Music in Minetest...

[Gambit]

I was never a fan of ambient music in video game (unless the scene called for it), especially Minecraft. When I played minecraft, the music would drive me to boredom. I would have to lower the music down and play something over it that was more adventurous but not too dramatic or uppity.

[philipbenr]

Seriously, just get a Pandora account and play some radio if whatever you think appropriate. I do that all the time. Just turn on some internet music player and do some work.

[onpon4]

Seriously, just get a Pandora account and play some radio if whatever you think appropriate. I do that all the time. Just turn on some internet music player and do some work.

There are two problems with that suggestion:

1. Pandora requires proprietary, defective by design software.
2. Playing random music that you like doesn't fulfill the same purpose as good in-game music.

Playing random music that you like just serves to get rid of silence. Good in-game music does more than that; it reinforces the atmosphere. So, for example, it needs to change depending on the setting.

[sfan5]

Seriously, just get a Pandora account and play some radio if whatever you think appropriate. I do that all the time. Just turn on some internet music player and do some work.

There are two problems with that suggestion:

1. Pandora requires proprietary, defective by design software.
2. Playing random music that you like doesn't fulfill the same purpose as good in-game music.

Playing random music that you like just serves to get rid of silence. Good in-game music does more than that; it reinforces the atmosphere. So, for example, it needs to change depending on the setting.

1) Buy music you like on CDs.
2) Convert the CDs into .oggs with abcde
3) Play them with VLC
No proprietary software involved.

[Krock]

2nd way:

1) Youtube.com
2) Search for a good musicvideo
3) Play the video
Pros
- You like the music
- Don't need more than flashplayer (and a PC which is better than mine)
- Playlists and 1h-albums are useful
- Compatible to all platforms which MT supports

Cons
- Requires internet connection
- Not all cool music can be found on YT

[Calinou]

- Don't need more than flashplayer (and a PC which is better than mine)

http://youtube.com/html5 ‑ use it.
YouTube for music is inefficient anyway. It was never made as a music sharing site.
There are lots of (legal and free) sites that distribute around music as actual sound files.

This doesn't solve the problem of ambience, as onpon4 said. The music should be fitting and ideally dynamic.

[spootonium]

2nd way:
1) Youtube.com
2) Search for a good musicvideo
3) Play the video

The fact that you have to supplement (by whatever means) the audio present in Minetest, is perhaps the strongest argument in favour of adding at least some music to the game.

Others have already suggested that Minetest could (and I think should) be capable of creating better ambiance, through music (as well as SFX), but it remains one of those lingering things that casts MT as "poor-man's Minecraft".

[spootonium]

In order to further the disussion...

I've been thinking about the various situations and "environments" (including biomes) to which music could be effectively applied in order to create a mood. The list below is far from exhaustive, but is submitted for comment and expansion.

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== Menu (Canned Theme?) ==
- Perhaps each gamemode might (optionally) have its own theme, appropiate to the particular game.
 
== (Re-)Spawning ==
: Concept :
 So, you've just been unceremoniously dropped into this wierd, unfamiliar world. It's a jarring experience, but you're resolved to make the best of it. You're excited at the potential waiting beyond these new horizons, and wary that there are perils and pitfalls waiting, too.
: Keywords :
 ambient, tense, hopeful

== (Deciduous) Forest ==
: Concept :
 A shady stand of trees and undergrowth. Upon entering, you are enveloped by cool, damp, earthen scents. Picking your way between massive trunks, you tread lightly, feeling inconsequential next to such majesty.
: Keywords :
 enclosed (not claustrophobic), serene, woody, natural, primal

== Jungle ==
: Concept :
 A dense, steaming rainforest, teeming with all kinds of life. Myriad creatures flit and jump between the giant boughs under a seamless canopy.
: Keywords :
 dense, close, dark, wild, primal

== Grassland ==
: Concept :
 A gentle wind stirs the grass, causing whispering, green waves to slowly march accross rolling hills.
: Keywords :
 peaceful, calm, quiet, wide-open, breathy, pastoral, simple,

== Savannah ==
: Concept :
 (Pretty much the same as grassland, but perhaps harsher and more primal.)
: Keywords :
 wide-open, wild, tribal

== Desert ==
: Concept :
 A sea of sand and shimmering air. Cacti stand like sentenels over the sand and scrub. The wind s oppressively hot and dry, carrying fine grit, and a dusty tang of burnt flint.
: Keywords : open, exposed, harsh

== Beach ==
: Concept :
 You stand on the edge if a great, blue expanse stretching to the horizon and beyond. A strong, salt-laden wind whips foam and spray from the tops of the breakers, and rushes heedlessly past you.
: Keywords :
 expansive, nautical, adventurous?

== Underwater ==
: Concept :
 (Cousteau would be the obvious reference here, but I can find no appropriate quotes, etc.)
: Keywords :
 deep, cold, dark, murky/muddy

== Caves/Mines ==
: Concept :
: Keywords :
 cavernous (derp), enclosed, echoing, hard, dark

== NPC Villages ==
: Concept :
 A friendly, welcoming village.
: Keywords :
 tribal, folksy, rythmic, warm,

== Urban "Biome" ==
: Concept :
 (It occured to me that built-up areas should have an ambiance different to the generated biome on which they stand. The engine might differentiate by detecting player-crafted nodes, or things like streets:asphalt, or conctrete:concrete.)
: Keywords :
 hard, grey, bustling, modern, complex, jazzy?, industrial?


[Excalibur Zero]

What I'd love to see is a simplistic system where different zones are defined by the nodes around the player and there would be different default music for each zone, but it would also allowe players to easily add thier own music to be played instead of the default music and to possibly add new zones.

[spootonium]

What I'd love to see is a simplistic system where different zones are defined by the nodes around the player and there would be different default music for each zone, but it would also allowe players to easily add thier own music to be played instead of the default music and to possibly add new zones.

Something like that could conceivably work, but I think you'd still need to somehow differentiate between (for example) a desert, a sandstone cave, and anything you built out of desert-sourced blocks, like a cactus farm. You might create a "music=n" group(s) to help in that respect, or implement something like a special "music-zone-marker" ore, or a node to mark your zones by locus. Of course for those who want their own, specific, in-world music, when-and-where they want it, there's the [ambiance] and [jukebox] mods.

I'm still plugging the idea of procedurally-generated music, though, not because it's the most straightforward option, but because it's the most interesting.

[onpon4]

allowe players to easily add thier own music to be played instead of the default music

Or just let them turn the music off. If you want to play your own choice of music, nothing's stopping you from doing it in an audio player.

[Excalibur Zero]

allowe players to easily add thier own music to be played instead of the default music

Or just let them turn the music off. If you want to play your own choice of music, nothing's stopping you from doing it in an audio player.

Though if people just go by using their audio player it defeats the purpose of the music being used to immerse the player better into the game. Customization of the music would allow players to change out music that they may not like with music that they do like.

That way people could use the default music, or if they have music that they like better, use that music instead.

[thetoon]

What I'd love to see is a simplistic system where different zones are defined by the nodes around the player and there would be different default music for each zone, but it would also allowe players to easily add thier own music to be played instead of the default music and to possibly add new zones.

Just use biomes, with biome-themed music (or pieces of music that the system automagically stucks together, as long as in the same - or compatible - scale it should work) starting to play whenever you enter (i.e. step onto a biome's ground node). Ideally, it might be better to trigger it after a few nodes into the biome (to prevent side effects), and probably to queue music instead of playing it.

[4aiman]

Have found this: http://www.pjb.com.au/comp/lua/MIDI.html
Not a *.mod or *.xm

[spootonium]

Or just let them turn the music off. If you want to play your own choice of music, nothing's stopping you from doing it in an audio player.

Taken as read, I should think.

Have found this: http://www.pjb.com.au/comp/lua/MIDI.html
Not a *.mod or *.xm

This would do to "mash" and string together pre-composed scores.

It never occurred to me how incomplete my understanding of music theory was, until I tried to design a program to algorithmically score ambient music. The research continues...

We choose to go to the moon in this decade ... and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills..."

[thetoon]

Have found this: http://www.pjb.com.au/comp/lua/MIDI.html
Not a *.mod or *.xm

Given the "pixelart" focus of Minetest, I guess it wouldn't be illogical to make it sound like "pixelmusic". So hurray for MIDI.

[spootonium]

Given the "pixelart" focus of Minetest, I guess it wouldn't be illogical to make it sound like "pixelmusic". So hurray for MIDI.

I had thought this way, too, but software synths are much better than they were in the 90's, so that needn't necessarily be the limit of our ambition. Of course, there are other options for multi-channel "note transfer", such as OpenSound Controls, but since MIDI has been the de-facto standard for so long, I'd expect there to be more and better libraries available for it.

[Pitriss]

Eh.. purpose of music in most games (for me) is to turn that crap off and lets play something I like.. I don't remember any game where I liked its builtin music so much to keep it turned on..

BTW Ambience mods are reason why i have turned off sounds in MT..

[philipbenr]

If you play any of these: FTL? Battle for Wesnoth? Still, I play my own music for most games as well. And most times that is Pirates of the Caribbean. ;)

[TranceTip]

SoundHelix 0.7.1 has been released: http://www.soundhelix.com

Whoever made the archlinux SoundHelix package, please update. :)

[TranceTip]

He also tweeted that his Call of Duty ping went up when they started spying on him with a wiretap)

And why do they even need a wiretap when they have PRISM and everything goes through a beam splitter? Oh well, I guess it's like the US/UK pretending they had not yet broken Enigma in WW II when they already hat.

Back on topic, of course "real" audio would be better, but the idea is to create auto-composed music either on the server or client and then synthesize that on the client. So I think MIDI is pretty much needed. MIDI doesn't have to sound bad, it all depends on the synthesis engine.

P.S. Ooh, SoundHelix has created something quite catchy:

2014-05-03 13:41:31,954 INFO [Generator] SongUtils: Song name: "The mechanical boy"
2014-05-03 13:41:31,954 DEBUG [Generator] SongUtils: Rendering new song with random seed 3076599096077343850

You can use the song title to recreate a song, so random title generation is actually not a complete gimmick.

P.P.S. The biggest problem with wavetable MIDI synthesis is that it sounds too dry. Something like Calf Chorus and Reverb is needed to make it sound more impressive and less tinny. This is also the main problem MIDI music in PC games had in the 1990s I think. Nice wavetables but no or bad effects. Then again maybe today's softsynths like timidity have built-in reverb?

The song title generation is completely customizable BTW. See http://www.soundhelix.com/doc/cfgsongnameengine for details and https://sourceforge.net/p/soundhelix/co ... Engine.xml for the standard name generation used.

[spootonium]

SoundHelix is pretty sweet. I wish it was a C library, though, to avoid VM-overhead slowness.

[Morn76]

SoundHelix 0.7.1 has been released: http://www.soundhelix.com

Whoever made the archlinux SoundHelix package, please update. :)

Excellent, thanks for the notice. AUR package has been updated.

[TranceTip]

Great, thanks!

[PeterPanda]

Music would be a great step for minetest. But make it soft and soothing, Like minecraft. I don't wanna hear dubstep while im peacefully building a house.

[MirceaKitsune]

I support the idea of having music in Minetest by default! There's a ton of great and freely-licensed songs over on OpenGameArt too, which could be very fitting.

For some reason though, I foresee some will be against this... so I don't see music happening in minetest_game. Never the less, it's easily doable as a mod, so this shouldn't be a problem.

Also, an idea: Biome dependent songs. Different music for forest / snow / desert could be a nice touch and easy to do.

[TenPlus1]

+1 as biome specific songs couldbe an easy addition to make, and servers could provide small .mod music files for custom biomes also...

[Krock]

+1 as biome specific songs couldbe an easy addition to make, and servers could provide small .mod music files for custom biomes also...

Short question: How to detect in which biome a player is?

[TenPlus1]

Same way Ambiance mod works, by detecting blocks currently around user and a certain distance away from user... These can be linked to specific biomes, unless minetest devs wanna add a feature like minetest.get_biome(pos)

[MirceaKitsune]

Short question: How to detect in which biome a player is?

There are primarily two ways; The easiest and simplest is detecting the node under the player. If it's dirt or dirt_with_grass, it's a normal biome... if it's dirt_with_snow or snow_block, it's a snow biome, if it's sand it's a desert biome, and so on.

A better way but harder to do (especially now that the weather system was bluntly removed) is by detecting heat and humidity at the player's position and determining biome type based on that. This would allow triggering the proper type of music for players who have a home in a biome too, in which case they're sitting on a stone / wood floor and not on dirt directly. Also for players who are flying and in the air.