Messages

[Reason 5.0]

I've been too lazy to get all my music stuff set up for my new computer, so right now I'm just futzing around and making everything in Reason 5.0

If I search hard enough and find my DVDs of EWSQL Symphonic Orchestra Gold Edition, I'll be using that combined with Sonar. (those sounds are awesome).

Until then, crappy Reason sounds all the way!

For example, this Choir sound sucks, it's clipping on high notes, no matter how I equalize it I can hear distortion and it's ticking me off.

Updated this piece A LOT.

Remixed it, fixed a bunch of issues.  It's a much more complete Intro Theme now, and it lines up well with the intro cutscene.

https://soundcloud.com/djrematch/intro-theme-second-draft

[Updated:]

OK, really done now; this will play during the intro "movie": https://soundcloud.com/djrematch/intro-theme-for-rmxp-game

...

Updated: Here's the final draft: https://soundcloud.com/djrematch/rpg-intro-theme-final-draft


----------
Here's the second draft; the piece flows much better now: https://soundcloud.com/djrematch/intro-theme-second-draft

Not really sure what thread this goes in so I put it here.
Finished the demo of my game, just gotta compose the soundtrack and record the voice acting.

Here's the first draft (needs to be equalized/mixed, but the music is all there)

https://soundcloud.com/djrematch/rpg-intro-theme

Been eyeing this game for a while but have been so busy making my own that I haven't played it.

Bought a 6 pack of beers, got a warm blanket, and all day Saturday free.

Let's do dis!!!

I weep for my future as I sincerely believe I have none.

You definitely have a future!
Yes the monetary system is fucked up, and yes our government is cracking down in a lot of ways on people's freedom.

But human history is a series of crests and troughs, and on the whole the trajectory of human excellence has been in an upward direction.

It's natural to point out the serious flaws in our current system, but if you look at our flawed system as but a step in a series of methods of social organization that the human race will go through, it's easy to be optimistic.

Things may get worse, but eventually they will be better than they ever have been; this is the trend of human history.

[somehow]

Edit: After I wrote this, and looked at the length, I don't honestly expect anyone to read this - but it sure felt good to get it out

@Anyone that thinks the status quo works

Whenever you mention doing away with the Monetary system, people always have extremely thoughtful and reasonable arguments as to why this just wouldn't work.  Rightly so, they usually posit the following:

1) A Barter system isn't satisfactory, especially on a large-scale.
2) Things used to be way more unequal than they are now (Feudalism, apartheid etc)
3) Without money, how would you get the things you needed (car loans, homes, food etc)
4) Without a monetary system, no one would have an incentive to work, society would collapse

Let's say, hypothetically, that somehow I convinced you that we could do away with a Monetary system.  I then would propose a society which is completely and utterly different from the one we live in now.  A society where there is no currency, and the culture and general zeitgeist of society is completely devoid of the concept of property.  The ability to eat, and have shelter, and be healthy, is no longer determined by you having money.  These 'rights' are viewed as fundamental.   Having described this type of society you will get usually two types of responses:

             Closed minded people will usually respond with:  

                 1) That sounds like communism.  Communism doesn't work; that has been proven.
                 2) If everyone got food and shelter without having to work.  Everyone would be lazy and society would collapse.
                 
              More thoughtful people will usually respond with:  
                 1) You are describing a Utopia.  People are inherently greedy, it just wouldn't work.
                 
Let's say then that I convinced the closed minded people that people are in-fact not inherently lazy.  That human potential could be so much more than devoting 40+ hours of your week to sitting behind a counter selling cigarrettes and lottery tickets.  Just as human beings were able to branch out into the sciences and begin to understand the world around them when we changed to a sedentary society from a hunting and gathering society, so too could humanity realize greater intellectual heights if we were freed from ridiculous labor to earn a wage.  Even if this argument doesn't sway you, let's pretend it does, just for the sake of this argument.

And then let's say I convinced the more thoughtful people that:
                a) I'm not describing a Utopia, I am simply describing a society which hasn't yet existed, and therefore cannot be described with currently extant terminology.
                b) Your belief that people are inherently greedy is due to the fact that you grew up in a capitalist culture.
                                             Then they would say-> People have been greedy since the dawn of time, so are animals, it is linked to survival and natural.
                                                                Then I would say -> Scarcity of resources is the cause of greed, scarcity is no longer a reality.

(Then they would say) WHAT!? Scarcity is no longer a reality? Are you telling me that we have the infrastructure to support everyone on the planet, moreover, are you telling me the planet has enough resources to provide for everyone!?

And I'd say: Yes.  

Now let's pretend that I've somehow convinced you of everything up to this point, except as to whether or not Scarcity is a reality (that somehow there is enough in the world for everyone to live prosperously).
We then must make one logical statement:
IF Scarcity=True THEN X
for me, X=Monetary system got us to this point, but obviously something is wrong since greed is destroying the planet and will increase scarcity

IF Scarcity=False THEN Y
for me, Y=Why the heck are we denying so many people in the world health, food, and shelter?!

Scarcity definitely existed in the world at one point; but at our current level of technology as a species, it doesn't have to be so.  We have the ability to feed the world; we have the ability to clothe and house the world.
-I've been to India, I've seen entire sections of cities with house, after house, after house, all empty; not because of lack of demand (there are millions of homeless in India), but because no one has enough pieces of useless paper to exchange for entry into these homes.  
-I've been to farms across the country where miles of fields are left empty and not used, because the government is paying them NOT to grow food in order to keep the price of food down.  
-I've been at budget meetings of the A.C.O.E. and other government agencies where staff has intentionally wasted millions of dollars on flights they don't need, or equipment they have absolutely no use for, simply because if they don't use every single penny of their budget, they will be allocated less money next year.
-I've been to factories filled with workers, who's jobs could be automated by machines over night.  Yet the machines aren't placed there because the workers need the jobs in order to get pieces of paper that say $ on them.

Is this not the very definition of insanity?

Now to the crux:  We can do better than the Monetary system, we don't need wages and money to make the world work.  If we got rid of all the dollars, cents, fiat currency, bitcoins, you-name-it, right now.  We would still have food, we would still have computers, electricity, machines, blankets, cars, airplanes, space-shuttles and Mountain Dew.

Incentive is not the driver of human industry.  Knowing that if one works hard enough he may someday live in a mansion, and drive an amazing car is not a driver of human industry. That incentive structure will result in the society we have now; where investment with an oblique or episodic relationship to production reigns supreme over actual physical innovation,  where planned obsolescence of technological gadgets is more profitable than actually making something work, and where short-term investments with high-yields are more appealing than long-term investments with sustainable futures.  

The driver of human industry is freedom to pursue our passions, and as long as we are de facto slaves of the monetary system, we will always have to work to prolong the status quo.

So what now then? The world never changes because people point out flaws in the current system, the world changes when people provide an alternative which makes the current system obsolete.  

There are so many intelligent social engineers out there that have numerous solutions to these problems.  (e.g.) Roberto Unger
We have the science, infrastructure, resources, everything needed to change the world, all we lack is the political will.  

[Music Theory]

Music Theory

I rarely meet people that apply theory correctly.  
Knowing how many half/steps are between each of the notes in a chord does nothing for you.
Music Theory is largely a child of the piano, and it can only be truly conceptualized through the piano (and to some degree the guitar).

Learn your chords as physical shapes that your hands make on the piano, not as abstract concepts about F-Ab-C-Eb = F-7

The abstract concepts (the F-7 chord for example) can only be used to describe to others the physical realities that you have learned to manifest through your fingers.

Once playing chords/scales/melodies/progressions etc, becomes second nature to you on a physical level, your brain will pretty much automatically make the theoretical connections required to compose music on a very complex scale.

Melody Creation (or Composition)

Some thoughts on this:
-Melody is largely gestural.  If you can't physically sing a melody, or dance it, or gesture it, it probably isn't going to connect with a listener.  
-Silence is just as important as sound.  You need to breath, so does your melody.
-A melody is a phrase.  Try speaking sentences of words over your music, pausing dramatically, emphasizing important words.  Your melody should also have pauses, and emphasis.

-On a nuts and bolts level, an easy way to write melodies is to write the chord progression first, then write your melody.  Make sure you find the scale that works best over the chord progression.  If you are writing jazz, use a different scale for every single chord change, if you are writing more straightforward music, use a single scale that works for all the chords.

Production

If sequencing ->
                         Try out Reason.  It has basically everything you need to start producing songs from the ground-up. 
                         When using any piano roll, don't look at the keys to the left, instead pay attention to the color of the rows.  They show the black keys/white keys on the piano.
                         

If recording    ->
                          Use Sonar, it has a pretty shallow learning curve. 
                          Don't put too much reverb on your tracks.
                          Listen to your pieces on many different sound systems to make sure you mixed it right.
                         


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You guys, I know that this is wierd, but I lurked on this forum for about a year before I signed up... I felt like I knew all of you (even tuggernuts, whiterose, and sub) The reason I never joined is because of my incredible shyness that obviously goes away after a while lol. It only took around 2 and a half years!

Same man.  I used RPGMaker2003 when I was a wee lad and enjoyed it so much.  Got the itch to make a game earlier this year and discovered Blizz Abs, which brought me here.

This community is amazing, and you guys are all celebrities to me.  Until I came here, I've been involved primarily with pro-gaming forums/communities (I played League of Legends competitively and before that Counterstrike).  Those guys are not thoughtful, not nice, and not particularly talented at anything besides clicking really accurately and quickly.

I have so much respect for all the hard work you guys do, but more importantly, how selfless you all are with your time when it comes to helping new people out!

So my life: I think my upbringing is similar to KK's.  I grew up in a wealthy community, attended good schools, got involved with music early on and now I am a concert pianist professionally.  After living in poorer parts of San Francisco after college, I discovered how fucked up the monetary system is.  Now my biggest passion, besides making games and piano, is to infiltrate and destroy our messed up financial system and replace it with something that doesn't fuck over 90% of the world's people.

Chrono Trigger!

Chrono Trigger! ;D

[Update:IN-GAME now:]

Just finished drawing the final boss and his room.   Now I just gotta script the fight:

Update:
IN-GAME now:

Spoiler: ShowHide

Suggestions for the fight mechanics / help is very welcome!

Couldn't get it much darker because the compression artifacts of JPEG started to come out of the white.

[Rich in color, happy style]

The lightness is a quick fix sir, here ya go:

Rich in color, happy style

Spoiler: ShowHide

Bolder Outlines, Bleaker color, more serious style

Spoiler: ShowHide

Also you may want to save your files as PNG.  When you save as JPEG the compression creates visual artifacts that are very noticeable when close up.

To achieve this, I used a combination of 3 tools in Photoshop:

Image -> Adjustments ->
                                    Brightness/Contrast...
                                     Curves...
                                     Vibrance...
                                     

Seems like the script still isn't working. 

The AddSkill to Hotkey script no longer overwrites an item hotkey, but it seems to overwrite skills ...

for i in 1..10
if $game_player.skill_hotkeys[i%10] && $game_player.item_hotkeys[i%10] <= 0
$game_player.skill_hotkeys[i%10] = Skill_ID #Enter your skill ID here
break
end
end

I think it has something to do with the "<= 0" part only being applying to $game_player.item, and not the left side of the expression with $game_player.skill...

Alas , I don't know if it's the way that it's rearranging the lines when I paste it into the Script Call box.  I thought this would work but I get a syntax error:

for i in 1..10
if ($game_player.skill_hotkeys[i%10] <= 0) && ($game_player.item_hotkeys[i%10] <= 0)
$game_player.skill_hotkeys[i%10] = Skill_ID #Enter your skill ID here
break
end
end

Finishing up some of the final maps for my demo.  Thought this one looked pretty in the editor.

Spoiler: ShowHide

This script:

for i in 1..10
if ($game_player.skill_hotkeys[i%10] <= 0 && $game_player.item_hotkeys[i%10] <= 0)
$game_player.skill_hotkeys[i%10] = SKILL_ID
break
end
end

Is giving me a syntax error

AHH!!! FIXED IT!

Okay posting the correction at the top. YAY! My first script.. (well modification of a smarter person's script).

Just discovered something about this script,
it will overwrite a hotkey slot of there is an Item placed there instead of a skill.

Hmmmmmmm...

Would this work?

for i in 1..10
if ($game_player.skill_hotkeys[i%10] <= 0 && $game_player.item_hotkeys[i%10] <= 0)
$game_player.skill_hotkeys[i%10] = SKILL_ID
break
end
end

Not sure if this is the right syntax...

[%]

This is such an elegant solution,
man I need to take the time to learn how to script.  It's hard for me to *think* in the way that a scripter/programmer thinks.

I used to use Qbasic back in the day, and in that language I would have solved this as:

FOR i = 1 to 10
IF $game_player.skill_hotkeys[i] = 0 THEN
$game_player.skill_hotkeys[i] = Skill_ID
BREAK
END IF
NEXT i

The thing that has me confused, is in the second line of your script, you use [i%10]
The script works great, but I don't understand why it needs the modulus operator (%).  Why couldn't you just use this script:

for i in 1..10
if $game_player.skill_hotkeys[i] <= 0
$game_player.skill_hotkeys[i] = SKILL_ID
break
end
end

I'm sure the answer is simple; but like I said, my brain doesn't work like a programmer's.

[Skill]

This script will assign a skill_ID of your choice to a free hotkey (it won't overwrite any hotkeys that are already filled with skills)

This script call will assign a Skill to a hotkey:

for i in 1..10
if $game_player.skill_hotkeys[i%10] <= 0 
if $game_player.item_hotkeys[i%10] <= 0
$game_player.skill_hotkeys[i%10] = Skill_ID #Enter your Skill ID here
break
end
end
end

This script call will assign an Item to a hotkey:

for i in 1..10
if $game_player.skill_hotkeys[i%10] <= 0 
if $game_player.item_hotkeys[i%10] <= 0
$game_player.item_hotkeys[i%10] = Item_ID #Enter your Item ID here
break
end
end
end

Script by KK20 (edited by me.. yay)
Original Post:

I know how to assign a skill to a hotkey using this call:
$game_player.skill_hotkeys[Hotkey_Number] = Skill_ID

Is there a simple way to make it check all the hotkeys, find the first one that is free, and then assign a skill to that hotkey?

Was walking around in my game tonight and took a screeny that I really liked.  Demo will be ready in about 1-2 weeks. I'm so excited for people to try it out!

Spoiler: ShowHide

Thanks again sir! I will definitely put you in the credits of my game.  You have helped so much!

+1