Mp3 implementation on 2.5 final release

[Christian]

for the zelda classic developers. is it that hard to implement MP3s on zquest just like MIDIs? this should really be a really good feature added on to zquest alongside ZScript that will make 2.5 the last and best clone of Z1 out there. I mean it's 2009 now. can that feature at least be our gift for the new years? ;-)

[Nicholas Steel]

MP3's are already supported, I belive they don't want to integrate them into the QST file because... can't remember lol.

[lucas92]

Because the qst files would be too big... Something like that. ;)

[The_Amaster]

Yeah, even a few mp3s could double or more the overall quest size.

[Christian]

yeah, but they at least should implement it for people that does want to use the feature. it should be like a choice I think. I mean, some zelda MP3s aren't really that long in size.

[Beta Link]

If the quest-maker puts the mp3s in the folder with the quest, it would still end up being the same size as if they were encoded in the quest itself... right?

Besides, even if the quest file is hugely increased... It would still just be a few megabytes. Most computer hard drives have at least 100 gigabytes of space to begin with. So I don't think the 20 megabytes of the quest file would be that huge a problem, you know?

[Christian]

exactly you know. like I said most zelda MP3s aren't really that big in size because most of them either last a minute or so. I don't think this would be a problem to be added.

I mean you are still able to play MP3s in zelda classic right? so then what what would be the problem to intergrate them in zquest && make them loop and adjust the volume just like we do with MIDIs? it would save us a lot of time trying to convert the music just for it to play well in zelda classic.

I really don't see a problem of why this shouldn't be added onto zquest.

[Joe123]

I think this would be an awful idea.

[Christian]

why would this be an awful idea? I'm saying they should both be supported on zquest. if you're more comfortable with MIDI audio formats than you can still use it you know. I'm not asking for MP3s to overwrite MIDIs in zquest , but there are a lot of people out there that wish to have MP3s in their quest files.

[Joe123]

Currently you can have mp3s in a quest, but the player doesn't have to download them, thus giving the player the choice as to whether they want to download for example a 2mb file or a 15 mb file.

[Christian]

well yes. most computers nowadays have at least 100 to 600 GBs of free space. what would a little 15MB do to it? Also, if zelda classic supports MP3s on a quest file already by using the enhanced music feature in the "edit dmap" in zquest, why can't we adjusts them as we do with MIDIs? for example, making the MP3 loop and adjusting the volume for it? I understand people still use dial-up connection.......but like I suggested it should be a choice of the quest maker. some files now created in the 2.5 betas, are 5MB and up. So I really don't see a problem here.

[pkmnfrk]

We couldn't adjust the looping even if it were "supported", MIDI and MP3 are vastly different as to how they work. You also likely couldn't adjust the volume, so just adjust the volume in your favourite sound editor, and you're good to go.

Currently, there would be no benefit to allowing the importing of enhanced music.

[The_Amaster]

Lots of people still have dial up. It's not a matter of storage space, its a matter of a half hour download versus a 6 hour download.

[Dark Nation]

What if, instead of adding them to the quest file itself, they were stored in a secondary file? For instance... You would have "Death Knight.qst and Death Knight.qsm" where the qsm file is the QueSt Music file for the Death Knight.qst file. That way, the download of the .qsm file could be optional.

Thoughts?

[Russ]

I love that idea! That way, if you have a fast enough connection, you can download the Mp3s, and not have to worry about downloading multiple files.

[ShadowTiger]

Not a bad idea at all. Particularly if you don't want people using the MP3 files outside of the quest, so there aren't any "spoilers." (Such as if you include boss music, or even special sound effect MP3s in it.)

[Christian]

I love the idea Dark Nation! Sounds really good to me. it would really make everything optional now if you have a fast connection , Wi-Fi , or dial-up. sounds great to me. So the .qsm file will contain both MIDIs && MP3s? or just MP3s?

[pkmnfrk]

I would imagine that MIDIs would remain in the quest itself, so that those who opt to not download the QSM would still get music.

[Christian]

so that means we have to save it as 2 quest files? 1 for the regualar midi's as in .qst && another one for the mp3's as in .qsm? how would this method work DarkNation?

[pkmnfrk]

No. The idea is that everything remains exactly as it is now, except all your MP3s are glued together into one file. Other than the fact that the files cannot be extracted for unauthorized use, there would be no difference from the current system.

[Revfan9]

well yes. most computers nowadays have at least 100 to 600 GBs of free space. what would a little 15MB do to it? Also, if zelda classic supports MP3s on a quest file already by using the enhanced music feature in the "edit dmap" in zquest, why can't we adjusts them as we do with MIDIs? for example, making the MP3 loop and adjusting the volume for it? I understand people still use dial-up connection.......but like I suggested it should be a choice of the quest maker. some files now created in the 2.5 betas, are 5MB and up. So I really don't see a problem here.

Some people are still on 56K, you know. Back when I had dial-up, any file more than 5MB in size was out of my reach, since my internet connection would drop long before I ever finished it. Download managers like Getright could help some, but with dynamic hosting that's so popular these days (The direct URL link is never given to the user and changes constantly), even those are useless. The only real way to get anything done was to use Torrents, and those made my internet slow down to the point of being unusable for several days at a time, and all that time I had to sit there, reconnecting if it disconnected (since the auto-redial usually failed). It's like getting a root canal in your balls. If every quest had a bunch of MP3s integrated, I'd probably have killed myself.

Although I would LOVE to have a way to do more with MP3s, like have selective loop times like with MIDIs (Since a lot of MP3 tracks that would be great for game music have an intro/outtro, which makes them terrible for direct looping), being able to integrate them with Quests would be a horrid idea. And you honestly think people will only include a couple of minute-long MP3s? Honestly, give me selective loop times and my quest files would easily go over a gig.

As for QSMs, love the idea, now just add looping :3

[pkmnfrk]

It's like getting a root canal in your balls.

:uhoh:

Anyway, I don't know how feasible MP3 looping would be. With MIDIs, the position is represented by beats, which are directly tied to certain MIDI events (I believe they happen every quarter note, or so, but it varies).

MP3s don't have notes or measures or beats. They have samples, and seconds. Measuring song positions in seconds would suck, since it's not a fine-enough granularity to pick a loop point in, so we'd have to use milliseconds or something. And, that can be a real pain. At least, a pain in the current interface.

[Christian]

if were talking Zelda MP3s, it would be really easy to loop like MIDIs. zelda mp3 songs are just loopable songs, think back at LTTP and The GB zeldas. MP3s go by the second. looping those kind of MP3s wouldn't be a problem. now if your talking about having full-length techno music or rock music, that's a whole diffrent story. why would someone have those type of music on a zelda type quest?
now for having .qsm's files added it's the best idea for now untill we reach 2020 and dial-up won't exist then. =p

[pkmnfrk]

if were talking Zelda MP3s, it would be really easy to loop like MIDIs. zelda mp3 songs are just loopable songs, think back at LTTP and The GB zeldas. MP3s go by the second. looping those kind of MP3s wouldn't be a problem. now if your talking about having full-length techno music or rock music, that's a whole diffrent story. why would someone have those type of music on a zelda type quest?

With all due respect, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, do you?

I dare you to measure the lengths of the intros of these songs, and tell me how many are exactly 1, 2, 3, etc seconds long. If you find even one, I'll stop posting.

[Christian]

so then how capcom, and nintendo does it? if they did it, wouldn't it also be feasible in zelda classic?

[Shazza Dani]

As for QSMs, love the idea, now just add looping :3

This. And volume control!

[Matthew Bluefox]

These ideas with QSM, looping and volume control are really good! Specially the looping thingy would be a great addition, so you don't have to start the music all over again when you wanna do just the refrain of a song or whatever. ^^

[Revfan9]

so then how capcom, and nintendo does it? if they did it, wouldn't it also be feasible in zelda classic?

Okay, first off, you still don't seem to understand that people don't only use MP3s to use Zelda music, because, in fact, the Zelda series has some pretty terrible music overall, at least compared to other games and original work. I'd rather use MIDIs than be confined to only being able to use Zelda MP3s...

Second, in actual console titles, there are a couple of ways in which this can be done:

1. The loop times of the song are specified. This works especially well with that console's equivalent of MIDI music (The SNES, for example, uses a format called SPC), although being able to use live, recorded tracks is something that's been possible only recently...

2. Break the song down into 2 files. The intro, and then the loop. This seems to be the easier method with direct recordings. (I'm not an expert, but from how I understand it MP3s aren't used a lot in game design, instead a raw format like DSP is used.)

Pkmnfrk: Yeah, having to specify the loop times in milliseconds WOULD be a pain in the ass, but it's better than what we have now (nothing).

[Freedom]

Doing anything else at this point with MP3's just serves to delay a release date for a stable engine.
All of the above can already be done with a decent music editing program.
You can cut, loop, and set the volume of any mp3 and then put it in the folder and have a dmap call for it's use.

A better suggestion would be to let the developers fix what is already there and put out a stable release so people can start building and releasing quests again.

[Shazza Dani]

One thing you can't do is use loop music that has an intro without repeating the intro every time it loops. I do agree that this whole thing should be saved until after the next full version is relesed. D:

[pkmnfrk]

In a console, there are two types of music. We'll call them MIDI-style and MP3-style, although technically, they are very rarely these specific types.

In MIDI style, they have a custom driver that knows how to interpret the specific commands in the music. These include things such as Note On, Note Off, Flash the Screen In A Specific Colour, Stand On Its Head and Do A Jig, and, often, Loop To A Given Position. MIDI itself, however, does not know anything about these later things because that's not what it was designed to do. See Wikipedia on the subject (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI)

The MP3-style, aka waveform, aka sampled music doesn't do this at all. Generally, looping is accomplished by having the loop point stored in a header (aka, tacked on to the beginning of the file). This is not supported by any of MP3, OGG or whatever other sampled music format ZC supports. Much like the MIDI looping, you would have to type in a loop point to make it work. Unlike MIDI, it is not as easy to pinpoint the loop point, as you'll be looking at thousands of "beats" go by every second.

[Christian]

Pkmnfrk: Yeah, having to specify the loop times in milliseconds WOULD be a pain in the ass, but it's better than what we have now (nothing).


I think Dark Nation's idea of having .QSM files , for now, it's better. Everything else, new features for the next zelda classic engine after 2.5, should be saved untill then like Freedom suggested.

[Gleeok]

What if, instead of adding them to the quest file itself, they were stored in a secondary file? For instance... You would have "Death Knight.qst and Death Knight.qsm" where the qsm file is the QueSt Music file for the Death Knight.qst file. That way, the download of the .qsm file could be optional.

Thoughts?

I second this.

[Nicholas Steel]

You can cut, loop, and set the volume of any mp3 and then put it in the folder and have a dmap call for it's use.
Yes, but you increase the file size by repeating parts of a song in a MP3. BTW, SPC is a format dumpers use to dump the SNES music/sound data stored in the SNES APU's memory. The SNES uses varying formats most of which are not documented at all.

[Revfan9]

Yes, but you increase the file size by repeating parts of a song in a MP3. BTW, SPC is a format dumpers use to dump the SNES music/sound data stored in the SNES APU's memory. The SNES uses varying formats most of which are not documented at all.

Really? Didn't know that.

By the way, to loop part of an MP3 currently in ZC, you'd have to have an infinitely big file <.<

[Beta Link]

Simple. They don't use mp3s. What they used for music back in the days of old, and even still today, are very similar to MIDI. NSFs, SPCs, GBSs, etc all don't exactly work like MIDIs, but it's the same concept.


Edit: Crap, I didn't realize there was a second page... :banghead:

[Christian]

So what exactly did capcom and Nintendo used to for their games back on the SNES? did MP3 files existed back in the old days? I mean, video games loop their songs to play infinetly. and they're aren't MP3's either.

and another thing, once you use the enhanced music feature on zquest, you have to do it to any other dmap you want an mp3 played. thus , increasing the file size even more.
this is something that also needs to be corrected.

[Nicholas Steel]

They used there own wavetable synthesizor pretty much, just add your own instruments and play them in order. goes for pretty much all games except current gen and previous gen consoles.

very few SNES games streamed music (ala mp3/wav style) and them games can't have there audio dumped to SPC format ^^".

[pkmnfrk]

So what exactly did capcom and Nintendo used to for their games back on the SNES? did MP3 files existed back in the old days? I mean, video games loop their songs to play infinetly. and they're aren't MP3's either.

No, for all intents and purposes, they're MIDIs.


and another thing, once you use the enhanced music feature on zquest, you have to do it to any other dmap you want an mp3 played. thus , increasing the file size even more.
this is something that also needs to be corrected.

Please stop. My brain is hurting just reading this.

Selecting the same song for two DMaps does not increase the file size. At all.

[Russ]

So, this topic seems to have died.

Is the .qsm idea going to be implanted?

[Dark Nation]

So, this topic seems to have died.

Is the .qsm idea going to be implanted?

Yes. When? Very possibly not until 2.6.

[Joe123]

I thought there wasn't going to be a 2.6?

[Russ]

Not until 2.6? Dang.

[Revfan9]

I thought there wasn't going to be a 2.6?

Basically, in 8 years when we've duplicated all the progress we've already made with ZC up to this point, we're going to implement it.

I also don't really see the point in starting from scratch, as the community is near-dead as is, as they seem to be picking up new developers left and right in an attempt to just barely get anything done. Would making an entirely new project even be possible at this point? The only way I see it happening is if the 2.5 stable release really does revive the community (which I doubt) or if we make the new version open source and just "Wait for the fish to come" so to speak.

[Joe123]

as they seem to be picking up new developers left and right

Ouch.
How many new developers have there been recently?

[Revfan9]

Part of this problem could also be solved by release 2.5 under a BSD license, but sadly we aren't allowed to do that...


Ouch.
How many new developers have there been recently?

I didn't mean offense to anyone in particular by that, it just seems that every week someone new becomes a dev.

[Joe123]

How many new developers have there been recently?

So one, yes? =P

[Revfan9]

I honestly don't even know anymore.

Note: Before I get attacked, "Every Week" was a hyperbole, for those of you with broken sarcasm detectors. Also, I'm perfectly aware that it takes a developer a while to get used to the code base before he/she can start making significant progress, and with closed-source the problem is amplified. (since it's impossible for them to get used to the code by messing around with it in their spare time before they decide to ask for SVN access or submit a patch...)

[Dark Nation]

...they seem to be picking up new developers left and right...
Left and right? The last developer we added before Joe123 was Pikaguy900 (he has since retired) and that was almost 2 years ago. Before him was _L_ and that was over 2 years ago. Am I missing some developers that I can't recall at the moment?

Joe was brought in to replace Pikaguy900. _L_ was brought in to replace another developer who left (I'd have to look up who exactly).

[Revfan9]

Hyperbole. Also, remember I don't hang out around here as much as some people do, so events that happened 2 years ago feel so recent. It's like when you stop watching a soap opera for a while and you get surprised at all the new shit that's went down when you were gone.

[Christian]

What did Pikaguy900 ever do for ZC?
I don't recall him adding anything special.
for me DarkNation, _L_, jman2025 and DarkDragon did all the work.
I hope joe123 does something worth anything.

As for 2.6.
I thought there wasn't going to be any 2.6?
I thought 2.5 was going to be the last version based on Zelda 1.
That 3.0 was going to be started from scratch and moving on to Zelda SNES?

[Anthus]

What if, instead of adding them to the quest file itself, they were stored in a secondary file? For instance... You would have "Death Knight.qst and Death Knight.qsm" where the qsm file is the QueSt Music file for the Death Knight.qst file. That way, the download of the .qsm file could be optional.

Thoughts?

Good idea. Even people with dial-up could get the quest first, and come back to the .qsm.


I love that idea! That way, if you have a fast enough connection, you can download the Mp3s, and not have to worry about downloading multiple files.

This is also a good point. I've never tried, but I have thought of using an encrypted .rar to hide titles (or, on that note, name them completely unrealted stuff like "bgm1.mp3", etc.).

[Nicholas Steel]

I think L was to step in for either Jman2050 or DD (when he went on holiday or something).

[Petoe]

Very possibly not until 2.6.

Thank goodness!!!

Thank god for DN, maybe in a few years there will actually be a stable ZC if all these stupid suggestions wouldn't be implemented.