Spring RTS Engine

Hi, just came across this project on flipcode. Looks amazing.

I am a composer specializing in games music. I just supplied two tracks for Trackmania Sunrise. Check out my portfolio on http://www.zmarx.com/portfolio.html

In case you are interested, just tell me what sort of music you need, and I would tailor a song for your needs.

Regards,
Zsolt Marx

same, i love that song.
Anyway, we need a folder called music. In each mod, there should be a .txt file that lists the filenames of 5 songs - one for game game start (about a minute of nice start music), a building theme, a combat theme, a 'we are winning' Theme and a 'we losing' theme. Plus we can have a short mp3 or wav file for the actual victory/defeat. Maybe the music can even be race spececific i.e. ARM and Core.
The nice thing about this method is, you don't give away any copyright material, but we can put the OTA music in there if we want! It means that mods can try to use the OTA music, and if it is not found, then there is simply no music. Plus, an ambitious mod could have its own music. Plus, the user can replace the files, so if they don't like a song they don't have to have it plaguing their nice playlist.

Noted. And put in the list of ideas for music code. However, Music should not be a priority right now. Killing the bugs and the exploits, plus disabling of cheats in multiplayer are the key goals at the moment.

yes, the focus should be on improving gameplay. The music folder idea would be a great option.

I've done some music before as well, for my wc3 mod I made this for example. http://race.wc3campaigns.com/Troll1better.mp3

But then again I'm so lazy that I never bothered making more than one song, but who knows, maybe I can make one more for TA spring!

Wait WHY DO WE NEED a new theam song? THe original is great and STILL fits in with the game's feeling. I dont want any new age space crap (Like Halo 2... shudder). I want brassy, loud, Gladiator esque operatic music that builds to a climactic conclusion. Now here is
RIGHT http://zwzsg.hosted.luckz.de/stuff/Tota ... 0Theme.mp3
and here is

Because, we assume, the rights to the music are owned by Atari and we want to avoid any possible copyright infringement.

Why don't we just use our own playlists? There's really not much of a point to having custom music in this game.


Edit:
http://www.aquarianage.org/lore/holst.html

^^^^^6
Full, free collection of Holst in MIDI format (admittedly not as good as an actual orchestral piece) but its still kinda nice.

midi sucks, its useful for composing music in initially but you can't compare it to the real thing (wav, mp3 etc.)

Anyway, zmarx, if you could write us a short snippet of what your all about, that would be great. Do you write orchestral music?

Look, as soon as this project gets noticed, we are going to get served with one huge cease and desist. We need to make our own models, and our own music, and our own art, or get shut down. Think it won't happen? Look what happened to the freecraft project.

Hmm, I've heard weird and wonderful things about copyright law in sweden, although I may have been lied to.

WAIIIIIIIT I thought that TA was techicnicaly a freeby because the company that owned it went out of buisness (poor cavedog). SO why sould anyone crack down on this game? I mean i can find the game for free on the internet, have downloded all the music (once again, free) and i thinkif i looked harder i might find the sours code. By the way has anyone seen the TA sourcecode? Just some idle curisosity

Look what happened to the freecraft project.

Oh and that was because two company's BLIZZARD and WESTWOOD had made two seperat games, Cand C Generals and Starcraft. So when a mod comes out that puts Starcraft on Cand C Generals then that cuts into Blizzard's revinues and makes it a legitimate target. Same with a AVP mod for quake that came out befor AVP1. But Fox went a little overbord, pressing for exsessive charges like revoking the mod makers computers and internet connections, plus hevy fines. I forget how it ended though...

TA is concidered abandonware, which is a fancy word which here means, "A game that people have managed to convince themselves it's okay to steal because it's hard to get otherwise."

It is owned by ATARI which is a company with a long and proud history of sueing the pants off people for profit, so it is a valid argument that we should make sure that Spring implements support for the stuff in the orriginal TA and requires that people have the orriginal to play it... without relying on it... so that when ATARI comes over and decides they have a hot product on their hands and sue SY, Spring itself still survives on whatever other RTSs we implement using the engine.

By the way has anyone seen the TA sourcecode? Just some idle curisosity

I hope to God not. I am not a lawyer, but according to my understanding if someone has seen the source code to OTA and then contributes to TASpring, that can mean bad things for us legally.

Look, EVOLVA is remaking all the models. When those are done, we can eliminate the OTA models and legitimately offer them for free download, without requiring people to own OTA. We've already got all our own maps. There is no soundtrack, but if we make one, it needs to not be the original one repackaged.

The execs in charge of game companies like Atari and EA are not in it for the fun. They are in it for the money. Right now, they let OTA be downloaded because it is not worth the money it takes to track down and destroy people who are offering it for download. There are only a thousand or so people in the TA community at large worldwide, tops, and that is meaningless in terms of sales. When Spring starts to eat into real sales, and we've got 50,000 players online at any one time, then we are going to be a target for destruction. Being based in Sweden helps, but we can't rely on it for a shield. We should rip out all the OTA content as soon as possible.

Man if Spring gets shut down....

I think should take precautions to make sure the unthinkable doesnt happen. I would feel really badly if i started a thread that caused the use of old music and art which resulted in the sueing of SY.

ATARI!! HOLY CRAP! Actualy i dont remeber anything about them suieng the pants off people, but ill take your word for it. But seince Evolva TA is replacing the modles is that still a copyright infringment?

PS: I dont think that Spring will be total shut down if the powers that be notice it, but we will need to make up our own game univers and units ext.

Anyone a good plot writter? how about a futer where humain kind has been enslaved by robots? and the robots are sucking their energy from the humain slaves! that sounds original.....

How about that in the future every one just turned into robots and started fighting?

Zoombie wrote:Anyone a good plot writter? how about a futer where humain kind has been enslaved by robots? and the robots are sucking their energy from the humain slaves! that sounds original.....

Original? Bwahaha. Man that is just a lame MAtrix ripoff.

What about asking? I mean, in the current state ther's not so much attention on TA Spring as when it's finished. The chances to get a accreditation to use the content is decreasing with the progress of Spring.

An other solution would be:
No content from OTA, but a nice and easy feature to port all the stuff directly from the OTA-CD's. This would be a go around without bother the copyrights.

Everyone with the CD's could then access the original textures / models / maps / sound / music....

I'm getting scared when I think of never hearing the OTA sounds again .