Hey all!

Haven't been here in a WHILE, so I doubt many people will remember me. Anyway, on to the question. I see in the FAQ that V3 actually supports mp3 files, but that we 'should not use it'. My question is, is that more for the sake of game size or is it because the mp3 playing engine sucks or something?

The reason I'm asking is I like to compose and would love to offer my services for one or more of the game creators here, but I have moved out of tracking since I discovered the joys of powerful hardware synthesizers and real instruments, producing much more professional-sounding music...

So you know the question. Can someone answer?
Thanks!!

MP3s work perfectly in Verge 3, from my experience. They do cause a massive size increase if you make an entire MP3 soundtrack for a game. The music will probably end up being 3 or 4 times the size of the game itself.

I wrote that for two reasons, the least significant being that the mp3 format is still rather fuzzily under copyright by Fraunhofer IIS. More importantly, mp3 starts to sound naff, even on my cheap headphones, at bitrates under 128kbit/s. And though many people might not flinch at 100meg+ games, getting patent-clear, and good sounding music at ~20megs for 45 minutes though the ogg format is a better alternative.
If you're fussy, you could have an optional 600meg download of wavs for lossless audio. :)

Zip

Well, with what you guys told me, I actually looked and realized I DO have a wav to ogg converter as well. I made an A/B comparison of a music file in both MP3 and OGG formats, both at 96 kbps, and the OGG file does sound better; the difference in filesize isn't that big but it's acceptable as well.

At this rate, the mp3 messed around with the high frequencies and the hihat especially sounds well... ugly. The OGG is much closer to the original wave file, although some details are harder to hear on it... but that's for the audio maniac that I am, so I suppose most people don't really notice the difference, which is good. Besides, you guys were right, it IS better than mp3.

So is using OGG for music a common thing in v3, or would that be something rather rare? (because the filesize will still be rather high)

Buckerman, that's exactly what I was thinking of. :)

And then we can have a CD-version with uncompromised sound quality :P but that's not very likely, since it would only mean something if we had a complete game (and not just another demo).

Quote:Originally posted by Troupe

omgz a musix gai. but now i kantz cumpOs 4 lyke everibodiez gamez :( o wel cud u plz post sum stufz so we cud c ur ksillz? thx.

LOL I felt like I was learning to read here, having to look at each word one by one to understand :)

Anyway yeah I'll have some recent examples up soon, seeing as I didn't offer my services to anyone yet :P (still need to upload some songs); in the meanwhile, though, I did a verge 1+ game several years ago called 'Block Buster Quest' so you can always listen to those; ah the good ol' tracking days; of course my new stuff is better, or at least I think it is.

Also, who are the other trackers around here and where can I hear your stuff? Troupe?

I figured :P

Cool stuff, you've definitely got some groove going on. So are there any other active musicians in the verge community or is it pretty much you? :P

Nah, troupe's not the only one around, but he is by far the most active.

I myself am a composer. You can hear some of my stuff by going to the music section at my site. (The link is in my sig).

Also, Troupe and I did a remix of a few tunes from the Final Fantasy Legends II soundtrack that I'm pretty proud of. Clicky!

Btw, I visted your site and downloaded a couple of tracks. Some pretty great stuff there. :)

Yeah, that is some cool stuff. Glad to have another good composer to share the burden!