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Wondering if this will mean more PC ports of Atlus games.

This has been such an integral part of Sonic games that I think it deserves its own discussion/thread as to how different projects have tackled the issue. I think this will be a really handy resource and food-for-thought when tackling the music side of your fangame engine.

THE TYPES:
1) Powerup song - Cut level BGM, play a specific speed shoes BGM, then cut back to the level BGM at the end of the powerup. It's optional if you play the BGM from the start again (stop, play), or resume where it left off (mute, unmute)
Sonic Adventure does this.
Very easy to implement

2) Level-specific Powerup song - Cut level BGM, play a specific speedshoes version of the level's BGM that has been rendered at a higher tempo (typically 1.25x) that starts from the beginning and lasts 20 secs or however long the powerup is. At the 20 second mark, just as the powerup fades, you start the level BGM from the 25s mark (or in other words, 20 x 1.25, which due to the maths will 'segue' at the exact spot)
Sonic Generations does this.
Also very easy to implement, a little more responsibility on the people who is procuring your music for you.

3) Speed up the music, easy version - Your music engine just plays the music at a 1.25 rate for however long the powerup lasts. Very easy to do, results are often 'musical' enough as it feels like a major 3rd up modulation for the duration of the powerup.
Easy to implement, doesn't require anything extra from music guys

4) Speed up the music, hard version - You procure two versions of each level track - normal and sped-up (1.25x), both with the audio clip starting directly on bar:beat:division 1:1:00. Upon grabbing a speedshoes powerup, the default BGM plays to the next beat in the music, and then transitions to the exact same relative grid in the speedshoes version. The reverse happens as the powerup wears off.

In terms of mathematics, the easiest way to accomplish this would be to supply your music engine with the BPM of each level track. Upon grabbing a powerup, you want the music to stop at the next beat, meaning first you need to identify that beat: <current time in music, in seconds>*bpm/60 will tell you this. You then round up the number to get the next beat, and do <current beat in music>*60/bpm to get the exact time you want the music to stop.

Next, you want the speedshoes version of the music to start on that same beat. Essentially again you first get the absolute time value via <current beat in music>*60/bpm, then start the new track from there. Since BPM in this case is higher (typically 1.25) the math works out and you get a seamless transition.

The opposite takes place when the powerup runs out - calculate absolute time of next beat, stop speedshoes version at that absolute time, calculate corresponding absolute time of the normal version at that beat, start playback from there.

For music that has a changing tempo for whatever reason, if you're really OCD you could supply the music engine with two arrays that provide a complete list of absolute times that correspond to beats for both versions, or simply say screw changing on the beat, and simply note absolute time of current normal track, stop current normal track and start speedshoes version at <absolute time * 0.8>


I'll try to procure both example audio clips and for 4) example code that does what I'm talking about. Hilariously enough, this is the one thing that Wwise cannot do as it can't segue based on beats (the most you can do is transition from one clip to another maintaining the same absolute time which does not help in this case)

Okay, this has been bugging me for a while, and I find it extremely odd that no one else seems to take issue with it. It's one particular sprite from SCD which has been appropriated for another use in like... virtually every recent fangame. Over the past few months I've been increasingly driven mad with the niggling, then somewhat annoying, and now completely overbearing need to know if I'm completely alone in finding the sprite usage extremely jarring (in which case I'm an asshole making a lot of ado over nothing) or if it's bugged other people but not to the point that a thread had to be made about it. (in which case I'm simply an asshole)

The sprite I'm referring to is this:


The usage I'm referring to is Sonic descending from vertical springs. WHY is this sprite used then? It originally was in the timeout/idle->gameover animation. Let's look at some points here:
- Sonic looks pissed
- Sonic is looking right at the player
- It just looks awkward in general dimensions, hinting at a scrawnier Sonic with longer limbs.

I mean I can understand its original usage in what's not really a gameplay-affecting gimmick (I'MMA OUTTA HERE), but when a level has a bunch of springs and it shows up every 2 seconds or so it looks utterly retarded.

Firstly, there's absolutely no reason for Sonic to be looking towards the screen. None whatsoever.
Secondly, there's absolutely no reason for Sonic to look pissed. Combined with the point above it's like you made Sonic do some massive chore jumping on a spring and he's glaring at you out of annoyance. Over and over again.
Thirdly, if I'm falling at terminal velocity (oftentimes with quite a bit of horizontal momentum as well) I wouldn't look anywhere except the direction I'm headed. Even a simple sprite edit to move his pupils forward/down would make its forced usage so much less awkward.

It's like someone attempted to make Sonic more badass and ended up making him look derp.

8/06/2012 update:

'12 Special Edition released



Download it here: https://sites.google.../site/sonicbts/
Soundtrack (MP3): http://www.mediafire...17xtpd6gy85mxgt
Soundtrack (FLAC)
+pt1- http://www.mediafire...cmh5nqfveuudye0
+pt2- http://www.mediafire...37kug28g7bo391u
+pt3- http://www.mediafire...g0tsnsbmnv6ajd3
+pt4- http://www.mediafire...68v8zbrwuvqcae3
+pt5- http://www.mediafire...733k22k49yrbah7
SAGE booth forthcoming

One of the electives I'm taking at college is "Advanced Scoring for Video Games" which basically talks about interactivity in music, explores interactive audio middleware (I.e. FMOD and Wwise and a bit of xact)

The Wwise assignment basically requires you to take an existing game, re-score it, and include interactive elements. Many people chose games that already had interactivity in them, I.e. Mass Effect, God of War, that kind of stuff. (combat -> transitions to combat music, idle -> transitions to idle music, 'seamlessly') I've noticed two different trends in how video games are scored, mainly the eastern and western styles which really, really differ. While games made in the west typically score moods rather than themes, which makes it easier to do all that interactivity and transitioning, Japanese games typically compose themes, complex musical structures/progressions, very memorable melodies, etc which typically doesn't translate too well into interactivity - they just fire and forget. I decided to give myself a challenge and do a Sonic level and give it some form of interactivity.

Since, for better or worse, the game is on rails a lot, and levels are divided into segments, I thought I'd compose something that actually had a song structure, then basically just make sure that transitions from one section to the next were possible from a multitude of areas. Additionally, I intended to have 3 genres of the music, which hot-swapped depending on how well Sonic was doing. This is the result.


(Can't get annotiations to not bug out in embed, so open in a proper window if you really want to read all that shit)

It's funny though, SEGA/Sonic Team was implementing the exact same crossfading thing with Generations and it was kinda hilarious/confusing when I found out while playing the 2nd Generations demo and hearing the drums swap to double time when boosting. One thing I really, really, REALLY hate about the recent games is that the game engine basically destroys the music with a high pass filter just to get the 'lol sonic's going really fast' point across when boosting, which I think is a shame. I ranted about it in video annotations as well, but City Escape was so good because the music was loud. It started loud, and wouldn't have had the same impact if it suddenly just dropped right back off after coming in strong.

I'd have remade/remixed the original Rooftop Run music, except that part of the requirements is original music, so derp. ( The music itself, although 'original' has quite a lot of nods to Sonic music. There's a slap bass pattern from Station Square, a whole bunch of guitar riffs from all over the franchise (I outlined the most obvious one from SA1's Tails theme) and some drum fills are inspired by the Skydeck zone music. Oh, and the guitar solo's ending is obviously Sonic Drive (Sonic X JP OP) inspired. :P And the music titles "Be Cool, Be Wild" is an obvious nod to the track "Be Cool, Be Wild, Be Groovy" - Be Groovy was intended to be a 3rd genre, when Sonic went idle (very light breakbeat-type stuff, like Ocean Wave or Apotos) but it wasn't working out and I didn't have time to revisit it in time for assignment submission, so it just got axed.

Made some comparison clips here:
http://soundcloud.co...eos-lol/s-ZyiBW