La Musica #171
Comments
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We can't include remixes of the old music unless we have a license to do so. Any music we include must be GPL compatible. |
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"GPL compatible" is somewhat ambiguous, since its data. But it definitely needs to have a free license (eg like SIL for the fonts). Remixes are far too likely to be considered derivative to include (unless you can arrange an appropriate license from the Quality Quartet!) I like the idea of having different music for different system types, but I'd worry that you wouldn't get to hear half of it. Like unexplored systems - who goes there? :) I'd like to (eventually) get some event-based music too - faster/heaver music when we're under alert / being attacked, something for docking (or even inside the station), something to go with the planet ambient sound effects when rough landed, and so on. Any chance of hearing what you've got so far? It might spark some ideas! |
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"GPL compatible" is unambiguous when taken in the simple context of permitting simultaneous distribution. An incompatible license would be one with territorial or usage restrictions; it's not necessary for it to be licensed such that it can be freely modified or re-used by end users, but it must permit use by the user wherever the game can legally be downloaded and played. In this sense there's loads more latitude than strict GPL adherence, but a free license of some sort absolutely must be obtained or, in the case of original work by (for example) s20dan, granted. |
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Oh that would just be peachy if we could get a license from Quality Quartet, unlikely but wouldn't it be great :) As for the legality of the remixes, I realise its a grey area, like I said I think 2 would be ok to use, but if they aren't then I'm fine with that. At the very least they can be a seperate download. Music is rather different to other mediums, and people have been getting away with things which would not be tolerated in other mediums of art for a long time, most especially in the dance scene such as Drum and Bass. Where people hold no regard for and no fear of reprisal from breach of copyright. I'll get the tracks together and host them on dropbox or something for your perusal ;) |
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Me: Redders: Ross: GPL friendly Classical: And then the Frontier remixes: I like the idea of having different music for different system types, but I'd worry that you wouldn't get to hear half of it. Like unexplored systems - who goes there? :) Thats a good point but perhaps instead of limiting the songs to particular systems they are just preferred in a system, perhaps a random playlist of songs labelled as unexplored space. We could have it always select the same first song for a system for the character aspect, but the next song could be a random selection from the playlist. I'd like to (eventually) get some event-based music too - faster/heaver music when we're under alert / being attacked, something for docking (or even inside the station), something to go with the planet ambient sound effects when rough landed, and so on. Something I was thinking on was to include a few version of each song, its a lot of work but it could allow seamless transitioning between slow and fast music ect.. So one version might be very slow and ambient, but the next version would have a slightly faster pace with a beat to match, but using the same basic sounds and structure. |
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Since music is so damn subjective, files large and licenses can be messy...
Track names could be anything. Randomizer would then pick the tracks (using system's seed, so same tracks every time?). System designers could define specific tracks in lua. Music format would be ogg I guess, we already have libvorbisfile in build if I remember right. |
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If one uses an event key to indicate the current status of the pilot/ship ... :within the MUSIC folder, a set of Mood/situation folders to store the tracks, possibly a configurable file to indicate weightings for play preference, With this one would have an almost individual taste, choice and random selection. ... if the individual config file is ; simply weighting, track name, ... one can also include owned favourite tracks etc. a suitable conversion to ogg midi mp3 wav whatever. |
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Music will be ogg; we have libvorbisfile already for sound effects already and there's no good reason to use anything else. @Luomu that structure seems like a good place to start. We can further refine as we go. While the music playing will have to happen in the engine itself, I'd like it to be triggered from the start by Lua. Most (all?) music transitions are triggered by game events. Doing things on game events is what the script engine is good at. And that way when custom systems become part of the main script engine we get per-system music for free if we want it. Also having Lua do the control gives us the ability to do other things previously discussed, like control external sound servers. I'd also like to see a music player interface so the user can manually control music selection. I think a fourth option for the scanner area might be a good way to do it. With regard to the actual selection of tracks I think as soon as we have engine support for music we should start including tracks. Its our job to choose, so subjectivity doesn't really come into it. Yes, it increases the download size, but this is a game, its supposed to be big. If it really became a problem we could break game assets out into a separate download for the alphas, but there still does need to be a "blessed" set of music. Its not like it can't be improved later, just like everything else in this project. |
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It seems we're not alone: http://www.spacesimcentral.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=2143 @s20dan I have downloaded the your tracks but haven't had chance to listen yet. They'll be my background music for work. I think it unlikely that there'll be any kind of problem (not that I'm the one to choose). Really, we're just waiting for someone to write the code. |
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Great to see we are all roughly on the same page. I suppose now would be a good time for anyone to add in any requests for the classical stuff, we could of course use live performances for that one but IMO it will sound like it has been recorded with a microphone 95% of the time, so its probably best we convert our own classical stuff as I have been doing. |
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Hi guys, I've just caught with the comments on this page. Some issues that haven't been mentioned yet. (1) Using professional recordings of classical music is out of the question in a GPL-compatible game (2) Using non-professional recordings is a probably a non-starter too. I've done a lot of work with youth orchestras and the like. Even the best ensembles, though they sound pretty good in the concert hall, sound pretty rubbish in a recording (3) Finding suitable classical music is more difficult than you might imagine. There's a reason why so many Hollywood films use Arvo Part's music: he's one of the few composers whose work can be re-used as cinematic mood music. To put it another way: the movie 2001 used some well-known pieces, but if Kubrick had decided to change one of them, can you think of any works from the standard repertoire that could have been slotted into place? I really struggle to think of a single piece. (4) PinBlacniP 's suggestion of a configurable mood music folder is a good one, but it would require a tremendous number of composers to get it done. It may be beyond the resources of an open-source project. Remember Frontier Elite? It was choice between listening to that grating, badly-written MIDI stuff or playing the game in silence - and they had a budget! (5) The tracks listed above (Canon/Moonlight/Mars) are a good start, but they do all sound a little similar. If it were decided to convert lots of existing works, that people know well, some thought would have to be given to texture/orchestration/instrumentation to give them a range of sounds. |
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(1/2) It's a matter of budget. If some Pioneer fan has access to a studio, time and musicians, it could be done for free. Not saying it's likely, but you never know for sure. (3) It's a matter of taste. Half of The Planets would do, although if you asked somebody else they'd probably pick the other half. (4) There are composers out there. Many of them work in the Creative Commons domain, just like creators of other artwork. We can even filch existing soundtracks, where licenses permit (and many do permit). An open source game might not be a revenue stream for them, but it's exposure. That's not worthless. (5) Yeah. We don't even need to go for a classical or orchestral score. The X series (Egosoft) went with some really good atmospheric music (I mean, it's on my MP3 player) which was entirely electronic. In fact, the artist who produced that produced other, similar music for the fans, for the hell of it; it might be worth asking him. I'll see if I can get hold of him, if people like that sort of thing. |
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Just a thought, it might have been mentioned and I just missed it, but how about letting the user supply their own music too. We all have large personal music collections which probably include some tracks that we'd like to hear ingame. I know that people could simply add to or replace the music supplied with the game (whatever that is) using the folder structure you're laying out above. However it would be good to have the interface support user selected locations/tracks for specific events like docking, being attacked, etc. |
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#124 allows for a user to override or augment game files, so we'll have that covered there. UI may or may not be appropriate depending on how we decide to reference an individual music track or set/type of tracks from script. My general inclination is to not add UI for game customisation, but rather require modification of a config file. That's not set in stone though. We'll see what we end up with I guess. |
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I've been making a scriptable MusicPlayer class (someone else can then code the "jukebox.lua" module to control it): Music files are loaded automatically from data/music, however just like with sound effects directory names and file extension are stripped out: This is the Lua interface I've had in mind (KISS): Oh yeah, bugs: Sometimes when a lot of sound effects play either the music stops or the game crashes. No clue why, effects shouldn't interfere with music. |
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About the crash: I've noticed it looping infinitely trying to find a channel and going off the end of array. Not had chance to look further into the issue yet. |
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Yes, I've seen this bug when testing hundreds of ships firing. I didn't make a note of my findings at the time but from memory its in |
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API looks like a good start, very much like what I was thinking. The event model is exactly how I wanted to trigger things, and will allow mission/system-specific music in the future. I suppose there might need to be some methods to help with finding available songs so that we can have multiple songs for a given event and choose one at random or by whatever criteria. |
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Another idea: like procedurally generated planet surface generate procedurally music. This may be huge work to do. Need to explore this too. |
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Something like psai has been brought up before, taking samples and selecting/modifying them based on various environmental factors. Of course psai is not available to an open-source project righ tnow, but the concepts are interesting. Its way outside the scope of this issue though. |
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Well no, my idea, actually is not my - I read one of Perlin related books about procedural programming, so I prefer that kind of approach instead of static textures, nebula, galaxy, sounds, music and so on ... The universe of fractals gives us unlimited possibilities. You can look at Dwarf Fortress, whole world is procedurally generated including weather and so on ... |
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You can look at Dwarf Fortress, whole world is procedurally generated including weather and so on ... But not music ;) Are there any games other than the patheitic Spore that did this? I've been making a scriptable MusicPlayer class (someone else can then code the "jukebox.lua" module to control it): Awesome, I look forward to trying it out :) |
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As noted, @Luomu has put together the music engine and Lua interface to same in #233. There's a few nits but I see no reason not to merge this in the next day or two. With that in place we almost have everything we need. We're ten days out from the Alpha 12 freeze so I'd like to push to get this ready for release in 12 - that'd be an awesome achievement. @s20dan and @emajogi, could you please re-upload the music somewhere in .ogg format. I can do a naive conversion from the .mp3s but its better if you can encode them fresh from source. Don't bother about the Frontier conversions at this stage - we can't use them until such a time as we get licensing sorted out. I'll shortly (this week) put together an action-based jukebox script as we've discussed - game events firing off different songs. If anyone wants to take our existing songs and suggest where in the game they should fit (space/atmospheric flight, docking, combat, etc) please do. I've listened to them all nearly every day for the past couple of weeks so I'm starting to get a feel for where they go. Naturally they can be moved around later. This is exciting! :D |
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@robn, I had already uploaded an .ogg format version. Here are the links again: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27128646/Emajogi%20Waltz%20v3b/Emajogi%20v3b%20no%20trem.mp3 |
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@emajogi I missed these the first time. Thanks! |
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Could you please get al least this nice album http://www.archive.org/details/DODS_FuneralInTheVoid into pioneer from this great author. You already have ogg vorbis format to fetch. I hope license is okay. I prefer real space ambient more than classic stuff. |
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That license is for non-commercial use only. The GPL allows Pioneer to be used for commercial purposes. This means that the licenses are not compatible, and it might not be a good idea to distribute them together. |
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I get it. It still can be distributed separately with clearly stated license. |
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could you please re-upload the music somewhere in .ogg format. Will do, I need to tweak most of the tracks for a few things, once thats done I'll upload the newer versions as .ogg |
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#233 (engine and Lua interface) is merged and will be in the next dev build (or grab it from the repo). I'm starting work on the player script tonight. |
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Perhaps. Bear in mind that releasing stuff under the GPL explicitly gives the recipient the freedom to do what they like, as long as these freedoms get passed on. Consider that charity if you like, but the GPL really, really isn't about money. It never was. When I write code, charity is definitely not my motive. It's all about the freedom. A lot of people share this point of view (not least the FSF guys, obnoxious as they are). Feel free not to agree, but don't assume that there's a single point of view. |
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It's hardly my place to speak, having made only one contribution, but anyway: My own preference is to licence the music under GPL, where possible. As Brianetta points out, keeping everything in a project under a single licence saves a whole heap of problems later on. |
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My impression (and I will need to study it further) is that its acceptable to distribute GPL code/binaries in the same package as differently-licensed data files provided the licenses provide for similar distribution rights. The reason is that data files aren't considered linked with the game and thus aren't considered a derivative work. This was the conclusion we reached in a previous project, though it was under GPLv2 - I will read the GPLv3 more thoroughly as quite a few rules were tightened/clarified there. GPL game code distributed with CC NC assets its a fairly common model. I know that doesn't mean its legal, but I'm generally inclined to think that when you see a lot of people doing the same thing and nobody complaining then its probably permissible. I will read up on the situation further. Of course, then we have to deal with whether or not that means that Pioneer is "free". Is it still Pioneer without key game assets? What it someone contributed a model under a NC license? And would anyone for whom freedom is their primary concern be willing to contribute to a game with components they consider non-free? For me its no problem (my personal motivations for writing free software aren't simply freedom) but its a personal decision. @s20dan While its not illegal to sell GPL software on the Android market, it must have proper attribution and an offer of source code to the buyer. Any that don't have these are in breach. I agree they're common, I see them myself. Unfortunately there's very few remedies available to private developer that isn't willing or can't afford a lawsuit. Usually the best you can do is complain loudly and try to develop some awareness. @Brianetta Neither of the FSF pages you linked say anything explicit about the CC NC licenses. Not that I'm saying you're wrong, just that those pages don't help. @s20dan How important is the non-commercial aspect to you, considering your code is GPL licensed already? You've indicated you might be willing to choose another license. CC BY-SA give the same practical protections as the GPL and would let us dodge the entire argument :) |
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The list of licenses at the FSF is pretty much their exhaustive list of confirmed compatible licenses. The GPL concerns itself only with distribution. No limits or restrictions are placed on the use of the software, or the means of redistribution of the software. With a GPL game, you are free to sell it in a nice box with a printed manual, and you are also free to install it on a machine in (for example) a café, to allow customers to play it, either for money or as a promotion for your café. A non commercial license prohibits all of these. Café owners, as well as people planning to press the game to CD, print manuals and ship it to stores, will have to sit down and strip out all of the non-commercial stuff in order to make it legal. Depending how much there is, they might well have to replace much of it with a legal alternative in order to get it working. |
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I found this on an Oolite site, it seemed relevant: Could that be the answer? How important is the non-commercial aspect to you |
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Sounds like my "This package is a distribution of works licensed under several licenses. Some of these licenses prohibit commercial use. See licensing.txt for complete information," but worded in a different way. I think stating that "a person can distribute works for free alongside a commercial copy" is misleading. It could be convincingly argued that giving a free item away with an item offered for sale is commercial use. If it's all being distributed for free, then there's no commercial use in that case. If you're selling Oolite on a CD with non-commercial OXPs, you're in a position to get taken to court. I wouldn't like to rely on "but I was only charging for some of the content" in my defence. In Oolite's case, all of the core content is GPL, and much of that core content is also Creative Commons Non-Commercial. Licensees can always choose the GPL terms instead of the CC-NC terms, making commercial use of the core content possible. Much of the content available on OoSat is non-commercial, but none of that is part of the initial package, making its license compatibility moot. |
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Regardless of whether or not the distribution is legal, I don't much like the idea of having situations where the "core" game might have to be split in some circumstances. Even Linux distributions will have trouble - Debian would have to ship the music in non-free, which is typically not included when you buy a Debian DVD. Do we want a situation where someone can run a game called "Pioneer" that is not exactly the game we intended. I'm inclined to say that only stuff that is GPL or compatible can be shipped with Pioneer builds, and the game should be written and balanced for its core assets. A user shoukd be able to download something called Pioneer and have confidence that a) they have everything they need and b) there's no legal ambiguity if they want to redistribute it. |
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Yes it seems pretty much the same, but its a real example of people actually doing it. I was just thinking, technically if you want to stay completely within the law, how can you legally release music under GPL? In Oolite's case, all of the core content is GPL, and much of that core content is also Creative Commons Non-Commercial. Licensees can always choose the GPL terms instead of the CC-NC terms, making commercial use of the core content possible |
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I don't know tbh - its always seemed a bit grey to me. Its why I prefer CC BY-SA for assets - same idea but without the source offer, which doesn't always make sense. I don't understand what a GPL/CC-NC dual license would achieve. Dual licensing is usually used to allow a commercial derivative with no requirement to contribute back the changes. I don't think it adds any value here. I suppose we could add a clause that says "this music is GPL (or CC BY-SA) when distributed with a GPL software package. When distributed by itself its CC BY-NC-SA." This is getting pretty nuts though. I wouldn't know how to word such an exception, and anything shared back would itself have the non-commercial restriction and couldn't be included in Pioneer without the permission of the person who modified it. Isn't licensing fun :) |
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One might presume that the source code to music was its score. In software terms, a MIDI file or other editable input file. Here's what Gnu says: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLOtherThanSoftware Can I use the GPL for something other than software?
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No. From your point of view, it's the worst of both worlds. You get to choose under which license you're using the work. @robn: It's dual-licensed, in part, because they began as CC-NC and later converted to GPL. As a result, none of the project is strictly NC. Yes, they had to find all the contributors and ask for permission (one big reason why the Linux kernel will never be GPL 3). |
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Jukebox script is merged to master (#250) and will be in tonight's build. We're almost there chaps! |
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@s20dan: How are we doing on this? We need to start getting alpha 12 finalised for release next Friday (8 July). |
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@robn Ah of course. Well R.E. Licensing, the only question now is whether to go for GPL or CC, I'm leaning towards CC as its better for art/music. But its a commercial license, we decided (my mate Ross and I) that at the end of the day not one of us is doing this for the money at all... So it really doesn't matter which license we use because either way we are getting what we want from it, if you get my meaning. R.E. Music, I have another two tracks in the works but Im hitting walls with both of them, so it may be a while till theres another update, basically I can't promise that they will be done for the next alpha, you know thats just how music works (for me at least ;) ), some days it comes easy others your just getting no-where. So... I'm happy with everything to be released under the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) That all ok? @emajogi do you have any new tracks for the next release? |
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Er war Superstar |
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@s20dan Well played sir, well played. I'll listen through them all again today and fit them to the music events. Expect a pull request this evening or tomorrow. No problem with new music, its like anything else in this project - do what you can as you have the interest & motivation. |
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Cool, well here's some more tracks some of these are 'upgraded' midis ripped from my keyboard ;) http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9655550/docking.ogg If you have trouble downloading them at all I can always just make a branch with them all in, I don't know why I haven't been doing that really :) Rock on @Brianetta ;) |
… stuff as time goes on. see pioneerspacesim#171
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This was merged a couple of days ago and will make it to alpha 12. Great work everyone! I'm going to leave this issue open to track further updates to music. I know @s20dan has some stuff coming, and I expect we'll have some new ideas and changes to make as people try it out. |
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I'm willing and able to write more, but am waiting until some user response to alpha 12. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to write another hour of pseudo-Strauss, but I doubt anyone wants that; what I would like is for people to say 'It'd be really great to have some music that sounds like X when Y happens'. |
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Related : #267 |
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#267 merged. The 'ship-nearby' and 'ship-firing' events need some work so as to be limited to combat, or at least able to distinguish combat from something else. Right now you get the rather ominous "Mars" track just for flying near a space station that has a Lynx outside. Sure, Mars is in the wrong place (its probably better for a more epic battle involving multiple ships or even a battleship, or perhaps a recon/bombing mission) but we still need better logic so we don't switch tracks too frequently. I'm thinking that the music player should have some concept of urgency or importance. It will go from a lower-importance track to a higher importance one, but won't go down to a lower one except under very specific conditions (eg ship destroyed and now all is well). That's half a thought, I haven't considered it in depth. Ideas welcome. |
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Some thoughts about the music. (I'm having a bad week with bug report forums, which have left me feeling ever more stupid, the more I attempt to contribute. So I'll put things here first, so you coders can evaulate my stupidity in private.)
Of course, I can easily use Audacity to pump up the decibels, but then I run the risk of deafening anyone who has the misfortune to be listening to one of my pieces. Advice is needed from you technical people: how can we get the music all at the same volume, so that all the quiet pieces are the same volume as each other, all the loud pieces are as loud as each other, and all pieces can be heard above engine noise? I increased the decibels on the my waltz by 5 and 10: 5 seems about right, but 10 seems too much. You can judge for yourself.
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The waltz I contributed is too quiet, much quieter than all the music s20dan has contributed, even his quiet stuff. Hey, if you can send me a .wav I can process that for you for the same effect. I did try to get most of my music roughly at the same volume, but some songs have more bass than others which means after processing they may sound quieter. I like the theme music :) |
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emajogi, your first issue is fixed in alpha 13, use nightly build. |
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Closed, future contributions should get their own issues |
A few friends and I have been working on some music for Pioneer, some of you guys probably know.
But its getting to a stage where we have quite a few tunes now and really I think its time to decide how we will deal with the music.
I'll give a quick rundown of what I have in mind, hopefully you can argue against it for some other points of view or ideas on how to proceed.
Im kind of thinking that we should play music based on situation and location, so that means music for combat, docking ect, and different music for systems, perhaps faction specific? Providied we have enough music, we could even have selection influenced by seed somewhat, so that specific systems would have the same music like X3, it could give a bit of character to systems.
Unexplored space: Eerie ambience
Core worlds: Classical scores, such as Beethoven
Fringe worlds: Theres one song so far that could fit in here, its a mix of classical and electronic ambience with some structure to it.
There's the old frontier remixes too, at least 2 of which are legally acceptable (they are sufficiently different) the rest would require some more modification.
Anyway I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on how you think we should proceed with this.
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