure out how to use the resources properly. Some music might be harder to work with, if it has a very long build-up for example, but if the campaign author is paying enough attention, there should be no problem.
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| Abandoned: Tales of the Setting Sun
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egallager
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Re: Are we still in need of new music?

Post by egallager »

So I've been thinking about music again... while Wesnoth has many good music tracks, one thing I'm kinda wishing it had more of was tracks that used themes from other ones as leitmotifs, to give the soundtrack a more unified feel... Right now the majority of tracks are all very standalone-feeling, which I guess is good in that it makes them more reusable, but I still wish they sounded more kinda related to one another, if that makes sense...
gnombat
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Re: Are we still in need of new music?

Post by gnombat »

egallager wrote: April 25th, 2022, 4:26 pm So I've been thinking about music again... while Wesnoth has many good music tracks, one thing I'm kinda wishing it had more of was tracks that used themes from other ones as leitmotifs, to give the soundtrack a more unified feel... Right now the majority of tracks are all very standalone-feeling, which I guess is good in that it makes them more reusable, but I still wish they sounded more kinda related to one another, if that makes sense...
Have you tried West's Chronicles I (available on the add-on server)?
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egallager
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Re: Are we still in need of new music?

Post by egallager »

gnombat wrote: April 25th, 2022, 5:47 pm
egallager wrote: April 25th, 2022, 4:26 pm So I've been thinking about music again... while Wesnoth has many good music tracks, one thing I'm kinda wishing it had more of was tracks that used themes from other ones as leitmotifs, to give the soundtrack a more unified feel... Right now the majority of tracks are all very standalone-feeling, which I guess is good in that it makes them more reusable, but I still wish they sounded more kinda related to one another, if that makes sense...
Have you tried West's Chronicles I (available on the add-on server)?
It's installed on my computer, but I don't think I've actually listened to it yet...
gnombat
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Re: Are we still in need of new music?

Post by gnombat »

egallager wrote: April 25th, 2022, 10:52 pm It's installed on my computer, but I don't think I've actually listened to it yet...
I'm not sure if it's the sort of thing you're looking for, but it contains a number of tracks which are related to one another:
Edit: also this pair:
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egallager
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Re: Are we still in need of new music?

Post by egallager »

Other ideas for music, based on how other video games structure their music:
  • Character themes. I don't think there's a single track in the soundtrack that's named for one of the characters yet, which is something you often see in other media. Think Konrad's Theme, Li'Sar's Theme, Delfador's Theme, etc.
  • More faction themes. So far there are themes for Northerners, Knalgans, Rebels (well, Elves, at least), and Loyalists, but I don't think there's one for Dunefolk, Drakes, or Undead yet.
  • More themes based on terrain/environment/biome. There's some tracks that kinda work here: a bunch of tracks work for forests, plains, underground, mountains, and city, but there isn't really anything for open ocean maps, beaches, swamps, wintry/icy terrain, deserts, jungles, volcanoes, or just generally fiery terrain yet.
  • Going along with the "wintry terrain" part of the previous one, how about themes for each season? Have one each for spring, summer, fall, and winter. This kinda goes along with this issue I opened for corresponding terrains: #6732
  • More moods. Currently there's music for victory and defeat, battles, epic battles, calm moments, and sad/wistful moments, but there isn't really anything for comedic or otherwise lighthearted moments yet though... or an "anger" mood for cutscenes that's separate from the battle ones. Kinda ties in with issue #5767
  • Wesnoth has a day-night cycle. Lots of games with day-night cycles will double up their tracks so they have "day" and "night" versions of each one. Maybe someone could try something similar for Wesnoth? It'd certainly be a pain to do for UtBS though...
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