Music fade-in sucks. Can this be over-ridden?

[legacy-peterbi]

I make custom maps with custom music. I hate how UT2k3 always fades in music no matter what as far as I can tell. I've searched for others mentioning of this issue, but have found no other info. Can this be changed or over-ridden in my map or in ut2k3 at all? Or is it a crappy oversight by Epic?
Music is less effective when the 1st two seconds are quiet. Especially if I am trying to use music triggers and need an immediate music change at full volume. I set the MTRAN_instant setting- but it doesnt change that ut2k3 ALWAY fades-in music.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[legacy-Doctor7]

There is a good reason for the fade-in. With UMX (MOD) files in the original UT, the format supported all sorts of looping and jump options, so you could have a song which started properly and then looped without repeating that starting section. With 'proper' music files, you don't have those options, so the fade in allows you to start your song at an appropriate point for looping, without it sounding wrong the first time through.

As for switching off the fade-in, my guess is that it's a default for the ogg player module, in which case there will be no way to affect it from uscript.

[Angel_Mapper]

Easy.

Put a KeyPoint >> AIScript >> ScriptedSequence >> ScriptedTrigger in your map, and a Triggers >> MusicTrigger next to it. In the ScriptedTrigger, you'll need two things. First is an ACTION_WaitForTimer. Having no delay made the game crash on me, so you need to put something there. 0.1 will work, and will be almost instant. The next is an ACTION_TriggerEvent, and give it an Event like Musak or something. In the MusicTrigger, Set the Tag to the same thing, and type the song name in the MusicTrigger >> Song property. Leave the song in the LevelProperties blank.

That should do it.

[legacy-peterbi]

hmm. I thought that was what I did with my triggered Music event. But the new song that is triggered to start still fades in, but I'll do exactly what you said and see what happens. Thanks.

[legacy-peterbi]

Originally posted by peterbi
hmm. I thought that was what I did with my triggered Music event. But the new song that is triggered to start still fades in, but I'll do exactly what you said and see what happens. Thanks.

OUTSTANDING!!!!!!!!!!!!
That works perfectly- I cannot believe using a regular MusicTrigger tells the music to start full volume immediately, but by default ut2003 regular map music call doesn't, and neither does the aiscript "ACTION_playmusic"(which is what I WAS trying to use)

... I adapted your instruction for the regular map music to the AISCRIPTs I had allready, so now instead of a ACTION_PLAYMUSIC, I have a triggerevent in its place calling a music trigger, then a wait for timer, then another triggerevent to a music trigger to tell the music to change back to default map song. THANKS SO MUCH!!! ONCE AGAIN DOMINATING UNREALED!!! Ever thought of getting an industry job? Im pretty sure you could fairly effortlessly with everything you know and can do!

UPDATE1- thats odd- both songs play at the same time- triggering the 2nd song doesnt stop the main one- They actually play at same time- didnt know it was possible to play 2 .oggs simultaneously- thats crazy- you could use ogg for ambient sounds or something
guess I have a little more AIscripting to do...

UPDATE2: well- ****... looks like the music triggering is buggy. If I do it once it works great. If I trip the sequence a second time it doesnt fire the special music, then the 3rd time it works again- ITS VERY WIERD! basically music triggers seem to only work EVERY OTHER time they are triggered... geez. (but Action_playmusic events work EVERYTIME just fine- just have the **** fade-in issue... poo)

[Angel_Mapper]

Why are you trying to trigger it more than once? You only need one MusicTrigger and you only need to trigger it once.

Already have a job in games, see sig.

[legacy-peterbi]

Oh, ok- well good for you having an industry job

...as far as the music thing ,(I'm about to look like a real dork, but here it goes) I design Mortal Kombat themed UT maps (some old UT screenies at my site: http://www.peterissa.com/mkut-uk-s.html )
Anyway, I started mapping for ut2k3 over a year ago and have made a few maps. I now primarily make my maps for the ChaosUT2 Duel Melee gametype since its one-on-one fighting oriented. The last two maps I wanted to trigger music events for fall-out deaths. Hence the "FATALITY" music I am trying to trigger as people fall and go splat. In my last map I just used the Action_playmusic, but in this one the fatality music is different and has more of a "punch" at the start and I wanted to have that audible. Since playmusic fades-in music I wanted to find another solution, which you gave me. Basically - as a player is falling out of the map to a falling death I want the music to change to the fatality music, then I have it on a timer to change back to the regular map music about the same time a new round starts. But I want to be able to have this occur EVERY single time someone has a falling death, but as I mentioned above, a MusicTrigger, for some reason, only works properly every other time its triggered (at least for me in my map- and Ive tried many different ways to have it trigger and re-trigger with no luck).
Sorry to be such a cheeseball, but this is what I do and I want to make my MK themed UT maps as close to Mortal Kombat in design, graphics, music, and soundfx as possible with as many catchy features as possible. I even made custom shield and health pickups
Thanks for your continued help!
Heres my last UT2k3 map:
http://forums.furrysound.net/viewtop...t=2833&start=0

[Angel_Mapper]

You could always just cut the music off and have the fatality music be added in as a sound effect instead of music.

[legacy-peterbi]

Originally posted by Angel_Mapper
You could always just cut the music off and have the fatality music be added in as a sound effect instead of music.

yes- I considered that, but in my quest for perfection I wanted the short song to have the same sound quality as the main song, and If I made it a sound effect it would be large and make my sound package less download friendly and to make it smaller I would have to decrease the quality. But I guess I am going to have to make a comprimise somewhere if we've run out of ideas

[legacy-peterbi]

HAHAHAHA!!!! I TRICKED THE GAME!
Ok- heres a summary of the issue and how I adapted a fix:

1. Musictriggers only play every other time they are triggered.
UPDATE- after some research at the UDN I found the second time a musictrigger is triggered it STOPS the song that was triggered by it instead of playing it again- HOW STUPID! Theres tons of ways to stop a triggered song, and they had to go with this option that makes them hard to use for repeating events- GHEY!

2. by default the triggered song plays at same time as map music- but by setting the MusicTrigger property "FadeOutAllSongs" to TRUE it stops the main map music so the triggered music is exclusively playing.

3. when this MusicTrigger stops the song every other time, its command to "FadeOutAllSongs" still takes place- ending up with no music playing at all (at least till my Action_playmusic kicks the default map music back on after 10 seconds.)

Heres what I did.
I set the triggerevent for the Fatality music in my AIscript. I then have my waitfortimer that signals time to wait till the map music starts back up. Now, heres the trick (so simple I cant believe I wasted two hours screwing around with separate triggers and toggle triggers, duplicate music events, etc). I stuck a second triggerevent for the Fatality music RIGHT before the "PLAYMUSIC" for my default map song to start back up. By doing this I have triggered the music event twice- completely un-noticable, and next round I can trigger the music event again and it plays!!!. I tested 4 times in a row- PERFECT.
Thanks again Angel_mapper and hopefully my time will help someone else with fancy music triggering

ps- heres a new one- I dont want falling dead bodies triggering this fatality sequence, so is there a way to make dead bodies not trigger proximity triggers? (besides puting a karma blocking volume above the trigger so the dead bodies dont reach the triggers collison radius. This is what Ive done so far but dont really like it)