Dynamic music

Dynamic music (unfortunately) only works best with MIDI when it comes to implementation, as MIDI generates it in real-time so it's easier just to switch the instruments, add an "end" to the current piece of music then add a "start" to the new one.

With digital files you're going to need more programming - Halo has all it's music cut into 5-10 second chunks so they mix well (did a good job of it too) but not many other games do this. Serious Sam simply plays one digital file when the atmosphere is calm, then fades that out while fading in the "action" music. This works well actually

I haven't listened to how UT3 does it yet, I usually have the music cut down or I play my own in XMPlay.

Skatoony said:

I haven't listened to how UT3 does it yet, I usually have the music cut down or I play my own in XMPlay.

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It is annoying (at least to me) to hear hear the so called "Stingers" which are basically some sort of "fanfare" to mimic the change from one track to the other.
But even with the Stingers hiding the change between the two track these tracks don't continue to play parallel... ...you always end up hearing the first 5 to 10 seconds of each track.

That's why I earlier made my sarcastic statement. You constantly keep hearing the same short parts interrupted by some weird "taddahhh" or "tadderadadaaaahhhh" if you play UT in a fast paced manner. And now I am honest: I cannot imagine anybody really liking it the way it is done in UT3 if you keep yourself in the action because it reverts back to the calm music too fast.

UBerserker said:

The main annoyance is that when a music changes, it starts from the beginning. I'm tired of hearing the first few seconds of the Go Down's remix.

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It's a good start, the implimentation, but it could be improved. COR:EFBB used dynamic music (though it was SP). The basic explanation is there was 2 tracks constantly playing. When you attack something it would do a crossfade from ambient to action. The ambient would continue to run while the action was playing so when it faded back it would be at a different point every time.

fuegerstef said:

How the hell did people understand texts in books, articles, etc before the smileys were "invented"?

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[SARCASM]Been some time since I've seen sarcasm in a book [/SARCASM]

people should read more...

zynthetic said:

The basic explanation is there was 2 tracks constantly playing.

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That's how Serious Sam works. Although Serious Sam 2 plays three (Calm, Tension and Action), then just fades in the correct one while fading out the other.