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[Pengus]

What I'm wondering about is really how much game developers generally expects me to be able to do when working with adaptive music. I mean, do I only set up the composition, transitions, effects, parameters and so on after the developers request, or do I actually have to know about integrating the actual music into the game? Like them sending me a copy of the game and then I gotta know how to connect it all?

I do understand that different game studios has different approaches, but in general. Where's the line drawn for how much I NEED to know to be able to handle the majority of clients in the future?

The thing is that I have 0 expertise in game development, and I would prefer to only work with the musical bit.

I've just gotten into FMOD and I feel I'm getting a really good grasp on it fast. =)

[PythonBlue]

Speaking as someone in a similar situation, it really depends on the kind of project you're applying for and how much is being done without you. I don't have too much experience with adaptive music, but I do know that for NeonXSZ, it was managed mostly by Intravenous to the point that practically all I did was the music and a little bit of alpha and beta testing. On the other end of the spectrum, I had to quit a visual novel gig because the guy in charge of the project was demanding stuff out of me that not only I was inexperienced with, but also that he didn't give me fair warning of until he demanded it.

Best advice I can therefore give is to try to teach yourself FMod and as much as you can about the audio end of game development. Sure, it may turn out those skills may not be necessary, but then again, they might be.

[Pengus]

Hey thanks for the response! Alright, I understand. Seems like it really depends on the project, just as I thought. I'm gonna take your tip and look a bit more into the end audio integration, but I'm probably not gonna prioritize it for now. Maybe some things will clear up automatically as I learn more about the more complex functions of FMOD. It's a real bummer to hear about that visual gig you had turning out that way, I mean you're hired for doing a specific task and not anything else.

I'm still wonder what the norm is though, I mean there's lots of game composers working full time out there. It would be awesome if one of them could give a clarification on how wide knowledge you need to make it on this market. It would also be very important to know this as I take on the first clients for adaptive music, because then I have some grasp on what they will expect from me.

[Barendhoff]

As PythonBlue says, it all depends on the project--or rather, the people who run them. Some teams won't feel comfortable sending a development copy of their game over to another end of the world. Other teams are so small that they don't have the time to program the music themselves and would rather have one person take care of both composition (in your DAW), coding (in middleware) and implementation (in the game engine). The norm depends on your client.

If you get involved with large-scale projects, you'll likely get to work with specialised folks. Not only a composer, but also an arranger, a technical engineer that helps with preparing the music for use in middleware and someone who actually does the dirty work of capturing each recorded segment of music and preparing them into middleware. The same fellow might implement it in the game, too, or the company's audio programming department might. But the smaller your team gets, the more will fall to you since, generally, no one really has time. In such cases, it really is useful to know how to program your music into the game. If you're just starting out, this can make you stand out from other composers.

Luckily, middleware greatly reduces the amount of coding knowledge and experience required to make your music work in-game. If you have transitions and parameters etc. all set up in Fmod (or Wwise, or Fabric), you'll find that you'll only need basic programming skills. A game I've programmed music for has a neat dynamic musical system, but I know I'd be absolutely lost without middleware.

In any case, I've found it very useful, personally, to learn how to get adaptive music to work in the game for (at least) two reasons:

- I think that the music your mind comes up with is, in part, determined by what you subconsciously consider to be possible. Just like medieval choral composers wouldn't come up with synthesizer music, so too are we unlikely to think of music with instruments that haven't yet been invented. Similarly, the way music is handled alters the way you approach writing your music. Getting familiar with middleware and game engines helps you develop a musical set of skills geared towards what developers (might) want. In other words: in order to write adaptive music, it can be highly useful to gain insight in how it is programmed.

- Programmers tend to be exceptionally busy at all times. As I hate taking time from someone who's rather preoccupied, I've found it a relief to have slowly worked out how to get my music to work in a game. This way, the programmer(s) can keep concentrating on 99 problems and music won't be one.

In any case, it's a good habit to manage the expectations of your client. If you can't or don't want to learn to program music, let the client know. Don't let the matter slumber until the time comes to actually implement the music. Providing information timely plays a significant part in keeping your clients satisfied.

[Pengus]

Thank you for the great and thorough response! I took it all to heart and I got way better clarity on where to go from here.

I have actually started looking into the actual music integration, in Unity for now and I'll check UE4 later on. As you said, it wasn't that complex coding at all. I will keep on studying this!

[inwerp]

I think it would be great to have looping api for game audio. For example, there is Mozart's game "musical dice" which is basically some simple t-s-d-t loops which can be connected in any sequence to make a "new" piece. I think it's possible to make suck patterns in game music, just a 4 bar loops with a some kind of tag system like "priority" and "mood". So basically we need some api which could combine audio files, mb add some post-processing like reverb.

[Pengus]

If I understand you correctly, that's exactly what I'm doing in FMOD. I've tried this out myself, the key is simply to compose the music so that all parts of the music can be layered on top of each other and still play naturally and in-key. This is if you want it to be the same song all throughout, but still adapt depending on mood or some other factor.

FMOD is combining audio files, can add reverb and all you just mentioned.

[inwerp]

Sounds nice.  However i do not use Unreal or Unity. Does FMOD use some kind of gate/compression to maintain same loudness with different sets of layers?
as for music, i think it's good start to make loops ending on dominant chord. it gives you some space to be resolved to minor key or modulate into something new if you resolve it as double-dominant chord.

[Pengus]

Oh okay. Well it doesn't really contain anything to maintain the volume at a certain level. It does have a compressor but personally I wouldn't use it to control volume, but rather I'd just use it for sidechaining from SFX. I mean if you compose all the parts properly, not using sounds that interfere with eachothers frequencies and giving them their own space the volume shouldn't be a issue no matter if you're just playing 1 instrument or the whole set. That being said, I guess you could use the compressor if that's your thing haha. It's sort of a cheap one tho.

Yeah that's a good idea, ending on dominant chord. It gets harder when you have a normal-fast paced game and you need to be able to switch music fast tho, I mean it won't sound natural playing through all the 4 bars while you have already started fighting or something like that. So it gets pretty advanced fast!

[groovyone]

It is not usually the responsibility of the composer to hook the music into the game, that is typically done on the game engineer's side. However that being said, more and more the composer is responsible for setting up the structures in the middleware. This helps you test your own compositions and ensures that your client is going to be able to just drop what you have made into their game without needing to worry about trying to also figure out adaptive music authoring.

If you're just learning on the job this can be done at low cost - however if you are proficient at this then certainly also charge for your time as this is also part of your expertise.

Part of the negotiations up front is also to find out all the details of the project so that these expectations can be managed  on both ends prior to starting.

Congrats on the gig sounds like you're having fun learning