DotT - Music Remake Project

General chat related to ScummVM, adventure gaming, and so on.

Moderator: ScummVM Team

optimus$prime
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Mar 01, 2006 10:30 pm

DotT - Music Remake Project

Post by optimus$prime »

hi there!

i'm thinking about starting a music remake project for day of the tentacle
the game sounds nice with the mt32 but not good enough for me :P

to show you that i am the right person for this job i have small demonstration for you:

Red Edison's Theme (not finished)
http://members.chello.at/optimusprime/dott/red.ogg



@ developers of scummvm: will it ever be possible to use audio files instead of the midi tracks of dott?

have fun

OP :mrgreen:
User avatar
noize
Posts: 126
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2005 3:08 pm

Post by noize »

Didn't have a change to listen to your creation, but I can tell you this:
because of the use of iMuse in dott, the use of audio files will be nearly impossible.
User avatar
sev
ScummVM Lead
Posts: 2272
Joined: Wed Sep 21, 2005 1:06 pm
Contact:

Post by sev »

Exactly, i.e. all music is scripts-driven there and changes depending on your actions when you play the game.


Eugene
Cirion81
Posts: 36
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2005 5:02 pm
Location: Germany

Post by Cirion81 »

Hallo OP,

I once made a similar suggestion. You can read here why an enhancement of iMUSE music is not possible (or, at least very arduous to implement).

Greetings
Larson
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Mar 02, 2006 8:14 am
Contact:

Post by Larson »

Don't let this stop you though, I like to listen to game music without actually playing and having high quality remakes makes me very happy :)
User avatar
JamesWoodcock
Posts: 222
Joined: Wed Nov 09, 2005 12:20 am
Location: England UK
Contact:

Post by JamesWoodcock »

It is nice to see other people working on enhancing the original MIDI files!

However I did avoid games like DOTT and Sam and Max due to the very heavy alterations within the game that is based upon user action.

Good luck, however I doubt DOTT will every support external music files due to the heavy work involved with this iMUSE system.

Our of curiosity though, which MIDI hardware are you using?
User avatar
pelayo
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Jan 07, 2006 12:31 am

Post by pelayo »

It would be possible with an implementation of Dreamcast ADX format or something similar, that allowed for several loops that changed with user action in the same way iMuse does. Or perhaps mod/s3m/xm? but again it would be painful to do. BTW if ScummVM supports custom audio some day, I'll make my LOOM Enhanced Audio, with full orchestral music. I already have several versions of each music, now I just need to choose the best versions (and look for their copyrights: most classical themes are public domain, but not all of their recordings).
Last edited by pelayo on Thu Mar 02, 2006 5:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
clem
Posts: 2159
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2005 11:14 am

Post by clem »

it's not just looping, afaik iMUSE allows to turn single instruments on/off
you'd basically need to rewrite the whole music engine plus the sounds to make it sound better
cappuchok
Posts: 134
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2005 7:54 am

Post by cappuchok »

clem wrote:it's not just looping, afaik iMUSE allows to turn single instruments on/off
you'd basically need to rewrite the whole music engine plus the sounds to make it sound better
MOD-type files allows that. The Amiga versions of the iMUSE-enabled games are unlikely to use MIDI files as the Amiga didn't have a synth of any kind and was too weak in terms of CPU and memory to allow a softsynth at the same time the game was running. Most likely they used some custom derivative of the MOD format.

With that in mind, XM/IT or some other modern MOD format would be the most likely successful way of implementing a soundtrack with remastered samples and effects. Though as has already been said, it would require such profound rewriting of the engine that it probably wouldn't be worth it in the end. Or perhaps not, as the Amiga versions must have had code that could be useful in working it out. Then again, it'd still be a lot of work. Too bad I'm not a programmer.
User avatar
LogicDeLuxe
Posts: 431
Joined: Thu Nov 10, 2005 9:54 pm

Post by LogicDeLuxe »

cappuchok wrote:The Amiga versions of the iMUSE-enabled games are unlikely to use MIDI files
Though they do, nevertheless. Check out the resources! It's exactly the same format as in the PC version (they are even based on the MT-32 default instruments). The difference is merly that there are less instrument, since the amiga can only play 4 sounds at a time. And there are less tunes, probably due to memory constrains as the games are supposed to run on a plain Amiga 500 with 1 MB. The wavetable is spread over the disks in those amiga.ims files.
Last edited by LogicDeLuxe on Thu Mar 02, 2006 9:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
JamesWoodcock
Posts: 222
Joined: Wed Nov 09, 2005 12:20 am
Location: England UK
Contact:

Post by JamesWoodcock »

Hey we just need a very accurate MT-32 emulation, then I am sure DOTT and others wouldn't be such an irritation :)
Kirben
Posts: 421
Joined: Wed Sep 21, 2005 12:15 pm
Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Post by Kirben »

Why not just use the General MIDI tracks of DOTT? DOTT offers Adlib, General MIDI and Roland MT32 tracks for music.
optimus$prime
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Mar 01, 2006 10:30 pm

Post by optimus$prime »

very bad news :cry: , but are you 100% sure there is the same problem in dott?
i'm sure that dott doesen't turn on/off instruments
i think it plays integrated midi files (full tracks) - i know that because i have those files (to be honest: somebody ripped them but this shouldn't change a thing)

if the music is script driven, there has to be some kind of command that turns on/off the tracks. so it should be possible use that command to play/loop the audio files instead of the midi tracks

@ pelayo: there is already a loom cd version with audio tracks :)
User avatar
pelayo
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Jan 07, 2006 12:31 am

Post by pelayo »

I know, but loomtowns use a very bad synthesized music at least for me (I liked more the original ADLIB music), and loomCD is awful, they took away half of the game and the music is also synthesized. And replacing loomtowns tracks with orchestral ones doesn't work, as they need to have the correct size or they cut... the track length is scripted or hardcoded in scummVM?
User avatar
eriktorbjorn
ScummVM Developer
Posts: 3522
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2005 7:39 am

Post by eriktorbjorn »

optimus$prime wrote:very bad news :cry: , but are you 100% sure there is the same problem in dott?
i'm sure that dott doesen't turn on/off instruments
The very theme that started this thread - Red Edison's theme - seems like a good example to me: The harpsichord only plays while you're actually talking to him.
Post Reply