And now, Dark Forces for...

[The_One]

...Half-Life 2. Yep, it seems there are now mods in the works for Jedi Academy (us!), Doom 3 and now HL2.

 

I'm not sure what's brought this all on suddenly. Good luck to them, I say - I doubt they have any concept of the degree of work ahead of them. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if LEC stepped on them early on. And I sincerely hope that doesn't happen (for their sake as much as ours) - as it once again will heighten the danger involved in our project.

 

Anyway, I hope both Doom 3 and HL2 teams do the original game justice - as I hope we have done. As long as it gets more people interested in Dark Forces and the original Jedi Knight, I'm happy. To be honest though, I really wish people would bring JK or MOTS to the newer engines - imagine force powers in the Source engine!

 

Ah well, here's the link. Anyone got the Doom 3 one bookmarked too? It would be nice to keep an eye on these...

 

http://www.darkforcesredux.com/

[ION1022]

Maybe you guys could join the team. I know all that hard work might be wasted but you guys have allready the level designs and stuff. I have Half Life 2 and that game graphics and physics are fantastic. That engine will do Dark Forces justice.

[Monkey Mania]

Originally posted by The_One

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if LEC stepped on them early on. And I sincerely hope that doesn't happen (for their sake as much as ours) - as it once again will heighten the danger involved in our project.

 

"Justin Chin will be watching to see what new things we can bring to the dark forces world, as well. However,

do not expect it to be the same exact game with new graphics. It will be a re·dux (rē-dŭks') "Brought back;

returned. Used postpositively." The road ahead is a long and challenging one, together we have the ability to

recreate this classic. " -From the website.

 

That is great!

[razorace]

They don't even have a mapper on their team yet. We will have to wait and see.

[Kurgan]

Re-create JK/MotS in the Source engine (or any engine, but especially any engine with no 'jedi' stuff already)? Do you realize how much work that would be?

 

Look at how long the DF mod for the Quake3 engine is taking. Now if you want massively larger levels, force powers, melee weapons, branching storyline, etc. etc. wow.

 

Not that I'm saying they shouldn't shoot for their dreams, but let's be realistic. They're committing themselves to a multi-year project if it's a TC and not just a couple of levels "converted in the spirit of."

[Monkey Mania]

Originally posted by Kurgan

Re-create JK/MotS in the Source engine (or any engine, but especially any engine with no 'jedi' stuff already)? Do you realize how much work that would be?

 

Look at how long the DF mod for the Quake3 engine is taking. Now if you want massively larger levels, force powers, melee weapons, branching storyline, etc. etc. wow.

 

Not that I'm saying they shouldn't shoot for their dreams, but let's be realistic. They're committing themselves to a multi-year project if it's a TC and not just a couple of levels "converted in the spirit of."

 

 

You are not thinking about this right. This is just like any other multi-year project. It actually should take less time than a TC mod made from scratch because the concept is already there. They already know what the story is, what the characters should look like, etc.

 

At least they are showing progress in the soundtrack.Main Theme made by the one and only lundquist.

[razorace]

And we already have Star Wars based weapons, NPCs, etc. That's a LOT of work that has been done for us in advance. They have to start from scratch.

[Ack]

By the way, I really really really do not want to offend anyone, but I have to ask why Lundquists soundtrack wasn't used for the mod. It sounds more 'real' and orchestrated than the more midifileversion that is in the demo. Is the soundtrack simply work in progress, redone or have you chosen the midi "style"?

 

Cause I feel Lundquists sound better in aspects of what I think you would want to accomplish with the soundtrack...

 

Once again, I do not want to say something that might offend anyone, but simply what I think.

[razorace]

I disagree. The current DF music is way more faithful to the original music.

 

The music you mention sounds off. The instrument volumes are off and at times they even sound like they are just playing the music incorrectly.

[The_One]

Originally posted by razorace

I disagree. The current DF music is way more faithful to the original music.

 

The music you mention sounds off. The instrument volumes are off and at times they even sound like they are just playing the music incorrectly.

 

I have to agree with razorace here. Whilst Lundquist's soundtrack is a good effort, it is often the case that it sounds "wrong." A lot of the timings seem off, and I have quite a musical ear. I'm not just saying this because I'm a member of the team - trust me, I'd be quite prepared to tell Ben if his music wasn't up to scratch, we all have high standards and are prepared to constructively criticise each other.

 

However, when it comes to the music, I honestly haven't heard a better rendition than Ben's. The tempos are spot on, the volumes gel very well and it all just seems to fit. Lundquist's, to my ear, sounds disjointed and very unpolished. That just isn't the case with Ben's. Clearly, I don't want to offend anyone either; but I just feel compelled to defend Ben's brilliant work.

[Monkey Mania]

Originally posted by The_One

I have to agree with razorace here. Whilst Lundquist's soundtrack is a good effort, it is often the case that it sounds "wrong." A lot of the timings seem off, and I have quite a musical ear. I'm not just saying this because I'm a member of the team - trust me, I'd be quite prepared to tell Ben if his music wasn't up to scratch, we all have high standards and are prepared to constructively criticise each other.

 

However, when it comes to the music, I honestly haven't heard a better rendition than Ben's. The tempos are spot on, the volumes gel very well and it all just seems to fit. Lundquist's, to my ear, sounds disjointed and very unpolished. That just isn't the case with Ben's. Clearly, I don't want to offend anyone either; but I just feel compelled to defend Ben's brilliant work.

 

I agree with the instrument volume thing, BUT anyone can extract the music files, add some reverb, and rerecord. Lundquist's theme may sound off, but he used high quality samples which sound way better and more realistic than the intended samples. Besides, that is not the point of the project. This mod is supposed to be an enhanced(updated) version of Dark Forces. Redux is supposed to be a remake, therefore, comparing and contrasting soundtracks is a pretty dumb thing to do. In fact, the two soundtracks suit their own mod favorably.

 

Ackehallgren, I think the current soundtrack supports the mod very well. It is for the mod's intended purpose, to have an enhanced Dark Forces experience.

 

I am sorry if I offended anyone, but this arguement is useless. I just had to say something.

[Ack]

Ok, I understand what you guys mean, and after a second hearing I see what you mean. However I still feel that "the sound" of the instruments sound better on Lundquists, the Ben one sounds more DF'ish, and that's what you want to accomplish...

 

I never posted my last post.

You don't need to see my identification.

These aren't the droids you're looking for.

Move along.

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. Sorry once again, if I have offended anyone.

[Lundquist]

I wonder where you people get your "musical ears" from, I just thought I'd let you know, that in the soundtrack I made, I solely used the midi files extracted from the game - there was no change in tempo, I didn't move the notes or anything - they were the the clean midifiles played through GigaStudio.

Now, you might have a point if you think the brass sounds off in places, but that's simply because all the notes aren't equally "tight" in the samples I used.

 

The whole soundtrack was an experiment with samples I had never used before, and also, try to consider how fast I made the whole damn thing.

 

I don't understand why you feel you have to shoot down my work in order to defend Ben's.

[Fracman]

The whole soundtrack was an experiment with samples I had never used before, and also, try to consider how fast I made the whole damn thing.

And for that it sounds very good.

 

I don't understand why you feel you have to shoot down my work in order to defend Ben's. [/b]

 

You should read the context. We only defend Ben's work effort

One asked why we did not use your soundtrack. And this for the Xth time, this really gets boring.

 

One can compare both soundtracks, and cannot compare on the other hand.

 

Bens Soundtrack is meant for ingame, so it must sound appropriate and not make the player have to listen actively to it.

 

Your soundtrack is fine for listening as it is in total, outside of any game play.

 

Btw. a soundtracks original idea is to enhance the athmosphere of the movie or the game, and to help creating moods.

 

In my own personal opinion, FPS games should not have background music outside menus and cutscenes, because it destroys the game athmosphere.

I rather like to listen to a worlds original noises.

 

I guess Kyle never had SW music in his headset while sneapering thru Talay

[Lundquist]

Granted, I understand how tedious it must be to have to explain it all the time (isn't it also in the FAQ or something?)

 

However, I perceived some of these comments as malicious pot shots at my work, because you feel an increasingly strong urge to defend Ben's work. Perhaps unrightfully so, I may be oversensative right now - for personal reasons I'm not really willing discuss.

[Benevolence]

Whoa!! This thread took a hard right turn when I wasn't looking! Let me explain a few things and try and calm the waters a bit.

 

First, a brief (as much as possible) background PC MIDI game music. I've been working with MIDI since 1991 and was fortunate enough to get a Roland Sound Canvas (or Roland GS) synthesizer in early 1994. The Roland Sound Canvas synths were the de facto standard for PC video game MIDI music until MIDI soundtracks died off in favor of CD digital music (around 1997). Midi soundtracks played back on Sound Canvas synths sounded terrific for the time, but since most people weren't going to shell out $400+ for JUST a synth for game music only, and since those same soundtracks could be played on lower quality synths such as the AWE32 wavetable or FM Synths common on older Sound Blaster cards and clones, plus rampant ignorance back then (most people didn't know they were missing anything, it was before the internet!) that meant that perhaps less than a percent of gamers back in the day actually heard the music in games on the synth it was written on and for.

 

I loved the MIDI game soundtracks of the mid 90's and had a special appreciation for them being a composer who used synths to write music back then (and my Roland SCC-1 and then SC-88 were the centerpiece workhorses I did most of my stuff with). I got to enjoy those soundtracks the way they were meant to be enjoyed.

 

My original goal in participation in this mod was to faithfully reproduce the original Sound Canvas soundtrack in the best manner possible. One way to accomplish this was to record the files digitaly from a Roland SCD-70 with no analogue in the signal chain for the cleanest possible Sound Canvas recording (which I did). As for the music itself my original intent was to just record the SC-88 patchset playback of the DF Midi files. If you listen to the mp3 files from our original Jedi Outcast demo you'll hear the straight SC-88 version of secbase in there.

 

When Lindquist released his version of the DF Soundtrack I listened to it and realized that the straight SC-88 version of the soundtrack although good in its own right, and mixed and balanced the way it was meant to be heard, was just starting to sound too dated. The Sound Canvas patchset used for Dark Forces (and there have been four Sound Canvas sets over the years) is over 13 years old! Not to mention the first Sound Canvas patch set (the SC-55 patchset) was only 4 megs for approx 337 12 bit patches. The SC-88 patchset for approx 650 patches was 8 megs (many of those transfered over from the SC-55 patchset).

 

So I tried experimenting with remixing the DF Midi files by using element from all four GS patchsets (which are 13-7 years old!). My test piece was actually the intro music to Tie Fighter which you can listen to on the downloads page of our website. Note that the original MIDI files had to be very consious of polyphony (maximum amount of silmultanious sounds the synth could make) as the SC-55 and equivalent could only play 28 different sounds at once (which can be eaten up fast in an orchestral score). Also they had to be conscious of the fact that the MIDI files would be played on lesser synths that had very limited polyphony (such as 11 note polyphony for FM synths if I recall correctly). Orchestral music tended to be on the lightweight side and shortcuts and tricks were used to make it sound as full as possible.

 

With current Sound Canvas synths that have 64 note polyphony or more, I was able to use layering to get a much fuller orchestral sound while retaining the original Sound Canvas timbre. However, layering presents a problem in that when you add instruments it can throw off the balance and volumes must be remixed. It has been a long and tedious process of balancing and remixing just to come back and get the original and intended sound again just with a fuller and richer blend to it. And if you have never tried to mix music before it is a talant all of its own.

 

Again, if you compare side by side the original secbase music from our first demo with the secbase music from our second demo (easy way is to rename the pk3 files to zip files and extract the music) you'll notice a subtle yet very noticable difference. It is fuller and richer and doesn't sound as synthetic while retaining its original Sound Canvas sound and balance. For best results in comparing the two use quality speakers at a good volume level.

 

I believe I accomplished what I set out to do, and to answer another question that came up it is still a work in progress. It wasn't easy to get 13-7 years old patchsets to sound the way they do in the second demo and there is room for more improvement. For instance I'm almost done figuring out a new low brass sound that will sound much better. If you compare them I think you'll agree that I did a LOT more than just throw on some reverb.

 

This is getting way too long. I had a few other things to comment about but I won't at this time. Please forgive spelling/grammar mistakes as I'm very tired and don't want to recheck this. I hope it is coherent enough.

 

To sum up: My current goal is to recreate the Sound Canvas soundtrack the way it was meant to be heard while simultaniously giving it a facelift (much like the rest of the mod). I think I accomplished my goal for the second demo and intend to do even better for the final release.

[Fracman]

When playing DF, i used to have my Roland GM/GS module M-GS64 switched on all the time.

The music sound we actually have in the demo remembers me pretty much the "old" times

 

Lundquists approach with very new and different sounds than typical Roland

(yes, one can hear it if a Roland or Yamaha synth is playing the same part)

is remarkable and would perhaps even better give the "new stuff" feeling of the mod:

new graphics, more details, new sound.

But it happend that Ben, also very talented musician, was in the team,

so he is doing the soundtrack for the demo, thats all.

 

And please don't forget: if did not like Lundquists soundtrack,

we would not offer it for download on our own pages

[The_One]

I wasn't trying to be offensive, just honest. I'm sorry if I caught anyone on a bad day, it really wasn't my intention. I do like your soundtrack, Lundquist - I just prefer the sound of Ben's. Hell, if I didn't like your soundtrack, I wouldn't have offered to host it on our website or put it on my mp3 player

 

It really wasn't my intention to get anyone angry, or insulted. I just think it's a testament to how much we love Dark Forces and its music that we're prepared to get into these types of discussions about it.

[Lundquist]

OK, you're right, of course we are all entitled to our own opinions and preferences - I'm having some very bad days (hell months) lately, so I apologize if I came off as hostile.

 

Maybe the original midi sound on my system was way different when I played it back then, because what I hear from a lot of people of how it sounded, is very much different from how it sounded on my soundcard. I've always used sounds (and cards) that's extremely sensitive to velocitychanges - and I just tried looking at the midis; the velocitychanges are quite irregular (though not nearly as much as the ones from Tie-Fighter).

I don't know if it's something that has just gone wrong for me?

Ben, do the midis you use also have this?

[GothiX]

..back to the topic at hand, shall we?

 

Seriously though, if that wallpaper they have up in their media section is any indication of the work they'll be creating, well, I wouldn't expect too much of it.

[Kurgan]

Originally posted by Monkey Mania

You are not thinking about this right. This is just like any other multi-year project. It actually should take less time than a TC mod made from scratch because the concept is already there. They already know what the story is, what the characters should look like, etc.

 

At least they are showing progress in the soundtrack.Main Theme made by the one and only lundquist.

 

It might be slightly more feasible than the "Deus Ex Project" but still.

 

You know when game developer teams (professionals, who have a budget, schedule, managers, salaries, etc) liscense an engine for their use and make a "completely different game out of it" it takes mucho cash and time to get it done. And they have the best people they can find.

 

I'm no game developer, but the biggest difference I can see immediately between a project like this (DF Mod) and making say, Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight re-created in the Source engine is the gameplay. To change gameplay requires coders. And dedicated coders are the hardest "experts" to come by in any mod community. Are they really going to be that excited about basically writing a new game from scratch (one they can't possibly make money off of due to liscense restrictions) like that? Sure, maybe you'll find somebody that dedicated, but then you have the usual rest of the stuff, modellers, sound editors, texture artists, sound artists, cutscene editors, mappers, testers, etc.

 

And it's not like they can (legally, plus it wouldn't look good) just port over all the textures, sounds, etc. Even this DF Mod has had to "re-create" a lot of the stuff, and this is for a much simpler game from a much simpler time.

 

So far the DF Mod team has been doing their mod in JK2 or JA's single player. And there's no SP SDK, so essentially they're just giving the game a facelift and changing the usual elements (non-code) like the maps and models. Creating a Jedi Knight game in the Source engine would more literally be from scratch.

 

No offense, but that's a pretty tall order for an amateur group of mod makers. I'm sure they'll learn a lot attempting it, but they from a practical standpoint they might as well be expected to build a submarine. After a few years most of them will get bored and move on to the "next big thing."

 

But, I wish them luck!

 

Sorry to get back off topic, I won't post in this thread anymore, I promise.

[Salv]

I love to listen to Lunquist's music while I map as its format its more suitable for listening to it, its a real source of inspiration for me. At the end, its just happened that Ben was here before Lunquist and so we used his, its wasnt a matter of which one was better.

[ION1022]

Instead of whos fighting about how the music in made, or how classic it is, or bashing each other on what sounds better. I think someone should take the music, write for sheet music, take it to a orchestra, and rocord the DF soundtrack with real instruments, believe me, once that happens nothing will make it better. I am a major fan of music, I like Lundquists soundtrack, and I like Benevolence's just as much. And plus I don't care what game DF is recreated for, I just want one, it is bad enough that game companies are killing each other, now mods are too? No matter what the game I don't care, as long as it is well done.

[Fracman]

Someone should take the music of DF and make an orchestra play it? ROFL

Done... long long time ago, by Sir John Williams,

and performed by London Symphony Orchestra now more than 30years ago...

 

Once, when people at LEC were perceptible for fan requests,

I asked the creator of the "The Dig" soundtrack, how he did the music,

those phantastic accords and progressions,

and he answered, he had taken parts from various romantic componists, e.g. Wagner, and mixed everything together

with some string and silkpad synth sounds,

creating completely new music shapes.

[The_One]

Following up on some of what Kurgan said, you'd be surprised who is hard to find, and who isn't.

 

When we first started out, loads of people jumped on board to help - we had loads of people volunteering to map. However, when push came to shove, they didn't do any work. The team has changed so much since we started out. There's about 4 or 5 of the original members left, and at one point we had something like 30 members on the team! We learnt from our mistakes, and we're quite selective as to who we let on the team now.

 

Anyway, at first we were inundated with people wanting to map. This is the easiest position to fill when a game first comes out. When we realised we needed to re-create 900 textures from scratch (not including alpha maps, custom textures etc. - our final texture count will probably be way in excess of 1000) finding texture artists was *very* difficult. How do you say to someone, "Would you like to texture for us? We need 900 textures please." It took us ages just to find a handful of people, and most of them left before we released the first demo.

 

That's when everything changed for us. Once the demo hit, and the majority of people loved it, we picked up a load more team members. People were now *volunteering* to texture for us. At one point we had more texture artists than I could remember! We're about 80% or 90% through the re-creation process now. Currently, we're having such a hard time coming across mappers - as the game engine is now fairly old, people are moving over to the newer engines. When you have to create 14 BIG maps, you need a lot of mappers. So, since we started, the tables have completely turned!

 

Coders have never really been a problem, as we haven't really had anything to code Now we're on the MP engine, we're in need of coders; but we have a fair few, they're certainly not the hardest talent to find.

 

You can never really predict who is going to be hardest to find. Circumstances change as a game (and mod) ages. Very few people attempt what we're attempting, so you just kinda find these things out as you're going along...

 

Sorry if that was all a bit vague, but I'm tired and hungover