-= SUSongPlayer =- Title (Package): Simple Unreal Songplayer Author: }TCP{Wolf aka Mia_The_Chaotic Date: 4th of May 2002 30th of May 2002 == TABLE OF CONTENTS == I. Introduction - WHAT IS IT ? II. Requirements, Installation III. Setup (there ain't much to set up actually :) IV. Commands (so to say...) V. Creating CUSTOM UMX packages from IT/S3M/XM/MOD files == * == I. Introduction --------------- The Simple Unreal Songplayer (SUSongPlayer) is a server/client mod which plays Unreal music on any map which does not have music already on its own. By default, SUSongPlayer uses most Unreal Classic 225f standard umx song files, which are statically loaded together with the mod. They can be used from on the moment the player is installed (there is a complete preset for all major suitable songs). Only setting up non-standard songs may be a bit tricky :) II. Installation ---------------- Requirements: Unreal Classic 225f or newer This mod is NOT for Unreal Tournament or any other Unreal Engine game. The mod works with Unreal Return To Napali, but I don't know if it has packages of the 225f non-Napali version... if not, get them! RAM All used music must be loaded on startup - for the server they COULD be loaded dynamically, but not so on the client :( so you need the additional RAM for all UMX files you use. I am not totally sure about the amount of RAM the basic setup requires when it loads the standard UMX files, but it is far less than your gaming machine needs as texture cache to run smoothly... Copy all contents of the zip (this textfile excluded) into your Unreal\system directory. The mod alone requires you to add the following 2 lines in your "Unreal.ini" within the section "[Engine.GameEngine]": ServerPackages=SUSongPlayer ServerActors=SUSongPlayer.SUSongPlayer III. Setup ---------- There is a new menu in your advanced preferences. From a dedicated server, right-click on the Unreal Icon in the icon area of your task-bar to get to the advanced options. On a listening server, hit tab and type "preferences" or hit escape, choose options -> Advanced options (only for 225f). Songs: A song is normally a complete songfile which may include several tracks and sections - just like on a complete CD you may have tracks and even within the tracks you might have sections. However, one song usually has only ONE track inside and only ONE section, so that in most cases, the SONG is the complete file and is only ONE single piece of music :) In Unreal, songs are loaded by package+trackname out of a umx file, so the complete class specifier would be: Music'package.track' A section in Unreal is simply a byte value from 0 to 255. Most songs will be just a single piece of music, so the complete specifier is reduced to this: Music'song.song' section=0 However, I have left this explanation inside so that you understand why there is a . (DOT) in the preset songs and what the section variable is good for. Another side note: Not all standard Unreal Classic UMX files play well when started directly and the started section is NOT 0... no idea why. Settings: --------- enabled: true/false - like all my mods, they can be enabled/disabled very simple. The mod will do NOTHING if enabled=false. However, if you already have all the songs installed as you had planned, they will still be downloaded no matter what this setting is, because songs are installed as means of "serverpackage" all on their own. SongChances: ChanceBackground / ChanceUnreal / ChanceTechno All three settings are a value between 0 and 1 and indicate the probability with which one out of the 3 types are chosen per map. 0=no chance 1=max chance, 0.5 would be 50% max chance. If there are only songs in ONE list the chance for that list just has to be bigger than zero but is otherwise irrelevant. Z_AlwaysPlayThis: This overrides all "Chances" settings and forces the mod to ALWAYS play the song indicated here. This is only meant if you test a new song how it sounds in game and should NOT be used otherwise. Z_AlwaysSection: The section belonging to the song you force to play at all times using the setting just above this one. BackGroundSongs: The list of "Background Songs". Background songs are "Unreal Themes" which are not so "action-like", so maybe not really so good as "fighting song"... UnrealSongs: True "Unreal" songs of average "action/loudness". TechnoSongs: "Techno" and anything loud :) each of the song lists can hold 64 songs (music files). IV. "Commands" -------------- SUSongPlayer does not have a real Command interface, but it has been tweaked so administrators can do a few things while the server is running. Some 0 / 1 behind commands are needed (standing for true/false). So now you already guessed likely, these are just a few variables you do not see in the advanced options menu, but you can actually set them :) Please start ALL of the following lines with "admin set SUSongPlayer": bsong Use one of these commands in game to immediately have tsong a new song started, whereas b/t/u is for "Background / usong Techno / Unreal" as the lists suggest. is 0-64 silent 1 Use this to silence SUSongPlayer completely. Players already hearing music will stop hearing it, new players will just see a strange message but wont hear music either. This does NOT work if the music is in the MAP!! You can only stop songs which were started by SUSongPlayer! blist 1 Will display the list of installed Background songs... tlist 1 ... same for Techno songs... ulist 1 ... same for Unreal songs... Note: ALL players will see the lists, not just admins. V. Creating your custom UMX files from MODs ------------------------------------------- I am not sure from which mods you can import, but I would guess IT, XM, S3M and MOD (protracker) are obvious choices to import from. Start the Unreal Editor. Go to the MUSIC browser. Click on IMPORT. Select the mod you want to import. If successful, you will now see a UMX package representation of the mod you imported in the editor. Now click on SAVE to write mod into a UMX file. Voila! Your new mod should usually have a section start of 0, and a specifier like Music'umx.mod' where "mod" is the name of your original mod file and umx is the name of the UMX file you wrote, but I suggest you keep the two identical for easy of use. NOTE: I have included the file "music.htm" from epic Megagames regarding the matter. You will certainly find some interesting additional infos in it.