Mainlining popular UMC tracks

[egallager]

So, I have recently been doing a survey of UMC music, and I have found that there are a number of music tracks that have been copied between add-ons. Or, at least I'm assuming they're the same track; my methodology here was just searching by filename and assuming that any found were the same thing; I only actually listened to the copies in the UMC Music Books. Anyways, these were the most popular tracks that I found, in terms of how many different add-ons they were copied between:

• In the Land of Madness (exists in 9 add-ons: Project Thursagan, The Amaranthine Stone's separate music pack add-on "TAS_Music", The Great Steppe Era, Archaic Sounds, After the Storm, A Whim of Fate, UMC Music Book 03, To Lands Unknown, and Red Winter Reborn)
• Ambuscade (exists in 8 add-ons: Project Thursagan, A Hero's Fate, From the New World, TAS_Music, Akladian Music, UMC Music Book 07, Genesis, and Invasion from the Unkown)
• MoleMan (exists in 7 add-ons: The Great Steppe Era, Spartan, Project Thursagan, Return from the Abyss's separate music pack add-on "RftA-Music", After the Storm, Genesis, and UMC Music Book 08)
• Climactic Contemplation (exists in 6 add-ons: Alariel's Journey, From the New World, A Hero's Fate, Project Thursagan, Invasion from the Unknown, and UMC Music Book 08)
• Enchanted Forest (exists in 6 add-ons: Project Thursagan, Alariel's Journey, Spartan, After the Storm, UMC Music Book 04, and To Lands Unknown)
• One Thousand Suns (exists in 6 add-ons: Archaic Sounds, After the Storm, Genesis, Red Winter Reborn, UMC Music Book 03, and Akladian Music with a slightly different spelling that I noticed manually)
• Overlive (exists in 6 add-ons: Spartan, The Great Steppe Era, After the Storm, Genesis, To Lands Unknown, and UMC Music Book 09)
• The High King's March (exists in 6 add-ons: Fate of a Princess, The Great Steppe Era, Project Thursagan, Drums of War, UMC Music Book 03, and After the Storm)
• Through The Gates (exists in 6 add-ons: TWLP_Music, TAS_Music, The Great Steppe Era, Red Winter Reborn, Akladian Music, and UMC Music Book 08)
• Dark Passage (exists in 5 add-ons: TAS_Music, TWLP_Music, Akladian Music, To Lands Unknown, and UMC Music Book 07)
• Exploration (exists in 5 add-ons: TWLP_Music, TAS_Music, To Lands Unknown, UMC Music Book 07, and Akladian Music)
• Forested Vista (exists in 5 add-ons: TAS_Music, Alariel's Journey, TWLP_Music, A Whim of Fate, and UMC Music Book 08)
• Everlasting Night (exists in 5 add-ons: TAS_Music, Genesis, After the Storm, Red Winter Reborn, and UMC Music Book 04)
• Western Theme 2 (exists in 5 add-ons: A Hero's Fate, Project Thursagan, From the New World, Invasion from the Unknown, and UMC Music Book 09)

The widespread copying of these tracks seems to indicate to me that these tracks are in high demand. Would there be any interest in moving some of them to mainline to make it easier for UMC authors to use? I personally would find it convenient.

[gnombat]

Or, at least I'm assuming they're the same track; my methodology here was just searching by filename and assuming that any found were the same thing; I only actually listened to the copies in the UMC Music Books.

Note that for some tracks there are multiple versions floating around. For example, there are at least four different versions of ambuscade.ogg in different add-ons - the ones in UMC Music Book 07, Akladian Music, Amaranthine Stone Music, and Invasion from the Unknown Music are all different.

[Spannerbag]

...The widespread copying of these tracks seems to indicate to me that these tracks are in high demand. Would there be any interest in moving some of them to mainline to make it easier for UMC authors to use? I personally would find it convenient.

Seconded!

I appreciate that in an ideal world content creators would require players to download the appropriate music books and over time the same resources would be used by diferent campaigns. However for whatever reason this doesn't always happen, a lot of UMC (no idea what proportion of the whole) seems to come with its own music add-on. (Guilty as charged M'lud ).

Alternatively, could existing music books be condensed into fewer, larger add-ons? I was considering publishing a set of two music compilations (based on AfterEI's large music collection) that could be further expanded as required and shared between content creators to reduce this per-campaign music duplication, but it's not really a great solution IMHO.

In addition to grouping the additional music into fewer but larger add-ons would it be helpful to group the additional music tracks by mood so have additional books dedicated to a particular music mood as you mentioned in your post in the Expanding UMC Music thread.
BTW are there any established "mood categories" for music in Wesnoth?
I'd be willing to assist in categorising music if there was a good chance such work would be utilised in some way.

I do think that popular tracks should be migrated to mainline. A lot of extra tracks would make the game download significantly larger than it already is so I can see players who don't use music when they play might not want the extra music included as standard. I guess you can't keep everyone happy all the time...

Or, at least I'm assuming they're the same track; my methodology here was just searching by filename and assuming that any found were the same thing; I only actually listened to the copies in the UMC Music Books.

Note that for some tracks there are multiple versions floating around. For example, there are at least four different versions of ambuscade.ogg in different add-ons - the ones in UMC Music Book 07, Akladian Music, Amaranthine Stone Music, and Invasion from the Unknown Music are all different.

I suppose (assuming all versions have the appropriate copyright and credits) that we could either pick one (maybe the latest version published by the author/composer?) or include multiple versions?
Had a very quick listen to each version, they are all roughly the same play length (give or take a few seconds) according to Windows media player.
The theme seems the same but file size varies, I'm guessing due to compression and/or sampling rates.
Even if we went for one version, I think content creators could still use their preferred version in their content anyway by including that track in the campaign's music folder?
Personally, wherever possible I'd prefer to include just one version of each track; it's simpler, easier and reduces the add-on size.

Anyway, that's my tuppence worth.

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag

[egallager]

BTW are there any established "mood categories" for music in Wesnoth?

I've been working on some for TEG; they're defined in this file:
https://github.com/cooljeanius/The_Earths_Gut/blob/master/utils/music.cfg
The issue where I'm tracking expanding it is here:
https://github.com/cooljeanius/The_Earths_Gut/issues/11
DoT has a similar file, but I don't think it's used at all yet:
https://github.com/cooljeanius/dawn_of_thunder/blob/master/utils/music.cfg
There's also this page on the wiki:
https://wiki.wesnoth.org/WML_Musical_Moods
...and then there's also this issue open against the main Wesnoth repo on GitHub:
https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/issues/5767

[Spannerbag]

Wow, thanks for the very comprehensive post!

Only skimmed the various links thus far (will have more time over the weekend).

First off, and sorry to be dim, but what's the problem with using the remaining music books?
The links states Currently, only one of the UMC music books is usable with this campaign... but doesn't seem to elaborate?
Is it that there's an actual preprocessor/WML issue preventing this or is it just that no-one's added the relevant coding yet?

FWIW if it's the latter, since all the TEG music macros look almost identical could you maybe do the same thing as for CUE to save typing?

Code: Select all

#define TEG_MUSIC_UMC_TEMPLATE SONG BOOK_NUM	# Deliberately named differently so not inadvertently called by typos
#arg BOOK_NUM					# Default to music book 01
01#endarg
#ifhave ~add-ons/UMC_Music_Book_{BOOK_NUM}/_main.cfg
    [music]
        name={SONG}.ogg
        append=yes
        ms_before=8000
    [/music]
#endif
#enddef

then implement each music book thus:

Code: Select all

#define TEG_UMC_MUSIC SONG
{TEG_MUSIC_UMC_TEMPLATE {SONG}}
#endif
#enddef

#define TEG_UMC2_MUSIC SONG
{TEG_MUSIC_UMC_TEMPLATE {SONG} BOOK_NUM=02}
#enddef

... and so on, I'm sure you get the idea?
(Disclaimer: I haven't tested this preprocessor code so may have got something wrong...)


So as I see it for The Earth's Gut the moods are:

• Battle
• Epic
• Calm
• Underground
• Sad
• Normal
• Creepy
• CUE music uses some of the above plus two other categories/moods:
  • Doom (=defeat)
  • Elves

These are similar but not exactly the same as the moods listed in the wiki.

BTW is the intention for each track to appear in only one mood?
For almost all tracks this seems to be the case (from my brief skim) but I noticed that One_Thousand_Suns appears in both battle and epic.
Just thought I'd mention it

Pity about vengeful (too much dynamics compression and thus too loud) as I really like that track, it's one of the few that begin immediately with neither a quiet start or a brief silence so I often use it as music to accompany surprises

Anyway, that's a summary of my understanding of what's what.
Is there anything I can do to help?

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag

[egallager]

Wow, thanks for the very comprehensive post!

Only skimmed the various links thus far (will have more time over the weekend).

First off, and sorry to be dim, but what's the problem with using the remaining music books?

Mostly just needing to decide what moods to assign to the remaining songs.

The links states Currently, only one of the UMC music books is usable with this campaign... but doesn't seem to elaborate?

Oh that's outdated now, let me update that... I just finished book 3...

Is it that there's an actual preprocessor/WML issue preventing this or is it just that no-one's added the relevant coding yet?

No one's added the relevant coding yet.

FWIW if it's the latter, since all the TEG music macros look almost identical could you maybe do the same thing as for CUE to save typing?

I mean, I mostly just do it by copying and pasting currently, so there isn't that much typing, but yeah, I guess I could...

Code: Select all

#define TEG_MUSIC_UMC_TEMPLATE SONG BOOK_NUM	# Deliberately named differently so not inadvertently called by typos
#arg BOOK_NUM					# Default to music book 01
01#endarg
#ifhave ~add-ons/UMC_Music_Book_{BOOK_NUM}/_main.cfg
    [music]
        name={SONG}.ogg
        append=yes
        ms_before=8000
    [/music]
#endif
#enddef

then implement each music book thus:

Code: Select all

#define TEG_UMC_MUSIC SONG
{TEG_MUSIC_UMC_TEMPLATE {SONG}}
#endif
#enddef

#define TEG_UMC2_MUSIC SONG
{TEG_MUSIC_UMC_TEMPLATE {SONG} BOOK_NUM=02}
#enddef

... and so on, I'm sure you get the idea?
(Disclaimer: I haven't tested this preprocessor code so may have got something wrong...)

Yeah I was thinking of doing something like this; what I really wish is that the preprocessor had some sort of looping construct so that I could do something like:

Code: Select all

#for NUM in seq 1 12 do
#define TEG_UMC{NUM}_MUSIC SONG
{TEG_MUSIC_UMC_TEMPLATE {SONG} BOOK_NUM={NUM}}
#enddef
#endfor

...but the additional complexity that would require introducing into the preprocessor probably wouldn't be worth it...

So as I see it for The Earth's Gut the moods are:

• Battle
• Epic
• Calm
• Underground
• Sad
• Normal
• Creepy
• CUE music uses some of the above plus two other categories/moods:
  • Doom (=defeat)
  • Elves

These are similar but not exactly the same as the moods listed in the wiki.

BTW is the intention for each track to appear in only one mood?

No, some tracks fit multiple moods.

For almost all tracks this seems to be the case (from my brief skim) but I noticed that One_Thousand_Suns appears in both battle and epic.
Just thought I'd mention it

Well that's because it fits in both places!

Pity about vengeful (too much dynamics compression and thus too loud) as I really like that track, it's one of the few that begin immediately with neither a quiet start or a brief silence so I often use it as music to accompany surprises

That was Anonymissimus's decision; I'm not sure if I agree with it, but I'm going to leave it as-is just to respect his original intent...

Anyway, that's a summary of my understanding of what's what.
Is there anything I can do to help?

Well, just listening to the music and saying what moods you think they fit would be helpful; I did actually manage to listen to all the music, but deciding on moods for some of the tracks was the tricky part...

[Spannerbag]

Yeah I was thinking of doing something like this; what I really wish is that the preprocessor had some sort of looping construct so that I could do something like:

Code: Select all

#for NUM in seq 1 12 do
#define TEG_UMC{NUM}_MUSIC SONG
{TEG_MUSIC_UMC_TEMPLATE {SONG} BOOK_NUM={NUM}}
#enddef
#endfor

...but the additional complexity that would require introducing into the preprocessor probably wouldn't be worth it...

Heh, I've had exactly the same thought and come to the same conclusion

So: listen through music books 4-11 (and maybe in time other UMC music resources as well I assume, e.g. West's Chronicles?).
Then assign them to at least one of the TEG moods:

• Battle
• Epic
• Calm
• Underground
• Sad
• Normal
• Creepy
• CUE music categories/moods:
  • Doom (=defeat)
  • Elves

I assume you also would like appropriate music added to the CUE moods/categories (Doom, Elves)?

Hopefully I'll get chance to listen to at least a couple of books this weekend.

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag

[Spannerbag]

OK, here's my thoughts on book4.

A "?" means I'm confident but not certain the track works for that mood.

Code: Select all

Track				Mood(s)			Comment

Battalions.ogg			Normal			Fairly sedate

Battle_Hymn_of_Wesnoth.ogg	Normal,Underground?	Difficult to classify;  mix of quiet+calm & louder+lively

BattleLoop.ogg			Battle			<30 seconds

Broken_Truth.ogg		Underground

death_march.ogg			Sad			Not *that* sad, but IMHO best fit to available moods

Elfs.ogg			Calm, CUE_ELVES

Enchanted_Forest.ogg		Calm

Everlasting_Night.ogg		Battle			Long, slowish intro then lively.  Not calm, sad or creepy IMHO. 4+ mins

FranticSketch.ogg		Battle

HeroDead.ogg			Sad			<40 seconds

Peaceful.ogg			Calm

tekkno-03.ogg			Creepy			Very difficult to classify, least inappropriate mood chosen IMHO. 4+ mins

Victorious.ogg			Normal			<40 seconds

War_Glory.ogg			Battle, Normal?		<50 seconds

Is it work having a MOOD_UNCLASSIFIED or MOOD_MISC for tunes that simply don't obviously fit into any other mood?
I found tekkno-03.ogg particularly difficult to classify.

Also some tracks are very short, would you want a separate (sub?) mood for these?
(I'm thinking as there's an 8 second gap between tracks and some of these are well under a minute is it worth including them?).

Please let me know if this sort of feedback works for you (or not) and once I have a format that works for you I'll do some more as time permits.

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag

[nemaara]

I need to go back and look at some of these, but I don't remember all being suitable for mainline. There's some that would work, perhaps we could include them in campaigns. We also would need to check licensing too.

[Spannerbag]

I need to go back and look at some of these, but I don't remember all being suitable for mainline. There's some that would work, perhaps we could include them in campaigns. We also would need to check licensing too.

Hi,
Just to clarify: the additional music I'm helping egallager with are for inclusion in UMC The Earth's Gut, not mainline.

FWIW I only think the most popular (i.e. most widely used in UMC) and "best fit" tracks should be added to mainline; certainly not all of the additional music... what are your thoughts on how many additional tracks (if any) could/should be added?

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag

[egallager]

I need to go back and look at some of these, but I don't remember all being suitable for mainline. There's some that would work, perhaps we could include them in campaigns. We also would need to check licensing too.

Didn't Pent check the licensing when creating the UMC Music Book add-ons?

I need to go back and look at some of these, but I don't remember all being suitable for mainline. There's some that would work, perhaps we could include them in campaigns. We also would need to check licensing too.

Hi,
Just to clarify: the additional music I'm helping egallager with are for inclusion in UMC The Earth's Gut, not mainline.

Well, now that's what we're doing; I originally intended this thread to be about inclusion in mainline, though. Maybe we could move the TEG discussion to a separate thread, since that's kind of a tangent? (I'm busy this week and haven't had much of a chance to do much Wesnoth stuff)

FWIW I only think the most popular (i.e. most widely used in UMC) and "best fit" tracks should be added to mainline; certainly not all of the additional music... what are your thoughts on how many additional tracks (if any) could/should be added?

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag

I think anything that's been copied between 6 or more add-ons is probably good for inclusion; the ones that are just in 5 are probably borderline... (see original post)

[Spannerbag]

...Well, now that's what we're doing; I originally intended this thread to be about inclusion in mainline, though. Maybe we could move the TEG discussion to a separate thread, since that's kind of a tangent? (I'm busy this week and haven't had much of a chance to do much Wesnoth stuff)

Yeah, I think TEG should be a separate thread to avoid consufion.

...what are your thoughts on how many additional tracks (if any) could/should be added?

I think anything that's been copied between 6 or more add-ons is probably good for inclusion; the ones that are just in 5 are probably borderline... (see original post)

Sounds like a plan, be interesting to see which and how many tracks pass muster.
Assuming you're happy with my review of Music Book IV I'll move on to V, hopefully get at least one done this w/e.

Cheers,
-- Spannerbag

[egallager]

...what are your thoughts on how many additional tracks (if any) could/should be added?

I think anything that's been copied between 6 or more add-ons is probably good for inclusion; the ones that are just in 5 are probably borderline... (see original post)

Sounds like a plan, be interesting to see which and how many tracks pass muster.

Well, I already listed them in the original post in this thread...

Assuming you're happy with my review of Music Book IV I'll move on to V, hopefully get at least one done this w/e.

Cheers,
-- Spannerbag

I made a separate thread for that: https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?t=57225