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Imperator Dev Diary 12/06/2019 - Modding Part 2: Music!

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Music Modding​



Brief
Starting with version 1.3 Livy, Music Modding is now available on Imperator!

This is made possible thanks to a crucial under the hood improvement introduced by updating the Music System internally to a new version of our JominiMusicManager and also updating Fmod to version 2.x. Players won’t immediately notice any differences to the music playback, but there’s a bunch of cool stuff that this new Music System brings with it and we hope to make use of them more in the future.

The long story short is that one of our talented programmers (Will Jordan) has found a way to use the API from Fmod to playback mp3s, ogg, (or pretty much whatever audio filetype that FMOD supports) directly using just a filepath! For modders this means that if you want to add or replace music to the core game, it is as simple as adding a folder with the songs, adding a new txt file with music definitions and boom, all those tracks are now going to be available inside the game music player.


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Try the Mod!
If you want to try it out yourself, a new mod has been uploaded to Steam today that adds all the soundtrack from
"Europa Universalis Rome" and changes the main track to be the one that shipped with the 2008 version. It should automatically extract itself on the “Documents > Paradox Interactive > Imperator > mod” folder, and from there you just need to enable it through the PDX launcher on Steam and then make sure the build is 1.3+ .

Also, with these new MusicManager comes new Debug Tools: Such as Music.PlayTrack nameOfTheTrack , Music.Pause, Music.Reset and Music.Weight which are all quite handy to test out specific songs, check spacing and pauses between them and so on. More info on that upon request ;)

PDX Launcher
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Mod Contents

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(These files will be added inside the game’s music folder, overwriting the main theme definition, and appending the extra songs)

Summary
When we started thinking about supporting Audio Modding for Imperator, we looked at what our community requested the most and prioritized our scope around that.

We learned then that the highest requested feature was to be able to add more music to the base game.

Also, we wanted to make it as simple as possible for anyone.

Adapting new tech and methods tends to create friction, and Fmod is an amazing tool that enables us to make our games sound even better, but from a modding perspective it definitely looks quite different to what our community has been accustomed to through all these years. Therefore, by providing a simple way that is as straightforward and familiar as it ever was, we hope Music Modding will be very well received and motivate any of you to create and share your own music mods.

So join us on a trip down memory lane and download this music mod that automatically adds an additional hour of music to the base game:

Europa Universalis: Rome Music Mod
Download Link
_________________________________________________________

Europa Universalis: Rome Soundtrack
Composed by: Andreas Waldetoft

  • Main Theme - Legions of Rome
  • Rome Goes to War
  • Riding to Battle
  • Auxiliaries
  • Rome is the Light
  • The Senate
  • Eagle Fly North
  • The Field
  • Vae Victis
  • To Victory
  • Citizens
  • Barbarians Approaching
  • Battle of Zama
  • Elysian Fields
  • Grief
  • All Trade Routes Lead to Rome
  • Rock and Rome
  • Imperator
  • Victorious - Rome Finale

Total runtime: 70 minutes
 
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1) GREAT! I've always wanted the EUR OST, IR's. while very good indeed, was not as epic as EUR's. that games OST was just on a whole new level.

2) So when are we getting the ingame track manager(that exists in every other PDS game)????
 
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Getting to listen to good music is one of the main reasons why I play GSG. I:R has good music, but not nearly enough and what is there is often kind of samey. Being able to add new music via mods will significantly increase my playtime, I think.
 
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@Audiomancer - thank you for this, Andreas Waldetoft is one of the best composers that I know (on top of him, IMO, are only Kirill Pokrovsky, Darren Korb and Marcin Przybyłowicz).

One very important question though: when can we expect to hear main theme during loading game? You know, like a most NORMAL thing one could expect from a game on its audio side - is this like a bug or you intentionally made so that we only hear main theme once we see main menu? For me, it's hilarious. Music during game launching is there to make you immerse, start thinking about your gameplay. It works like that with every other PDS game. What is wrong with Imperator??
 
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CaptinObvious said:
No, it was not "overlooked" it was intentionally left out, to quote PDS:

"Just like every other PDS game, it will come after launch"
Click to expand...

In that case I shall retract my criticism.
Though as someone who bought HOI4 on release, I seem to recall the music player being present on release; or maybe that's my memory playing tricks.
Either way, fair is fair, and if true then I recant my statement.
 
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I understand that current scripting would have to be changed to support the following, but wouldn't it make more sense if the music crossfades into a more noticeable one once you get a special event? Most obvious would be switch between war and peace music - with tracks taking several minutes there's a clear disconnect between those. Also for rarer occurrences like switching between cultures or religions (probably much more appropriate in Crusader Kings 2) so that you immediately hear that everything has changed.

As I've said, I'm not sure how to enable this even script-wise, cause as far I see it the current system makes a random roll on a weighted list when the time comes and makes no distinction between unique and generic music. Also you can have dynamic music for any situation so it'd be hard for the game to know if a new unique track wants to kick in unless it checks for that all the time.
 
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Audiomancer said:
The goal has always been to have the music react to Gameplay... Get the music to be as adaptive as possible for a Paradox GSG title. For that reason, the game needs to be the music player itself. It needs to be able to play and pause and change the songs, depending on the events that are triggered by the game session.

That's always been the reason for the music player not to be there :)

Thanks for the feedback though! Keep it coming!
Click to expand...

I get that, and I have noticed in game that this does occur (certain events firing, and the music changes correspondingly); and to be honest I do like that element of the experience. To that end I agree with you and would say I'm a fan of what's been done here. However there are stretches of play without said events, and frankly, some of us (myself included obviously) like some tracks better than others. I'd rather have more control in game (say to the extent the HOI4 music player does), than having to silence the music in game and playing my own playlist in the in background. I appreciate that this might sound a touch pedantic, but given it's a feature in all your other modern titles, surely it isn't too unreasonable a request.

Is there a compromise where we can still have an in-game player, AND the music can be reactive to events and triggers and such? I agree that part is immersive, and as a player I would like to subscribe to your design philosophy as possible. It's just an annoyance that merely to have in game control of music, I cannot play in Ironman, or otherwise I have to mute music in-game, and play my own stuff in the background. That feels like a lose-lose for all concerned.

In any case, I hope my initial post didn't seem too harsh (and I meant no ill-will or offence). Also, I wish to state my appreciation for you swift and well considered reply; it's more than can be said for most developers out there, and the communication is invaluable. So to that end, dankeshön. :)
 
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Is this Achievement friendly, or will adding music mean that you can't earn achievements?
 
Now that we are talking about music. Is it intede that while you start up the game there is no music during the loading screens? It allways seems a bit of a strange silence to me.
 
CaptinObvious said:
2) So when are we getting the ingame track manager(that exists in every other PDS game)????
Click to expand...

How this was not noticed and overlooked is absolutely beyond me...
It was one of the first things to pop up in the mod workshop ffs!
 
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