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[Sarmatian123]

There have to be some musical talents, who love Dwarven Fortress. What if DF community could compose and donate some copyright-free songs/albums to Dwarf Fortress? Those would be Dwarven songs of course about all aspects of Dwarven life.

Toady could set up announce on this forum to all users inquiring about it. Then he could contact all forum volunteers with their account's email address. It wouldn't take more then like 5 min of his very busy time. It would be up to him to chose, which of those songs end in the game of course.

Result would be streaming on Twitch Dwarf Fortress game with A LOT more songs to it, as currently some people could find DF music track too repetitious, when streaming DF for even few hours. There are some copyright-free music streams out there, but honestly they do not have Dwarven themed music in their repertoire. It surely would add more to the experience of playing Dwarven Fortress. Specially for streamers, who are trying to make this game more known in world.

[Bumber]

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Utility:SoundSense

[Sarmatian123]

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Utility:SoundSense

It sounds fine. This sound sense allows musicians to donate their tracks/albums to Dwarven Fortress? Is it advertised/announced somewhere?

Is Toady in charge of this project too, so SoundSense won't get obsolete one day with new DF version or there will be a new patched DF version and suddenly SoundSense is not temporarily compatible with it for good few months?

How do I install it and run on linux (debian architecture)? Do I need additional terminal window to launch it alike DF? Or is it some persistent java sound server background process, which activates itself for all running Dwarven Fortress instances?

[voliol]

One way to fix this would be to have hard-coded "music slots" i.e. music that plays at different times in the game, with the ability to change these in the init files similar to how we currently change tile sets. This way modders could do music packs, and put them up for people to download and use. Vanilla DF could still use the one standard theme for all slots, until Toady takes some time to make more themes, such as the seasonal ones that have been mentioned earlier (in one of the DF talks, I believe).

The music slots could be things like MUSIC_WINTER, MUSIC_SUMMER, MUSIC_BEAST (FB etc. attacks), MUSIC_SIEGE etc. maybe a MUSIC_PROSPER if the game deems things are going very well, or a MUSIC_DIRE if all your dwarfs are dying, but these require more things to be added that are currently not measured in-game. You could also imagine a more complex system more akin to how graphic sets work, with a single theme being defined by multiple parameters (when both the season is winter, this is an evil biome, and a siege is happening, play this theme).

Either way it's a problem better solved by Toady giving the tools to the modding part of the community, rather than him having to sift through and approve each fan-made piece of music himself.

[Bumber]

It sounds fine. This sound sense allows musicians to donate their tracks/albums to Dwarven Fortress? Is it advertised/announced somewhere?

Is Toady in charge of this project too, so SoundSense won't get obsolete one day with new DF version or there will be a new patched DF version and suddenly SoundSense is not temporarily compatible with it for good few months?

How do I install it and run on linux (debian architecture)? Do I need additional terminal window to launch it alike DF? Or is it some persistent java sound server background process, which activates itself for all running Dwarven Fortress instances?

It's a 3rd party open-source java program (there's also a C# clone, SoundCenSe) that scans gamelog.txt for certain announcements and plays a relevant sound. The only way it gets outdated is when a new announcement is added that isn't recognized, but this doesn't affect music, and is fixed by adding a few lines to an XML file.

Right now it supports music based on seasons and invasions (and world gen.) You could have it play different music for different menus, but it would require DFHack to add menu change messages into gamelog.txt.

[Sarmatian123]

Yeah, it is fine Toady gets help from others, still this all is considered from programmers view point. However what is missing is:

1. Official link to this other party on "https://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/" asking for the Dwarven music donations.

2. Clearly defined copy-free license (there are many!) by Toady, which guarantees that:

- author's name is not deleted at some point from the track,
- music is not used in commercially (commercial DF-like games),
- compatible with DF own copy-free license used by Toady,
- can be streamed on YouTube and Twitch, without any issues from those services,
- etc (maybe someone can legalese professionally and can fill in more what is needed?)

[Shonai_Dweller]

Toady mentioned before in an fotf discussion that music and sound effects were much like graphics. He'll most likely focus on modding support, not actual music unless he makes it himself (he still plays guitar, so it might happen).

The Simon Swerwer music in Soundsense was specifically made as Dwarf Fortress music, free to be used. So in a sense, your suggestion has already happened.

[Sarmatian123]

However, as I am pointing out with those 2 points, the whole process has to be made less obscure and more accessible for artists, whom in majority I would believe are not programmers by profession.

[voliol]

However, as I am pointing out with those 2 points, the whole process has to be made less obscure and more accessible for artists, whom in majority I would believe are not programmers by profession.

Programming skills aren't really needed for the modding interface, even less for the interface "music modders" would use (some extension of the current init files, probably). I wouldn't worry about that being a problem.

On another note, you can already change out the music files of the games if you want to. If you do that with a longer, more varied track (join a few music files together) that would give you more music for the game. The only problem with that method is that the music won't care for occasion in-game, being one single track and all.