Hexen II: Hammer of Thyrion (uhexen2) v1.5.x - Music support
------------------------------------------------------------
Hammer of Thyrion supports OGG, MP3 and WAV external music files to be
played instead of the original midi files, so you can enjoy the hexen2
music in good quality like they are from the hexen2 cdrom audio tracks.
Actually the midi music of hexen2 and its mission pack are the same
songs as the hexen2 cdaudio, so you can just rip your hexen2 cdaudio
tracks and rename them properly to match the midi file name.
What you should do is simple:
1. Use your favorite cd-ripper application and rip your hexen2 cdrom
audio tracks, convert them to ogg or mp3 so they occupy less space,
like track02.ogg, track03.ogg, etc.
(Notice that there is no such thing as track01: The first tracks of
both Hexen II and Portal of Praevus cdroms are always "data" tracks)
2. Go into your hexen2 installation directory (unix/linux users: you can
do this in your $HOME/.hexen2 directory, too.)
3. Create directory: data1/music (for windows users data1\music). If you
have the mission pack, then create another directory portals/music .
4. Take the ripped music files from step1, place them under data1/music.
If you have the mission pack, repeat step1 for the mission pack, too,
and place the ripped music files under portals/music.
5. Make sure that the music type is chosen as "all codecs" in the game's
options menu. (For the curious+techies: this internally sets bgm_type
as "midi" and bgm_extmusic as 1.)
6. Let's do some file renaming: the trackXX files should match the midi
names. Linux/unix users can do these easily using our cdrip_hexen2.sh
and cdrip_missionpack.sh shell scripts.
Note to the curious: this file renaming is necessary. Unlike quake,
the hexen2 music does have its own file name which is the midi file
name. One may try to be clever and code this cdaudio track->midiname
mapping into the game engine, however there are more than one corner
cases where such a thing is doomed to fail.
Here are the corresponding midi names for cdrom audio tracks:
data1/music :
-------------
track02 -> casa1 track08 -> egyp3 track14 -> roma3
track03 -> casa2 track09 -> meso1 track15 -> casb1
track04 -> casa3 track10 -> meso2 track16 -> casb2
track05 -> casa4 track11 -> meso3 track17 -> casb3
track06 -> egyp1 track12 -> roma1
track07 -> egyp2 track13 -> roma2
portals/music :
---------------
track02 -> tulku7 track06 -> tulku9 track09 -> tulku5
track03 -> tulku1 track07 -> tulku10 track10 -> tulku8
track04 -> tulku4 track08 -> tulku6 track11 -> tulku3
track05 -> tulku2 (track12 won't match to anything, leave as is)
Notice that there is no such thing as track01: The first tracks of
both Hexen II and Portal of Praevus cdroms are always "data" tracks.
7. All things are ready to go.
Notes on less common Hexen II cdrom media:
------------------------------------------
8. A note for the owners of Hexen II/xplosiv release:
Xplosiv is (was) a publishing label that did budget or re-releases of
quite some games, one of them Hexen II.
Audio tracks on the Xplosiv release of Hexen II is the exact opposite
of the order on the original release, like so:
track02 -> casb3 track08 -> meso3 track14 -> casa4
track03 -> casb2 track09 -> meso2 track15 -> casa3
track04 -> casb1 track10 -> meso1 track16 -> casa2
track05 -> roma3 track11 -> egyp3 track17 -> casa1
track06 -> roma2 track12 -> egyp2
track07 -> roma1 track13 -> egyp1
(Information was kindly provided by Sander van Dijk. You can use the
cdrip_hexen2_xplosiv.sh script with it, if you are on linux.)
9. Another note, for the owners of Hexen II Matrox m3D bundled version,
also known as "Continent of Blackmarsh": That disc has tracks 2 and
4 in reversed order, like so:
track02 -> casa3 track03 -> casa2 track04 -> casa1
track05 -> casa4
(Information noted on M3D_2 disc with Hexen II v1.10. You can use the
cdrip_hexen2_matroxm3d.sh script with it, if you are on linux.)
New console commands:
---------------------
- music <filename>
Start playing the requested music file.
Example: music meso3
Notice that you don't type the file extension: The requested music
will be searched with ogg, mp3, wav and then with a mid extension,
automatically.
If you do specify the file extension, like "music meso3.wav", then
it will honor your your wish and try only the given type: this is
good for testing/comparing the same music in different formats, and
mappers can use this feature and specify the "midi" name in their
maps with a specific extension.
- music_stop
Stops the playing music.
- music_pause
Pauses the playing music
- music_resume
Resumes playing the music if it was paused
- music_loop 1
Makes the background music to loop (default behavior)
- music_loop 0
Makes the background music to play once and then stop
Removed console commands:
-------------------------
midi_play, midi_stop, midi_pause and midi_loop commands of the original
game are removed in favor of the new music commands above.
New cvars:
-------------------------
- bgm_extmusic (0 or 1): Disable or enable playback of external music
files instead of original midi files. default is 1 (enabled).
New command line options:
-------------------------
- -noextmusic: Disables the playback of external music files instead of
the original midi files.
Music files in PAK files:
-------------------------
PAK-contained music files are fully supported.
Music file directories:
-------------------------
- The midi music files are always searched under the "midi" directory,
as usual, for compatibility.
- Other kinds of music files, i.e. anything other than midi, are always
searched under the "music" directory.
Music file search order:
-------------------------
The engine can handle multiple audio formats. The map-dictated music,
i.e. the music from the svc_midi_name server message, is always searched
by the order of searchpath priority: the file from the searchpath with
the highest priority is chosen, because it is most likely the one from
our own game directory itself. This way, if a game mod has egyp1 as a
mp3 or a midi, which is below egyp1.ogg in the music_handler order, the
mp3 or midi will still have priority over egyp1.ogg from the data1 game
directory.
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