A last tribute to VG's Music

Discussion in 'Gameplay Discussion' started by Clawmark/Rarrum, May 21, 2014.

  1. Clawmark/Rarrum New Member

    I originally posted this tool on the old forums. I recently decided to make a quick update to it now though, in honor of Vanguard's last days.

    This is a utility I wrote to parse, play, and optionally save (to a more common format) Vanguard's Music and Sound files. Not many people realize it, but Vanguard actually uses a type of dynamic music system. The music files are a collection of solo instruments playing various parts, as well as information on how those parts can be combined and sequenced to form the actual music.

    Vanguard actually has a LOT of music, some of which can never actually be found through normal play (the developers just never made use of it). This is a tribute to the hard work of the original composer(s), and a way to keep the memory alive even after the world dies.

    VGMusic: http://vg.neoclaw.net/vgmusic/

    -- Clawmark / Rarrum
    Soara, Schiller and Kilsin like this.
  2. Schiller Well-Known Member

    Thank you so much for this Clawmark! One more (substantial!) piece of Vanguard that will never die! The app is working great for me, and I am slowly but surely converting all the files to Waves and saving them forever.

    Thanks again!
    /bow
    Schiller
  3. Clawmark/Rarrum New Member

    That's a lot of files to export individually (around 220 music source files with generally over half a dozen themes each). Would an option to save all themes within the current file be of use to you?
  4. nickriviera New Member

    Speaking of VG music, I found an interesting little tidbit on Todd Masten's website. (He composed the VG songs).

    " I composed twenty hours of music for Vanguard over a period of about two years. During that period I wrote every day without fail which really helped me capture the size and scope of the massive game world.

    The music for this game was designed and composed in a modular fashion for each distinct environment and was created to be interactive. Each piece is composed of twelve layers that are triggered on and off by a series of in-game events or actions by the player; as well as environmental variables such as time of day and the length of time the player spends in a region. Each region also had ten layers of combat music which was seamlessly transitioned when the player was in battle.

    I had a personal goal of composing at least half of the pieces outside of standard 4/4 meter so many of the pieces are written in 5/4. 7/4, 6/8, 11/8, and other non-standard meters. I also experimented with whole tone scales, and twewlve tone row composing.
    The game world inhabitants were as culturally diverse as our real world, so I was able to use instruments and voicings from around the globe.

    I enjoyed working on a game which offered so many opportunities to the composer to experiment and push the envelope. During the last eighteen months I stepped in to join the production staff and get the game focused and shipped before moving on."

    Yet another example of the unparalleled detail that went into this game. It is the best game that almost was.
  5. Aazimar New Member

    Could someone please upload the music to youtube or some other safe download site? I regrettably uninstalled the game due to its impending sun setting, and my current internet download speed won't handle a full game download.

    Much appreciated!
  6. Enkur Well-Known Member

    The music is on you tube already. Just type in Vanguard saga of heroes music and it will direct you here.
  7. WooShell Member

    Thanks for that great tool! I've just browsed through the lists and found a lot of tracks that I've grown fond of over the years.
    If adding a mass-export option isn't too much of work, I'd really appreciate it if you wrote one.
  8. WooShell Member

    YAY... I just noticed that the VGMusic tool works equally well when being put into the Sounds folder... now I can extract my favourite phrases from the NPCs =^.^=

    "Appease the gods in battle, not in prayer!"
    "A heavy purse is the burden of the rich."
  9. Nejibana Active Member

    don't forget the ever classic, "no matter what she says, i am not your daddy." from the goblins.
    Schiller and Enkur like this.
  10. Tlana New Member

    Thank you for this. I've always been a huge fan of the music in this game. Many was the time I'd be AFK, laying on my bed with my headphones on listening to looped themes such as Emerald Depths, Cobalt Deep and Leth Nurae. Despite some lengthy hiatuses over the years, I've never fully let go and I'm always tempted to fire up the old girl and take in some of the vistas and sounds - there's nothing else like it. I'm pleased that at least I'll still be able to enjoy the music long after the game is put to rest.
  11. Clawmark/Rarrum New Member

    I don't think it'll be too much work to export all themes from the current file, though maybe a little more to "export everything ever"; I'll look into it this weekend.

    -

    No small number of times have I just left the game on the character creation screen for that same reason, heh. It's hard to believe they're killing a world, so this was the the least I could do to help save a bit of it.
    Dhelmar likes this.
  12. Clawmark/Rarrum New Member

    I've posted a new version that lets you export all items in the current file at once. It also now has a very simple progress screen when exporting.
  13. Enkur Well-Known Member

    Thanks a lot for this program Clawmark. Though I do have the collector's edition dvd with all the music, I will use this program when I am too lazy to dig up my disk. :)
  14. Clawmark/Rarrum New Member

    I don't have the collector's edition, so I can't say anything definitive about it, but I suspect the music on there is a little different than the real game music in a couple ways:
    • The music examples that were posted before release often differ slightly from the actual in-game music. The samples had some extra sounds playing over phrase transitions, whereas that is not actually possible (as far as I can tell from having reverse-engineered the music format) with the in-game music. So the music on your collector's CD might be "a better listen" in that it was more what the original artist was going for, rather than what they were able to run in-game. The differences should be relatively minor though. For an example of this compare the in-game "cobalt_deep" "Walk" theme with . At the ~46 second mark you'll hear a reverse symbol play over the transition that is not present in the in-game music. They use slightly different synth string sounds there also.
    • Every in-game music piece is actually a collection of music pieces. For example, Cobalt Deep has 8 variations to it in the in-game music files (Idle, Walk, Run, Adventure, Idle_Night, Walk_Night, Run_Night, Adventure_Night). They're pieced together from a common pool of sounds, so this doesn't take up 8 times the space in the music file. The soundtrack from the collector's edition probably only has something similar to one of these on it.
  15. Quert New Member

    Thanks for updating this, I remember back when you first released and am still amazed at what you created for the playerbase. I will be using this for sure. The access to the sounds directory alone gives me many fun ideas for sprucing up my livestreams on twitch.tv
  16. Clawmark/Rarrum New Member

    I just wish I could do more. The game deserves more...
  17. Soara New Member

    Thank you, i am making a video of tours of telon soon, and this will be wonderful

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