----- Original Message -----
From: "Dennis Schridde" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Development list" <warzone-dev@gna.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 8:43 PM
Subject: Re: [Warzone-dev] Music playlists
>Am Mittwoch, 24. Januar 2007 18:46 schrieb Per Inge Mathisen:
>> On 1/18/07, Troman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> > I had some musings about the way this should work. Playlist script
>> > interface will be most used by scriptors I assume. I see two main
>> > occasions when such an interface might be used:
>> >
>> > 1) when it is time to interrupt any background music that might be played
>> > and kick in some moody piece to create atmosphere, like it is usually
>> > done in campaigns.
>> >
>> > 2) when someone wants to attach a custom playlist to his map, the way it
>> > is done with Unreal Tournament maps for example.
>>
>> Agreed.
>>
>> > As for the implementation, looks like wz uses 'tracks' to store songs.
>> > Track 2 corresponds to menu, track 1 to the in-game music.
>>
>> I do not think we should let that get in the way of a decent API. We
>> can change the way Warzone stores songs, if necessary.
Since i'm not the one to program it it's fine with me. ;-)
>>
>> > When modder wants his custom playlist to be played when someone is using
>> > his map he either loads all songs manually to the user track using
>> > scripts, like
>> >
>> > playlistAddUserSong("mySong1.ogg");
>> > playlistAddUserSong("mySong2.ogg");
>>
>> Sounds good.
>>
>> > Since this is not the most convenient approach it might be a better idea
>> > to load playlist from an external playlist file, which will come with the
>> > mod
>>
>> Well, to me the in-script version above seems more convenient than
>> adding yet another file, since the number of songs will probably never
>> be high.
>>
>> > In case of a map with custom playlist it is simple, just call something
>> > like playlistPlayUserTrack(); from within the scripts (or again we can
>> > make wz start playing user track automatically if a map comes with a user
>> > playlist) for wz to switch from player playlist to the custom map
>> > playlist.
>>
>> I think starting the script-supplied playlist automatically seems like
>> the simpler and better way.
What if the user doesn't want any music to be played at the beginning? It's
probably better to let the modder decide this.
>> > In cases when some music must kick in from time to time depending on some
>> > in-game conditions it is a bit more complicated.
>>
>> There are probably two different needs here:
>> 1) Scripter wants to play a short song to set the theme of some event,
>> then resume the playlist as normal. The new song should then not be in
>> the playlist afterwards.
>> 2) Scripter wants to change the whole theme of a level by playing a
>> new song or songs throughout the remaining time (or until it changes
>> again). So we need a way to reset the playlist; then the scripter can
>> add the new songs.
>>
>> So how about an API like this:
>> playlistReset() -- deletes existing playlist (eg to remove game
>> supplied playlist)
>> playlistAdd(song) -- adds song to top of playlist (eg to add to game's
>> supplied playlist)
>> playlistInterruptWith(song) -- play a song once, then resume playing
>> playlist (eg for event)
Makes sense to me.
>My proposal:
>
>Function to set a playlist.
>Function to immediately play one track.
>Function to stop playlist playback and one function to resume playback.
>Function to set playback-modes, like repeat_all, shuffle, fadein, fadeout,
>crossfade.
This all can surely be usefull to the end user/scriptor. Crossfades for
'insertations' especially in campaigns etc.
>
>Clearing the playlist is simply supplying an empty playlist.
>I don't think there is any need to dynamically attach a track to the playlist,
>am I correct? Why would one attach a song if he doesn't know when it will be
>played...
You never know what's going on inside of a modder's head, it doesn't take much
affort to provide this functionality, besides I don't see how else we would
want to re-fill the list (see below).
>Stoping and resuming the playlist may be interesting to create moments of
>total silence or when cutscenes are played.
>
>C-Functions:
>WZSound_setPlaylist( Song * song1, ... );
>WZSound_playTrack( Track interuptionTrack );
>WZSound_stopPlaylist();
>WZSound_resumePlaylist();
>WZSound_setPlaylistMode( PlaylistMode newMode );
>
>typedef PlaylistMode UInt8;
>#define PLAYLIST_SHUFFLE 0x1
>#define PLAYLIST_REPEAT_ALL 0x2
>#define PLAYLIST_CROSSFADE 0x4
>...
>
>C-Function examples:
>WZSound_setPlaylist( song1, song2, song3 );
>WZSound_setPlaylist( NULL );
>WZSound_setPlaylistMode( PLAYLIST_SHUFFLE | PLAYLIST_CROSSFADE );
>
>Script-Function examples:
>WZSound_setPlaylist( "song1.ogg", "song2.ogg", "song3.ogg" );
Variadic functions won't work, we'll have to fall back to something like
playlistAddSong(song);
>WZSound_setPlaylist( "none" );
>WZSound_playTrack( "event1.ogg" );
>WZSound_setPlaylistMode( "shuffle", "fadein" );
>WZSound_setPlaylistMode( "repeat_all", "crossfade", "fadeout" );
>WZSound_setPlaylistMode( "none" );
Any particular reason not to use playlistSetMode() instead of
WZSound_setPlaylistMode()? It's shorter while preserving the same meaning.
>Additionally I would sent following events to the scripts (and over the
>internal event-bus), namings are currently very bad:
>playlist_stop
>playlist_resume
>playlist_nextTrack
>playlist_customTrack
>playlist_customTrackEnd
>playlist_modeChange
>playlist_new
>playlist_end
>
>--Dennis
Script events would be usefull. Those would end up being named
CALL_PLAYLISTEND, CALL_SONGEND etc following wz convention.
But those are details, provide me playlist functionality I'll take care of the
rest, probably not until mid february though.
Troman
PS: geez am I the only one having trouble replying to attached files?_______________________________________________
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