Music

27th of july 2015

1 Music project for Ryzom

Few weeks ago I was talking with Gorias about some stuff for my work in the Lore Team related to the Marauders. And we noticed that both share a common idea.
We both think we lack music in Atys. The music each race plays in their festivities, to have fun or to relax. Music is the most important thing in any culture, and the cultures of Ryzom must have music too!!
So after few days of talking, we decided to start a project inside the Lore Team to write the "musical lore". It will take long. We are focused in writing the Theory of Sound by now. How the sound moves around Atys. How the environment affects to the sound. How each race understand those sounds and how later they start to create sounds with basic instruments and how those instruments evolved.
In short, by now is just a Lore Team work. But of course, Gorias and I share the same dream. Someday, this Lore come true in the game. Maybe players playing to some instruments? Maybe new NPC with new missions related to the sound? I was talking with Tamarea and a Music Team, and of course a Music Group in RF could be great so we can start having ideas and sharing them to move towards that dream.
I am a musician myself and I can´t wait to start creating some songs. But, as I told, by now this is just a Lore work by now. I don´t want to make no one sad, but we want to make sure we create a good Musical Lore to be sure which kind of materials and instruments can be used to make music, or to understand what kind of music a Zoraï could like.

Q: There are some music instruments in the concept arts!
A: That´s true YannK. But we are rechecking all that. Those instruments are just an idea. There is nothing inside the Lore about them.

Q: Right now i play Ryzom with my sound turned off because if it is on I crash all the time when entering and exiting guild hall or cities. Is there a way to fix this first? Otherwise i cannot play with sound turned on.
A: that´s true, but I just came to tell you all we have a project inside the Lore Team about the music of Atys. Once this is finished, I think we should start to see how we could implement or not the musical lore in Ryzom, or if it is possible.

Q: But it is primarily about the definition of scores of individual nations or?
A: No. That will be the last part. We are working in the physicis of the music by now. How the sound moves in the different enviroments, how that sounds affect the enviroment. How the sound affect the races and their culture. Once we have this "Theory of Sound" finished, we will start to make each race work. The instruments for example. And with the time, why not, make scores of songs for each race or faction.
I understand that waiting for the Lore is finished is frustrating when we already could have tones of ideas, I have a lot for example, but we must make this step by step to avoid problems in the future. I hope the ones who share the same dream as Gorias and I have are happy to know this project is already started. And I hope we can join in the future to make a great work. I just want to ask you to be patient.

Q: there has been some ideas in the forums about including instruments in the game that players can play.
A: The musical lore doesn´t exist and Gorias and I are working on it. We started few weeks ago and we think is better to have that Lore finished before we start making the work to implement in game.
Unless there are more questions I don´t have nothing more to add. Of course, if you have something, don´t hesitate to send me a mail to gaueko@ryzom.com or talk with me while I am on IRC.

17 août 2015

1 Création d'un Groupe Musique Ryzom Forge

Nous allons monter un Projet Musical. Pour cela, nous allons d'abord créer le Groupe Musique de Ryzom Forge. 
L'Équipe Musique viendra plus tard, nous travaillons encore dessus côté Lore Musicale.
Le meneur de ce Groupe Musical sera Gaueko. 
Les endroits habituels pour la communication seront IRC, #ryzomforge ou le canal dédié #ryzommusic, le sous-forum Musique du forum Ryzom Forge, et bien sûr le Wiki de Ryzom Forge.

Objectifs généraux
Le rôle des deux, l'Equipe et le Groupe, sera de créer la musique pour Ryzom et le son d'ambiance du jeu lui-même. La différence entre elles sera que l'Équipe s'occupera de la Lore Musicale (partitions, musique de faction, paroles etc), et le groupe RF créera la musique d'ambiance et les sons d'ambiance du jeu (J'expliquerai davantage un peu plus tard).

Objectifs du Groupe Musique de Ryzom Forge
Nous avons deux buts principaux : création d'une musique d'arrière-plan et de sons d'ambiance. La musique d'arrière-plan sera utilisée pour les missions et les rites. Cela veut dire que nous allons créer de la musique pour donner une atmosphère tranquille, une autre effrayante, une joyeuse, etc...
Les sons d'ambiance sont ceux que font les objets quand nous agissons avec eux. Des bruits de pas, un coffre qui s'ouvre ou se ferme, le vent, le son des insectes, peut-être le bruit d'un animal qui chasse...
A la fin, nous devrions donner à l'ambiance une expérience sonore plus réaliste, même si ceux que nous avons sont bons, mais nous pouvons les améliorer !!
Pour cela, nous aurons besoin de créer des fichiers de musique et de sons qui seront ajoutés en jeu plus tard. Nous n'avons pas encore d'endroit où les stocker mais dès que nous aurons un tel endroit, nous vous le dirons. Les fichiers devront être sous licence CC-BY-SA 

Q : Est-ce que ce sera possible d'activer/désactiver la musique suivant ses préférences, tout en ayant les sons de la nature ?  Gérer la musique et les sons séparément dans le client ?
R : Un dev devrait pouvoir répondre, mais je suppose que ce devrait être possible. Bien sûr, les musiciens devront aussi  travailler avec les développeurs.
R de YannK : J'en parlerai tout à l'heure pour les assets graphiques, mais un dépôt avec versioning (sous mercurial) des sons est tout à fait envisageable rapidement.

Comment pourra-t-on associer un son ou une musique à un lieu, à un item, à une action... du point de vue Dev ?
YannK :
Tout d'abord, je tiens à préciser que mes connaissances sont très empiriques sur les sons dans Ryzom Core, je n'ai pas eu l'occasion de faire beaucoup de tests.
Ceci étant dit, de ce que j'en sais, il existe deux grands usages des sons : par les primitives et par les datasheets. Jusque là rien que de très normal.
La partie datasheet est liée à une animation :le son (fichier .sound) est lié à la mise en oeuvre d'une animation (fichier .anim), qui lui dit comment il doit apparaître, selon quelle gradation, à quel moment etc. Ce fichier .anim lui-même est lié à un objet visible dans la partie 3D du client, un .creature.
Il ne faut pas se faire leurrer par le nom du .anim et du .creature. Cela peut désigner un évènement où rien ne bouge et un objet qui n'est pas une créature. La tour à côté de Chiang sur Silan est par exemple un .creature.
Mais de façon générale, cela permet de savoir quand un son doit être émis de façon à être en phase avec ce que le joueur voit : donc faire un coffre qui grince quand on l'ouvre, le moteur permet de le faire sans aucun souci.
Les sons que l'on fait quand on marche sont en fonction de la texture du sol si je me souviens bien, donc à moins de créer une nouvelle map avec de nouvelles textures environnementales, ça risque d'être difficile de changer le bruit des pas, car cela voudrait dire changer le son pour toutes les zones où la texture est utilisée (à vérifier).
Vous l'avez compris, les compétences des personnages appellent des animations .anim qui elles-même déclenchent des .sound donc on peut lier aussi un son à une animation du personnage, aisément. La difficulté est de créer de nouvelles formes d'animation, car cela demande de toucher au code du client ET du serveur.
L'autre façon de gérer le son est par les primitives : sur la carte on peut placer des sons environnementaux, éventuellement très localisés, avec là encore pas mal de paramètres car en fait on appelle des datasheets qui elles-mêmes donnent plein de paramètre au .wav d'origine.
Ces sont peuvent évoluer de façon automatique (cycle jour/nuit par exemple ou selon météo) ou bien être liés à des déclencheurs externes, qu'ils soient environnementaux ou liés à une mission. TOut est paramétrable (mais délicat à manier et demandera beaucoup d'ajustements)
Tout ceci pour dire que le système permet beaucoup de choses (ce qui explique la richesse de ce qui existe déjà) mais il y a un énorme souci : il n'y a apparemment pas les fichiers sources .wav ni .sound (et plus ou moins tous les datasheets en général liés au son) de disponibles nulle part. Ce qui explique pourquoi rien n'a été libéré quand les asets graphiques l'ont été.
Donc on ne peut pas modifier par exemple les systèmes de particules qui existent (car ils appellent souvent des .sound), ni rien modifier de ce qui existe en terme d'environnement sonore. Toute modification sera une recréation de 0, y compris des fichiers .wav de base
Il va falloir aussi se pencher sur la question de la création de datasheets en relation avec les sons, en sachant qu'on n'a pas d'exemple complexe pour comprendre leur fonctionnement exact. Donc la documentation sera plus longue (documentation des datasheets sur laquelle je travaille).

L'appel aux musiciens est lancé !

28th of september 2015

1 Creation of new ambience music
Gaueko: "I have posted in the Music Group some usefull links to free sound sites. Even if we can create our owns, better if we try to get what is already free for all in the internet to use them in the future. If you know any other free sites, no matter the language, please post it there.In other hand, I want to start  working in some ambient music for the game. I will try to have something  for this week, but I can´t promise nothing. I am talking with Tamarea  to decide where we could add this new files till we have a better place.  If any one wants to start making ambient music, or if already has  something recorded, let me know so we can add those files of yours to  the same place.I call to any musician that wants to join me in this adventure!If you want to contact me for any of this topics, or for any other music related topic : gaueko@ryzom.com"

Q: did ou kept an eye on licences there?
A: I did. But if you find any problem with them, notify me too.

05th of October 2015

1 Creation of new music:
Gaueko has created some ambient songs for the game. 

Gaueko: Once we have a place to share with all we will inform you. Maybe someone gets inspired to join me! And I call again for musicians or interested people that wants to join me, in the Group or in the Team.

Q: did you inspire from the music when we enter a city?
A: No. The work we are tasked to make in the Music Group is to make ambient music for the missions / game. For example, if the mission tells you to "visit" Primary Roots, you get a horror song when you enter on Primary Roots. Missions, or could be music triggered when entering a region too, but music that will be of joy, horror or action. The music you hear when you enter a city, could be of inspiration for the Music Team when witting songs for each race. But that will depend on the Musical Lore we are working on by now. Missions, or could be music triggered when entering a region too, but music that will be of joy, horror or action.

19th of October 2015

Q: How to add a CC licence on new sound/music content? Is it enough to use Asana or Dropbox to share them in a "CC-by-SA music" file?
A Shepeng: you have to read the user licence of Asana and Dropbox to know this.Tools don't need to be free, but sometimes user licences are very restrictives.

Q: Place the musics in a directory called "Sound and music CC-BY-SA is not sufficient? Does the storage tool need also to have this licence?
A Shepeng: From my point of view, it's better to use a deposit, Bitbucket or other. Khanat proposes also to do it. 

- Riasan (Ark team) is asked for helping the Music group. He makes tests to add new sound/music ingame, so searches a way to play music/sound during missions and tries to add new music when entering a region.Here are Riasan's words: "Gaueko asked me if I know a way to add new music ingame. I look and founded a good way to add and play some music ingame using Ark. I made some tests and it works but it's not really something what I can show to others (only code not finished). I will try to add new music when a player enter a zone (like music by entering Yrkanis)."

PtitBill: I would be very interested for future projects, making sounds will give better atmosphere!

2nd of November 2015 

PtitBill: I think i'll call for Music group to add sounds on some actions in ongoing projects. We will need a database of sounds.

Zendae: The label "Music Group" is a bit false, because they are also in charge of sound effets. Maybe we cold rename it "Audio Group"?

16th of November 2015

1 Sounds datasheets
Tamarea: The sounds datasheets have been found back! But for now they aren't released, I'm waiting to know the licence. But the ones who looked at them in the the team have applauded, it seems that there is everything which was missing us. We can apparently specify sounds variations for one species of mob, so that for example the males have a lower voice which can be heard from further. To be seen if we can use it!

Q:  Additions will be possible, I think?
A: Yes, that's what we're aiming at!

PtitBill: I need a lot of sound effects.

8th of february 2016

Gaueko: We had the problem of where to host the new sounds or ambience songs RF group could create and compose, and that the files have the proper CC license with them. Kunitake talked with me last week, he was interested to help us and he told me he has a solution that could help us.

Kunitake: You said me that we had a problem with license and where to upload it. So I asked to a pro dev i know very good (who worked for Voxtok). He said me literally that you were complicating the task. So, he told me that it was very simple. Open a repository on bitbucket (or github whatever) and just make a branch for your assets, in this case it's the music. You put an archive and into this archive you put the license, or simply, add files with the license.txt on the repository. Thats this little file you see in many projects on many repo. That looks kinda idiot i know but in 30 years of career he said he never had any problems with it. Just include the license with the file and it's ready. So i did this partially (quite simple) at https://bitbucket.org/Noyd/ryzomaudio/src.

Gaueko: Thanks a lot for the solution Kunitake. I will bring the idea to the Ryzom Team, but I agree this one is the easiest solution, for RF Music and for Music Team one.

7th of march 2016

Gaueko: Does someone something to ask or add about this?
Ptitbill: I need some noise for projects.
Gaueko: The Music Team and Group are by now not working until we create the storageing "problem". But maybe I can try to speed up this and we can create those sounds.

Q: You know how to add new sounds? We've had some troubles, on our side, with the tools...
A: About your question Zatalyz, talk with Riasan. When I created the Music Team he made some experiments by his own to add music and sounds. Maybe he can guide you better.