I''m trying to come up with a scheme for my games'' background music. In order to reduce download size, I''d like to take a few short clips (probably ogg files) of about 10 seconds each, then piece them together in random order to make a few minutes of music. I would also like to be able seamlessly switch to a different set of clips to change the mood of the music to match the gameplay. The problem is: how to stich the clips together on the fly? I have done some initial testing with fmod and it seems a bit complex to implement. Does anybody have any suggestions how to do this, possibly with another API?

I suspect it would be fine to take the task of creating the buffer-to-be-played yourself, and thus add in your files'' data sequentially, and just have your API play the buffer as it goes.

i don''t think i can help you with specifics, but baldurs gate used something like this. there are file folders with dozens of 3 and 6 second clips - interchangeable ones, and different moods, all to create different, relatively random music, and the ability to, every few seconds, gradually change from bkg music to fight music.


-geo-
http://www.geocities.com/elementum_game

Hmm... outside suggestion...

Perhaps you could use the OGG files as samples in a very trivial module file that supports them - if one exists! One sample per pattern. Then you can perhaps use the FMUSIC_SetOrder function to jump between them. I expect this function is optimised to be seamless. But I''ve never used FMOD so I don''t know if this is viable or not.

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