Implementing musicians

[Comrade Alexeo]

I seem to vaguely recall that this was mentioned in CC, but since that has disappeared...

I'd like to implement a musician unit for Parthia (or eastern factions in general - whatever). I kinda know how to implement a new unit, but I have no idea whatsoever how to do a musical unit that doesn't attack but just boosts the morale of my troops.

The models and textures already exist, and I have a clip of battle horns to use. I just don't know how to put it all together.

Anyone have some brilliant ideas?

[Comrade Alexeo]

OK, someone has to know how to do this, I'm sure of it...

I was thinking, wouldn't it similar to the General and his battle-horn? How can I create a general-esque recruitable unit that has a toggle button that, instead of playing the general horn, plays a much longer, different sound file of horns?

[alpaca]

You have to give em the "druid" attribute in export_descr_unit I think

[Greenbeef]

Ideally, we'd have them as an officer unit. There are the eastern musician models in place already, but I think the romans would work well with a cornicen. I brought this up a while ago for RTR: 6.0 when it was early in development, but they decided to use the third officer slot for an Aquilifer.

It also seems like the actual sound of the cornicen's signal could be attatched to the beginning of movement and attack order sound files. There may be a more creative way to impliment that, but I'm not too familiar with the sound files. Most I've done is tweak some mp3's to replace the music ingame.

Here are a few pictures of cornicens:





This picture shows the 3 types of musicians employed in the Legions. From left to right: Cornu, Buccina, and Tuba.

Now, the tuba was thought to be used for marching signals and camp signals, but the beauty of it, is that it's so similar to the eastern musician. This would require little modeling and a new skin.

I've always thought a musician officer could add a little flavor to the units. I think the lack of work on the subject is due to the scope of it; it would require lots of sound editing, some modeling, complete reskinning, and research.

Here are the sources I used:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Orac...2/century.html
http://www.larp.com/legioxx/orgoff.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_legion

[LordSaradain]

I know the people who makes the warhammer mod have implemented musicians.
http://www.zodiak-productions.com/

[Comrade Alexeo]

So let's say I make it a druid-type unit. How would I do that?

I assume Step One is first add a new unit using the models and skins already in the game (for now, I don't care about a Roman one - but nice info Greenbeaf!). Does anyone know if there is a musician animation?

Step two is apparently adding the "druid" aspect. But I'm worried - I don't want them moan like they're orgasming, I want them to play a different sound track - of horns, obviously. How do I create another attribute?

[Greenbeef]

As for the skinning and modelling, I have no experience there, but changing the sound for druid chant seems easy enough.

First you go to descr_sounds_units_taunt. Then if you scroll to the bottom you'll see a Special Ability section with druid chant and others in it. The easy way to achieve the effect you're after would be to simply replace the existing file in data/sounds/Voice/human/generic with the trumpet mp3 file. It will play any mp3 file you put in its place. Hell, you could have your druids chant banana phone to drive fear into the hearts of the enemy.

Each of these categories has 3 different files. One for small groups, one for medium groups, and one for large. Although, I'm sure you could use one file for all 3.

I'm assuming that you could create a new taunt category, but I'm not sure how you would go about triggering it in game. I'm not too experienced with modifying units.

[Comrade Alexeo]

Well if I just replaced taunt, then wouldn't druids start singing battle horns ?

[Bruticus the Steadfast]

Good, I am glad there is interest in this again. I have pushed for it since I found out there was ment to be any. One thing, I myself have tried to change such sound effects, with mixed results. I did get a Roman General to say somethign from the Latin Voice pack once....in a certain time..but I try it with a greek gen with a diff mp3..and no sound.

[alpaca]

Ok I got a little time and can help you with it:
Go to the descr_sounds_units_taunt, search for the BANK called "druid_chant"
There add:

type "unit type"

event lod 5 volume -10 mindist 7
folder sound_folder
sound_name
end

event lod 10 volume -10 mindist 8
folder sound_folder
sound_name
end

event lod 30 volume -10 mindist 10
folder sound_folder
sound_name
end


Where "unit type" is the name of your unit, sound_folder is the path to your sound (resolved from the R:TW base dir) and sound_name is the name of the sound without extension.

This should make your unit play this sound on chant.

The files have to be 22050 Hz (mono) wav files I think.
If you absolutely want to use mp3s you can try adding the "streamed" keyword to the event and specify the file extension (sound_name.mp3 instead of sound_name) but I can't guarantee that this works (it does in some files but it doesn't in others).

[Comrade Alexeo]

Well, I've given Eastern Infantry a musician officer (who just rigidly holds his horn, but I don't really care at this point - and he does swing his sword) and the druid chant ability with no crashing so far, but unfortunately whenever I click the ability, nothing plays.

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;;;;;;;;;;; SPECIAL ABILITY - DRUID CHANT
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

BANK: druid_chant

type warband hurler briton, warband huntsman gaul, warband archer scythian, warband archer german, warband archer dacian, barb druids briton, barb druids gaul, barb peasant slave,barb archer slave,barb infantry slave,barb naked fanatics slave,barb druids slave,barb cavalry slave,barb noble cavalry slave,barb chariot heavy slave,barb horse archers slave,barb chieftain cavalry early slave,roman peasant,roman archer,roman archer auxillia,roman velite,roman light infantry auxillia,roman city militia,roman hastati,roman princeps,roman triarii,roman infantry auxillia,roman legionary cohort i,roman legionary first cohort i,roman legionary cohort ii,roman legionary first cohort ii,roman praetorian cohort i,roman praetorian cohort urban i,roman arcani,roman wardogs,roman pigs,roman velite gladiator,roman samnite gladiator,roman mirmillo gladiator,roman light cavalry,roman cavalry auxillia,roman medium cavalry,roman heavy cavalry,roman praetorian cavalry,roman generals guard cavalry early,roman generals guard cavalry,roman ballista,roman scorpion,roman onager,roman heavy onager,roman repeating ballista,generic rebel general,eastern rebel general,barbarian rebel general,rebel judaean zealots,merc peltast,merc illyrian,merc samnite,merc cilician pirate,merc thracian,merc bastarnae,merc sarmatian cavalry,merc horse archers,merc spanish infantry,merc eastern infantry,merc rhodian slingers,merc cretan archers,merc greek hoplites,merc libyan infantry,merc numidian cavalry,merc arab cavalry,merc bedouin,merc bedouin archers,merc balearic slingers,merc barbarian infantry,merc barbarian cavalry,merc elephants
event lod 5 volume -10 mindist 7
folder data/sounds/Voice/human/generic
Chant_Group_Small_01
end

event lod 10 volume -10 mindist 8
folder data/sounds/Voice/human/generic
Chant_Group_Med_01
end

event lod 30 volume -10 mindist 10
folder data/sounds/Voice/human/generic
Chant_Group_Large_01
end
type east infantry
event lod 5 volume -10 mindist 7
folder data/sounds
voice
end

event lod 10 volume -10 mindist 8
folder data/sounds
voice
end

event lod 30 volume -10 mindist 10
folder data/sounds
voice
end

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

"Voice" being the name of the horns (for some reason; I got it from CC way back when cause it sounded cool). Making it "Voice.wav" has no effect, nor does placing it in a different folder.

These are the data for the Voice file:



I also tried with a different file, horns1, with no success.



Any bright ideas?

[SigniferOne]

Creating a unit full of musicians I think is taking the idea too far. The idea of making a musician soldier IN a unit seems a lot more intriguing, and if someone will make me a model/skin for a Republican pre-Marian musician, I will make the animations for it.

[alpaca]

Did you think of deleting or renaming events.dat?
The second example should work imo.

[Comrade Alexeo]

Did you think of deleting or renaming events.dat?

What would that do?

[alpaca]

You have to do that in order for the game to read the sound text files.
In events.dat, game events are linked to certain sound files.
Now, if you delete that file, the text reads the sound text files and loads its links from there.
If you don't delete it, the game uses the links from events.dat, and this might well be the reason why you don't hear anything.

[Comrade Alexeo]

alpaca, I love you platonically! That makes it work!

It really gives a different feel to battles to have the music off and just have the sounds of battle horns playing and troops marching.

On that note, I'm wondering if anybody has any good horn tracks? The one I have is good but a bit soft and the only other one I have is too orchestral for my liking - plus I want to experiment!

[letifer jaculum]

On the subject of tunes: why not get the real thing? The enactment societies (Wher eyour photo of the the cornicen came from) have the real musicians, with real instruments. Google up some contact details and I would be very surprised if they weren't delighted to let you have some sounds.

[SigniferOne]

Do you guys know what the keywords in that text file mean? Why do you have to have 3-4 entries, what do the different "lod" and "mindist" refer to, etc?

[alpaca]

I think lod has to do with the size of the unit (or group).
You'll have to test the other keywords, I don't know many of them.
I think mindist has something to do with the distance you can hear the sound in

[Shigawire]

LOD sounds like "Level Of Detail" which is a tech term used for the difference in graphical detail based on distance. The farther a soldier is from the camera, the lower detail the model is shown in. The closer up, the higher the detail. LOD. Lots Of Ducks.