User talk:Quantam

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Revision as of 04:02, 24 April 2020 by Cancer (talk | contribs) (Introduction to VGMPF rules)
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HERAD Sega CD Version

Hi there, I saw you posted on the HERAD article that the MegaRace Music on Sega CD is HERAD version 1. I've been trying to figure out how the music in the Sega CD version works, do you have any example files? Thanks in advance! --SynaMax (talk) 08:44, 28 February 2020 (EST)

I fiiiiinally got around to posting the info just now. When I made the first edit I was like 90% done (and I haven't had that much time to work on it since then), now I'm fully done reverse-engineering it. The only difference I saw was the different instrument format for the OPN chip rather than OPL; though I should note that I don't have any familiarity with the OPL version 1 apart from reading this page. I actually reverse-engineered the PC MegaRace sound system back in like 2014 and made a retro game synthesizer that implemented it on an Arduino and an actual OPL2 for an embedded systems class, but I never publicly released the specs/code. I only ran across this page a few months ago; I can't recall if I'd started working on the Sega CD version by then or not till afterward.

I'm currently trying to figure out the best way to make VGMs out of the SCD music. It's challenging for a perfectionist like me because it uses dynamic channel mapping (the OPN has 6 channels but the music uses 7+), so loops typically end up with the instruments on different channels every loop, and doing a simple forced loop causes different notes to be cut when a new channel needs to be allocated. I believe Dune is also on the SCD, but I haven't looked at that at all yet. --Quantam (talk) 18:31, 1 March 2020 (EST)

FYI I'm currently preparing a Sega CD MegaRace page and VGM rips to go with it. I'm very close (couple hours), but as I have to spend most of tomorrow and the weekend working on other stuff I'm not certain what day it'll be. At some point I might try asking the people in the Genesis dev Discord if anyone would be willing to record audio on an actual system for VGMPF; if not then it'll have to wait until I implement OPN2 on my retro game synthesizer. --Quantam (talk) 05:54, 6 March 2020 (EST)

Introduction to VGMPF rules

Hi, Quantam! First, thank you for creating new game pages and uploading their soundtracks (MechWarrior 2, WarCraft 2: Tides of Darkness and WarCraft 2: Beyond the Dark Portal)

There are, however, some issues on those pages which could be fixed (according to our VGMPF rules):

  • Tracks should always start at 1.
  • All tracks should be ordered as they are heard in a game. For a game that uses a CD-audio as the only or one of the audio outputs for music, the track number (pound # sign) and the CD track number are not the same things. Due to this, they usually appear 'shuffled' making their appearance order different from the CD-tracks order (where track 1 is the data track) but this is ok to our editing standards. In Warcraft 2 page you've created, I would make Title theme the first track because it's heard first, right? (too weird to see it amidst the final songs). For such cases, I also like to make an optional column denoting the CD track number (""Extra4"" parameter is responsible for this; for examples, you may look at Shadow Warrior (DOS)).
  • The page of the expansion game, Beyond Dark Portal, could also be wisely edited to have a proper order (1..2..3, versus the current 2..10..18).
  • Not regarding the style and rules, but a recently uploaded game soundtrack is recommended to be announced at the main page as the latest soundtrack in the appropriate section by adding its cover art (or title screenshot if there isn't one) there.

I have deleted the strange redirecting WarCraft IIx and WarCraft IIx (DOS) pages as they double redirect/broken. --Cancer (talk) 08:20, 21 April 2020 (EDT)

A few things, mostly related to track ordering:
  1. "WarCraft IIx" (and I think there was another for a different game) was a brain fart where I forgot to add the DOS indicator.
  2. I was just about to make a page for another game when I saw your message (the tracks were uploaded a few days ago). This game (MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries) has its missions grouped into campaigns (or contracts, as they're called in game), it's usually the case that several campaigns are available at any time for the player to choose between, and nearly all campaigns can be done in different relative orders to some other campaigns. As such there is no absolute order but only relative order within each campaign, and each track is often used in multiple different campaigns; and because there are dependencies between campaigns and multiple new campaigns can become available simultaneously, it isn't possible to make an absolute order of campaigns by first availability, either. How should this be handled?
  3. How should track number metadata tagging be done when reordering tracks? Am I going to have to reupload all of the ones already uploaded because the track number has changed?
  4. How do I get box art pics? I mean, you can easily find them on Wikipedia or Google images, but would those not potentially have some kind of copyright on them? Or are we assuming nobody would dare assert copyright on a photo of a box when the art on that box is already copyrighted by the developer? I punted on the images because I didn't want to deal with the copyright question.
  5. Ghost Bear's Legacy (the expansion pack) uses about a dozen tracks featured in the original MechWarrior 2. Should the relative order of those tracks be taken from MW2 for both of them, or should each game have its own conflicting order based on missions within each game?
--Quantam (talk) 04:44, 21 April 2020 (EDT)
2) I was just about to make a page for another game when I saw your message (the tracks were uploaded a few days ago). This game (MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries) has its missions grouped into campaigns (or contracts, as they're called in game), it's usually the case that several campaigns are available at any time for the player to choose between, and nearly all campaigns can be done in different relative orders to some other campaigns. As such there is no absolute order but only relative order within each campaign, and each track is often used in multiple different campaigns; and because there are dependencies between campaigns and multiple new campaigns can become available simultaneously, it isn't possible to make an absolute order of campaigns by first availability, either. How should this be handled?
This situation asks the tracks to be partially ordered. If the campaigns can played at any order a player wishes there is no a strict rule to arrange *every* audio track. All intermediate tracks which play during the game could be arranged according to their respective CD-tracks. As another option, if a mission in a game is somewhat 'popular' (meaning most players start it first) then you could know the songs used for that level comes earlier than other songs. Whatever variant is taken the Title and Finale songs come at first and last places respectively. If there are songs unused (nowhere played ingame) they actually come 'extremely' last in the game pages (after final), so I think two unused track of MechWarrior 2 to be 26 and 27 (instead of 22 and 25).
3) How should track number metadata tagging be done when reordering tracks? Am I going to have to reupload all of the ones already uploaded because the track number has changed?
To change the track order simply means to rename it by Moving the file (dunno if it requires additional rights for editing, but if it does those could be asked from TheAlmightyGuru). However, this will not change its metadata. To change a track's metadata means to reupload its respective file with meta edited, and that file starts to have multiple history entries (which will get the server space to its full if we're going to reupload such a mass of tracks if there would be due to same file size of each track, the old files will not be removed automatically).
4) How do I get box art pics? I mean, you can easily find them on Wikipedia or Google images, but would those not potentially have some kind of copyright on them? Or are we assuming nobody would dare assert copyright on a photo of a box when the art on that box is already copyrighted by the developer? I punted on the images because I didn't want to deal with the copyright question.
www.mobygames.com is the nicest place to get art covers from. If a game has a variety of covers for different regions then a US publication will have the highest priority which should be placed into the Infobox of the game. All other region covers (including the US version) should be in the "publications" section of a game (all the game pages you've created recently still lack this section).
5) Ghost Bear's Legacy (the expansion pack) uses about a dozen tracks featured in the original MechWarrior 2. Should the relative order of those tracks be taken from MW2 for both of them, or should each game have its own conflicting order based on missions within each game?
I guess the order should be absolute for expansions (starting from 1 without breaking the arrangement).


Also, I didn't mention it already, if multiple composers made a song they should be separated with Comma , sign (within metadata Semicolon ; is used). So, MechWarrior 2 page is to have "Gregory Alper, Jeehun Hwang" for its several rows versus the current ("Gregory Alper and Jeehun Hwang") --Cancer (talk) 08:20, 21 April 2020 (EDT)
What should I do for uploading the CD audio for WarCraft 1? The CD only contains a handful of the tracks there are MIDIs for. Should I number them like the MIDIs and leave gaps in between, or should I renumber them so that they're consecutive?--Quantam (talk) 01:07, 23 April 2020 (EDT)
As I understood, the DOS version of Warcraft 1 only included the CD track as a bonus-like feature. In-game, there's no option to play theme at all. I have checked some threads particulary at GOG and VOGONS where there's a talk of complete lacking the MSCDEX (1, 2). If you check the made game page on this site with already prepared MIDI soundtrack you notice some words describing that problem. We usually do not upload the CD songs unless there's a possibility within a game to play em. However, I found there's the Macintosh port exists, and has CD tracks as well (most possibly the same as of the DOS version). Yeah, a video showing some gameplay of that port (Running the Macintosh Version of Warcraft on YouTube) where I could clearly hear those audio tracks playing during gameplay with a combination with MIDI (though it says tracks were added after recording). If that port really plays the CD music, I think that would be much of a wise to have diffent page created here for Macintosh, WarCraft: Orcs & Humans (MAC), and have the tracks there. If it really goes to be made, then the tunes should be merged into one chart together with the CD and MIDI unless it was possible on Macintosh for different outputs aside from that former two. --Cancer (talk) 04:02, 24 April 2020 (EDT)