Suggestions for Improving VS Music Situation

For collaboration between the different artists creating music and sound for vegastrike.
Mike Ducharme
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Suggestions for Improving VS Music Situation

Post by Mike Ducharme »

:)
I have a few ideas and *suggestions* for improving the current music situation in the game:

1. Establish a VS music committee made up of developers and composers working together to standardize and improve the quality of music in the game
2. The first goal of the committee should be to establish a set of rules and guidelines for music usage and development within the game.
3. Afterwards, a call for thematic materials should be put out, where you can request submissions for vegastrike themes/motives for the various factions given descriptions of them. http://www.northernsounds.com/forum is an excellent place to track down new would-be composers who may be willing to contribute to this project. The committee would vote on the best thematic material and assign them to the different factions, etc.
4. The themes/motives should be made a requirement for any music that is written for the game.
5. A call for compositions that follow the guidelines, rules and themes set forth by the committee should be put out to various sources such as http://www.northernsounds.com/forum and http://www.wcnews.com
6. All music must be approved by the committee prior to inclusion in the game
7. The committee would make recommendations to the VS development team as to what is needed programming-wise to improve the game music

What do you guys think about that? Comments/critiques/additions/etc? :)
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Post by klauss »

Themes: I definitely agree with that. A theme poll, in the style of the logo poll, would be nice. That is: open up a thread accepting theme submissions. We'll have to think about guidelines, though there's little stuff for examples. There is one example, though: mission.ogg, already in SVN, is a great theme source (Zaydana already made a few variations on that theme, proving that it accepts variation quite easily).

I wouldn't post the announcement on wcnews, though. It would be thinkable if it were for PR, GG or WCU (well... perhaps not for WCU), but for VS? Given the feelings that certain (important) people have towards us, that would be looking for trouble.
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Post by Oblivion »

@klauss
Given the feelings that certain (important) people have towards us, that would be looking for trouble.
They hatesss usss. My preciousss :wink: Dunno why. I've seen their forums, and VS-bashing seems to be a very fun sport down there. :lol:

@Mike

Good idea. But with theme making. I'm definitely out of that. So I can't help with that. :oops: sorry. But yeah, provided we could find us some music people, I would go with it.

BTW: Should I stop looking for creative commons music now? :wink: It really isn't a big deal to me. I just dabbled wherever I could possibly help. But I do like Falik's music though, for the Forsaken. :P
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Post by klauss »

I don't think you should stop. We can persue both ends simultaneously, and see which comes to an acceptable point first.

Mostly because, though great in theory, this has the potential to stall production indefinitely (imagine too few or too low quality submissions). Nah... I still appreciate your screening of creative commons music as it provides an important, quick, good quality fallback option, temporary or not.
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Post by Mike Ducharme »

Oblivion wrote:BTW: Should I stop looking for creative commons music now? :wink: It really isn't a big deal to me. I just dabbled wherever I could possibly help. But I do like Falik's music though, for the Forsaken. :P
Besides Klauss's point, I think the creative commons music may work on a more permanent basis as background "radio" music in space stations and so forth.. Certainly as that would be "futuristic pop" type stuff and it doesn't function as underscore, instead, it is part of the actual scene, there is really no negative consequence of that stylistically conflicting with the rest of the music.

From listening to Falik's music it is ethnic and weird sounding enough (in a good way) that it could function quite well as futuristic pop music.

I'm going to start building a list of the overall goals and mission of the VS music committee for feedback.. After that we can start inviting people to participate in the comittee.

I have some ideas for who (besides klauss, you and myself) we should ask to participate in the committee:

- Ken Suguro
- PeteyG
- Zaydana
- Michael Mahadeen
plus any VS developers that would be interested (Daniel Horn if he isn't too tied up with his school stuff).. and one or two people who came up with the race concepts and the background story are necessary to ensure that the music fits the description of that race.

I think we should get enough people on the music committee to ensure that even if and when people fall off the map (as I've noticed has tended to happen in the history of VS music) that there are still enough people to keep the boat moving forward. Plus it should not be overly reliant on any one person to keep this initiative going.

I find it pretty amazing that Klauss has been able to do as much stuff as he has music-wise given his other development duties on VegaStrike.

Mike
Last edited by Mike Ducharme on Tue Aug 01, 2006 5:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by klauss »

Mike Ducharme wrote:I find it pretty amazing that Klauss has been able to do as much stuff as he has music-wise given his other development duties on VegaStrike.
Funny, since all I did is brainstorming, organizing a bit (a tiny bit), and enhancing a bit the Engine's playlist handling. I definitely intended to do much more than has been done.

But I enjoy music stuff enough so that I always find a tiny corner in the schedule, no matter how tied up I am.


BTW: The rest sounds fine. I'm not sure about PeteyG - he did music stuff in the past, but seems a bit disconnected lately (haven't seen him in a wh-h-hile). No harm in asking, though.
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Post by Oblivion »

Klauss:
(imagine too few or too low quality submissions).
okay. It could always go into station or base music anyway (though we have to find more ways to stall a player in the station - minigames anyone? 8) ) as Micheal suggested. I'm still scanning Magnatune, anyhow, there are several artists that make some ambient music that sound cool. However, I'm not sure if Magnatune is willing to license more music... :?:
I find it pretty amazing that Klauss has been able to do as much stuff as he has music-wise given his other development duties on VegaStrike.
8) yup. I salute thee, comandante Klauss.
one or two people who came up with the race concepts and the background story are necessary to ensure that the music fits the description of that race.
I can ask JackS for details and etc. That's a portion I could pitch in.
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Post by Mike Ducharme »

OK then.. first off I think we need to start like an organization, by clearly defining what the committee does through a mission statement..

(Draft Proposed) Mission Statement of the VS Music Committee: To enhance the musical aspect of the VegaStrike experience through a series of facilitiative, administrative, promotional and ultimately capacity-building activities targeted at composers and developers alike.

How does that sound? Any changes you'd like to make? (Mission Statements are typically kept reasonably brief)

NOTE: I realize this may seem like overkill, but IMO only by being very organized can we hope to attract the attention and support of enough composers and create momentum that will continue on a long term basis and not just fizzle out..

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Post by Oblivion »

through a mission statement..
mission statement sounds too general. But then, it should be, given what else would be the reason for music. lol.

overkill it may be, but it could be what VS music needs. I won't be helping much on defining the music requirements tho. Just ask if you all need something. I'll be searching for cc music while we still have no composers, for the moment only, though I leave decision of retaining/rejecting it up to you all.

EDIT: :) that means... yep, sounds fine to me. Next is... scope and limitations. lol. :wink: . Do we work on the three primary races for now(Human, Aera, Rlaan)?

BTW: Beatpick is next on my target searches. I'm already sorting through the sample music. :wink:
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Post by klauss »

Oblivion wrote:Do we work on the three primary races for now(Human, Aera, Rlaan)?
That's the idea.
Further refinement of human factions can wait.

BTW, Mike: sounds a bit too... blabby (inventation**). I'd add specific objectives in a clear manner: coordinating the effort. Bolded is the important word there.

*Blabby (Bla'-bi) adj.: the use of big-sounding and/or obscure words in an effort to embed a false sense of specificity or sophistication in a piece of text or speech.

*Inventation (In-ven-ta-shen) n.: A made-up word, usually merging elements of various languages in an irresponsible or careless manner.
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Post by Mike Ducharme »

klauss wrote:*Blabby (Bla'-bi) adj.: the use of big-sounding and/or obscure words in an effort to embed a false sense of specificity or sophistication in a piece of text or speech.
Hehe.. you got me there.. I write proposals for Government funding as part of my day job so I'm used to writing blabby, fluffy government policy-speak. :D

I'll simplify it with your suggestions.

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Post by Zeog »

If I may add my cents, I think this text should make use of verbs instead of listing a bunch of adjectives and then adding the word "activities". Examples would be "specify", "define", "promote" or "decide".
Could you name a few "facilitative acivities"? Sending free pizza to composers? :wink:
Nevertheless, I second the idea of a mission statement.
And last but not least, the offical writing is "Vega Strike" (two words separated by a space).
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Post by Mike Ducharme »

Here's what I meant by the various words I used in the mission statement:

facilitiative - activities related to assisting the composers with creating their works, such as providing them with links to free midi programs, software synthesizers, recording software, etc, and in general any information that makes it easier for them to compose music for the game

administrative - setting guidelines and requirements for music in the game that composers should adhere to to get their music included

promotional - calls for composers, advertisements to get new composers interested, etc.

capacity-building - means training and mentoring.. I wanted to put together a brief harmony and modulation tutorial for composers who do not have music theory knowledge and also link to northernsounds.com's free online orchestration course and other free online training.. While we could have the more experienced composers "correcting" the work of the less experienced ones, I would much rather provide the less experienced ones with guidance and advice so that they learn how to make better music and develop those capabilities themselves

So I did pick those particular words with care, but perhaps we need simpler versions of them for the mission statement..

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Post by Zeog »

Not really. If you add the description of the four major columns as you just did it would be perfect. But I don't know if there's a strict rule on how to state a mission. Maybe I'm totally off. To me the first version was just too general. I understand that this statement needs to be rather short but cramming every reason for its existsence in one sentence? The examples clearified what you really want to do apart from making music things better.
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Post by klauss »

Replace "administrative" with "organizational", and concatenate the original statement with the explanations, and I think you have a nice draft.

You can't throw the explanations. When you condense so much in a single word, you're bound to loose a lot of meaning. Sometimes, too much.
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Post by Mike Ducharme »

New Draft: To enhance the musical aspect of the Vega Strike experience through the establishment and maintainence of a series of requirements, guidelines and best practices in regards to its music; ensuring the music submissions meet these requirements and are of sufficient merit to be included in the game; promoting the project to prospective composers; providing training, mentoring, and support services to assist composers with completing their tasks; and, providing Vega Strike's developers with the necessary feedback they need to improve the music component of the game engine.

How's that?
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Post by klauss »

Pretty good :D
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Post by Oblivion »

8) agree. It pretty much includes everything in a gulp.
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Post by Zeog »

I like it :D
(although it's missing a subject and a finite verb in order to form a complete sentence. But maybe mission statements are supposed to be like this...)
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Post by Mike Ducharme »

OK then.. the committee will still need to accept the mission statement so we don't have to get it perfect at this point anyway..

A few other *draft* make-up rules of the committee:

- The committee will have a maximum of 15 people, composed primarily of composers but with developers and story-writers also participating
- Quorum (the basic number of committee present needed to cast a binding vote) will be say 50%
- Committee Meetings will be every two weeks unless a committee member calls for a meeting at an unusual time. (This will probably be done a lot early to speed the process) Committee members will be responsible to make at least 1/2 the meetings over a one year period and cannot miss more than 6 meetings in a row. If this occurs, that individual will lose their seat on the committee and it will be freed up for a new member to join.

Special Roles in the committee (will need votes at least for President and Vice President):

President: responsible for breaking a tie vote.. voted in as one of the earliest acts of the committee.. They don't have any particular power besides that though..

Vice-President: Acts on the president's stead in the event the president is unable to participate.

Secretary: Responsible for posting agendas for meetings, recording what was said if meeting takes place in a chat room, etc.

Communications: Responsible for all out-going correspondence, calls for composers, etc.

Developer Relations: Acts as the "ambassador" between the committee and the development staff of Vega Strike.

Story Consultant: Assists the VS music committee with ensuring that music selected fits in with the overall descriptions of the factions/races.. provides descriptions to the committee of the different factions and notifies them of any changes in the factions descriptions..

How's all that sound? Any changes or suggestions you'd like to make?

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Post by Mike Ducharme »

After thinking a bit more.. 15 is probably too many for the limit... a committee would get bogged down with that.. 8-10 should do for the limit..

And a clarification... for the most part the meetings would be message board threads, which would not require actual participation at a specific time but rather a response within a particular time frame..

Plus as it's a committe rather than a company we should probably change President and Vice-President to Chair and Vice-Chair..

And again, once we have members in the committee, we have to elect the chair and vice chair and then have the committee accept the mission statement and the by-laws (kept simple, basically what's in this posting and the previous one).. And even after accepted these rules can be changed by the committee by a vote.. We'll want to try to hurry up the election process etc so that we can get to the real work..

Anyway.. feedback??
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Post by klauss »

Well... I don't know, but given current timeframes a meeting every two weeks doesn't seem to leave much time for actual progress inbetween.

And, also... what should be treated each meeting?
Surely it's up to comittee members to propose stuff to be done at them, but perhaps a guideline in that regard would be helpful. I can't think of many things that would be brought up regularly.

About the rest... I'm a bit too busy to do more than just skim forums, sorry. I'll take a closer look later.
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Post by Mike Ducharme »

klauss wrote:Well... I don't know, but given current timeframes a meeting every two weeks doesn't seem to leave much time for actual progress inbetween.

And, also... what should be treated each meeting?
Surely it's up to comittee members to propose stuff to be done at them, but perhaps a guideline in that regard would be helpful. I can't think of many things that would be brought up regularly.
Monthly would work too.. Meetings would consist of progress reports on different fronts (i.e progress on the promotional front, the actual composition front, the training front, the game audio engine development etc to keep everyone on the same page.. as well the story guy/guys would keep us updated on any changes/alterations/additions being made to the stories).. it gives a forum to contribute ideas on how to improve things further.. If something is not working or showing results, that can be identified so that time is not wasted on that front..
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Post by klauss »

Secretary: Responsible for posting agendas for meetings, recording what was said if meeting takes place in a chat room, etc.
I'd ditch that one.
I'm thinking of a more distributed approach - you wanted it to be robust in the event of missing people: that means, a distributed approach with responsabilities a bit smeared across the board.

Chair/vice-chair is ok - there has to be someone with a last word on things in case dissent makes the project stagnant.

Communications: rather, a "rrhh section". Sorry, local term, it probably isn't internationally-recognizable: "personnel & public relations section" - that's a bit more universal.

Ok... overall reorganization, to see if you like it:

Chair/vice-chair: Final word on controversial subjects.
P&PR section: Responsible of recruiting people, and mediating with other organizations (eg: magnatune proceedings)
Creative section: Responsible of executing and proposing activities for the creative staff (composers). That includes organizing work on pending tasks, recognizing/proposing/planifying new tasks, organizing tutorials, etc...
Storyboard liason: Communicates the needs of storytelling to the creative section and back. Important task source and consulting body.
Development liason: Communicates the needs of the creative section to engine development and back, organizing changes in the API that are required or desired by the creative section.

People on the comitee would belong to one or more section, probably with priorities attached. Say, the chair wouldn't be just that, he would probably be also part of either one of the PR/C/D sections. He could also be secondarily a part of another section, but let's say there are no "tertiary assignments" - just to avoid overcommiting personnel. To avoid undercommitment, though, only primary assignments should be taken into account for "staff allocation". So... if a section has no primary assignee, it would be considered understaffed.

Wht do you say?

Now... meetings:

The comitee chair would be responsible for opening up a meeting thread at a certain time each... say... month. Say, first week of the month.
If he fails, the vice-chair would have to start one during the second week (and make it a point of that meeting to find out what happened to the chairperson and whether he's still fit as a chairman - ie. temporary setback - or in need of replacement).
Should both fail, any member can start the process later than the second week.

The idea is to let the chairman open up proceedings, posting top-priority tasks, along with a motion for "further tasks".

Each meeting would gather tasks for processing and would be quickly treated, in order of proposition. Should the task grow and require a lengthy treatment, a specific thread would start and run in parallel with the main meeting. That's an advantage of message boards, it makes easier for people to divide their attention in multiple subjects :)

Ok... comments?

Those would be "organized meetings". There's the option for special-call "realtime meetings", carried out through the VS IRC channel preferrably, or through any other interactive messaging system at everybody's reach. Those would be necessary when a certain task needs important discussion in the sense of interactive exchange of ideas, where delays present in message board-based systems would hinder the effort.
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Post by Zeog »

I have no objections and this looks very reasonable to me right now. If some flaws become visible later on I'm sure people can agree on changing some details. But so far the rough organizational structure fits the missions statement very well.

EDIT: About the number of people involved: I know that it's essential to have a larger number of people involved to keep things going if some are busy, but I'm not sure if we have enough experienced and involved people around to even meet 10 people criterion.
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