.ogg?
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Beginners Area/.ogg?
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| I currently use a mixture of Mp3 and wav for my sound effects. I use s3m for my music files. I was ust wondering what the ogg format is all about and what advantages / disaventages there are to converting to the ogg format. I was also wondering what formats people use for their music files as even mp3 are pretty large for a small game. |
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| Ogg Vorbis is a fully open, non-proprietary, patent-and-royalty-free, general-purpose compressed audio format for mid to high quality (8kHz-48.0kHz, 16+ bit, polyphonic) audio and music at fixed and variable bitrates from 16 to 128 kbps/channel. This places Vorbis in the same competitive class as audio representations such as MPEG-4 (AAC), and similar to, but higher performance than MPEG-1/2 audio layer 3, MPEG-4 audio (TwinVQ), WMA and PAC. http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/ Main emphasis on the words "patent-and-royalty-free"... .MP3 is NOT free to use, so if you need .MP3 replacement for the games you should use .OGG. Quality is same, and filesize is not bigger either. .WAVs are great for SFX, but take too much space for music. My choice is .OGG + .WAV. |
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| ".MP3 is NOT free to use." Are you saying that if you sell a game with .MP3 attatched, that you have to pay for it? |
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| Yep. |
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| http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/software.html http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/emd.html |
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| Well I shall just convert all my sounds to ogg then. But how do people create tunes for their games? |
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| Tunes? Well they create them using whatever soft they want to use and save the result as .OGG. :) .MP3 is just an format, it's not like every music/tune *has* to be .MP3. Bit like .TGA and .BMP - both are image formats and nothing more... WinAmp for example can play "out of the box" these formats, including .OGG: CDA, MP3, MP2, MP1, AAC, NSA, OGG, WMA, MID, MIDI, RMI, KAR, MIZ, MOD, MDZ, NST, STM, STZ, S3M, S3Z, IT, ITZ, XM, XMZ, MTM, ULT, 669, FAR, AMF, OKT, PTM, WAV, VOC, AU, SND, AIF, AIFF I'm sure that you haven't even heard some of the audio formats listed above, but they too are just audio formats, nothing more. If your player supports it and the format is free to use, you're good to go... in Blitz the best choice for music is .OGG. |
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| For music, I would always go for a polished/mixed/mastered OGG, rather than a trackerformat, midifile etc. In the mix there's so much you can do to make it sound great instead of dull. aLso consider this: do your customers (ppl buying games) have the ultimate hi-fi equipment, or do they have dull multimedia-speakers? If you count on the last case, you can use the mixing/mastering-process to optimize the sound for small speakers.. think about the low-frequency stuff! |
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| CS_TBL, you seem to know what you're talking about. What's a good program for digital music creation and sequencing? Ideally, something like Winjammer where you simply place the notes on staff paper, but instead of using a MIDI insturment patch, you'd specify a short sound clip to be used as each "insturment?" ( If such a program does not exist, then somebody darn well needs to MAKE one! :D ) |
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| Are you saying that if you sell a game with .MP3 attatched, that you have to pay for it? Actually, even if you give it away, providing you get 5,000 downloads : http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/games.html |
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| I use a fancy-old tracker (Impulse Tracker 2) for all my projects (that includes TV/film/commercial work) .. a bit trickey tho, because of its limits, I use several .IT files together. Once I used 15 .it files for 1 2-minute tune :) The resulting waves go to Vegas 4 (Sonic Foundry, now Sony), and that's where I mix the whole bunch. The end result goes to Soundforge, where I master them to be used on a specific monitor system. Anyway, that's my own method.. others have theirs. I'm not exactly 'normal' anyway, if the world goes left, I go right :) On a sidenote: I'm also the functional designer of the rumoured, mystical and "generally-declared *dead*" IT3 :) It isn't dead.. it turned into an application that you can't make within a year. If you don't like trackers, then use any typical MIDI app, like Cubase and clones, and have a softsynth running in the back with all your samples. |
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| I guess asking you to toss together a program like Tracker only without the memory limitations would be a joke, huh? :P Do you know anything about the MOD format? I heard it was like midi but using sound clips instead of insturments. It SOUNDS to me like the IDEAL composer's tool, but I can't seem to find it online anywhere. It seems to have vanished to a degree that can not be explained merely by the popularity of MIDI. Then again, I don't know how old or buggy this MOD format was, or what the level of support was/is. I just know it sounded good on paper and I can't find a MOD sequencer using Google. |
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| actually, most "mod sequencers" are called "trackers" the .MOD format is prehistoric, and was very popular on the Amiga and Atari ST. They are still around, and the current versions of Blitz can play them natively (the upcoming BlitzMax apparently can't) There are different variations of 'modules', all base don the same principle, just using a different file format. .mod, .xm, .s3m, .it (mentioned above), and others... A quick google search came up with the following programs that can make 'em, but there are *tons* of others out there: Fast Tracker - http://www.united-trackers.org/resources/software/fasttracker.htm Scream Tracker - http://www.united-trackers.org/resources/software/screamtracker.htm Modplug Tracker - http://www.modplug.com/modplug/tracker.php3 Impulse Tracker - http://www.noisemusic.org/it/ And there are the oldies, NoiseTracker, ProTracker, StarTrekker, WhackerTracker, etc. |
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| I guess asking you to toss together a program like Tracker only without the memory limitations would be a joke, huh? :P wait a few months.. there might be a surprise coming up :) MOD/IT/ST3/XM etc. vs MIDI was a common debate, years ago. The problem was and *is*, that without custom samples you don't have a clue about how good or bad it sounds on a random consumer-PC. Sure.. it'll all be GM, so voice 1 will be a piano.. but GM is only a format-standard.. not a sound-standard.. it's completely free for a soundcard/synth company to add a 64mb rom or a 512kb rom with GM sounds. For obvious reasons the latter one stinks. Add the fact that cheap soundcards don't always have DSP functionality onboard (like reverb and chorus) doesn't help too.. Now and then indie-games appear with MIDI music.. and perhaps it's me, but I think it all stinks. Usually I don't play games with crap-music behind it. As many movie-directors agree on: music is one of the most important aspects of a movie, in terms of atmosphere and excitement. GM, the worst invention in consumer-music-technology history. There's nothing creative about it, many important instruments are missing, polyphony is a pain in the ass, .. it just sucks beyong reckognision :) A freaky example: I've both Diablo2+exp AND Baldur's Gate (The Forgotton Realms). I only played D2, and only looked briefly at BG. Reason? BG didn't have music at the town where you start (or maybe only very short, I don't remember it). Might be a stupid arguement, but I really want good music, otherwise I don't play it! Even if I have bought the game! (like I did :) D2, I'd like to add, has outstanding music. So, my bottomline: don't skimp on the music. Forget MIDI and go for a professionally produced OGG-file. |
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| I agree with most of what you just said, CS_TBL. I just wish it were as easy to compose music and make it into an OGG file (provided you have your own private library of brief insturment samples to play with)as it is to create a MIDI file. I thought MOD was the answer because, based on textual descriptions, it sounded like a great format that fell by the wayside. Your description makes it sound like it wasn't quite all it was cracked up to be in terms of sample quality and cross-platform uniform-ness. I hope whatever might surprise me in a few months addresses these issues and makes the creation of realistic OGG music as easy as Winjammer makes the creation of quirky little MIDI files that rely wholly on a quality insturment patch. |
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| I'm not saying existing technology like .it files made using .it file trackers aren'tadequate to make awesome music. I'm just saying it would be great if you made a program that can be used to compose a 5 minute track without pasting together files. |
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| Yeah, that will be a future app I'm designing as well, don't count on it in the next year tho. Such an app would have a mixer/master section built-in to polish all. Without such mixer features you always need to work with seperate waves to get some decent results. Ofcourse you can process all tracks at once and make an ogg out of it, but that won't give you top-quality. |
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| "wait a few months.. there might be a surprise coming up :)" CS_TBL, so are working on a modern tracker? I have tried using Magix Music Maker Deluxe bunging sample loops together to make an ogg file. Is that the way you recommend? The file is size is still pretty big considering that currently my games data file is abotu 4 mb. To add say 10 ogg files say about 2 minutes long will up this by many many mb. This will put off some people from downloading it altogether. |
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| Check out sonic foundry's Acid, you can stick sample loops or one-shot samples in, pitch shift them and preserve duration and stack as many tracks on top of each other as your computer can handle. You can use it as a hdd recorder, playing back what you've done whilst real time recording another track on the top (guitar/vocal whatever). Once you've done that you export the whole tune as a single wav, drop it into OGGDrop and you've got your OGG ready for use. And, when you buy it you get a CD stacked full of loops and samples to use at will. I think it's really rather good. The way I tend to work however isn't just Acid based. I create loops and sequences in Cubase using my midi set up, then mix down into a sample that I then load into Acid. |
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| so are working on a modern tracker? I'm working on a complete all-purpose music app that includes a tracker, but also a multitrack editor, midi-clone editor (like cubase etc.), internal modular synth etc. etc. The tracker will be different compared to current trackers, but not a pain in the ass to use. As I'm a die-hard IT2 user, I'll make sure I like it :) Keys will be user-defined, as well as many other things.. (layout, not just skin). And if things go well, it'll all be multiplatform (full 100%, not 90% and 10% system-dependent) Sure, 10 ogg's of 2..4mb files are heavy for 56k users. However, I think that either (1) more ppl'll be able to have adsl/cable internet not so far away in the future, or (2) those who want to download a game don't care about the game being bigger than 'normal'. A 60mb game would be a 3.5 hour download on a 56k modem, there were days I was 60hours online with my phone. 3.5 hour would be like 4 dollar orso if you DL it in the evening, and even less if you DL it at night. Do you think a potential customer would mind spending 4 dollar more if that means a splendid soundtrack? I know I would DL it at once! |
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| Boiled Sweets, if you want to use "real" music, people won't be able to download your game unless you hella downsample it. If this is for a beta or shareware game, consider making low-res, grainy versions of all the music tracks and then note in the demo that the full version contains the beefy REAL music. On the other hand, if people are paying for your game to begin with, it shouldn't matter what size the files are. |
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| To create original music for games you should take a look at Garageband for Mac OS X. (Yeah, sigh, it's Mac only.) It's essentially like a cross between a complete set of high end midi instruments (you can drive it with a keyboard), a complete set of guitar amps (you'll need a guitar), a sample sequencer, and a track editor (with a large library of royalty-free pro-quality samples) -- except that everything you are messing with is either a MIDI sequence or a 44Khz 16-bit stereo sample, and you can modify the key and tempo of samples... You can put together a sound track without any musical ability whatsoever (just arrange a bunch of samples you like and voila), or you can lay down your own tracks, or anything in between. |
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| Have been playing with Acid. Have created 10 original 36 second tunes that are only 200k at 44khz stereo and saved as ogg now. My game levels only last around 1 minute (max) so they are fine. Great feedback from everyone, thanks. "You can hear the new tunes in the next release of RetroSphere. In fact I may post em so others can use them too if people are interested. |
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| How BlitzBasic3D can make players listen and talk in multiplayer. Some commands are around CHANNEL or SOUND, but I can't find something to control the vocal messages. Apry ps:merci à Daiko et Bobbysait pour la formule des sheres de points. J'ai ajouté une boule étoilée dans mon projet débutant. |
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