Redbook variations

Post suggestions regarding RVGL here in this subforum.
User avatar
URV
Administrator
Posts: 173
From: Europe 3

Redbook variations

Unread post by URV » Sat Sep 22, 2018 3:07 pm

I posted two topics related to music in the past, one about expanding customisation options and the other about its multiplayer behaviour. This topic is more or less a direct copy of the first suggestion from the music customisation topic, but I wanted to bring more attention to it since I think it's more important than the rest.

The situation is as such: I am interested in using the recently released, community-made soundtrack in my main Re-Volt installation. Hearing the old music over and over again has gotten a bit repetitive, and the new soundtrack provides a fresh experience while still maintaining that Re-Volt feel. However, despite that, I still wish to keep hearing the original soundtrack whenever I race any of the stock tracks.

But why? I am really excited about the direction RVGL is heading, with the full usage of community-made assets, but I don't want to get rid of the nostalgic parts of the game either, which were the reason why I ended up in this lovely community in the first place. I want to hear community-made music in community-made tracks—but it's also important to me to still have that occasional glimpse of the old soundtrack. I suspect many people feel similarly and would actually make use of the new soundtrack much more if that was a possibility.

Here's the short version:
  • Use the community-made soundtrack as the default music for custom tracks
  • Bring the possibility to use the original redbook exclusively for the stock tracks
The one way I thought of handling this would be to keep the default soundtrack in redbook/ and the original soundtrack in something like redbook/original/. Adding a line such as REDBOOKVER original in the .inf files for stock tracks could be a way to let the game know which subfolder to use. If this also makes it possible to have multiple custom redbook subfolders, all the better, as it would be to the benefit of the I/O music pack, specific custom tracks, personalised Re-Volt installations and much more.

If this is difficult to implement (and would take a while before we could see it), or not something you would want to implement, please let me know. As a fallback, I will instead keep using the original soundtrack in the redbook folder and assign music from the new soundtrack to all custom I/O tracks.

As an alternative solution, make it possible to use REDBOOK values higher than 13.
User avatar
kiwi
Posts: 557

Re: Redbook variations

Unread post by kiwi » Sat Sep 22, 2018 9:20 pm

+1 from me, because I have the exact same "problem". I really like the new soundtrack, but for nostalgic reasons I want to keep the original soundtrack as a standard for stock-tracks on my installation.
User avatar
Marv
Developer
Posts: 236
From: Europe 2

Re: Redbook variations

Unread post by Marv » Sun Sep 23, 2018 12:10 am

I like the idea. I'd perhaps introduce lists of music files rather than more redbook tracks which already is a legacy / backwards compatibility feature.
User avatar
URV
Administrator
Posts: 173
From: Europe 3

Re: Redbook variations

Unread post by URV » Tue Mar 19, 2019 3:52 pm

Sorry for bumping, but is there any chance we'll get this feature soon? I'd like to update the music pack and I need to know how to deal with it. If not possible, I'll just add the community-made soundtrack in /music/rvio and randomly assign single songs to custom tracks that don't have anything yet, which should work at least as a temporary solution.
User avatar
Huki
Developer
Posts: 397

Re: Redbook variations

Unread post by Huki » Wed Mar 20, 2019 10:56 pm

I haven't decided yet. I don't like extending REDBOOK functionality either. We currently have MUSIC <path>, where <path> points to an audio file. What if <path> is allowed to point to a folder path, in which case the game picks a random track from that folder?

Code: Select all

MUSIC   'music/rvio'
You can't choose your range this way, but tracks could be sorted into their own sub-folders.

Code: Select all

MUSIC   'music/rvio/genre'
User avatar
URV
Administrator
Posts: 173
From: Europe 3

Re: Redbook variations

Unread post by URV » Thu Mar 21, 2019 3:33 pm

That would definitely work out fine. Quite frankly, I agree that this is better than extending the REDBOOK functionality. I don't think we need tracks in a certain order (REDBOOK randomizes them too after all), so that shouldn't be an issue.

The only problem I can see with this is that we can't vary song lists without having duplicate files (e.g. using tracks 1-6 for one list and using tracks 4-9 for another list would result in 3 duplicate files). I don't think I intend to do that with the music pack right now, but it might be good to keep this in mind in case there's a better solution to account for it.

Thanks for considering it! I myself would be very happy even with just the ability to set the path to folders.
User avatar
shara--
Posts: 17

Re: Redbook variations

Unread post by shara-- » Fri Mar 22, 2019 1:23 pm

this suggestion i have is a more hassle on the user-side.

rather than a path to single folder, which then the game randomizes the music selection inside said folder, what about having multiple ‘MUSIC’ paths in the track's .inf file?

for example, rather than
[MUSIC 'music/rvio']
which there are multiple music in rvio folder that will be randomly selected,

instead, it is
[MUSIC1 'music/rvio/file1.mp3
MUSIC2 'music/rvio/file3.mp3
MUSIC3 'music/rvio/file5.mp3]
the track will only randomize the selection listed in the .inf file.
as in example above, the track will only randomly select between file1, file3 and file5,
with file2 and file4 never being considered to be selected in the random select process, similar to how REDBOOK values work.

this has more hassle on the user-side, but allows for varied songlist per track's .inf file.

====================

alternatively, i dont know if this is already implemented, but i have a suggestion to support shortcut files.

this way, it is possible to go with URV's idea of having different folders for different songlists without wasting up disk memory space.
rather than a duplicate copy-paste of the music file, instead a shortcut will be used as the duplicate that will point to the location of the actual music file.

only 1 actual music file is needed, with any new songlist containing said music will be using a shortcut.
User avatar
ZipperZbieracz
Posts: 306

Re: Redbook variations

Unread post by ZipperZbieracz » Wed Apr 03, 2019 12:29 pm

Wasn't the original "community" idea to base RVGL on a custom soundtrack so we have no IP problems in this area? Even though that still wouldn't make our situation any better.

Huki's suggestion is good for customs. Stocks indeed could just use original songs from the redbook folder.

But the idea is more tricky if we would try to allow for many songs to be added to a certain folder in the music folder, for example music/custom and we could put all custom songs there, from which the game would randomly pick a song to be played on a custom track. New songs could be added after some time to that folder and users could add songs there by themselves. Maybe somehow allow for the track in the track.inf file to randomize a song from 2 or more folders, but that's even trickier.

__

We could also try to allow for custom tracks to pick from both custom and stock songs.

Stocks perhaps too, depends what people want.

I personally listen to my own music anyway, whether it's some OST songs, rock, electronic music, RC Cars music or Re-Volt music.
Post Reply