Entertainment: Is this how you play music?!

Chapter 316 Nobody wants to be ridden to work by Brother Can.

"Ok?"

Li Can frowned, sensing that Henry's expression was not simple.

He seems to have misunderstood something.

"So, you mean game music is more difficult to create than film music?"

Henry's question made Li Can frown even more.

"Film and television music is indeed simpler than game music, but it's unlikely that it's simpler than game music. You can't think about it in a simplistic way. However, there are indeed stricter things to pay attention to. The thinking logic of linear and non-linear content is completely different."

"I understand."

Henry suddenly realized what was happening, and his expression became somewhat excited.

Li Can had no idea what Henry actually knew, but he seemed quite proud of himself.

"Li! Look at the work you're doing now!"

"OK."

Li Can had no doubts.

He nodded immediately and led Henry to another studio.

As Li Can said, game soundtracks are not as simple as just submitting music.

What Henry is seeing now is precisely the complexity of the situation.

The scene created for the test was the Spider Cave.

As the chapter begins, the entire Spider Cave-themed background music will play.

The main purpose of this background music is to create atmosphere, so the presence of the melody should be suppressed, and the effect should be created as much as possible with silvery sound effects.

But once they arrived at the manor, the background music from Ruoxian Nunnery was played again.

At this point, the melody becomes the most important element.

When exploring the Spider Cave, the background music is again themed around the Spider Cave. When you arrive at the "Wedding Room" scene, the background music melody of Ruoxian Nunnery will once again stand out.

It serves to enhance the emotional impact of the background music in the subsequent plot.

The entire event involved countless background music (BGM) changes.

This is the transition between scenes.

Ten thousand players can come up with ten thousand different tricks.

If some outrageous player were to explore the boundaries of different zones, with their left foot on the Spider Cave BGM playback zone and their right foot on the Ruoxian Temple BGM playback zone and not move, would they just get stuck, or would they play both of them at the same time?
Or the background music keeps switching back and forth, going in and out?
Even if Black Monkey is a linear game, as long as it is a game, there is a range of activities, and the process of playing it is completely non-linear in terms of music.

The optimization and handling of art scenes is much simpler, but the background music (BGM) aspect has a lot of problems.

Some poorly made indie games might actually make you dizzy from switching between two different background music tracks.

The solution to this problem has little to do with game optimization.

We need to optimize from the source of the music.

Set priorities and split the music at its root.

Henry could clearly see Li Can assigning coding tasks to the programmers.

"Set the priority. If the priority of the melody BGM of the Fairy Temple is set to the maximum, level 1, then slice it according to the musical mood transition interludes I marked. Set the priority of the interludes between melodies to 2."

"Drama clips and dialogues should be prioritized at 1.5, which is higher than the interlude but lower than the main theme."

"The background music for the Spider Cave theme has a priority of 1.8, which is higher than the interlude of the Ruoxian Nunnery, but lower than all other background music."

"The background music for Ruoxian Temple should be designed to be a straight-in fade-out. Yes, straight-in, not fade-out. The background music for the overall atmosphere of Pansidong should be designed to be a fade-in fade-out."

"The dialogue BGM variant is set to fade-in and fade-out, with an active command inserted so that it fades out again when the player chooses to skip it."

"Don't set the compatibility and reaction range yet, but leave it empty. This is so that you can make fine adjustments during the switching process after the CG is finalized."

The programmer worked very quickly.

Writing such a small instruction is not difficult and can be done almost instantly.

We can discuss further optimization and rectification later; what we need now is to examine the results.

"Henry, want to give it a try?"

Li Can's words immediately piqued Henry's interest.

"Come on! Hurry up!"

Pick up the controller and start controlling the monkey as it walks through the unfinished, empty scene.

There are no monsters, but there are art scenes.

Even just walking around won't feel boring.

It will begin after the film ends.

As the monkey walked around the perimeter of the Spider Cave, a faint background music began to fade in.

It may not be very eye-catching, but it does add a lot to the artistic atmosphere of the Spider Cave at night.

There was no particularly noticeable music when I stepped into Pansiling.

However, the intermittent yet crisp and cool tone can gently knock on the door of the subconscious, adding a touch of coolness to the night of Pansiling. The plants passing by seem to have a faint color design of water vapor, and the combination of listening and listening makes people feel as if they are in the real scene.

After taking the first two steps, we entered the manor.

On the other side, the machine detected that the background music of Ruoxian'an Level 1 Priority had started playing.

Yes, straight to the point.

The iconic melody of Ruoxian'an begins as Henry steps into the manor and sees the signs inside.

The arrival of the melody line brought a look of amazement to Henry's eyes.

I never paid much attention to these details when playing games before. I never imagined that there were such profound intricacies involved.

This time we really made the right choice!

"."

Henry did not rush forward, but instead took a few steps back and left the area of ​​Ruoxian Temple.

Logically, at this point, we should switch to the Pansiling sound effect.

However, because the main theme of Ruoxian Temple has a very high priority, it did not stop after it started playing, but continued to play.

It wasn't until the interlude that the background music for the Pansiling sound effects faded out slowly.

"Oh my god! That's amazing!"

Henry became excited.

The design of the background music is right in front of me, and I am the first to experience it.

Although I only set foot in Ruoxian Nunnery.

However, due to the priority settings, the entire background music runs very smoothly, reading the instructions calmly and without any conflicts.

Because it ends very early, the melody is not long, but at least in this section, it is a fairly complete musical phrase without any sense of disjointedness.

It won't keep playing after you leave the scene; it will quickly be replaced by ambient music.

"In other words, if a player enters Ruoxian Temple to loot, and remains in the same scene for a long time, the background music and interlude of Ruoxian Temple will seamlessly connect and play the entire segment. Once a player takes action, the music will switch according to the player's different gameplay situation?"

"Correct."

Li Can nodded and chuckled softly.

"This is still an empty scene design. Once there are monsters and treasure chests, we also need to consider the battle music, the sound effects of opening the chests, and the issue of players switching between emotions and points of attention while playing."

"Sure enough, it's amazing, but also incredibly difficult. It's truly a challenge."

Henry's misunderstanding deepened.

In Henry's view

Movies, they play in a fixed, linear fashion.

You only need to consider the time value, create different music for different scenarios, and then fill in the blanks.

But what about games?

You must anticipate all possible player scenarios and design a complete music playback logic based on these completely dynamic gameplay actions without any linearity. Furthermore, you must consider compatibility and adaptability during playback transitions during the music production process itself.

For example, issues related to time value, beat, tonality, and mode.

Even when you get the keywords and start designing, you have to consider how to maintain differentiation while maintaining consistency in order to adapt to switching.

I watched this short ten-minute work process.

Henry was simply amazing.

It's a realm completely beyond the players' comprehension.

"Did you design it this way in 'Blood Hunter' as well?!"

"No, it's different. That thing is simpler than this one." Li Can shook his head.

"The music for boss battles doesn't need to be so complicated without any added design. It's somewhat similar to movie soundtracks, but it just needs to match the rhythm of the boss's attack frequency."

"Just go straight for the point. At worst, you can counter the CG or boss's moves at key moments. Generally speaking, the simplest design is to give a heavy hit when entering the battle, and a low-pitched boom is considered a high-level design."

"."

For a moment, Henry fell silent.

What players tend to overlook most is actually what most significantly impacts their gaming experience, and it's also what they invest the most effort in.

After observing the process in detail, Henry felt that he would have more perspectives when appreciating games in the future.

"Is this how game companies all operate?"

"Not necessarily. There are no small companies in the game industry that can do that."

After a moment's hesitation, Li Can spoke.

"Only large companies have the capability and understanding of game development to produce such games. Even if small companies have the understanding, they will scale back their efforts if they lack the capability. It's a rare opportunity."

"However, what we want to do is benchmark against AAA games. The important thing is always to do it first. It will not be perfect, but we must do it. In this way, we can create a model space for our own game industry in the future."

"."

Henry took a deep breath and suddenly felt a sense of anticipation for the black monkey.

Just as Li Can said.

Often, what's missing is the first step – opening up new avenues. If the first step is well-executed, it will definitely have a significant impact on the subsequent industry.

After playing the game, Henry naturally became quite dissatisfied with some aspects of it.

Especially the characters' appearance.

The characters used to be quite good-looking, but Henry always felt that the clearer the graphics of the game, the uglier the characters seemed to be. Considering the casting situation of Lighthouse Films in recent years, he felt that this was a very bad sign.

Making movies is one thing, that's work.

We can't be careless when it comes to the game.

"Li, keep going!"

Henry patted Li Can on the shoulder.

"If I have the chance, I'll definitely help you spread the word. There's nothing here that can't be said, right?"

"Huh? No."

Li Can was stunned.

Suddenly, I had a bad feeling.

I had a feeling that Henry had misunderstood something, but upon closer reflection, it was probably a cultural difference.

Besides, the tour that Henry was shown around didn't involve any secrets, so it didn't matter whether he told anyone or not.

He immediately smiled.

"There's nothing to hide, you can say anything."

"okay."

Having received permission, Henry gave an OK sign.

Being able to witness the production of such a large-scale project is something that gamers like Henry really want to share.

Amazing game!
"Li, are you also working on Sony's 'Eternal Origin'? When will that be released?"

"That's fast, it'll be by the end of this year, the production speed is very fast."

"So fast? Were you already finished making it when you accepted the order?"

"It wasn't finished yet, but the basic content was almost done, and the sound effects were also in place. We were basically just filling in the CG and music effects and testing for bugs."

Li Can's answer filled Henry with anticipation.

But this one sentence made Old Yang's pupils dilate in shock!
Old Yang knows a lot about the game-themed music concert that Li Can is preparing.

Naturally, it is known that there are works from "Eternal Origin".

I also know that because of that background music, the game development team had to work overtime to further expand and enrich the gameplay, fill in the world view and character structure, and even upgrade the CG and modeling!

If.

In Lao Yang's view, making such a decision after obtaining the background music during the early and middle stages of production was very reasonable.

However, if this situation occurs towards the end of production...
That's absolutely outrageous!

In fact.

There were some temporary changes at the end of the period.

However, such examples are quite rare within the industry as a whole.

This change will only be made if the entire production team feels that the background music is too over-the-top!
In other words.

This is the kind of work that wiped out the entire production team.

"!!"

With Henry present, Old Yang didn't ask any questions.

But I was utterly shocked.

Such events require a combination of factors.

The game's expandability, the producer's approval, and the quality of the accompanying artwork all contribute to its overall enhancement.

They can be selected in the final stages.

Old Yang could even predict it.

This includes expanding both the text and the story.

People won't equip an entire computer just for one piece of hardware.

But what if this accessory is a free 5090 given to you by someone else, and you have the means and ability to configure other parts?
Then we definitely can't let a small engine pull a big cart; we must make the most of this free 5090!
"Working with Brother Chan is very stressful."

Old Yang sighed.

He immediately let out a long sigh.

Henry was taken aback by this reaction, and even somewhat confused.

Shouldn't it be easy to work with a producer like Li Can?

Henry immediately inquired about it.

"Huh? Why do you say that?"

Old Yang was silent for a moment, then began to complain.

"We're all in the game industry, and nobody wants people to say that our game is like 'Brother Can riding XX to work,' right?"

"Are you talking about that company in France? The graphic designers and musicians ride to work with everyone else?"

Henry's expression immediately became tense.

"I didn't! I absolutely didn't, this has nothing to do with me."

Old Yang waved repeatedly and chuckled.

He swore that he was not sarcastic or weird at all.

But then the conversation shifted slightly.

"However, you really have to be careful about this when working with Brother Can. If you really poop in other places, you might actually have to be ridden to work."

Speaking of it.

Old Yang has a far-sighted perspective.

After the initial shock, a strong sense of understanding welled up within me.

Since they were all subjected to the same intensity by Li Can, their feelings were naturally the same.

The development team behind Sony's "Eternal Origin" must feel the same way, not wanting to be ridden to work by Li Can.

"Can I say all of these things, Li?"

"Oh? Whatever, there's nothing to hide."

Li Can paused for a moment, then nodded.

"Oh right, let's not talk about that French company."

"No, don't worry!"

Henry laughed heartily, eager to try.

They can't wait to go back to China and immediately start appearing on variety shows to reveal all the gossip.

(End of this chapter)