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
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.
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.
[quote="Freedom"]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.[/quote]
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.
franpa wrote: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 <.<
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:
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.
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 ^^".
Christian wrote: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.
Christian wrote: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.
So, this topic seems to have died.
Is the .qsm idea going to be implanted?
Russell wrote:So, this topic seems to have died.
Is the .qsm idea going to be implanted?
Yes. When? Very possibly not until 2.6.
I thought there wasn't going to be a 2.6?
Joe123 wrote: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.
Revfan9 wrote:as they seem to be picking up new developers left and right
Ouch.
How many new developers have there been recently?
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...
Joe123 wrote: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.
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...)
Revfan9 wrote:...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).
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.
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?
Dark Nation wrote: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.
Russell wrote: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.).
I think L was to step in for either Jman2050 or DD (when he went on holiday or something).
Dark Nation wrote: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.