After a cleanup needed in Graphics section, I wanted to start to make this crazy sound playback engine, proposed here:
http://wiki.parpg.net/Feature_list#Pie_in_the_skyI wanted to make the engine based on three parameters passed from the game to the playback engine:
Mood - to handle information of the base sound: day, night in the wilderness, big ruined city, the underground
Intensity - for handling information of how dynamic the situation actually is
Mode - few off/on switches that will change the music accordingly if the PC will be fighting, will have low HP or interact socially.
I can prepare the working prototype in PureData, which needs an external binary to play, but it should be easy to code it to Python later, when the prototype will be finished.
I'm thinking of a two-layer sequencer. I think I will be able to handle making this type of software.
About three tracks should be played in a loop as an ambient sound, so that the playing engine will be able to change intensity by reducing the volume of one track (lets say some natural sounds for night mood) and increase the volume of another (like drums). This is the ambient layer.
The other layer is for effects - I wanted to make it out of randomly chosen samples, playing from time to time. The set of samples will be determined by the mood, like wild didgeridoo solo, few aggressive bass or guitar sounds when fighting or blood rushing and heartbeats when low on HP. Both when fighting and loosing. This samples will be played to the rhythm (more often with high intensity), so that hopefully it will all blend into audible soundtrack.
I'm aware of all the hard moments ahead. Matching sounds saying different things in one language, tracks staying consistent with each other and matching resonant frequencies across few art pieces to have it all really blending and mixing well.
I'm looking forward for a constructive criticism of this idea.
It would be also very helpful if you know where I can get a set of tracks (separate tracks in flac or wav) to use for testing. I'm not a musician (at least at this moment, but "never say never"

), I'm unable to make the music samples to use when developing and testing. I thought of using the tracks released by Nine Inch Nails for the sake of remixing it, I'm pretty sure Trent would appreciate the idea of making semi-automated software for remixing his work in pretty much random way, but its not the best suited set of tracks for this purpose - what I would need is rather an easy, even and smooth ambient on three or four tracks that could be easy to increase intensity of the music with changing the volume of the separate tracks. Effect samples matching a particular set of tracks should be easy to find.