adding music to a campaign

[Helmet]

My campaign is almost done, so I need to select music. Not being a musical person, I'd appreciate some help with this part. Right now I'm using the {DEFAULT_MUSIC_PLAYLIST}, which is awesome music. But I'd like to customize the music anyway with some other awesome music that the player might not have heard as much.

Can music be changed within the middle of a scenario, to highlight when something significant happens? Like...when a map is swapped with another map? How? Just drop a music macro wherever?

Any recommendations of music for these events?

• Music for the animated title (30 seconds), followed by the player choosing their team color.

• Music for cut-scenes where characters talk. (There are several long-ish conversations.)

• Music for battles against nagas.

• Music for battles against chaotic humans.

• Music for battles against saurians.

• Music for battles against drakes.

• Music for a short, scary cut-scene.

• Ominous music for a battle in a cave against a horrifying monster.

• Defeat music when the player loses.

• Victory music when the player beats a scenario.

• Victory music when the player beats the campaign.

• Music for when the happy characters exit a mountain in the early morning light.

[Pentarctagon]

You can change the music during any event with append=no probably along with immediate=yes (from here).

[Helmet]

You can change the music during any event with append=no probably along with immediate=yes (from here).

Thanks, Pentarctagon. I just read the wiki, and evidently the append=no is the default, so any new music is immediately started.

Wow, this doesn't seem as hard as I thought it would be (so far.)

Pentarctagon, on the add-on server, I recall that you had added a lot of music files. If I wanted to use one, do I download it and put it in my add-ons music folder? Is it that easy?

This is what I did...

Code: Select all

		{FADE_TO_BLACK} 		
		[music]
			journeys_end.ogg
			immediate=yes
		[/music]
		[replace_map]
			map_file=5_exit.map    
		[/replace_map]	
		{FADE_IN}

[Pentarctagon]

You would need to add the music pack add-on's [binary_path] to your add-on's _main.cfg, then after that using it is the same as using mainline music. You'd also want to add the music pack add-on as a dependency in your _server.pbl.

Alternatively, you could take just the tracks you want, put them directly in your add-on, and then just use them that way.

[Helmet]

You would need to add the music pack add-on's [binary_path] to your add-on's _main.cfg, then after that using it is the same as using mainline music. You'd also want to add the music pack add-on as a dependency in your _server.pbl.

Alternatively, you could take just the tracks you want, put them directly in your add-on, and then just use them that way.

Okay, thanks.

I have one more problem. Audacity assumes I want to edit every Wesnoth track it plays. I can't figure out how to add the tracks to Amazon Music, where I listen to streaming radio. My Quicktime Player refuses to play ogg. And I can't find where the tracks went on iTunes, which keeps trying to sell me popular albums.

Can you recommend a music-app-thing to play my Wesnoth music? Or is there already a website with a playlist of Wesnoth music that I can access through a browser?

[WhiteWolf]

VLC plays ogg just fine.

Two comments: you're missing name= before journeys_end.ogg in your code.
Also, play_once=yes may be arguably better for this than immediate=yes, because... well, it does what it says: it plays the track once, then the scenario returns to its playlist that is left unchanged. So play_once=yes may be a better option to immediately play a track to highlight a scene or something.

As for recommendations, I have some additional defeat and victory tracks from another GPL source I don't even remember, but I can add it as an attachment if I find it.
EDIT: found it.

music.zip

(330.55 KiB) Downloaded 139 times

[Helmet]

VLC plays ogg just fine.

I just tried VLC. It works well except for one thing. Before some tracks play, VLC makes a loud sound, like a pop in a microphone, for a fraction of a second. I checked the tracks in Audacity and there are no defects in the track, so it must be VLC. Not every track makes the sound, and no track does it every time. It's pretty odd behavior. I'm using the Mac version, so maybe this is a Mac problem.

Two comments: you're missing name= before journeys_end.ogg in your code.

Thanks for noticing that. I had to comb through my code and fix the missing name= in several places. I was making the same mistake everywhere.

Also, play_once=yes may be arguably better for this than immediate=yes, because... well, it does what it says: it plays the track once, then the scenario returns to its playlist that is left unchanged. So play_once=yes may be a better option to immediately play a track to highlight a scene or something.

That sounds exactly like the way I want the music to work, so I implemented that change. Thanks.

As for recommendations, I have some additional defeat and victory tracks from another GPL source I don't even remember, but I can add it as an attachment if I find it.
EDIT: found it.
music.zip

Nice tracks, short but emotionally effective. Thanks. Picking music is more fun than I expected.

EDIT: I found a free, open-source media player for Mac called IINA. It works well and makes playlists.

[Celtic_Minstrel]

If you want to add the track to iTunes or some other music library system that doesn't support ogg, I'd suggest using ffmpeg to convert it to another format that it does support. Although VLC can also do this conversion, its conversion facilities are confusing and sometimes buggy and error-prone, so I'd definitely recommend ffmpeg instead (probably via some GUI wrapper - the core ffmpeg program is just a command-line tool).

But if all you want to do is listen to them, then what you've found is surely good enough.

[Helmet]

At the complete ending of my campaign, I use [fire_event] to do several things to fashion a more enjoyable conclusion. One of the things that happens is the playing of a music track.

Unfortunately, the default victory music which is eventually played by [endlevel] clashes with my final track.

I tried replacing it with silence.ogg, but that is only slightly less jarring.

Is there a way to allow my track to keep playing, even after the victory window appears and the game ends?

Code: Select all

		[fire_event]
			name=closing # 				see SotA for usage
		[/fire_event]
					
		[endlevel]
			music=silence.ogg # 				10 seconds of silence, mainline
			result=victory
		[/endlevel]
	[/event]

I guess I could have the music track start over. But it might sound like somebody bumped the record player.

One more question. Is there a way to turn music off during an event and then turn it back on? Like a pause button? I want silence for a particular scene, but I don't know how long the scene might last (message tags), so I can't simply play 10 seconds of silence.

[Pentarctagon]

It won't pause, but you could use [volume] to silence the current music/sound.

[Helmet]

It won't pause, but you could use [volume] to silence the current music/sound.

Volume is better than pause, thanks. A creative usage of volume even solved my original problem.

Has anybody written some code I could borrow to gradually turn down the volume? Otherwise I'll use the code below. It works, but I hear the steps as the volume is turned down in chunks.

Code: Select all

		[volume]
			music=80
		[/volume]
		
		{DELAY 500}

		[volume]
			music=60
		[/volume]
		
		{DELAY 500}

		[volume]
			music=40
		[/volume]
		
		{DELAY 500}

		[volume]
			music=20
		[/volume]
		
		{DELAY 500}
		
		[volume]
			music=00
		[/volume]

[Helmet]

After I turn the volume down, turning it back to 100 does not return the volume to the previous level. It's quieter.

What do I need to do to make it return to the previous level? I thought 100 was the volume set by the player in Preferences.

Wiki
Values can go from 0 to 100.

Thanks.

[Pentarctagon]

You could try wesnoth.music_list.volume from here. They should be the same thing though.

[Helmet]

You could try wesnoth.music_list.volume from here. They should be the same thing though.

I've never done a thing with Lua before. I might give it a try, though.

I wonder if lowering the volume several times in a row actually lowered the player's Preference for volume somehow. That's what it seems to be doing. But I'm not sure.

Thanks for the link.

[WhiteWolf]

To your other question in:

Unfortunately, the default victory music which is eventually played by [endlevel] clashes with my final track.

I tried replacing it with silence.ogg, but that is only slightly less jarring.

Is there a way to allow my track to keep playing, even after the victory window appears and the game ends?

I think the only way to do that is to set

Code: Select all

[endlevel]
    carryover_report=no
[/endlevel]

in your code. This does just exactly what you want - when the level ends, the screen is just greyed out, and your currently played track won't be interrupted, it will just keep playing like nothing happened.
Keep in mind - you're actually not showing the player their carryover report. Get ready for the dozens of "bug reports" that "hey I'm not getting my carryover report at the end of level X and that's a mean move because player needs to see that!!".
To prevent that, you might also want to set linger_mode=no, which will just immediately end the level, no lingering grey map thing. Experiment and see which combination works best for you, but to disable the "victory music", carryover_report must be set to no.

To the other subject - according to the wiki, [volume]'s value is the percentage multiplier of the settings-value, so I haven't a clue about what's wrong.
The lua equivalent of your volume setting code is just:

Code: Select all

# place this where you would place [volume]
[lua]
    code=<<
wesnoth.music_list.volume = 10 
    >>
[/lua]

I tried setting it to 10 and back to 100 with this, and it seems to work, I get back to the same loudness level.

EDIT it also works with your inital step-by-step decrease variant:

Code: Select all

[lua]
    code=<<
wesnoth.music_list.volume = 80
wesnoth.delay(500)
wesnoth.music_list.volume = 60
wesnoth.delay(500)
wesnoth.music_list.volume = 40
wesnoth.delay(500)
wesnoth.music_list.volume = 20
wesnoth.delay(500)
wesnoth.music_list.volume = 0
    >>
[/lua]

For me it got back the original loudness level just fine after setting it back to 100 at a later point.