[Request] Random Battlescape Music and optional Action Battle Music

[Neo23]

Hi, first sorry for my english.
I am a long time fan of X-Com since Amiga 500 and then the DOS versions of EU and TFTD.
I want to thank you all for this great resurrection of one of my favorite games even today
and for all the great mods out there.

1. One thing I really wish to be added is the support of random music files for battlescape
music. Like the feature for random geoscape files up to 9 different ogg's. Only one music track
in every ground mission is a little boring over time. I think this should not be hard to be
implemented.

2. Another thing I would love to see is action music in battlescape like in Apocalypse. Everytime
someone see's an Enemy, the music change to a random action music file. This music keep playing
until everything is clear again und no enemy contact remaining. The normal battlescape music
from before continues at this point until another danger comes up.
This feature is not vanilla and can maybe turned on/off via options menu.

Music is 50% of the atmosphere. I hope this can be done. The new X-COM 2012 is nowhere near the
original game, but it has one good thing: The Soundtrack. With this features it is possible to
add the cool OST to the game and have the original gameplay.
Thanks again and can't wait for TFTD support. Keep up the good work!

[Warboy1982]

1: done

2: not so easy, a dynamic music engine like that requires music that can actually be interwoven without sounding "jarring" and we don't exactly have anything like that

[Neo23]

Thank you for the random battlescape music. That was quick

In regards to two, i thought of a simple 3 to 5 seconds fade out / fade in effect for smooth music
transition.
This would only be needed if the danger is gone and the music changes back to normal as things cool down again.
On enemy contact the music can change spontaneous like in Apocalypse.

P.S. This could also be used not only to play action music, but a faster, more thrilled theme to intense
the atmosphere. With fade effects any music can fit.

[volutar]

I doubt crossfade or fadein/out possible. Better remaster your tracks with fadein/out and pauses between.
And don't use MP3s (smpeg library sometimes causing application crash).

Actually RANDOM is bad thing that should be replaced either with shuffled list, or sequential (like in vanilla).

[kikimoristan]

This would be nice but getting this work properly would be hard.  Fading between random tracks would be really annoying and break the flow of the game .  You would need 3 tracks one no fighting, one a crossfade between no fighting and battle and last one battle. And when you see an enemy the battle song begins and if you haven't seen an enemy for 3 turns the song reverts back to no fighting song. Then if you get that right you would want to create maybe a few songs perhaps based on the map. But honestly. If you get at least one song to work fine I'd be happy with that.

[Neo23]

I thought on a very simple but effective system.

- At first you have the randomized normal music.

- See an enemy and the normal battlescape music stop playing and the track position
  will be remembered. Now immediately start the random action/intense music (could be the same
  for the whole mission and determined on mission start like the random battlescape music).
 
- If everything is clear again, do not wait for the turn to end. Instead slowly fade out
  the action music and continue playing and fade in the normal battlescape music again (same track
  as usually and same position it was paused).
  To ensure the next move will not reveal a alien again, this can alternatively happen at turn end and the
  hidden movement if there is no new contact at the beginning of the next turn. Maybe better this way.
 
Special transition music are not needed. Only volume changes to build up fade effects.
Unfortunately I have no free music to offer for this feature (only from other games/movies). I was hoping
for this as optional feature for modders and people who use their own music for this. It can be
action music or even a intense horror music. As anyone likes to build up the atmosphere in danger situations.

I understand this can eventually not be easily implemented. But at least I can try and ask

[kikimoristan]

Try it for yourself using winamp or something like that. Use a video editor and try that system .You will find is a bit annoying. Ideally you want the battle music and no battle music merge and fluidly go back and forth . Even the DJ when he changes a track first matches the beat on headphones then plays the track out loud. You would wanna pre-select songs that have a similar pace /rhythm but one is fast and one is slow and then you can probably fade between. You can't just fade from any track to any other track.  Meanwhile the old track has to be still playing in the background it shouldn't continue where you left off. Might be noticeable to the player.


Find or make two tracks that use same melody but different beats or leads  and same length. Find certain points where they fade to each other neatly.

start a mission. start playing both songs at the same time. the calm music is 100% volume the battle one is 0% volume. see an enemy? wait for the perfect point where you found thy fade nicely and start fading. battle 100% calm music 0% enemy dead and no other enemies or enemy is gone and at least 1 turn passed again go to one of the nice fading points and fade back battle 0% calm music 100%.

That could work yes. But you need to have both songs be variations of one song. Someone has to make them.  You can probably remove or mute instruments to create a new song out of a midi track using a midi editor. Create a few combos 1 / map type and you're good to go. Or you can just have 1 song for all missions as long as is a nice one.

[Neo23]

I already did that in some of my mods/games/movies and this method worked
quite well for me. I guess it is depending on the taste of people.

For example look at Apocalypse (especially the hardcore action music) and the
Firaxis X-Com. In both the action music starts immediately and sound very different to
the calm music.

I like both music transition versions though. With music replacer OGG files everyone could
choose the music combination fitted to their taste.
That was my basic idea of this feature. Optional for customisation and not enabled by default.