Friday Facts #407 - Automating a soundtrack

[picklock]

I always find it interesting to get some technical background this way.

I'm curious to see how the new music will feel in the finished game.

[Gemma]

This reminds me of the way Hades (and other games) manages dialogue trees.

[FutureSpec]

That first (and third) WIP track sounded... really bad. Distractingly bad. I hope that's "just started" WIP not "final touches" WIP.

Agreed. I hope that they either massively improve this or give us a way to turn the procedural bit off. (I still love the human music from the previous FFF!)

[DanGio]

This concerns today's and past week FFFs.

1. If Verdi's Dies Irae was included in the Factorio Nauvis playlist, players would be distracted. No matter if you set the volume of the track to 2%.They would be VERY distracted the first time they hear it, and then a little less, but always a little distracted by the dynamics, the irregularities, the piece contains. And they would be distracted even if they didn't know the piece beforehand.
This applies to the 1st WIP excerpt of today, and also a bit to Fulgora's "minor third drone" (the first thing you hear in the video) which oscillates very irregularly. I wonder what the WIP excerpt is for : maybe it's good to have some high intensity music at that place of the game... But it's definitely not a casual building soundtrack.

2. Again, the 1st WIP excerpt use very small blocks (samples) (like, 1 block is 1 note ! for real. ). This has many consequences :
- tonal progression (or chord progression) is non-existant in a section, everything in the first section (which is section 2 apparently) happens in the unique color of C# minor. This isn't as bad as some music specialists may think, because a strong tonal progression is definitely distracting, see 1.
- people won't hear the difference between 2 versions of "section 2", because like in "Quality" mechanic, picking random stuff a large amount of time is only about ratios. If you place many yellow and blue dots on a piece of paper, ... etc, enough analogies : the result will always be roughly the same.
- the whole stuff sounds like a sound bank, which is kind of a shame because you hired a real orchestra?
So is it really important to implement this random mechanic ? My opinion is that either the music needs to be emblematic and then there should be 1 unique version of it, either the music shouldn't stand out and then it's too distracting because of the imbalance and tense dynamics of the bass line.[*]

3. Overall I like the new music. I like the Vulcanus music (even if it feels a bit mainstream, a bit... Mordor-like, or Holst-like). I hope we don't hear it too often when playing on Vulcanus, so that its dramatic power doesn't fade out. I like the long music from a hidden planet, I like the Space music... I think it's great you gave so much into having a good soundtrack, it's good for Factorio, it's good for all the future games you'll make... Thumbs up

[*] I also think that implementation of randomness in factorio soundtrack "because it's fun" is a valid reason

[dee-]

Well, to be honest, I did not like either of the three, to me it just sounds like random noise.

[sethbreloom94]

This concerns today's and past week FFFs.

1. If Verdi's Dies Irae was included in the Factorio Nauvis playlist, players would be distracted. No matter if you set the volume of the track to 2%.They would be VERY distracted the first time they hear it, and then a little less, but always a little distracted by the dynamics, the irregularities, the piece contains. And they would be distracted even if they didn't know the piece beforehand.
This applies to the 1st WIP excerpt of today, and also a bit to Fulgora's "minor third drone" (the first thing you hear in the video) which oscillates very irregularly. I wonder what the WIP excerpt is for : maybe it's good to have some high intensity music at that place of the game... But it's definitely not a casual building soundtrack.

Thank You! I'm not just going crazy when I didn't like the Fulgora ost even though it had some good instrument choices. It just felt a bit to "sporadic" for a planet that was supposed to be dead.

[giloron]

So many negative comments.
My first thought is that I would pay to have an app that just played that those generated mixes for hours.

[lez b anne]

LOVE the detial you went into! Would love to know more details about the process.

Also very much looking forward to music-focused mods! With the new music system, music based on entities and region could be seamlessly transitioned! I love the idea of composing a main track utilizing the different sublayers and aligning samples, then making minor (or major) adjustments (or complete re-writes) based on the ideas below.

Entities to keep in mind:

1. Vehicles
   • Spidertrons
   • Tanks
   • Cars
   • Trains
2. Other moving entities
   • Biters
   • Construction robots
3. Factory building (type, tier, and possibly quantity)
   • Storage (Chests)
   • Belts
   • Inserters
   • Electric System
   • Fluid System
   • Railways
   • Logistics
   • Circuit Network
4. Natural scenery
   • Trees
   • Water
   • Cliffs
   • Boulders
5. Resources
   • Ore
   • Oil
   • Water again?
6. Possibly more

I'd probably categorize them by type (fluids, electric, enemies, robotics, railway, logistics, crafting, mining, etc) for different sounds, then make a tier list for each item you'd get in terms of progression, and use a weight-based system... it would be a lot of work and a lot of fun!

Too bad I have severe depression that makes this likely impossible

[Néomorphos]

Immensely interesting, this kind of advanced music system is too rare in video games

It reminds me a little bit of this approach, used by another studio, for a similar effect of "always slightly different music". Maybe you already know it!
Amanita Design - The Music of Creaks (making-of)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67S-rAyku3U

Keep up the great work!

[bnrom]

It could all be great. And overall, I'm super excited for so many changes.

With that said, I'm not really convinced procedurally generated music makes sense... it seems maybe more like a passion project than something that adds to the overall experience of the game.

Immediate Reaction:

1. I would have thought that the procedurally generated music is almost always going to be worse than the professionally composed and recorded music... Are you sure that you're not generally lessening the musical experience by adding in these semi-random tracks? Have the two systems alongside each other seems really strange.
2. So far, the WIP main sound tracks from the last FFs seem significantly better than the procedurally generated tracks... which isn't surprising... (as making procedurally generated music tracks sound good seems a significantly harder task).
3. Having good procedurally generated music seems (really) ambitious. For years people (and companies) have been working on that challenge, and it never sounds great... Why should (a subset) of the Factorio team be able to do what hundreds of others have not managed in the past?
4. As is, I see significant downsides to having procedurally generated music, and pretty limited upsides...

• Downside: worse (and potentially jarring) music being played some of the time
• Upside: ??? (someone who has played for >5 hours, experiencing brief interludes of semi-repetitive lower quality music while playing and listening to a sound track they otherwise enjoy?)

I might be misunderstanding how procedurally generated the music is, and how much is set by a professional musician, and the current system/future system of procedurally generated music could be great. These are just some immediate reactions.

[deepdriller]

When it comes to procedurally generated music, it's worth looking at projects such as Abundant music, which does this in extreme detail, and with great amount of user control over the output.
At least, it's worth toying around with it for a bit.

[Chaoseed]

I'm glad to see the legacy of Ballblazer continues!

[Donion]

[*] So far, the WIP main sound tracks from the last FFs seem significantly better than the procedurally generated tracks... which isn't surprising... (as making procedurally generated music tracks sound good seems a significantly harder task).

Last week examples were from much much farther stage in the production.
This week's examples are tech demos to show what the system is capable of. First example is showing tiny samples and a lot of randomization, the second example is on the other side of the spectrum with longer samples and little randomization.

... how much is set by a professional musician ...

All of it. Variable tracks, same as the regular static ones, are composed by Petr and will have their orchestral parts done by the real orchestra you saw last week. We're not taking some random sound bank and pushing it through a randomizer with no direction.

[Toastinator]

You guys really care about the game, Its Honestly Refreshing. I'm really excited to see the final Product! Last week, the 8 Minute Audio only Section. I was Skeptical about, Now its Grown on me. I can better visualize what its going for. Fingers Crossed for an Estimated date Sooner rather then later!

Also, I Really Hope all the Animations are Fixed on release. Like The Clipping on Assembling Machine 2

[Mht3F0150dQ4]

I always read to the end so that I can click on the rocket <3

[Philip017]

in most cases i dont listen to the music in games, factorio has in it's current form a decent sound track, however the first sampling (3:04) was lot my forte in sound, i would most likely skip that track, or i guess i could edit the game and remove that track and replace it with something else. you cant please everyone, but i would suggest not veering to far off the sound the game currently has.
currently i classify most of the tracks at electronic in nature, the direction it looks like you are going in is instrumental classical, with a very location specific vibe.
no worries even if the audio is not to my liking, i will still get the dlc and will still build me plenty of factories. i will just mute the audio, or edit the sound track selections.

[Eketek]

You should probably consider using a synthesizer & sequencer for procedural music.

[meganothing]

I really liked track 1 and 3, but found track 2 boring. Everyone has different tastes, track 1/3 is probably not music for mainstream listeners. I hope you keep some of the edge in the final music.

How that music fares in the long run, who knows? It could get boring fast even though being somewhat random or it could create a trend every other game follows in the next 10 years. I will certainly test it even though I tend to turn off music as one of the first things in almost any game I play

[FuryoftheStars]

Last week examples were from much much farther stage in the production.
This week's examples are tech demos to show what the system is capable of. First example is showing tiny samples and a lot of randomization, the second example is on the other side of the spectrum with longer samples and little randomization.

It's amazing me how people are posting "oh, these sound bad" or "I hope these aren't representative of the final product" and just simply not getting this fact that you posted. I mean, reading the paragraph before the samples in the FFF, it was very clear to me that these were just demos of the technology/methods behind the music creation, not of the actual final music.

[KeithFromCanada]

I'm sure a *LOT* of us would appreciate it if y'all made a small app that sat in the taskbar and just played a constant stream of generated music from a valid Factorio install.

I WANT MY LIFE TO HAVE THE FACTORIO SOUNDTRACK!