Here's one that's not something I usually cover: Procedural Music Generator is a tool for use with Unity, that allows anyone to make some interesting tunes for their games. The developer, Tyran, emailed in about it, as the tool is developed entirely on Linux as a "labor of love" and after trying out the Linux demo I thought it was actually pretty sweet.
Have a look at the quick demo video the developer made showing it in action:
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Really interesting, I ended up playing with the demo for a good half an hour making all sorts of random tunes and it works surprisingly well even doing very little work. Considering it does most of the work for you, after you pick some options the music it actually produces sounds quite good, I can imagine this being useful for a number of game developers on a budget. The interface could use a little work, as could the instructions but I like it.
Features:
- Over 100+ instruments and percussion to choose from.
- UI Editor included to create configurations with base settings and instruments. Export configurations to load and edit via scripting in your project.
- Control the tempo, key, mode, scale, time signature, dynamics, effects, and dozens of other settings to customize the music to your scene and adapt to your gameplay in real-time.
- Pre-make and save specific clips to play as SFX at any time.
- Import custom instrument samples.
- Edit instrument or global audio effects
- The perfect solution for quick and custom game jam music!
For those game developers following, I even have some free keys to the full version for you to redeem on the Unity Asset Store. If you're interested, do let me know in the comments. I will chuck out the keys via a PM here on the site by the end of the week.
Otherwise, find the demo here and the Unity page here.
Have you made an interesting tool on Linux? Let me know.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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17 comments
Oh hey! I use my 1040STe to do this all the time! Would be nice to try it on Linux!
5 Likes, Who?
Could I get a key please?
1 Likes, Who?
Wow, this is pretty awesome!
I remember trying this kind of thing when I was a student (oh dear, two whole decades ago, getting old...) and failing miserably. I did get some success with procedural textures, and had a few 64k demos, but audio was always the thing I really struggled with.
The other thought I had was, Godot needs to enable supporting people with valuable addons to receive money for their work.
It is just about there with the required level of maturity.
I remember trying this kind of thing when I was a student (oh dear, two whole decades ago, getting old...) and failing miserably. I did get some success with procedural textures, and had a few 64k demos, but audio was always the thing I really struggled with.
The other thought I had was, Godot needs to enable supporting people with valuable addons to receive money for their work.
It is just about there with the required level of maturity.
3 Likes, Who?
It "sounds" like a really cool thing to play around with and I can imagine it being valuable for game developers as well. If only I had a few minutes over for testing it.
2 Likes, Who?
Developer here, if the free keys run out, feel free to email me at [email protected] and I'll be happy to add you to the git repo instead.
6 Likes, Who?
im interested in it as well.
Stick is it possible to have some thing like this called inside the game? for example if I set some flags up so that music style changes between day and night and then if for example a enemy arrives would there be a way to have it adjust the music on those queues? or for example if you have a roller coaster the types of instruments would be queued by how high the roller coaster and the tempo of the music on how fast it goes?
I could see this being a lot of fun with a Procedural world making the experience truly unique. Something like no mans sky where you have several types of worlds weather events as well as semi random resources would be ways to key music generation.
Stick is it possible to have some thing like this called inside the game? for example if I set some flags up so that music style changes between day and night and then if for example a enemy arrives would there be a way to have it adjust the music on those queues? or for example if you have a roller coaster the types of instruments would be queued by how high the roller coaster and the tempo of the music on how fast it goes?
I could see this being a lot of fun with a Procedural world making the experience truly unique. Something like no mans sky where you have several types of worlds weather events as well as semi random resources would be ways to key music generation.
3 Likes, Who?
Stick is it possible to have some thing like this called inside the game?
It is! That's exactly what it's for, actually. The UI frontend is just for ease of setting up a base configuration for a song. The notes are generated in real time, and all of the UI elements are just updating variables/invoking methods to control things. But it's all publicly exposed to your game code for the same purpose.
So, you can say, increase the tempo when more enemies come on screen, or change the key when a character takes damage, change instruments, etc. Anything available in the UI is available to your game's code as well and able to be changed on the fly, it just involves manipulating things at the right points in your code.
I've done my best to cover as many use cases as I could think of, but more elaborate setups might require a bit of editing of the generator code to handle it adequately.
Last edited by Stick on 4 June 2019 at 1:27 am UTC
2 Likes, Who?
Power-Metal-Games Jun 3, 2019
Is there still a chance to get a key? :S:
0 Likes
Projectile Vomit Jun 3, 2019
As a struggling, professional musician looking to shop his music to video game and movie producers in the very near future, I've gotta say, this really sucks.
Oh well- that's another market gone for us. I guess it only takes the talent of Post Malone to produce music people will be content with.
Whatever.
Hopefully, there will still be companies looking for quality sound for their media.
Oh well- that's another market gone for us. I guess it only takes the talent of Post Malone to produce music people will be content with.
Whatever.
Hopefully, there will still be companies looking for quality sound for their media.
1 Likes, Who?
As a struggling, professional musician looking to shop his music to video game and movie producers in the very near future, I've gotta say, this really sucks.
That's valid, and that was actually a big concern I had when writing it, however, I really feel it does fill a totally different niche from composed music and doesn't compete all that much directly. Frankly, it's nowhere near as good as quality music composed by a professional musician. I feel like if what a game needs is music, then a dev should run with actual music, if they need editable procedural sound, this is an option. But, the overlap isn't too much I don't think. Thus far, the devs I've talked with using it are very small studios or solo devs, who weren't budgeted or in the market to hire for customized music.
And, large studios using procedural music still use musicians to craft the base of it, generally.
Anyhow, just my thoughts on it. I love the asset, but it fills a different role from what you do (and you do it better :P ).
It's basically the musical equivalent of procedural level generation. It fills a niche, but it's not the same as a finely crafted level.
Edit* clarity
Last edited by Stick on 3 June 2019 at 9:13 pm UTC
4 Likes, Who?
Projectile Vomit Jun 3, 2019
As a struggling, professional musician looking to shop his music to video game and movie producers in the very near future, I've gotta say, this really sucks.
That's valid, and that was actually a big concern I had when writing it, however, I really feel it does fill a totally different niche from composed music and doesn't compete all that much directly. Frankly, it's nowhere near as good as quality music composed by a professional musician. I feel like if what your game needs is music, run with actual music, if you need editable procedural sound, this is an option. But, the overlap isn't too much I don't think. Thus far, the devs I've talked with using it are very small studios or solo devs, who weren't budgeted or in the market to hire for customized music.
And, large studios using procedural music still use musicians to craft the base of it, generally.
Anyhow, just my thoughts on it. I love the asset, but it fills a different role from what you do (and you do it better :P ).
It's basically the musical equivalent of procedural level generation. It fills a niche, but it's not the same as a finely crafted level.
I can respect that. I do understand being a small or solo anything and trying to get stuff done on minimal to no budget.
1 Likes, Who?
As a struggling, professional musician looking to shop his music to video game and movie producers in the very near future, I've gotta say, this really sucks.
Do you think it'll make any difference? I have a friend who is a composer. The only paid work he gets it through people he knows. It seems that in the TV/Movie business it doesn't matter if you are good, but if you know the right people. The game industry in only slightly better.
1 Likes, Who?
Projectile Vomit Jun 4, 2019
As a struggling, professional musician looking to shop his music to video game and movie producers in the very near future, I've gotta say, this really sucks.
Do you think it'll make any difference? I have a friend who is a composer. The only paid work he gets it through people he knows. It seems that in the TV/Movie business it doesn't matter if you are good, but if you know the right people. The game industry in only slightly better.
Granted- getting paid work through people we know (as musicians) is pretty common. I have a few more advantages than that, but seeing this posted did elevate concern that this may be the next direction game producers will go.
0 Likes
smokinglizards Jun 4, 2019
Hello,
I am not a game developer, but I am taking a course on digital music production and this looks like it could be fun to play with. If there are enough free keys I would love one, or just info on how / if there is a way to test it out. I suppose I could follow the links :) haven't used unity before.
I am not a game developer, but I am taking a course on digital music production and this looks like it could be fun to play with. If there are enough free keys I would love one, or just info on how / if there is a way to test it out. I suppose I could follow the links :) haven't used unity before.
2 Likes, Who?
Hello,
I am not a game developer, but I am taking a course on digital music production and this looks like it could be fun to play with. If there are enough free keys I would love one, or just info on how / if there is a way to test it out. I suppose I could follow the links :) haven't used unity before.
The demo is probably a good way to go, It offers everything the asset does, just without the code integration. https://gitlab.com/StickAndbindleGames/musicgenerator_linuxdemo
1 Likes, Who?
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