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[TheWing]

Don't forget to play around with the absence of music!

[oahda]

Don't forget to play around with the absence of music!

Best combined with dripping drops after rain.

[Profesh]

Edit: hey speaking of starbound, do you guys have any other open world-ish games where the music implementation really speaks to you? obviously fez is a big one, and probably one of my biggest influences (talking implementation here) is dark souls.

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[presidenthobbes]

On the topic of music implementation, have you considered having the slugcat "map memory" affect the music? Like perhaps it slows down or changes pitch?

I bring this up after recently playing Gunpoint; the game had two tracks for each level, a normal "noir" track, and a more "techno" track that followed the same melody and time as the noire track. In game, you were always in one of two modes: hacking mode and walking mode. When you switched between said modes the track being played would switch to the other, at the same point in that track (because they were both the same length). It was a really cool touch that impressed me after noticing it, and I think something similar could be done with the slugcat "map memory" ability.  Obviously you probably can't remake all of your music with a different style for a similar seamless transition, but I think it would be cool to have the map ability distort the music in some fashion.

Edit: https://gunpointgame.bandcamp.com
Try listening to the normal verison of a song and a crosslink version and you'll see what I mean. (Five floor goodbye is a good one)

[oahda]

I think it would be cool to have the map ability distort the music in some fashion.

If nothing else, lowering the volume a bit in menus like these seems to be quite common.

[cainex1]

As for the tutorial, I would default it to mandatory (until done once or disables in the options menu) and set it in its own little sandbox area. Now music.. Don't Starve doesn't have a huge soundtrack but it feels right for the game's aesthetic and it changes appropriately, something that really grabbed me was the section in Superbrothers (yes people actually played that, once anyway) where you can just fool around and make music with the bard(?). Of course you can't talk music without bringing up Hotline Miami, both have music that is thematically spot on as well as hitting the action without needing any kind of dynamic audio. Then we have something a little more ambient with really cutting edge dynamic sound, Satellite Reign. I have to add one more since music is at its heart despite being an action game, Transistor. Ok, so this is rambly and doesn't exactly go anywhere but if you guys want me to expound on my thoughts, let me know, happy to provide any input I can.

[David Berman]

Dark Soul's style of music/implementation vaguely reminded me of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver - here's an brief-ish but interesting interview with their sound team: http://www.iasig.org/pubs/interviews/eidosjh.shtml

A few interesting ideas in there:

As an example, in Soul Reaver, every piece of music in the game has several arrangements which correspond to different game states. The default arrangement, or "ambient" mode, is used when no signals from the game are present. When the player comes within range of an enemy (weather seen or not), a signal is sent to the driver which sets a designated "danger" variable. The script sees this change in the variable and mutes/unmutes tracks to produce a more intense "danger" arrangement. When the player engages in combat, another variable signifying combat is sent, and the same process ensues, this time with a tempo increase. If the player stops fighting or kills the enemy, the combat variable changes again, and this time certain tracks from the "combat" arrangement begin to fade out. If the player resumes combat, they fade back in. If no combat resumes, the combat tracks fade out entirely and the music changes back to either "ambient" or "danger" mode.

Which I guess is more or less the definition of dynamic music?

and

I spoke with the producer, Amy Hennig, quite a bit and got her ideas on what sort of feel to give the game through the soundtrack. She not only described the interactive structure she had in mind, but also the ideas of the environments and characters in the game. For any given area, we took the history and nature of the creatures living there as the first inspiration for the soundtrack. For example, one of the regions of the game was inhabited by a race of mechanical-engineering-oriented vampires. Based on their goals and behaviors and on the intended smoky, mechanical environment in which they lived, I composed sounds and music which were thick, slow, and thumping, like big machines far away.

[oahda]

So I think I'm going to start playing around with some Fish AI™ sometime soon... Any pr0tips from the masters?

[jamesprimate]

If any of you guys will be going to GDC, Joar and I will be there giving a talk on Rain World procedural animation. Or, he will and ill be up there for moral support! Anyway, if any of you are going to GDC and want to check it, heres some details: http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/animation-bootcamp-rainworld-animation-process

Joar has plans to make an example creature LIVE during the presentation, so that should be pretty fun. And please say hi i you do, we love hanging with tigs peeps! :D

And thanks thanks for the music suggestions everybody, they were all good! I either played or watched playthroughs of pretty much everything.

right now im in ear-bleed nightmare zone auditioning, filtering and EQing 1000s of ambient audio clips, but all that is going really well. yesterday we tested a dynamic audio system which ill explain a bit more in later posts, but its something we've wanted to include for a while were pretty excited with how its all coming together. tonight ill be doing the first region with complete ambiance audio, dynamic audio and maybe some music triggers as well, so definitely on track to get audio done by the end of the month... which is pretty insane, but hey nothing new there!

So I think I'm going to start playing around with some Fish AI™ sometime soon... Any pr0tips from the masters?

ill see if i can get Joar to hop in the thread soon and drop some tipz. You can tell we are in maximum crunch mode when even HE isnt able to post vague updates, haha.

[Tadakuni Amano]

If any of you guys will be going to GDC, Joar and I will be there giving a talk on Rain World procedural animation. Or, he will and ill be up there for moral support! Anyway, if any of you are going to GDC and want to check it, heres some details: http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/animation-bootcamp-rainworld-animation-process

Joar has plans to make an example creature LIVE during the presentation, so that should be pretty fun. And please say hi i you do, we love hanging with tigs peeps! :D

And thanks thanks for the music suggestions everybody, they were all good! I either played or watched playthroughs of pretty much everything.

right now im in ear-bleed nightmare zone auditioning, filtering and EQing 1000s of ambient audio clips, but all that is going really well. yesterday we tested a dynamic audio system which ill explain a bit more in later posts, but its something we've wanted to include for a while were pretty excited with how its all coming together. tonight ill be doing the first region with complete ambiance audio, dynamic audio and maybe some music triggers as well, so definitely on track to get audio done by the end of the month... which is pretty insane, but hey nothing new there!

So I think I'm going to start playing around with some Fish AI™ sometime soon... Any pr0tips from the masters?

ill see if i can get Joar to hop in the thread soon and drop some tipz. You can tell we are in maximum crunch mode when even HE isnt able to post vague updates, haha.

Oh awesome! I think I'm going to be at GDC so I'll see you guys there! 

[akryl9296]

Edit: hey speaking of starbound, do you guys have any other open world-ish games where the music implementation really speaks to you? obviously fez is a big one, and probably one of my biggest influences (talking implementation here) is dark souls.

Hm, does Ori and the Blind Forest count? Especially after Ginso Tree when you get to swim for the first time Then there was Bastion, Transistor, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (especially those few specific areas that were small, monster-free with very serene music in the background).

While the style of music itself probably doesn't fit Rainworld, I like the approach to dynamic music in Journey a lot. You never notice any seams throughout the entire game, no matter how often you switch areas, no matter if the music suddenly gets intense because there is a scary serpent around... It's all just so fluid and everything fits together, yet areas still have distinct sounds, like TheWing mentioned, which is probably important in a game like this too.

Yes, Journey too! I noticed that in final moment of the game music seems to be chopped into pieces that flow relatively seamlessly into each other. However, after you listen to soundtrack alone without this effect and then go into the game, that choppiness is suddenly very noticeable for me. It probably can't get any better than it is though ^^'

[JLJac]

So I think I'm going to start playing around with some Fish AI™ sometime soon... Any pr0tips from the masters?

I have one that's very simple and might be useful!

 If you have something where you want to compare many different options (such as where to go on the map) - write a function that can grade each option with a score.

So for the where to go thing, say that you want them to not get stuck in corners, you want them to stay close to their mates and you want them to stay away from the player. Then in your ScoreOfThisPosition method you add to the score the distance to the closest wall, subtract from the score the distance to the school buddies, and then add the distance to the player x 10 (naturally the different factors need manual tuning).

A position that's inside a wall or otherwise unreachable should just return a float.minValue or something, you never want those.

Next step, you have the fish save a goal position. Now, every frame you pick a random position in the room (or a random position reasonably close to the fish) and compare the score of that position to the score of the saved goal position. If the score of the random test position is better, set that as the new goal!

This system is cool because it spreads the comparing out over many frames, contrary to comparing every alternative every frame which would be super slow. Also because it has a random element to it you'll get something that's a bit unpredictable, but because the goal position can only swap to a better position you know that given some time it will reliably gravitate towards the right behavior.

Hope that gets you inspired! Lycka till!

[Greipur]

That GDC talk sounds really interesting. I hope it will be a free lecture on the site when it comes up.

[jamesprimate]

sneak peek at some of the audio devtools on twitter: https://twitter.com/RainWorldGame/status/698109778137124864

[insaneinside]

write a function that can grade each option with a score

So you're basically turning it into a maximization problem solved by A*?  Do you use the position scores in the A* path-cost heuristic?

[oahda]

So I think I'm going to start playing around with some Fish AI™ sometime soon... Any pr0tips from the masters?

I have one that's very simple and might be useful!

 If you have something where you want to compare many different options (such as where to go on the map) - write a function that can grade each option with a score.

So for the where to go thing, say that you want them to not get stuck in corners, you want them to stay close to their mates and you want them to stay away from the player. Then in your ScoreOfThisPosition method you add to the score the distance to the closest wall, subtract from the score the distance to the school buddies, and then add the distance to the player x 10 (naturally the different factors need manual tuning).

A position that's inside a wall or otherwise unreachable should just return a float.minValue or something, you never want those.

Next step, you have the fish save a goal position. Now, every frame you pick a random position in the room (or a random position reasonably close to the fish) and compare the score of that position to the score of the saved goal position. If the score of the random test position is better, set that as the new goal!

This system is cool because it spreads the comparing out over many frames, contrary to comparing every alternative every frame which would be super slow. Also because it has a random element to it you'll get something that's a bit unpredictable, but because the goal position can only swap to a better position you know that given some time it will reliably gravitate towards the right behavior.

Hope that gets you inspired! Lycka till!

Ui! Takk!

[GuiltyGreens]

write a function that can grade each option with a score

So you're basically turning it into a maximization problem solved by A*?  Do you use the position scores in the A* path-cost heuristic?

He's referring to utility theory for AI where you represent the "appeal" or "usefulness" of each action by a utility curve. Then from the set of (action,utility) pairs, you can choose based on which gives the most utility, or randomly chosen with the utility value as the weight, etc.

I haven't implemented the idea yet, but I imagine this results in an AI that tends to, for example, stay away from the player, stay away from corners and remain around friendlies. How the AI responds when those ideals conflict depends on the characteristics of the curves. Maybe you want the AI to favor being close to friendlies more than staying away from the player. Or maybe, you want a wimpy AI that runs away when the player gets too close, despite the number of friendlies nearby. Maybe the AI is a competitive predator and dislikes being around other predators, so it favors pursuing the player alone.

[presidenthobbes]

So whats left currently before the game is ready to launch? Music implementation I know, but any other stuff?

[jamesprimate]

Todo for initial release: audio and music, some narrative stuff, some set piece, some art stuff, a few more creatures, a few more systems and some general "getting it all to work nicely" stuff. Sounds like a lot, but comparatively speaking we are on the home stretch and feeling very pretty dang good about things! 

[presidenthobbes]

Todo for initial release: audio and music, some narrative stuff, some set piece, some art stuff, a few more creatures, a few more systems and some general "getting it all to work nicely" stuff. Sounds like a lot, but comparatively speaking we are on the home stretch and feeling very pretty dang good about things!  

So hopefully only a few months left? Sounds to me like it will be out before june, or close to it.