Tailoring music to the period

[Philippeatbay]

I've asked something like this before but I'm not sure what the answer was and circumstances are a bit different now.

Pike and Shot is now covering a very long stretch of time, so long that one single set of music really doesn't sound right for the whole period.

The simplest solution would be to come up with several different versions of my music mod, and install a different one depending on what scenario you were about to play.

What I'm essentially talking about is making two to four more music mods.

At the very least one is needed for the sixteenth century and the late seventeenth century.

I'm itching to use Lully's Turenne March as intro music, and I've got some great Turkish music for the siege of Vienna.

Coming up with the music won't be that difficult. The hard part will be making the choices.

But the real obstacle is a technical issue.

I'm crazy enough to be willing to install different music manually every time I play a scenario, especially since I usually know what period I feel like playing.

But is there any way to get the game to do that automatically?

Music that's meant to be played with the Roi Soleil expansion doesn't sound right during the French invasion of Italy in 1494.

Given the increasing number of community scenarios the manual installation may be the way to go about this.

But I'd still prefer a solution that put fewer demands on the user.

There seem to be a few people out there who can't wrap their head around the manual installation system that I use.

[macdonncadh]

I may be wrong but I had the impression just about anything - music included - you would want to modify could be done by dropping it into the individual campaign folders. I would ask Richard, but I do think this would apply to the music as well, with the added advantage of leaving well enough alone as far as the game installation. In the same DATA folder in which the BATTLE folder is located, just place one called MUSIC and do your thing...

[rbodleyscott]

I may be wrong but I had the impression just about anything - music included - you would want to modify could be done by dropping it into the individual campaign folders. I would ask Richard, but I do think this would apply to the music as well, with the added advantage of leaving well enough alone as far as the game installation. In the same DATA folder in which the BATTLE folder is located, just place one called MUSIC and do your thing...

I haven't tried it, but that appears to be true.

See the custom campaign file layout at the end of this document:

http://www.slitherinebravo.net/GameWiki ... tub_engine

If you put the music.txt and sounds in the right place it should work. You can also tailor sound effects in the same way.

[Philippeatbay]

Many thanks.

I have some experimenting to do.

[Philippeatbay]

I have a history of not wrapping my mind around this kind of thing correctly, so I'm not surprised that so far I'm not getting things to work the way I want them to.

I set up a parallel instal of the game.

That installation uses my original music mod, which works.

I made a copy of the original unmodded music file so that I could immediately tell if there was different music playing.


First, I disabled the music by adding a suffix to the music folder in data.

The game ran without error messages, but there was no music. So far so good.

Next, I made a copy of the music text file in the general data folder and dropped it into the data folder inside Tercio to Salvo in the Campaigns folder. Then I put an unmodded music folder (from the previous step) inside the data folder of the Tercio to Salvo/Campaigns folder.

No music.

On reflection there may be a slight mismatch between the music text file and the music folder in the Tercio to Salvo Campaign folder, but I don't think that's the problem.

Then, leaving the music text file and music folder inside the Tercio to Salvo Campaign folder, I enabled the music folder in the main data folder by changing it's name back.

I got music everywhere, but it was the music from the main music folder.

I'll re-read that link to modding the game, but I think there's something I'm not doing right.

And I'm still worried about the saws file because I have no idea what function it serves (or what should be in it).

[rbodleyscott]

And I'm still worried about the saws file because I have no idea what function it serves (or what should be in it).

No function at all, it is part of the version control process. You can ignore it.

As to what you are not doing right, I am not sure.

[Philippeatbay]

I have no idea what I am talking about, but the other thing I've found myself wondering is whether the text of the music text file inside the campaign folder should be the same the text of the music text file outside of the campaign folder.

The other thing I may try is to add a suffix to the main music text file in case it is interfering with the music text file inside the campaign folder.

It's probably just me, but I'm starting to wonder if something needs to be toggled on inside the engine for this to work. The more likely answer is that I'm not seeing something that is screamingly obvious.

[rbodleyscott]

The other thing I may try is to add a suffix to the main music text file in case it is interfering with the music text file inside the campaign folder.

I would suggest adding a prefix rather than a suffix, because sometimes the engine only looks at the first part of the filename.

It's probably just me, but I'm starting to wonder if something needs to be toggled on inside the engine for this to work.

Definitely not.

PM me, and we can arrange for me to take a look at your "campaign".