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Custom soundtracks...?


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#1 Devourment138

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Posted 22 February 2014 - 02:01 AM

Good evening. This is my first post here on the forum, and I apologize if it's a long one.

I know there is a whole seperate thread for feedback on sounds and music, but in my honest opinion I feel as if the issue (no negative connotation implied here) I'm about to post warrants its whole own topic.

I have been following the Mental Omega mod and playing it off and on since about Fall of 2007. Even then, I was amazed by the devotion this team has had to making Yuri's Revenge, well, "almost perfect" (like the mod's tagline would suggest).

I recently downloaded the latest build of the mod and, as someone who loves music, had a number of thoughts / suggestions / proposals regarding the soundtrack, the first of which being, wow. This is obviously an endeavour that has obviously required incredible amounts of collaboration and inspiration. I commend the musicians (including Frank Klepacki, whose soundtracks I grew up on as the backdrop to my commands and conquerings) for putting the package together. Additionally, the thought of making a whole hour or so of music for each of the three respective sides was, in a word, ambitious.

The second, and more important point, is this. I would like to add some tracks to the soundtrack for my own personal use. (Specifically, the original RA2 tracks, the original YR soundtrack, the Tib. Sun. soundtrack, a couple of the songs composed by David Arkenstone for the Harkonnen side for the Emperor: Battle for Dune soundtrack (which I enjoyed greatly) and maybe some 8-bit remixes of Scandinavian black metal songs. :p) Let me clarify: I am not intending to have this be a replacement for the soundtrack download that everyone will be getting with their copy of the Mental Omega mod. Instead, I am looking to add on tracks to the game's soundtrack for my own use to enhance and personalize my playing experience.

I know there is a disclaimer on the soundtrack section of the MO website which claims that the "Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge soundtracks will not work with Mental Omega 3.0", and maybe I'm on a fool's errand trying to do what I'm trying to do, but I would like your help  and clarifications on this one. Even if it is impossible, and you state the reasons for me why (considering that I am by no means computer-savvy), that would at least give me a sense of closure.

 

I know very little of the technical aspects behind pretty much anything that has to do with computers. But here's what I do know (even this I am a little uncertain about) in regards to what I'm trying to do:

 

  • the content (models, textures, and yes, music files) in Westwood games are within packages with the extension .mix.
  • Additionally, the audio files that go within these .mix ...-es are 16-bit .wavs, of a certain megahertz frequency which escapes me at the moment.
  • Assuming that what I'm trying to do is even possible, I would have to convert these .mp3s, which I do have already, into whatever megahertz .wav files
  • and then use a certain compiler utility (I believe someone by the name of Nyerguds a while back made such a tool) to make my .mix.
  • Additionally, I probably would have to be in possession of the .mp3s from the original 3.0 soundtrack .zip to re-compile the additional tracks with the rest of the soundtrack. (I would be killing two birds with one stone that way, because then I would be able to enjoy the tracks without even having to play the game.

Finally, as an aside, it took me a little while to find the link to download the OST add-on, but I eventually did find it on the mod's ModDB page. It would be a good idea to add the download link to the soundtrack section of the official site. :)

I would appreciate any input you have in regard to this topic. And I apologize if I seem completely oblivious here, granted though, it is my first post on this board...



#2 Toveena

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Posted 22 February 2014 - 02:14 AM

Bringing back good-old ra2 and YR sound tracks gets a thumb up from here. The original tracks are indeed classic yet amazing.



#3 Graion Dilach

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Posted 22 February 2014 - 02:25 AM

Usually I'd just tell people to shut up but since you asked gently, I explain why you can't add custom songs into MO.

The music setup in Mental Omega is pretty special which makes it not flexible compared to a usual mod. And there are actually two reasons. One is side-specific music, and the other is that musics are playede during the campaign (just think of Hell March being played when the invasion starts on Red Dawn Rising).

Between Red Alert 1 and Yuri's Revenge, Westwood used a list in a text to store the data about music. To achieve side-specific music in said list (which was a feature in all games which were NOT called as Red Alert 2) one had to order this list by having the first side's music listed first, second following it and so on and so on. This doesn't sound much of an issue at this point, since this just means that either you would lose side-specific music or just add yours into the end of respective sides BUT

BUT

that would break the campaign missions refering these musics, because they refer them by their index in this list and not by their ID.

(And to fix your steps... the mix tool you think of was written by Olaf von der Spek and not by Nyerguds and it can't open any mixes of Mental Omega as an effort to see the assets created for MO 3.0 not be reused in random sillymods, Chinese tends to do that. The music in YR is stored in IMA ADPCM, the frequency rate itself doesn't matter much, yes it could use PCM as well, but that would increase the music file's size by 4 times).

EDIT: Featuring RA2 and YR soundtracks were planned at an earlier stage but the quality of those recordings sucks compared to Klepacki's solo albums. The released-as-promotion-material/collection bonus RA2 OST disc while being better quality than the ingame versions, was still noticably muffled next to later songs.

Edited by Graion Dilach, 22 February 2014 - 02:28 AM.

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#4 Devourment138

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Posted 22 February 2014 - 03:03 AM

Thank you for the clarification. Also, excuse any mistakes I made in my warped method by which I would attempt to (and I stress, ATTEMPT TO) put custom music into Mental Omega. Again, as I said, I'm not good with computers.

 

The mod is working fine with the custom soundtracks alone.



#5 Petya

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Posted 22 February 2014 - 12:43 PM

As Graion mentioned custom soundtracks can break some campaign missions, because they would interfere with the system. Some missions have a scripted soundtrack change or what that is.



#6 OmegaBolt

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Posted 22 February 2014 - 01:58 PM

Surely if you want play your own music you can just play it like usual and disable the ingame tracks.


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#7 lovalmidas

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Posted 23 February 2014 - 05:10 PM

I suppose you could REPLACE MUSIC. But not really add new ones, since the list is ordered, and changing the order screws up the latter song sequences.

Besides, I think you can give OmegaBolt's suggestion a try.

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