Iustinus
11-04-2005, 17:58
I'm pretty sure there is a guide to making faction specific music, but I will write about it now, as I have much experience with this.
Open up playlist, located in front of the Medieval- Total War folder, by using notepad. You will notice that there are six different 'slots,' or groupings of music. We are only allowed to create six kinds of music. The game already uses three of them. With playlist open, open up the Sounds/Music folder and look at the tracks there. They are labeled exactly like the original songs in the playlist. Here is a description of the different kinds of tracks and what they are used for:
1.) Slots and the Tracks with them
1. Tension (for the opening of a battle):
Euro Tension tracks are used in landscapes that have Western Euro buildings, Dark Age buildings, Eastern Euro buildings, and Southern Euro buildings.
Arab Tension tracks are used in landscapes with Middle Eastern buildings only.
Viking Tension tracks offer an alternative to Euro Tension tracks.
Otherwise, you can not create your own tension tracks. So you are limited with three kinds of tension music. However, there is a way to go around this, which I will explain later.
2. Mobilize (when you order a unit to move in battle for the first time)
Unlike Tension tracks, you can create and name your own mobilize tracks (they are not restricted to being named Arab, Euro, or Viking.)
3. Battle (plays when units begin fighting or shooting, but not when artillery first fires at walls)
Like Mobilize tracks, this is not restricted to the three original game names- Arab, Euro, and Viking.
4. Win (plays when you win)
This can be named whatever you want.
5. Lose (like above, but when you lose a battle)
Also can be named whatever you want.
6. Campaign Music
We are limited with only having two kinds of Campaign music. There are four songs, labeled for the four seasons, that alternate with each year in campaign. Those labeled Arab are used by factions that use musical tracks labeled with 'Arab,' and those named Euro with all other factions. Thus if you give a Pagan faction 'arab' music they will have 'arab' campaign music. It is unfortunate that we can not make separate campaign music for other factions (for example, the Byzantines and other Orthodox factions, or the Viking campaign.)
2.)
How the Playlist works:
Here is an example of my playlist for a mod I am working on, compared to the original. I apologize for the length. Anything that follows this // symbol is not read by the game. So you can write whatever you want behind the two lines.
Original Playlist:
// BGMP_INIT
// muslim
"Arab Tension 1", 0,
"Arab Tension 2", 0,
"Arab Tension 3", 0,
"", 0
// christian
"Euro Tension 1", 0,
"Euro Tension 2", 0,
"Euro Tension 3", 0,
"", 0
// Viking
"Viking Tension", 0,
"Viking Tension", 0,
"Euro Tension 1", 0,
"Euro Tension 2", 0,
"Euro Tension 3", 0,
"", 0
// custom 1,2 and 3
"", 0
"", 0
"", 0
// BGMP_MOVING
// muslim
"Arab Mobilize 1", 0,
"Arab Mobilize 2", 0,
"Arab Mobilize 3", 0,
"", 0
// christian
"Euro Mobilize 1", 0,
"Euro Mobilize 2", 0,
"Euro Mobilize 3", 0,
"", 0
// Viking
"Viking Mobilize 1", 0,
"Viking Mobilize 1", 0,
"Viking Mobilize 1", 0,
"Euro Mobilize 1", 0,
"Euro Mobilize 2", 0,
"", 0
// custom 1,2 and 3
"", 0
"", 0
"", 0
// BGMP_FIGHTING
// muslim
"Arab Battle 1", 0,
"Arab Battle 2", 0,
"Arab Battle 3", 0,
"", 0
// christian
"Euro Battle 1", 0,
"Euro Battle 2", 0,
"Euro Battle 3", 0,
"", 0
// Viking
"Viking Battle 1", 0,
"Viking Battle 1", 0,
"Euro Battle 1", 0,
"Euro Battle 2", 0,
"Euro Battle 3", 0,
"", 0
// custom 1,2 and 3
"", 0
"", 0
"", 0
// BGMP_WIN
// muslim
"Arab Win 1", 0,
"", 0
// christian
"Euro Win 1", 0,
"", 0
// Viking
"Viking Win 1", 0,
"", 0
// custom 1,2 and 3
"", 0
"", 0
"", 0
// BGMP_LOSE
// muslim
"Arab Lose 1", 0,
"", 0
// christian
"Euro Lose 1", 0,
"", 0
// Viking
"Viking Lose 1", 0,
"", 0
// custom 1,2 and 3
"", 0
"", 0
"", 0
Here is my playlist. Notice how I have used the custom slots to add three new kinds of music. And in each kind of music, there are aproximately 5 different tracks of music. I believe you can use six but have experienced problems when doing so.
// Eastern
"Arab Tension 1", 0,
"Arab Tension 2", 0,
"Arab Tension 3", 0,
"Arab Tension 4", 0,
"Arab Tension 5", 0,
"", 0
// Greek
"Euro Tension 1", 0,
"Euro Tension 2", 0,
"Euro Tension 3", 0,
"Euro Tension 4", 0,
"Euro Tension 5", 0,
"", 0
// Barbarian
"Viking Tension 1", 0,
"Viking Tension 3", 0,
"Viking Tension", 0,
"", 0
// Indian
"Arab Tension 1", 0,
"Arab Tension 2", 0,
"Arab Tension 3", 0,
"Arab Tension 4", 0,
"Arab Tension 5", 0,
"", 0
// Roman
"Viking Tension 1", 0,
"Viking Tension 3", 0,
"", 0
// Scythian
"Arab Tension 1", 0,
"Arab Tension 2", 0,
"Arab Tension 3", 0,
"Arab Tension 4", 0,
"Arab Tension 5", 0,
"", 0
// BGMP_MOVING
// Eastern
"Arab Mobilize 1", 0,
"Arab Mobilize 2", 0,
"Arab Mobilize 3", 0,
"Arab Mobilize 4", 0,
"", 0
// Greek
"Euro Mobilize 1", 0,
"Euro Mobilize 2", 0,
"Euro Mobilize 3", 0,
"Euro Mobilize 4", 0,
"", 0
// Barbarian
"Viking Mobilize 2", 0,
"Viking Mobilize 3", 0,
"", 0
// Indian
"Indian Mobilize 1", 0,
"Indian Mobilize 2", 0,
"Indian Mobilize 3", 0,
"", 0
// Roman
"Viking Mobilize 2", 0,
"Viking Mobilize 3", 0,
"Euro Mobilize 4", 0,
"", 0
// Scythian
"Scythian Mobilize", 0,
"Scythian Mobilize 2", 0,
"Arab Mobilize 4", 0,
"", 0
// BGMP_FIGHTING
// Eastern
"Arab Battle 1", 0,
"Arab Battle 2", 0,
"Arab Battle 3", 0,
"Arab Battle 4", 0,
"Arab Battle 5", 0,
"", 0
// Greek
"Euro Battle 1", 0,
"Euro Battle 2", 0,
"Euro Battle 3", 0,
"Euro Battle 4", 0,
"Euro Battle 5", 0,
"", 0
// Barbarian
"Viking Battle 1", 0,
"Viking Battle 2", 0,
"Viking Battle 3", 0,
"", 0
// Indian
"Indian Battle 1", 0,
"Indian Battle 2", 0,
"", 0
// Roman
"Viking Battle 2", 0,
"Viking Battle 3", 0,
"", 0
// Scythian
"Scythian Battle", 0,
"Scythian Battle 2", 0,
"", 0
// BGMP_WIN
// Eastern
"Arab Win 1", 0,
"", 0
// Greek
"Euro Win 1", 0,
"", 0
// Barbarian
"Viking Win 1", 0,
"", 0
// Indian
"Indian Win", 0,
"", 0
// Roman
"Viking Win 2", 0,
"", 0
// Scythian
"Scythian Win", 0,
"", 0
// BGMP_LOSE
// Eastern
"Arab Lose 1", 0,
"", 0
// Greek
"Euro Lose 1", 0,
"", 0
// Barbarian
"Viking Lose 1", 0,
"", 0
// Indian
"Indian Lose", 0,
"", 0
// Roman
"Viking Lose 2", 0,
"", 0
// Scythian
"Scythian Lose 1", 0,
"", 0
Make sure that when you edit the playlist that you do so absolutely perfectly. Make sure each song ends with a 0, and that each group of songs (a slot) ends with a "", 0 below. If you make a mistake the songs will be scrambled up in the game.
3.)
Last of all, you must assign groups of songs to factions. This is how you do it:
Go into the startpos file (the file for the campaign that you are editing) and find the places where it says SetFactionMusic::
You will notice that after each faction, a number is written down. These numbers are related directly to the slots, or groups of music, in the Playlist. So, looking at the original Playlist, 'Arab' music is number 0. 'Euro' music is number 1. And 'Viking' music is number 2. If you add new slots, these would be numbered 3, 4, and 5 consecutively.
4.)
Remember that if you add new songs, they must be in wav format. In some ways this is unfortunate; for example, my music folder for my playlist above takes up 2 gb of space.
I hope I have been helpful; if people need me too I can maybe edit this later and explain better.
Finis
Justin/Iustinus
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