[Inform] Zcode vs. Glulx
OKB -- not okblacke
wonder what the general opinion is on Zcode Inform vs. Glulx Inform. What
factors are influencing people to choose one over the other?
Personally, I'm going Glulx with gusto because it seems much more flexible
in almost every way: games can be larger, windows/files/streams are at your
disposal, styles can be changed (and style-changes can be embedded in literal
strings -- this is a plug for OKBStyle.h :-), you can have stack-argument
functions. Zcode seems to pale in comparison.
What are your thoughts?
P.S. -- I'm not trying to start any religious wars here. I'm just interested
in which one people prefer, and why.
--OKB (Bren...@aol.com) -- no relation to okblacke
"Do not follow where the path may lead;
go, instead, where there is no path, and leave a trail."
--Author Unknown
Hewitt Follis
on the matter...
If and when I ever finish an IF project, I want it to be able to reach the
widest audience it can. Of course, there are arguments for both Glulx and
zcode in this area. With Glulx, you may be able to attract people who are
potentially interested in more literary computer games but want, need or
just plain like a little flash in their fic. With zcode, your game will be
able to be played on many many more devices than Glulx, so there is a
greater installed base. It's not easy to determine which one _really_
matters. Personally, I will not be creating any graphics or sounds for my
games (I work on "flashy" games for a living) so I'm sticking with zcode.
The best approach, IMHO, is to make sure you _need_ Glulx to present your
work. If you do, use it. If not, stick with zcode.
-HF
Gunther Schmidl
> What are your thoughts?
Personally, I see no reason at all to use Glulx. Hugo and HTML-TADS do
things better and with actually useful file formats. (PNG? MOD? AU? WTF?)
Glulx is designed on player control. I want author control. This gap can not
be bridged.
So I'll either use plain Inform, or Hugo (since I can't seem to wrap my mind
around TADS).
-- Gunther
Aris Katsaris
Gunther Schmidl <gsch...@xxx.gmx.at> wrote in message
news:98715879...@lilznntp.liwest.at...
> OKB asked:
> > What are your thoughts?
>
not
> be bridged.
Hmm... agreed Glulx is bad in this respect, but is Zcode any better? I
learned
that through the reactions to my game "Voices". Some Zcode interpreters
interpreted "style underline" (meant as italics) as indeed italics - but
others
as underlined text, or as text of another colour.... No way to control this.
With Glulx there's atleast the (yet uncertain) hope of the "stylehints"...
Aris Katsaris
Adam Cadre
> Personally, I see no reason at all to use Glulx. Hugo and HTML-TADS do
> things better and with actually useful file formats. (PNG?
Non-lossy, non-proprietary. No harder to save to than GIF -- just pick a
different item on the format list in Photoshop. What's so hard to
understand about this?
> MOD?
Since the music I'd been writing for my current project had been in MOD
format to begin with, support for this format was far from a turnoff -- it
was a necessity. Finding out that Glulx supported it was what clinched my
decision to use it.
> AU?
You may be thinking of AIFF. Like WAV, but cross-platform.
> WTF?)
That's pretty much what I think whenever you make these BVE-like,
over-the-top sweeping condemnations.
-----
Adam Cadre, Brooklyn, NY
web site: http://adamcadre.ac
novel: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060195584/adamcadreac
Gunther Schmidl
> over-the-top sweeping condemnations.
I thought I had made this point clear enough in past discussions, but
apparently I should re-hash. Ok, let's try and put this differently:
1.
MOD is, for me, a format that's useless. I don't know how to create it, and
I don't know any good tools to translate MIDI to MOD. I also don't know of
any tools to translate MP3 to MOD. If I'd use music, I'd use MP3, because
it's the easiest for me to create. Glulx doesn't support it, hence this is
an indication to not use it. Both Hugo and HTML-TADS do.
The above is also valid for WAV/AIFF. Why use one of those when there is the
much smaller MP3?
2.
Glulx uses stylehints, all of which can be changed by the player of the
game. I like to have control of what my game looks like. Hugo and HTML-TADS
let me have control. Glulx doesn't.
3.
Since Glulx is, concerning my WIP, as different from standard Inform as
Hugo, it would be the same effort to port it to Glulx or to port it to Hugo.
Judging from the above points, I might as well port it to Hugo.
4.
If I started a new project to use multimedia, I'd use Hugo. I could also use
HTML-TADS, but Hugo is similar enough to Inform that the learning curve
isn't to steep, and I simply don't get TADS.
5.
Conclusion: Glulx is, in its current form, of no use to me.
-- Gunther
Matthew T. Russotto
Aris Katsaris <kats...@otenet.gr> wrote:
}
}Gunther Schmidl <gsch...@xxx.gmx.at> wrote in message
}news:98715879...@lilznntp.liwest.at...
}> OKB asked:
}> > What are your thoughts?
}>
}> Glulx is designed on player control. I want author control. This gap can
}not
}> be bridged.
}
}Hmm... agreed Glulx is bad in this respect, but is Zcode any better?
Depends on the interpreter writer. And since the player chooses the
interpreter, player control has an edge.
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."
Jon Ingold
flexible
> in almost every way: games can be larger, windows/files/streams are at
your
> disposal, styles can be changed (and style-changes can be embedded in
literal
> strings -- this is a plug for OKBStyle.h :-), you can have
stack-argument
> functions. Zcode seems to pale in comparison.
>
> What are your thoughts?
I have to admit everything new I start is in Zcode still; because I
don't feel at all comfortable with Glulx opcodes and stuff. One of these
days I'll reads Adam Cadre's page on it all, which I suspect may help.
At the moment I'm just hoping my current stays z8. The evidence is
perhaps against it.
Jon
Aris Katsaris
> 2.
>
> Glulx uses stylehints, all of which can be changed by the player of the
> game. I like to have control of what my game looks like. Hugo and
HTML-TADS
> let me have control. Glulx doesn't.
Hmm? I used stylehints to change the Emphasized Text Style to what I wanted,
and if I then tried to edit it through Glulxe it said "This style has been
changed by
the Glk program and cannot be edited." - which means that the author has the
control and not the player.
Is this different in other Glulx interpreters?
> 4.
>
> If I started a new project to use multimedia, I'd use Hugo. I could also
use
> HTML-TADS, but Hugo is similar enough to Inform that the learning curve
> isn't to steep, and I simply don't get TADS.
I admit that if I was a beginner choosing my first IF language at this time
I'd
probably choose HTML-Tads over Glulx... The infglk commands of Glulx do
have a rather nasty look...
Aris Katsaris
Adam Cadre
> MOD is, for me, a format that's useless. I don't know how to create it,
> and I don't know any good tools to translate MIDI to MOD.
Whereas I do know how to create MODs -- in fact, it's a hobby of mine,
albeit one I'm not very good at -- and thus find Glulx's support for the
format not only useful but highly convenient. Thus, while I have no
objection to the statement "MOD is, for me, a format that's useless" --
that's a data point -- I do object to the implication in your previous
post that it's objectively useless.
>Conclusion: Glulx is, in its current form, of no use to me.
And again, thanks to these added qualifiers, what you've contributed is a
valuable and unambiguous data point. But without them, when you say that
Hugo and TADS flat-out "do things better" and that Glulx's chosen formats
don't qualify as "actually useful," it's hard not to infer an insult --
you'd pretty much have to be a "crassly stupid author" to have spent the
last year and a half cheerfully working on a project in a language that
does things worse and employs useless formats, no?
Aris Katsaris
Aris Katsaris
OKB -- not okblacke
>Hmm? I used stylehints to change the Emphasized Text Style to what I wanted,
>and if I then tried to edit it through Glulxe it said "This style has been
>changed by
>the Glk program and cannot be edited." - which means that the author has the
>control and not the player.
>
>Is this different in other Glulx interpreters?
It can be, yes. Stylehints are just hints; the interpreter can still
display styles however it wants. I personally applaud the Win32 Glulxe, which
gives author stylehints precedence over user choices.
OKB -- not okblacke
> I have to admit everything new I start is in Zcode still; because I
>don't feel at all comfortable with Glulx opcodes and stuff.
This was my initial reaction to Glulx as well. Frankly, I was surprised
not to see this mentioned more. When I read that windows, stylehints, etc,
were implemented using stuff like glk($00FF, foo, bar, 5), my hair stood on
end. infglk provides more readable, but longer, names for these.
I am trying to remove this roadblock by writing wrappers for things. For
example, even using infglk, doing window stuff can take several glk calls, and
even then you have little in the way of a safety net if you forget a step.
What I'm trying to with OKBGlulx is compact the relevant code into a package,
with simple ways to produce desired behavior, decreasing the likelihood that
some arcane requirement will slip the author's mind.
Robb Sherwin
Cadre) wrote:
>Whereas I do know how to create MODs -- in fact, it's a hobby of mine,
>albeit one I'm not very good at -- and thus find Glulx's support for the
>format not only useful but highly convenient.
A MOD is like MIDI insomuch that the file contains instructions,
rather than the tune itself, right? (I may have this confused with SND
or something.) If that's the case... is there such thing as a
MIDI-to-MOD converter out there that you know of? I've always been
impressed with the MODs I've gathered off the internet -- the guitar
sounds certainly seem more realistic -- but have no idea what's
required to create them.
Robb
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Robb Sherwin, Fort Collins CO
Reviews From Trotting Krips: http://ifiction.tsx.org
Knight Orc Home Page: www.geocities.com/~knightorc
Kent Tessman
> A MOD is like MIDI insomuch that the file contains instructions,
> rather than the tune itself, right? (I may have this confused with SND
> or something.) If that's the case... is there such thing as a
> MIDI-to-MOD converter out there that you know of? I've always been
> impressed with the MODs I've gathered off the internet -- the guitar
> sounds certainly seem more realistic -- but have no idea what's
> required to create them.
Whereas MIDI files are patterns of notes to be played by some form of
synthesizer (usually your wavetable sound card), mods (including MOD,
XM, S3M, IT, and a host of other formats) contain not only the data for
patterns of notes, but also the samples that are played for each
instrument. Well-sampled instruments used in their (generally fairly
limited) acceptable range can sound remarkably good compared to MIDI
output, so someone who knows what they're doing in mod-writing can do
some excellent work.
To create mods, you use a "tracker". Again there are all sorts of
these, the best-known of which for DOS/Windows are (to my knowledge)
FastTracker, ImpulseTracker, and Jeskola Buzz. Amiga had ProTracker,
BeOS has Digital Tracker...you get the idea. If you're using one of
these to design music for IF, you'll want to be sure the system in
question supports the type of mod--since again, there are literally
dozens of mod variants. Hugo, for instance, supports MOD, S3M, and XM.
(Some powerful trackers will allow format conversion, also.)
There is, in fact, a tool called MIDI2MOD (or something close to that).
What it does is let you select the sample that will be played in lieu of
a given MIDI patch used in the song, then generates a modfile (not sure
what format) incorporating those samples.
Hopefully that makes at least a little sense.
Adam Cadre
> I personally applaud the Win32 Glulxe, which gives author stylehints
> precedence over user choices.
Yup, it's a nice piece of work. I spent a sizeable chunk of last summer
lobbing request after request at David Kinder, who not only managed to
figure out how to implement even the most esoteric stuff ("unofficial
standards" keyed into style_Normal and whatnot) but did so elegantly and
in record time. Applause is certainly called for.
Adam Cadre
> A MOD is like MIDI insomuch that the file contains instructions,
> rather than the tune itself, right?
Right, it's a script. The chief difference is that with MODs, the
instrument samples are encoded into the file itself -- you choose which
samples you'd like to use, or can even whip up your own.
> I've always been impressed with the MODs I've gathered off the internet
> -- the guitar sounds certainly seem more realistic -- but have no idea
> what's required to create them.
All you need is a MOD tracker -- on Windows, I highly recommend the
Modplug Tracker (available for free at modplug.com, where I managed to
snag it mere days before their site suddenly started requiring a billion
different plugins.) Use the tracker to look at a few existing MODs, see
how everything fits together, and you'll be cranking out your own in no
time; I first downloaded a couple of DOS trackers and was utterly baffled,
but with Modplug Tracker I was happily making music within the hour.
Matthew W. Miller
>> That's pretty much what I think whenever you make these BVE-like,
>> over-the-top sweeping condemnations.
>I thought I had made this point clear enough in past discussions, but
>apparently I should re-hash. Ok, let's try and put this differently:
>1.
>MOD is, for me, a format that's useless. I don't know how to create it,
With a tracker. See http://www.maz-sound.com/
Or, of course, you could commission a soundtrack from one of the
denizens of alt.music.mods. Many of them are starved for feedback and
comments (hello C. E. Forman!) and an alt.music.mods regular may very
well be willing to compose appropriate musical accompaniment for your
game in progress in exchange for the modest amount of publicity it would
bring him or her.
>and I don't know any good tools to translate MIDI to MOD.
You don't. At least, you don't if you want it to sound halfway decent.
>I also don't know of any tools to translate MP3 to MOD. If I'd use
>music, I'd use MP3,
and give your potential players the screaming heebie-jeebies because
your game is 5MB bigger just because of the music. This came up over a
map for Doom (or precisely, over a map for one of the jazzed-up modified
versions of Doom) recently-- a map which included an
unnecessary-to-the-experience 4MB MPEG music track-- which was protested
by the regulars, even though Doom is a primarily visual and aural game.
Imagine what kind of reaction it would get from an audience that expects
primarily textual games!
>because it's the easiest for me to create.
Please consider putting some more effort into broadening your horizons.
>Glulx doesn't support it, hence this is an indication to not use it.
>Both Hugo and HTML-TADS do.
They can support whatever they like. (Personally I don't use TADS
because compiling the interpreter is a pain in the neck. We all have
our preferences.)
>The above is also valid for WAV/AIFF. Why use one of those when there is the
>much smaller MP3?
Because AIFF
(a.) is not proprietary
(b.) does not suck up CPU cycles by the megaton
(c.) does not sound like it is recorded underwater
(d.) is simpler for potential interpreter-writers to support
>2.
>Glulx uses stylehints, all of which can be changed by the player of the
>game. I like to have control of what my game looks like.
I understand what you are saying, and I disagree. I personally feel
that the author can set defaults which the player may override if he or
she so wishes.
>Hugo and HTML-TADS let me have control. Glulx doesn't.
In that case, you prefer hugo or html-tads, and I would prefer glulx,
for the exact same reason.
>3.
>Since Glulx is, concerning my WIP, as different from standard Inform as
>Hugo, it would be the same effort to port it to Glulx or to port it to Hugo.
>Judging from the above points, I might as well port it to Hugo.
So essentially, you have a program you're already developing under hugo
that you don't wish to start all over under glulx -- fair enough.
>4.
>If I started a new project to use multimedia, I'd use Hugo. I could
>also use HTML-TADS, but Hugo is similar enough to Inform that the
>learning curve isn't to steep, and I simply don't get TADS.
Now I think you're getting more to your honest opinion-- you already
know hugo and don't care to learn anything else at this time. Again,
fair enough.
--
Matthew W. Miller -- mwmi...@columbus.rr.com
ka...@plover.net
: Yup, it's a nice piece of work. I spent a sizeable chunk of last summer
: figure out how to implement even the most esoteric stuff ("unofficial
: standards" keyed into style_Normal and whatnot) but did so elegantly and
: in record time. Applause is certainly called for.
While this is certainly great for people playing your games on this
particular interpreter, I'll be playing them on one of the various unix
terps. This is why we (try) to have standards, so everyone can play the
same game. Is there any chance these 'unofficial standards' could be
made public, so other terp authors can implement them, and other authors
use them?
katre
J. Robinson Wheeler
>
> Gunther Schmidl wrote:
> > I also don't know of any tools to translate MP3 to MOD.
> > for me to create. Glulx doesn't support it, hence this
> > is an indication to not use it. Both Hugo and HTML-TADS
> > do.
>
> They can support whatever they like. (Personally I don't
> use TADS because compiling the interpreter is a pain in the
> neck. We all have our preferences.)
Sorry to have to ask this, but: compiling the interpreter?
When does that come up?
--
J. Robinson Wheeler Games - http://raddial.com/if/
whe...@jump.net Movie - http://thekroneexperiment.com
Adam Cadre
> Is there any chance these 'unofficial standards' could be made public,
> so other terp authors can implement them, and other authors use them?
I posted the one in question here last summer; Google doesn't seem to have
material from that long ago queued up yet, but it's archived at
http://bang.dhs.org/if/raif/2000/msg04683.html
David Kinder
> lobbing request after request at David Kinder, who not only managed to
> figure out how to implement even the most esoteric stuff ("unofficial
Oooh, praise, my favourite :-)
More seriously, I've being tidying up the Windows Glk source as a low
priority task. The next thing to do is remove the use of Windows Media
Player and add in my own AIFF playing code - using Media Player was a
nice idea in theory, but there's a horrible pause while it thinks about
loading even the smallest files - thanks a lot Bill. Anyway, if anyone
has any suggestions or requests, now would be a good time to mention
them.
David
David Kinder
> John Cater wrote:
> > Is there any chance these 'unofficial standards' could be made public,
> > so other terp authors can implement them, and other authors use them?
>
> I posted the one in question here last summer; Google doesn't seem to have
> material from that long ago queued up yet, but it's archived at
>
> http://bang.dhs.org/if/raif/2000/msg04683.html
I still think that part of the official Glk spec should say something about
what the library should try to do for the default text buffer window
background colour. Perhaps we didn't hassle Zarf hard enough on this one :-)
David
OKB -- not okblacke
>More seriously, I've being tidying up the Windows Glk source as a low
>priority task. The next thing to do is remove the use of Windows Media
>Player and add in my own AIFF playing code - using Media Player was a
>nice idea in theory, but there's a horrible pause while it thinks about
>loading even the smallest files - thanks a lot Bill. Anyway, if anyone
>has any suggestions or requests, now would be a good time to mention
>them.
One thing I noticed is that stylehints provided in one game seem to carry
over to other, later games. Like, say I load up GameA.ulx in the win Glulxe
terp, and it stylehints Grid windows for yellow background color. Then I exit
the terp. I then load up GameB, which sets no stylehints for Grid windows --
but the status line (a text grid window) is still yellow!
It would be nice if all game-specific stylehints were cleared when you
exit the terp, so that each new game you loaded would (if it didn't specify
stylehints) use the interpreter presets chosen by the player.
If the game DOES set its own stylehints, they should be used (as they are
now) -- but only for that game.
Darrell Rudmann
W. Miller" <mwmi...@columbus.rr.com> wrote:
[snip]
>>I also don't know of any tools to translate MP3 to MOD. If I'd use
>>music, I'd use MP3,
>
> and give your potential players the screaming heebie-jeebies because
> your game is 5MB bigger just because of the music. This came up over a
> map for Doom (or precisely, over a map for one of the jazzed-up modified
> versions of Doom) recently-- a map which included an
> unnecessary-to-the-experience 4MB MPEG music track-- which was protested
> by the regulars, even though Doom is a primarily visual and aural game.
> Imagine what kind of reaction it would get from an audience that expects
> primarily textual games!
>
>>because it's the easiest for me to create.
>
> Please consider putting some more effort into broadening your horizons.
>
>>Glulx doesn't support it, hence this is an indication to not use it.
>>Both Hugo and HTML-TADS do.
>
> They can support whatever they like. (Personally I don't use TADS
> because compiling the interpreter is a pain in the neck. We all have
> our preferences.)
>
>>The above is also valid for WAV/AIFF. Why use one of those when there is
>>the much smaller MP3?
>
> Because AIFF
> (a.) is not proprietary
> (b.) does not suck up CPU cycles by the megaton (c.) does not sound like
> it is recorded underwater (d.) is simpler for potential
> interpreter-writers to support
Boy, this discussion sure got feathers ruffled quickly.
I'm not sure I understand the counter-arguments here. Issues of file
size (like 4 MB) and CPU cycles quickly disappear as hardware improves.
If your MP3s sound like they were recorded underwater then something's up
with your MP3 conversion program. I appreciate MOD's benefits but it's
not a common choice. Is it impossible for Glulx to support more than one audio
format?
The complaint that a new language is too different from one's current
knowledge is not unreasonable. Look at Visual Fred.
--D. Rudmann
Arcum Dagsson
"Darrell Rudmann" <drud...@nyx.net> wrote:
Windows XP beta perhaps? ^_^[1]
For anyone with a 56k modem or lower, file size is a major issue. Given two
games, both text-based, and both equally interesting-looking, which would you
download, the 100k one, or the 4.1 MB one, given that a soundtrack is the only
difference?
Another concern one listed you didn't address: MP3 is proprietary. You have to
pay a certain amount per copy of any program that decodes or plays mp3s.
> I appreciate MOD's benefits but it's
> not a common choice. Is it impossible for Glulx to support more than one
> audio
> format?
>
I don't know. It wouldn't be a bad idea to add another sound format. Vorbis[2],
perhaps?
[1] All right, you'd have to be following the news on Windows XP for that one...
The media player with it will have a deliberately crippled mp3 player that will
only play mp3's at that quality, plus some new, more compact Microsoft(TM)
format that will have special RIAA copyright features, acording to latest
reports. Ranks with the idea of "renting" Microsoft Office that they've been
talking about, in my book...
[2] Vorbis is to MP3 as PNG is to GIF. Free, smaller, and less supported
currently...
--
--Arcum Dagsson
"Pink valleys, hermaphrodite tables, these were all natural stages through which
one had to pass on the path to true enlightenment..."
Jason Melancon
wrote:
> In article <slrn9dfj0i....@treehouse.columbus.rr.com>, "Matthew
> W. Miller" <mwmi...@columbus.rr.com> wrote:
> [attrib lost]
> >>The above is also valid for WAV/AIFF. Why use one of those when there is
> >>the much smaller MP3?
> >
> > Because AIFF
> > (a.) is not proprietary
> > (b.) does not suck up CPU cycles by the megaton (c.) does not sound like
> > it is recorded underwater (d.) is simpler for potential
> > interpreter-writers to support
>
> Boy, this discussion sure got feathers ruffled quickly.
>
> I'm not sure I understand the counter-arguments here. Issues of file
> size (like 4 MB) and CPU cycles quickly disappear as hardware improves.
Really? Well, heck, I wish *my* hardware would hurry up and improve.
It's certainly taking its sweet time about it.
--
Jason Melancon
Gunther Schmidl
> And again, thanks to these added qualifiers, what you've contributed is a
> valuable and unambiguous data point. But without them, when you say that
> Hugo and TADS flat-out "do things better" and that Glulx's chosen formats
> don't qualify as "actually useful," it's hard not to infer an insult --
> you'd pretty much have to be a "crassly stupid author" to have spent the
> last year and a half cheerfully working on a project in a language that
> does things worse and employs useless formats, no?
I'd actually thought I had added in the "for me" clause into the first post.
Stupidly, I hadn't, and so you were right in accusing me of broad
generalisation.
-- Gunther
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> It can be, yes. Stylehints are just hints; the interpreter can still
> display styles however it wants. I personally applaud the Win32 Glulxe,
> which gives author stylehints precedence over user choices.
Just as a data point, any game that forces blinding backgrounds
on me is a game I will never play. I don't let web pages tell
me what colours I can stand to look at; why should a text game
be any different? I have a word for software that forces
certain video settings (whether that means background colour,
colour depth, resolution, or whatever): deleteware.
Fortunately, glulxe source is available, so this is or at
least can be a complete nonissue.
- jonadab
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> Whereas MIDI files are patterns of notes to be played by some form of
> synthesizer (usually your wavetable sound card), mods (including MOD,
> XM, S3M, IT, and a host of other formats) contain not only the data for
> patterns of notes, but also the samples that are played for each
> instrument.
The upshot of this is, a MOD file sounds fair on a good
soundcard and fair on a lousy soundcard; whereas, a MIDI
sound good on a good soundcard, lousy on a lousy soundcard.
Arguments can be made both ways. I tend to think that
people who care most about whether it sounds good have
the nicer soundcards, but an ecconomic argument can be
made in the other direction (i.e., many people cannot
afford a nice sound card).
MIDI is also a little more compact, on account of including
less information. (But MOD is nothing like WAV in that
respect.) MP3 makes no sense whatsoever; if you want lossy
compression so it sound like $#@!, and heavy compression
so that playback hogs system resources, you aren't thinking
clearly. If disk space is that big a deal, just use MIDI.
If disk space *isn't* a big deal, and you want quality
playback, use WAV or the equivalent lossless format.
MP3 is a lousy compromise.
IMO, the really big argument for MIDI is that pretty much
all the platforms that don't ship with support for it are
platforms that don't support polyphonic sound. MOD, on
the other hand, is relatively obscure; you have to go
looking for a player for them. (Of course, if all the
terps include such a player, this becomes a non-issue
for the end user. There's still the issue for the author
of finding a sequencer...)
> since again, there are literally dozens of mod variants.
That's a very definite argument against MOD, _unless_
the spec picks one specific format and sticks with it.
(Even then, the author has to be able to produce that
kind of MOD.)
> There is, in fact, a tool called MIDI2MOD (or something close to that).
> What it does is let you select the sample that will be played in lieu of
> a given MIDI patch used in the song, then generates a modfile (not sure
> what format) incorporating those samples.
*That* sounds useful... unfortunately, it's Win3.1 shareware,
which is usually an ill omen. Though I downloaded it anyway,
just for grins.
- jonadab
M Joonas Pihlaja
[random delurk. Hello all.]
On Fri, 22 Jun 2001, Jonadab the Unsightly One wrote:
> Kent Tessman <ke...@remove-to-reply.generalcoffee.com> wrote:
>
> > since again, there are literally dozens of mod variants.
>
> That's a very definite argument against MOD, _unless_
> the spec picks one specific format and sticks with it.
> (Even then, the author has to be able to produce that
> kind of MOD.)
The Blorb spec (used by Glk and hence Glulx) actually defines a
specific MOD format: Protracker 2.0
Bad Cookie.
PT2.0 inherits the Amiga's ugly (by today's standards)
limitation of only allowing four channels/voices to play
simultaneously. And if the player is true to the MOD-spec, such
as it is, two channels will be played on the left speaker and two
on the right.
That's right: stereo effects require the artist to use up two of
those channels for the effect, leaving only two for other minor
stuff, say such as the drum track and the bass track. Don't get
me wrong, there are lots of excellent musicians who could live
with these limitations, and using them to their advantage even.
I agree that having some tracker format in the Blorb spec is good
in the resource saving sense, but I'd be much happier with a more
flexible format. (Not that I'm creating a game mind you, so that
doesn't count. :) )
Regards,
Joonas Pihlaja [pops off to lurker land]
Mark J. Tilford
>MIDI is also a little more compact, on account of including
>less information. (But MOD is nothing like WAV in that
>respect.) MP3 makes no sense whatsoever; if you want lossy
>compression so it sound like $#@!, and heavy compression
>so that playback hogs system resources, you aren't thinking
>clearly. If disk space is that big a deal, just use MIDI.
>If disk space *isn't* a big deal, and you want quality
>playback, use WAV or the equivalent lossless format.
>MP3 is a lousy compromise.
But isn't MIDI limited to instrumental pieces? I've never heard a MIDI
with vocals.
--
------------------------
Mark Jeffrey Tilford
til...@ugcs.caltech.edu
Iain Merrick
[...]
> MP3 makes no sense whatsoever; if you want lossy compression
> so it sound like $#@!, and heavy compression so that playback
> hogs system resources, you aren't thinking clearly.
Um.
> If disk space is that big a deal, just use MIDI. If disk
> space *isn't* a big deal, and you want quality playback, use
> WAV or the equivalent lossless format.
Er.
So you'd have used either MIDI or WAV for, say, _Six Stories_? Now, using
MIDI for speech is kind of an interesting challenge. WAV is more
straightforward, but would have meant a hundred-meg download for
competition judges. I'm guessing you'd go for MIDI; am I right?
> MP3 is a lousy compromise.
Hence the extreme unpopularity of Napster, I guess.
--
Iain Merrick
i...@spod-central.org
David Kinder
>
> > It can be, yes. Stylehints are just hints; the interpreter can still
> > display styles however it wants. I personally applaud the Win32 Glulxe,
> > which gives author stylehints precedence over user choices.
>
> Just as a data point, any game that forces blinding backgrounds
> on me is a game I will never play. I don't let web pages tell
> me what colours I can stand to look at; why should a text game
> be any different? I have a word for software that forces
> certain video settings (whether that means background colour,
> colour depth, resolution, or whatever): deleteware.
Actually, Win32 Glulxe has an option (well, really it's in Windows Glk)
to say whether author style hints override user settings. By default
it's on, but you can turn it off.
David
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> Actually, Win32 Glulxe has an option (well, really it's in Windows Glk)
> to say whether author style hints override user settings. By default
> it's on, but you can turn it off.
I was thinking that was the case, but someone had implied
otherwise and I wasn't sure; in any event, I wasn't harping
on Windows Glk particular so much as the "authorial control"
sentiment. My view on authorial control has developed into
"a good author knows that the user will enjoy having things
mostly the way he likes them".
- jonadab
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> But isn't MIDI limited to instrumental pieces? I've never
> heard a MIDI with vocals.
You want lyrical music as background for a text game?
How distracting would *that* be?
An occasional clip here or there, okay, but for that
just use WAV or whatever. (I'm not going to get into
the WAV/AIFF argment if I can possibly avoid it. I
have never looked for a converter and have no idea
how easy they are or are not to obtain.)
In any event, it's fairly moot for me; the value
I see in glulx has mostly to do with not having the
claustrophobic size limits of the z-machine. I
wasn't planning any non-textual content, with the
possible exception of a map.
- jonadab
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> So you'd have used either MIDI or WAV for, say, _Six Stories_?
Never heard of it.
> Now, using MIDI for speech is kind of an interesting challenge.
> WAV is more straightforward, but would have meant a hundred-meg
> download for competition judges. I'm guessing you'd go for MIDI;
> am I right?
Speech? I suppose I'd think in terms of speech synthesis.
> > MP3 is a lousy compromise.
>
> Hence the extreme unpopularity of Napster, I guess.
Popularity aside, I cannot fathom what black magic keeps
that from being shut down. I would never have predicted
that even a crack team of delay lawyers could keep it up
more than a month...
(Not that I'm big on the righteousness of the music
industry either, mind.)
- jonadab
David Glasser
nine days after the original post, which is really not cool at all)
(unless you're me):
> The upshot of this is, a MOD file sounds fair on a good
> soundcard and fair on a lousy soundcard; whereas, a MIDI
> sound good on a good soundcard, lousy on a lousy soundcard.
> Arguments can be made both ways. I tend to think that
> people who care most about whether it sounds good have
> the nicer soundcards, but an ecconomic argument can be
> made in the other direction (i.e., many people cannot
> afford a nice sound card).
No, the difference is that MIDI is really meant to be used as a standard
way of communicating information about music between devices (keyboards,
computers, etc.) whereas MOD files are just meant for computers. I
mean, just look at the term: Musical Instrument Digital Interface. I
see nothing like "file format" in there.
Also, 'sound card'? The best MIDI playback is on a real synth or
something.
> MIDI is also a little more compact, on account of including
> less information. (But MOD is nothing like WAV in that
> respect.) MP3 makes no sense whatsoever; if you want lossy
> compression so it sound like $#@!, and heavy compression
> so that playback hogs system resources, you aren't thinking
> clearly. If disk space is that big a deal, just use MIDI.
> If disk space *isn't* a big deal, and you want quality
> playback, use WAV or the equivalent lossless format.
> MP3 is a lousy compromise.
You're missing the fact that disk space might not be a big deal but
transfer time might be. Oh, and that MIDI is not meant for recording
performances per se.
Of all the CDs I own, the only things I'd even consider listening to in
MIDI format instead of played by real musicians are baroque keyboard
works (Bach inventions, etc). Oh, wait. Glenn Gould is a little better
that a computer beep.
[ snip more incredibly delayed idiocy ]
--
David Glasser
ne...@davidglasser.net http://www.davidglasser.net/
David Glasser
> i...@spod-central.org (Iain Merrick) wrote:
>
> > So you'd have used either MIDI or WAV for, say, _Six Stories_?
>
> Never heard of it.
Neil K. Guy's comp entry featuring, among other things, much spoken
word. Which is called speech.
> Speech? I suppose I'd think in terms of speech synthesis.
Yeah, I'd *sure* rather hear that than actors.
(But hey, at least you responded to a message within two months of its
posting. I'll give you credit for that much.)
Sam Thursfield
modules, they're great and I like to track them myself (admittedly,
very badly). However, MODs, Protracker 2.0 style, suck. MOD is to IT
or XM what Z3 is to Z6.
I know, this isn't Glulx's fault, or even GLK's fault, it's Blorb's
fault.
Yes, supporting only IT (Impulse Tracker) or only XM (FastTracker II)
excludes people who are still using Protracker 2.0, but how many of
those are there? How many people still use Impulse Tracker? I for one
use ModPlug, which saves in IT or XM (among other formats). Using
multiple formats for Blorb is probably unpracticle, but I think that
any major platform capable of supporting Glulx and Blorb will have a
tracker that can save to XM or IT.
</ignore>
golrien
OKB -- not okblacke
>My only objection to Glulx is it's support for MOD.
Indirectly, I object to this also. I don't really know much about MODs,
but I do know that I've been unable to find a tracker which will let me write
the music in standard musical notation (on a staff). I can do this with MIDI.
I think MP3 would be a nice addition, but we'd have to watch a file size.
></ignore>
Yes, please ignore this post too. :-)
Robotboy8
Try WestFront PC. now THAT was annoying <insert conspiratorial grin here>.
But MIDI speech would be possible. Just make a custom instrument set with a
separate instrument for each phomene. A phomene is a separate letter-sound,
like "ch" or "b" or "p" or "k". Sure, it would take a while, but you could cut
download time from about 30 megs (I'm making wild assumptions as to the amount
of speech in this game) to about 3 megs.
--
If I say so then it is so; if it is so, it's probably because I said so.
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> (But hey, at least you responded to a message within two months of its
> posting. I'll give you credit for that much.)
You in some kind of hurry to wrap up all the threads before
you go on vacation or something?
- jonadab
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> Of all the CDs I own, the only things I'd even consider listening to in
> MIDI format instead of played by real musicians are baroque keyboard
> works (Bach inventions, etc).
Right, the good music. ;-)
- jonadab
Aris Katsaris
Jonadab the Unsightly One <jon...@bright.net> wrote in message
news:3b33e620...@news.bright.net...
> "David Kinder" <D.Ki...@btinter-remove-to-reply-net.com> wrote:
>
> > Actually, Win32 Glulxe has an option (well, really it's in Windows Glk)
> > to say whether author style hints override user settings. By default
> > it's on, but you can turn it off.
>
> I was thinking that was the case, but someone had implied
> otherwise and I wasn't sure;
It's only in the last version that this takes place.
> in any event, I wasn't harping
> on Windows Glk particular so much as the "authorial control"
> sentiment. My view on authorial control has developed into
> "a good author knows that the user will enjoy having things
> mostly the way he likes them".
Unfortunately it's not up to the authors anymore, therefore the point
is moot, isn't it?. And I don't think it should have been the virtual
machine that forces the authorial hand.... The virtual machine should
only give the author *possibilities*.
Why not let the author decide if styles should be controllable by the
player or not?
Aris Katsaris
Stephen Granade
Actually, your very-late postings bother me (though clearly not to the
extent they bother David), and I just now figured out why:
Newsgroup conversations have a certain rhythm and momentum. There's
give and take, with people talking back and forth to each
other. Eventually, new posts in a given thread become fewer and fewer.
The thread dies off. People move on to other topics and discussions.
Then, a month or two later, you stop by and post replies to threads
that have long been lying dormant. For me to get back into the flow of
those discussions I have to refresh my memory by looking back at what
people posted some time ago. And for most topics, I have neither the
time nor the energy to do so.
The upshot is that, from my standpoint, your posting at intervals
separated by weeks and months has the same effect as if you had simply
posted random non-sequiturs.
Stephen
--
Stephen Granade | Interested in adventure games?
sgra...@phy.duke.edu | Visit About Interactive Fiction
Duke University, Physics Dept | http://interactfiction.about.com
Sean T Barrett
>For me to get back into the flow of
>those discussions I have to refresh my memory by looking back at what
>people posted some time ago. And for most topics, I have neither the
>time nor the energy to do so.
For most of these topics, none of the original posts are
in my news spool anymore, and I assume this is true for
many other people too. I *could* go look them up on Google,
but see the above comment about time and energy.
So include me in the list of people who find the posts more
noise than signal.
SeanB
OKB -- not okblacke
>jon...@bright.net (Jonadab the Unsightly One) writes:
>
>> ne...@davidglasser.net (David Glasser) wrote:
>>
>> > (But hey, at least you responded to a message within two months of its
>> > posting. I'll give you credit for that much.)
>>
>> You in some kind of hurry to wrap up all the threads before
>> you go on vacation or something?
>
>Actually, your very-late postings bother me (though clearly not to the
>extent they bother David), and I just now figured out why:
>
>Newsgroup conversations have a certain rhythm and momentum. There's
>give and take, with people talking back and forth to each
>other. Eventually, new posts in a given thread become fewer and fewer.
>The thread dies off. People move on to other topics and discussions.
>
>Then, a month or two later, you stop by and post replies to threads
>that have long been lying dormant. For me to get back into the flow of
>those discussions I have to refresh my memory by looking back at what
>people posted some time ago. And for most topics, I have neither the
>time nor the energy to do so.
I agree with this. I view this behavior as similar to that annoying
habit, present in many people (including, at times, myself), of leaving a
conversation in progress to go do something else, then returning later and
assuming that everyone has been waiting with bated breath for your next remark,
and that the conversation has not moved a millimeter. This is rarely the case.
If you do not participate in the discussion as it is happening, expect people
to be annoyed if you try to muscle in after the fact.
I hasten to add two qualifying remarks. First, the seriousness of the
offense is proportional to the length of time spent away from the discussion.
It's fairly common and totally understandable for someone to leave the
newsgroup for a week or so to go on vacation or something and then return and
post. However, I find that people are generally polite enough to read the
posts they missed, and then post only if they have something genuinely helpful
to add. Second, if you WERE part of the initial discussion, and have continued
to investigate the issue, late posts are less annoying. I don't find it
irritating if someone reopens a "dead" thread a month later, having researched
the topic or done some testing or whatever, and supplies new information.
Posting a month later just to flap your lips (or keys), on the other hand, is
pointless.
>The upshot is that, from my standpoint, your posting at intervals
>separated by weeks and months has the same effect as if you had simply
>posted random non-sequiturs.
Me too.
David Given
M Joonas Pihlaja <jpih...@cc.helsinki.fi> writes:
[...]
>> That's a very definite argument against MOD, _unless_
>> the spec picks one specific format and sticks with it.
>> (Even then, the author has to be able to produce that
>> kind of MOD.)
>
> The Blorb spec (used by Glk and hence Glulx) actually defines a
> specific MOD format: Protracker 2.0
>
> Bad Cookie.
>
> PT2.0 inherits the Amiga's ugly (by today's standards)
> limitation of only allowing four channels/voices to play
> simultaneously. And if the player is true to the MOD-spec, such
> as it is, two channels will be played on the left speaker and two
> on the right.
These days the standard tracker format is XM (or IT to a lesser extent).
XMs allow unlimited channels (up to a maximum of about 32 or 64),
user-specified panning, and loads of other funky features. In fact, a lot
of the amateur MP3 files you get on mp3.com have been created as XMs
(usually in Buzz Tracker) and then rendered to an MP3 for uploading. There
are LGPLd libraries that will play them, too (xmp).
BTW, Winamp will play nearly all MOD files out of the box.
--
+- David Given --------McQ-+
| Work: d...@tao-group.com | C:\DOS, C:\DOS\RUN, RUN\DOS\RUN
| Play: d...@cowlark.com |
+- http://www.cowlark.com -+
Adam Cadre
> specific MOD format: Protracker 2.0
>
> Bad Cookie.
>
> PT2.0 inherits the Amiga's ugly (by today's standards)
> limitation of only allowing four channels/voices to play
> simultaneously.
As has been mentioned here from time to time, I am currently two years
into my big Glulx project, for which I have so far created roughly two
dozen MODs (and received, let's see, ooh, four submissions from my
collaborators. That's the way of these things, I suppose.) All of these
are .mod format, not .xm or .it, and all but a couple utilize more than
four channels. All play just fine on my interpreter.
-----
Adam Cadre, Brooklyn, NY
web site: http://adamcadre.ac
novel: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060195584/adamcadreac
Daryl McCullough
>
>Stephen Granade sgra...@phy.duke.edu wrote:
>>Newsgroup conversations have a certain rhythm and momentum. There's
>>give and take, with people talking back and forth to each
>>other. Eventually, new posts in a given thread become fewer and fewer.
>>The thread dies off. People move on to other topics and discussions.
>>
>>Then, a month or two later, you stop by and post replies to threads
>>that have long been lying dormant. For me to get back into the flow of
>>those discussions I have to refresh my memory by looking back at what
>>people posted some time ago. And for most topics, I have neither the
>>time nor the energy to do so.
>
> I agree with this. I view this behavior as similar to that annoying
>habit, present in many people (including, at times, myself), of leaving a
>conversation in progress to go do something else, then returning later and
>assuming that everyone has been waiting with bated breath for your next remark,
>and that the conversation has not moved a millimeter.
I think that if you cannot respond to a usenet post within
a few days, then you should phrase your response (if you think
it's still worth posting) as a self-contained message. If it
doesn't make sense as a self-contained message, don't post
it.
--
Daryl McCullough
CoGenTex, Inc.
Ithaca, NY
Sam Thursfield
> As has been mentioned here from time to time, I am currently two years
> into my big Glulx project, for which I have so far created roughly two
> dozen MODs (and received, let's see, ooh, four submissions from my
> collaborators. That's the way of these things, I suppose.) All of these
> are .mod format, not .xm or .it, and all but a couple utilize more than
> four channels. All play just fine on my interpreter.
Sure, but I bet it wasn't much fun making them. Bet you yearned for
just one more channel to fit a little ambience in, maybe one centred
channel...I feel limited when I have to work in eight channels.
Maybe I'm a wuss or something.
Adam Cadre
> Sure, but I bet it wasn't much fun making them. Bet you yearned for
> just one more channel to fit a little ambience in,
Nah, 64 is plenty.
> maybe one centred channel...
So I type 840 and ta-da, I've got one.
> I feel limited when I have to work in eight channels.
So would I, but I've got plenty of 10- and 12-channel .mods compiled into
the game already. With, as noted, the possibility of a 64-channel one if
need be.
Kent Tessman
beasts. Here's a sample (sorted by the four-character type code that
comes 1080 bytes in):
'4CHN' - 4, 6, or 8 channels
'6CHN'
'8CHN'
'16CN' - 16 or 32 channels
'32CN'
'M.K.' - various other MOD formats produced by different trackers,
'M!K!' with various constraints on the number of channels,
'FLT4' positioning, stereo/mono, etc.
'CD81'
'OKTA'
' '
The problem would arise if a particular MOD-playing audio layer didn't
support a predictable subset of these.
Sean T Barrett
>>Bet you yearned for
>>just one more channel to fit a little ambience in,
>
>Nah, 64 is plenty.
You know, all this verbal fencing is very amusing, but you
hedged your previous reply with something like "works fine
on the interpreter I'm using"--which is potentially very
different from what the Glulx *specification* calls for,
which is what the other poster was explicitly commenting on.
So is he wrong about the spec, or are you just saying
you are happy to use something whose support is very
terp-dependent? (And I know the latter is already true
based on your successful use of color in z-machine games...)
SeanB
Branko Collin
wrote:
That would indeed be the polite thing to do. Always assume that
postings are removed from news servers after a few days.
--
branko collin
col...@xs4all.nl
Joe Mason
>These days the standard tracker format is XM (or IT to a lesser extent).
>XMs allow unlimited channels (up to a maximum of about 32 or 64),
I love that idiom. "Unlimited" indeed.
Joe
Adam Cadre
> So is he wrong about the spec, or are you just saying
> you are happy to use something whose support is very
> terp-dependent? (And I know the latter is already true
> based on your successful use of color in z-machine games...)
My hope is that the game will be successful enough that people on
platforms whose Glulxes can't handle it will clamor for the maintainers
of those Glulxes to add the capabilities that will allow them to play the
game, and thus establish a de facto standard on top of the official one.
You may have noticed that the Glulxe maintainers and I have already done
this in other areas, such as establishing a rule for determining the
background color of a newly created window (and not just the background
color of text printed to that window.)
But I should probably stop talking about this. Avalon effect and all.
Jonathan Rosebaugh
>Sean Barrett wrote:
>> So is he wrong about the spec, or are you just saying
>> you are happy to use something whose support is very
>> terp-dependent? (And I know the latter is already true
>> based on your successful use of color in z-machine games...)
>
>My hope is that the game will be successful enough that people on
>platforms whose Glulxes can't handle it will clamor for the maintainers
>of those Glulxes to add the capabilities that will allow them to play the
>game, and thus establish a de facto standard on top of the official one.
>You may have noticed that the Glulxe maintainers and I have already done
>this in other areas, such as establishing a rule for determining the
>background color of a newly created window (and not just the background
>color of text printed to that window.)
>
>But I should probably stop talking about this. Avalon effect and all.
>
One problem I can forsee is different people implementing your "de
facto standard" in different ways. While the terps may function
appropriatly for your game, they may not do so for others.
While I would much prefer for any extensions to be added to the
official Glk and Glulx specs, the only mechanism for that seems to be
"make Zarf like the idea", which is an unclear target, to say the
least.
This is perhaps the time for one of my gripes about terp
compatability. Perhaps it was my fault or perhaps it has since been
fixed, but though WinGlk claimed it provided ways to set the text
styles programmatically, you couldn't do that and had to go in through
the menu configuration system.
Also, remember that CheapGlk IS a "fully Glk-compliant
implementation". Technically, your game ought to be playable in
CheapGlk-linked-Glulxe. Of course, it wouldn't have all the flashy
features, but aren't most HTML TADS games supposed to be playable
without the graphics and under the old text-based terps?
[End incoherent post]
--
Skip - http://www.plover.net/~skip/
GPG key 0x41963E43 - See http://www.plover.net/~skip/gpg.html
-------------------------------------------------------------
The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking.
-- Christopher Morley
Sean T Barrett
>My hope is that the game will be successful enough that people on
>platforms whose Glulxes can't handle it will clamor for the maintainers
>of those Glulxes to add the capabilities that will allow them to play the
>game, and thus establish a de facto standard on top of the official one.
It would be more useful to be a written-out-standard, a specification
on paper, so that, for example, new authors of Glulxen will know to
create things this way. If it is not possible to convince Zarf to
change the Glulx specification in this way, then I think it would
be useful to create the "Grignx" specification or whatever, which
says "implement Glulx with these modifications:"...
>You may have noticed that the Glulxe maintainers and I have already done
>this in other areas, such as establishing a rule for determining the
>background color of a newly created window (and not just the background
>color of text printed to that window.)
Yes, I recall that, and I always wondered, does "the Glulxe maintainers"
who are working to achieve these de facto standards include Zarf?
SeanB
Andrew Plotkin
> Adam Cadre <gri...@cascadia.drizzle.com> wrote:
>>>Bet you yearned for
>>>just one more channel to fit a little ambience in,
>>
>>Nah, 64 is plenty.
> You know, all this verbal fencing is very amusing, but you
> hedged your previous reply with something like "works fine
> on the interpreter I'm using"--which is potentially very
> different from what the Glulx *specification* calls for,
> which is what the other poster was explicitly commenting on.
It is worth noting that only *one* Glk library supports MOD, and it's
not one of the ones I wrote.
MOD is on my list of "think about this a lot harder when I actually
get around to implementing it." The standard may change at that time.
I *never* seriously researched the music-storage problem.
This has been true since before Adam started working on his game
music, and (unfortunately) may be true for some time to come.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* International election observers in '04...
Andrew Plotkin
> My hope is that the game will be successful enough that people on
> platforms whose Glulxes can't handle it will clamor for the maintainers
> of those Glulxes to add the capabilities that will allow them to play the
> game, and thus establish a de facto standard on top of the official one.
> You may have noticed that the Glulxe maintainers and I have already done
> this in other areas, such as establishing a rule for determining the
> background color of a newly created window (and not just the background
> color of text printed to that window.)
That's a slightly different case, and I've remained neutral on that
subject because it *is* slightly different. The rule in question is
"the background color of a newly created window is the background
color of normal-style text in that window". I put that in the category
of "This is the only sensible assumption you can make." It may not be
*true* for every interpreter, but if you have any control at all over
window background color, that's how to exert it. Because no other rule
makes any damn sense.
MOD-file variations are a window of a different color, because there
are a whole lot of different ways it could go. There is no sensible
assumption -- except a least-common-denominator assumption, which is
what's in the current spec.
But since I'm the one behind schedule here, I can hardly beef about
what people are doing.
The final specification will most likely reflect the capabilities of
the best open-source MOD player I can find for Mac and Unix. At the
time I get around to it.
David Given
bren...@aol.comRemove (OKB -- not okblacke) writes:
[...]
> Indirectly, I object to this also. I don't really know much about MODs,
> but I do know that I've been unable to find a tracker which will let me write
> the music in standard musical notation (on a staff). I can do this with MIDI.
> I think MP3 would be a nice addition, but we'd have to watch a file size.
That's because MODs don't work like that.
The way you write music for a MOD is to break your music up into chunks
called patterns. Then you define each pattern. Then you define the order
in which the patterns are played, and a piece of music can play each
pattern more than once, allowing you to repeat bits.
In the patterns themselves, you have to assign each note to a particular
channel, and keep track of what the channels are doing. The player will go
through the pattern, playing one note (or command) from each channel at a
time, waiting a certain amount of time and then go on to the next:
Channel -> 0 1
Time
0 pan 75 pan 25
1 tempo 100 bpm noop
2 c e
3 noop noop
4 d f
5 note off note off
MOD files are to MIDI roughly what Z-machine assembly is to Inform.
You have to pay extremely close attention to what you're doing, but you
can cram really rather good-sounding stuff into an amazingly small amount
of space --- which is what makes it perfect for text games, where one
sound sample can be bigger than the entire game put together. Particularly
if you use what are called `chip' music; normally the sounds in MODs are
supplied as samples, part of the file. People found out that if you use
very small samples (16 bytes or less) and tweaked the loop variables just
right, you could generate all kinds of funky waveforms in a tiny amount of
space. They do tend to end up sounding even more electronica than usual,
and MOD files were *made* for electronica,
(You can get MIDI to MOD converters, and they'll even pull the appropriate
samples out of a GUS patch set for you, but they never work very well.)
Did I mention I'm a MOD enthusiast? I'm a MOD enthusiast. Let me
evangelise for a bit.
There's a good artist here:
http://www.fabtrax.com/_composers/_n/necros.htm
(Since moved on and is now the founder of the group _The Alpha
Conspiracy_: http://www.thealphaconspiracy.com)
All the following can be played with WinAmp or XMMS out of the box.
If you don't listen to anything else of his, you should hear _Martian
Lovesong_ and _Points of Departure_. _Mechanism Eight_ is pretty good as
well, but needs a bit of editing.
_Midnight_ is described as `hip-hop meets Keith Jarrett', whatever that
means, and is strange. _Search for the Lost Riff_ is jazz. _Shadow Caster_
is a variation on Orbital's _The Girl with the Sun in her Head_, and is
excellent.
_Blah Blah Blah_ is an example of a chip tune; according to the notes it
was written in no time flat, and it shows, and it uses sine waves almost
extensively. He later expanded it into _Winter's Dream_.
David Brain
(Stephen Granade) wrote:
> jon...@bright.net (Jonadab the Unsightly One) writes:
>
> > ne...@davidglasser.net (David Glasser) wrote:
> >
> > > (But hey, at least you responded to a message within two months of
> > > its
> > > posting. I'll give you credit for that much.)
> >
> > You in some kind of hurry to wrap up all the threads before
> > you go on vacation or something?
>
> Actually, your very-late postings bother me (though clearly not to the
> extent they bother David), and I just now figured out why:
>
> Newsgroup conversations have a certain rhythm and momentum. There's
> give and take, with people talking back and forth to each
> other. Eventually, new posts in a given thread become fewer and fewer.
> The thread dies off. People move on to other topics and discussions.
>
Although this is of less importance if (like me) you simply take a year
off, and come back to find that most of the standard threads are still
around, the usual suspects are well-evident and there is even a posting
or two from Graham Nelson (which heads off one of the other standard
threads IIRC) Although there seems to be a thread about Michael Bolton
instead...
--
David Brain
A year away from Newsgroups and nothing much has changed.
I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not...
Stephen Granade
Well, we can't have all of our off-topic threads be about Smarties.
Tom Waddington
>> Indirectly, I object to this also. I don't really know much
>> about MODs, but I do know that I've been unable to find a tracker
>> which will let me write the music in standard musical notation (on
>> a staff). I can do this with MIDI. I think MP3 would be a nice
>> addition, but we'd have to watch a file size.
> That's because MODs don't work like that.
IIRC, the Octamed tracker did allow you to do just that, if not
perfectly.
> Did I mention I'm a MOD enthusiast? I'm a MOD enthusiast. Let me
> evangelise for a bit.
> There's a good artist here:
> http://www.fabtrax.com/_composers/_n/necros.htm
I would point anyone sceptical of MOD capabilities at
ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/mods for an absolutely vast collection
stretching back years. An old Bjorn Lynne or Jester track can still
send a shiver down my spine.
Be seeing you,
--
Tom Waddington
Sam Thursfield
> > Sure, but I bet it wasn't much fun making them. Bet you yearned for
> > just one more channel to fit a little ambience in,
>
> Nah, 64 is plenty.
Damn. I appear to be misinformed about Protracker 2.0. I was confusing
it with the original protracker format, which allowed four channels
and 32 samples.
Protracker 2 appears to be along the same lines as the FastTracker
2/Impulse Tracker format.
Next time I'll *check* before make completely incorrect points.
gtc
David Kinder
> compatability. Perhaps it was my fault or perhaps it has since been
> fixed, but though WinGlk claimed it provided ways to set the text
> styles programmatically, you couldn't do that and had to go in through
> the menu configuration system.
You can set them programatically, using the standard Glk calls. To
the best of my knowledge that has always worked. At least, no-one
complained about it. And if you don't complain to the author about
problems, they'll never get fixed, will they?
> Also, remember that CheapGlk IS a "fully Glk-compliant
> implementation". Technically, your game ought to be playable in
> CheapGlk-linked-Glulxe.
Umm, isn't that up to Adam?
David
OKB -- not okblacke
>It would be more useful to be a written-out-standard, a specification
>on paper, so that, for example, new authors of Glulxen will know to
>create things this way. If it is not possible to convince Zarf to
>change the Glulx specification in this way, then I think it would
>be useful to create the "Grignx" specification or whatever, which
>says "implement Glulx with these modifications:"...
This issue of standards and de facto standards and half-standards and so
forth is one that both interests and puzzles me. I'm interested because I like
Glulx and am writing games for it and would like to at least be aware of how
any standard mofications/layers/appendices/etc. might affect my use of, um,
Glulx stuff -- and it would be really cool if those modifications made it more
likely that more people would see my game more like I wanted it to be seen.
I'm puzzled -- not just by the Glulx standard, but by standards in general
-- because I can't seem to fully grasp the purpose of putting stuff like
windows and colors in the standard if they're not, well, standard. It seems
like the standard might as well say "Glulxe interpreters may optionally support
matter transporters which can transport the player to any point in the
universe." You can't count on something that's optionally provided by a terp
any more than you can count on something that's not mentioned in the spec at
all.
Actually, no. There is an important difference, which I recognize. If
something is specified as optional in the spec, you can be sure that if it IS
provided, it will work as advertised. However, even this becomes almost
useless when you have things like styles, which might or might not be
supported, but even if they are stylehints might not be, and even if those are
they're only hints so it still might not look like you wanted, etc.
I guess what I'm saying is that I'd like a serious, major,
not-at-all-safe-to-ignore set of extra Glulx specs which define things that
"Really Technically Are Optional But Really Really Should Be Provided If It's
At All Humanly Possible And If They're Not Then The Terp Is Basically
Crippled."
OKB -- not okblacke
>In article <20010623163849...@ng-fl1.aol.com>,
> bren...@aol.comRemove (OKB -- not okblacke) writes:
>[...]
>> Indirectly, I object to this also. I don't really know much about
>MODs,
>> but I do know that I've been unable to find a tracker which will let me
>write
>> the music in standard musical notation (on a staff). I can do this with
>MIDI.
>> I think MP3 would be a nice addition, but we'd have to watch a file size.
>
>That's because MODs don't work like that.
>
>The way you write music for a MOD is to break your music up into chunks
>called patterns. Then you define each pattern. Then you define the order
>in which the patterns are played, and a piece of music can play each
>pattern more than once, allowing you to repeat bits.
I don't want to do this, which is why I want to write using score
notation. If I want a chunk to be played more than once, I'll cut and paste.
If the program wants to make the pasted version a link to the old one, that's
fine. I don't want to worry about the program, I want to worry about the
music.
I once had a MOD writer which did this, but it was kind of cheezy and
really sluggish.
>In the patterns themselves, you have to assign each note to a particular
>channel, and keep track of what the channels are doing. The player will go
>through the pattern, playing one note (or command) from each channel at a
>time, waiting a certain amount of time and then go on to the next:
See, this is what I don't want to worry about. My limited knowledge of
MODs seems to indicate that the stuff the channel is "doing" is changing speed,
volume, reverb, etc. I want to change the tempo by putting in a tempo
indicator, the volume by putting a forte or a piano sign, etc. In fact, I
think the capabilities of MODs are far greater than what I want to do, which is
why I think it's weird that there isn't something that lets me do this.
David Given
bren...@aol.comRemove (OKB -- not okblacke) writes:
[...]
> notation. If I want a chunk to be played more than once, I'll cut and paste.
> If the program wants to make the pasted version a link to the old one, that's
> fine. I don't want to worry about the program, I want to worry about the
> music.
> See, this is what I don't want to worry about. My limited knowledge of
> MODs seems to indicate that the stuff the channel is "doing" is changing speed,
> volume, reverb, etc. I want to change the tempo by putting in a tempo
> indicator, the volume by putting a forte or a piano sign, etc. In fact, I
> think the capabilities of MODs are far greater than what I want to do, which is
> why I think it's weird that there isn't something that lets me do this.
Then I'd suggest that MODs are not for you. Try MIDI, and then try
converting the result to a MOD file with a tool like MID2XM:
http://www.un4seen.com/music/mid2xm14.zip
(Unfortunately, shareware.)
--
+- David Given --------McQ-+
| Work: d...@tao-group.com | Truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction
| Play: d...@cowlark.com | has to make sense.
+- http://www.cowlark.com -+
David Given
Tom Waddington <t...@waddie.org.uk> writes:
[...]
>> That's because MODs don't work like that.
>
> IIRC, the Octamed tracker did allow you to do just that, if not
> perfectly.
I never used Octamed (all my tracking was done on Acorn machines, so I
tended to use funky software).
[...]
> I would point anyone sceptical of MOD capabilities at
> ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/mods for an absolutely vast collection
> stretching back years. An old Bjorn Lynne or Jester track can still
> send a shiver down my spine.
The old 4-track MODs do sound a bit thin these days. Modern MODs just have
so much better production quality.
BTW, Bjorn Lynne is still writing music, and has some CDs out...
http://www.lynnemusic.com. Never heard of Jester, though.
--
+- David Given --------McQ-+
Tom Waddington
> I never used Octamed (all my tracking was done on Acorn machines, so
> I tended to use funky software).
`Funky' software?
> [...]
>> collection stretching back years. An old Bjorn Lynne or Jester
>> track can still send a shiver down my spine.
> The old 4-track MODs do sound a bit thin these days. Modern MODs
> just have so much better production quality.
True, but I think it's more to do with sampling rates than number of
channels. Most of the old stuff was written on Amigas which only ever
had 8-bit sound as standard, and 16-bit sound upgrades never really
caught on. The limitations did offer some advantages; the resulting
sound was completely different from anything you could hear in the
charts or whatever. That certainly helped to get me hooked.
> BTW, Bjorn Lynne is still writing music, and has some CDs out...
> http://www.lynnemusic.com. Never heard of Jester, though.
Musician for the Red Sector, Inc and Sanity demo crews. Real name
Volker Tripp, I think. He left the demo scene around 1992. Another
favourite from that era is Jogeir Lilljedahl (another pseudonym: the
musician's grandfather's name).
Adam Cadre
> I think that if you cannot respond to a usenet post within
> a few days, then you should phrase your response (if you think
> it's still worth posting) as a self-contained message.
Yeah, I agree.
Joe Mason
Adam Cadre <gri...@cascadia.drizzle.com> wrote:
>Daryl McCullough wrote:
>> I think that if you cannot respond to a usenet post within
>> a few days, then you should phrase your response (if you think
>> it's still worth posting) as a self-contained message.
>
>Yeah, I agree.
You have far more patience than I do...
Or did you actually just come on this message yesterday?
Joe
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> >Yeah, I agree.
>
> You have far more patience than I do...
Patience is a virtue.
- jonadab