Adding/Specifying Custom Music for Civ3

[Colonel Kraken]

Now get a great tutorial in this thread!

There was a question about this in the main C&C forum a little while back, so I thought I would list the information here so that it doesn't get lost in the wild blue yonder.

This is the information gathered from that thread:


Firaxis uses MP3s. Make sure the Bit Rate is the same between your songs and the Firaxis Songs. 128kbps @ 44KHz. Make sure that the original bit is checked on the custom MP3 (as is the case with the Firaxis files), so the files have an identical sampling rate to the original bit set.

You can use a "Music.txt" file in the "Text" folder of your scenario to play only the music files you want to have played. However, some caveats:

First, the Music.txt file is not era specific, nor culture group specific. Basically, it plays each mp3 in the file once, then repeats. It does not play them in random order but in the order listed in Music.txt.

Second, from Mike B. of Firaxis (in two e-mails to Colonel Kraken):

I had nothing to do with the implementation of the music nor the music.txt file for scenarios. However, looking at the code, it appears that the music.txt file is used as a list of music files to play in a scenario. When the end of the list is reached, the list loops. So it appears that you could use music.txt to play only a specific list of music files.

This will, however, only work for scenarios because it doesn't appear that music.txt is loaded for default games.

As far as I know, all of the music files in the civ3/ptw/c3c sounds folders are used at some point during the game (in the case of duplicates, the files from later expansions are used). [snip]

I believe that when you are in the Ancient era, the game uses what we termed "build music." It uses several different files to build the soundtrack for the era. Once you finish the Ancient era, the game switches to standard music playback. The music.txt file only controls the build music. So, presumably, once you finish the Ancient era, music.txt is no longer used. [snip]
__________________
Mike Breitkreutz
Programmer
FIRAXIS Games

You can use music files from Firaxis. These are the files I've identified with Conquests. If you know of more Firaxis MP3 files, please let me know. These are the references you would use in the Music.txt file.

Misc\ModernFull.mp3
Misc\MistressWinter.MP3
Misc\MiddleEastern.MP3
Misc\NightengaleFull.MP3
Misc\Greco Roman.mp3
Ancient Music\AncME.mp3
Ancient Music\AncGR.mp3
Ancient Music\AncEC.mp3
Ancient Music\AncNA.mp3
ancient\AncNAfull.mp3
Ancient Music\AncOR.mp3
ancient\AncORfull.mp3
Middle Ages\MidGRFull.MP3
Middle Ages\MidMEFull.MP3
Middle Ages\MidECFull.MP3
Middle Ages\MidNAFull.MP3
Middle Ages\MidORFull.mp3
IndModern\IndGRFull.mp3
IndModern\IndECFull.mp3
IndModern\IndMEFull.mp3
IndModern\IndORFull.mp3
IndModern\SmashFull.mp3
IndModern\StarsFull.mp3
Japanese\Japanese1.mp3
Japanese\Japanese2.mp3
Mesoamerica\MesoAmerican1.MP3
Mesoamerica\MesoAmerican2.MP3

If you plan to use your own music: (paraphrasing GIDustin)

The Music.txt file will NOT look for the MP3 files in the Scenario Search Path (at least they don't for the MTG mod). I had to put my music files in "Infogrames...\Civilization III\Sounds\build\mtg\Blah.mp3". In the Music.txt I have "mtg\blah.mp3". The sounds I found for the MTG mod only sound good when each is repeated separately from the others, so I had to choose one of them and have it be the only one.


I don't know if all this information is 100% accurate, but it's a good start. If anyone has additional information, please let me know.

Special thanks goes out to GIDustin who provided much of the information and to Mike B. of Firaxis who was kind enough to answer my pesky e-mails on the subject.

--CK

 

[El Justo]

thank you CK for your advice about this stuff. i've successfully implemented it into a scenario i'm working on. just a little tip for those who wish to use custom mp3 files:

shareaza.com is an excellent site to obtain the appropriate mp3 files for your custom music.

i've also noticed a particular pattern that civ3c uses in the industrial era for the music que. i don't have it in front of me but i'd be happy to post it later

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

I have some very pertinent info to add to this, that will allow implementation of custom music in even vanilla or PTW scenarios.

First step, as with adding custom graphics or text, is to make a folder with the same name as the scenario .bic/bix/biq file (i.e. my Final Fantasy mod is called Final Fantasy.biq, so I also have a folder called Final Fantasy) Inside that folder, create a folder called Music, and in the Music folder create a folder called build.

Now the next part is kinda tricky, so pay close attention:

In the Build Folder, create three sub-folders (four for Conquests mods). These four folders are:

Ancient, Middle Ages, IndModern, and for Conquests only, MISC

Here's the music breakdown:

In the Ancient folder, you can put 5 files, which must be in the MP3 format specified in the first post. To get these songs to play instead of the default Civ III muzak, you must give the files these names:

AncECFull.mp3: This song is played first if you've chosen a European civ
AncGRFull.mp3: This song is played first if you've picked Greece, Byzantium, Rome, Carthage or Egypt.
AncMEFull.mp3: This song is played first if you've picked any of the Mid-Eastern civs
AncORFull.mp3: This song is played first if you've picked one of the Asian Civs
AncNAFull.mp3: This song is played first if you've picked one of the American Civs.

The Middle Ages folder is similar, but the songs that go in there are thus:

MidECFull.mp3: This song is first played for Euro Civs when entering the Middle Ages
MidGRFull.mp3: First Middle Ages song for the Greeks
MidMEFull.mp3: First Middle Ages song for the Mid-Eastern Civs.
MidORFull.mp3: First Middle Ages song for the Asians.
MidNAFull.mp3: First Middle Ages song for the Americans

The IndModern folder is different, since there are 7 songs in this folder; four industrial era and three modern.

The industrial songs are:
IndECFull.mp3: First played for European and American civs reacing the industiral age.
IndGRFull.mp3: First played for Mediterranean civs reaching the industrial age.
IndMEFull.mp3: First played for Mid-Eastern Civs reaching the industrial age.
IndORFull.mp3: First played for Asian Civs reaching the industrial age.

The Modern Songs are:
Techno MixFull.mp3: First song played for EVERYONE when reaching the modern era, song is also played at the end, when the game is finally won or lost.
SmashFull.mp3: another modern era song
StarsFull.mp3: The last modern song for Vanilla and PTW

For Conquests, the MISC folder contains two songs that are played in the modern era (at least that I have been able to confirm) when playing the epic game or scenarios made from the epic game. These songs are:

ModernFull.mp3
NightengaleFull.mp3

Just like with graphics and text, the game will use the files in the scenario's sounds folder to override the default music. So if, say you wanted the Native americans to start the game with some bad@$$ techno mix you came up with, just make sure that the file is an MP3 with the sampling rate of 128kbps @ 44KHz, and name it AncNAFull.mp3, and put it in the Ancient folder. It's that easy!

I really hope this helped out.

 

[Colonel Kraken]

Hey, thanks for that great update, Hikaro!

 

[Eetu Pellonpää]

I had to name the "music" folder as "sounds", in order to make my customized playlist work... I'm playing with C3C from Atari's 3 game boxset. Thanks for your great advices!

 

[estrongblade]

I know this is old - but it's awesome and very helpful - thank you for posting it all, guys!

 

[WilliamOfOrange]

Yes indeed, certainly saved me having to search for it.

 

[WilliamOfOrange]

Actually, I have a question.

If I don't really have many long music clips to use and I don't feel like making them era specific would I use the method outlined in this thread, or should I go for the method here ? It seems to me from looking at the Conquests scenarios, there is a music.txt file and it just lists certain music to be played throughout the entire game regardless of eras. Is that correct?

MSTK's excellent tutorial is for era-specific, but can I used the Colonel's method if I only want culture specific, but not era specific, or should I use MSTK's for those purposes?

 

[estrongblade]

Sorry, doubled up and couldn't delete this.

 

[estrongblade]

OK, I will share some of the problems I have had with the SOE music, and what I've discovered. All discoveries are for Civ 3 conquests, but discuss aspects of the music files in vanilla as well.

First and foremost - If the music file is off, the game WILL crash to desktop with no warning and no error message. Simply put, if you change out music and your game crashes, you will instantly know it's the music. I suggest that you make no other changes for as long as you are playing with the music.

The music in the scenarios you are refering to are specific to the scenarios named. I believe they will play throughout those scenarios. You can refer to the tutorials to see how to do that. I noticed that all of the conquest scenario music text files are very short, with no more than 7 songs in any of them, and they are ALL songs that are already in the main game somewhere.

Contrary to what has been said about 128 bit rates and 44100 frequency, I have discovered numerous differences in both by looking closely at ALL of the music clips in every folder that I have. The Civ 3 vanilla folders for music contain wav files for the xxx(a-i) music, with mp3 xxxFull music files at 128 kbs and 44100 frequency and 11 to 1 compression.

The wav files are still at 44100, but the bit rate is 16 because they are wav files with 1 to 1 compression. You can check all of this yourself by going into the vanilla civ 3 sounds/build/ancient folder and putting you cursor over any of the files inside of it.

This means one must be VERY careful with what one puts INSIDE of any given custom music folder. To not do so is to crash your game. My suggestion, if you choose to change out civ 3c era music, is to match the music you are trying to put in with the numbers and names in the existing file, using a converter if necessary. Rename them as in the folder and enjoy.

Make sure the wav file change outs are short - the longest ones I found were 19 seconds, with all the rest at between 5-7 seconds. They also lead into the full songs. I am not sure if they are crossfaded or not. Still working on that.

I am still working on song change outs with the music.txt and musiclist.text files that came with the SOE biq when I got it. It works with the mod, but when I tried to change out some songs, it crashed hard. I discovered all the stuff about bitrates, etc by reading these tutorials and looking very carefully at every file in ALL of the music folders. I believe that my crashes may be related to length of file or undiscovered errors.

I still do not know how to change out the music using the two music text files, as even when I matched bit rate and mhz, the game still crashed. Aside from what I mentioned above, this could be as a result of a bad file, so I am changing and testing each song one at a time. I shall publish my results when I have finished, but that may be a little while because I'm up to my neck in civilopedia, script and pedcon work right now.

If you discover anything in your own change outs, I'd appreciate your posting anything that works here. I have a good # of files that I want to change in order to better balance the music in SOE, and so could use information on discoveries that worked implementing the music.text and musiclist.text method. The tiny details are the ones that are getting by me - I know all of the basics.

I'm at a bit of a disadvantage though, because there are a great number of songs in SOE (21 in the music.text alone) and I am not sure if the number of files has anything to do with the crashes. I am trying NOT to cut the amount of songs if I can help it.

Thx for anything that finds it's way here.

Cya!

 

[Xixcaliss]

Hello Ck,

how can i get this file??

(ancient\AncNAfull.mp3)

 

[Logitech]

I believe that when you are in the Ancient era, the game uses what we termed "build music." It uses several different files to build the soundtrack for the era. Once you finish the Ancient era, the game switches to standard music playback. The music.txt file only controls the build music. So, presumably, once you finish the Ancient era, music.txt is no longer used. [snip]
__________________
Mike Breitkreutz
Programmer
FIRAXIS Games

I just did a test for that in DEBUG mode w/ a single MP3 in the music.txt, and advancing to the next era only started the MP3 over again and did not revert to standard music. Sorry to dig up an old thread but I though this is worth mentioning.

 

[estrongblade]

Dude! Where were you two years ago?? I needed you then!! LOL!

Unfortunately, the SOE project is on hold, and has been for some time. I was never successful in changing out the music and have now been away from it for so long that I don't even remember how I might have applied your information. Oh, well - life moves ever on.

Perhaps when the SOE project resumes we'll blow the dust off of the old music files and fit your comment into the puzzle somehow. Meanwhile, I am sure that it is something that any modder changing out the music files would need to know. It's always the simple things that are over looked. Take care. Cya!

 

[Logitech]

Two years ago?...Let's see, I think I was following a ton of player stories, including OMTT, Spore was unknown to me, and I barely had experience on forums, not to mention civ modding.
I found this thread because I needed some insight as to how exactly the music.txt file could be used.
What I'm surprised to see is that Civ 3 has been out for years now, and only now people are making discoveries like the unit charm stuff and now this.

 

[estrongblade]

What I'm surprised to see is that Civ 3 has been out for years now, and only now people are making discoveries like the unit charm stuff and now this.

That's the thing about a game as complicated as C3 - once you get into it you can always find new stuff. I just blew the dust off of my MOD after about a year or so away, and I'm still discovering blunders that I need to re-do. Oh, well. I figure it's got at least another 10 years of play left in it, assuming I can find a computer that will play it that long with all these comp modifications and new system changes like win7 and all that other rot...time will tell - hope my nearly 6 year old desktop keeps going for another 10...

 

[Logitech]

Quite true. My comp is a few years old now, but I'll bet that with Civ 5 comming soon it will be too slow and such in a few years... 'tis the circle of technology.

EDIT: Yeah, sorry about getting off topic. This thread was pretty much dead though. You could have just said enough OT instead of the whole formal thing

 

[Blue Monkey]

Moderator Action: Enough OT. Post about custom music or post elsewhere.

 

[estrongblade]

Another interesting thing I discovered about sound bytes in civ 3 has to do with rates. Each of the rates have to fit within a certain parameter in order to be used individually. For example, if you replace the actual music in AncECFull.mp3, you not only have to keep the length of your replacement within a second or two of the length of the original, but the Byte rate itself must match. This definitely requires the use of a decent converter to pull off. I've also noticed that you can custom fit these individual files, but I have not delved deeply enough into sound programs to get many details. As a result, some of my music sound changes did not come out the way I'd hoped. If you have any additions to say about music, please let me know through PM.

<snip>

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

OK, I will share some of the problems I have had with the SOE music, and what I've discovered. All discoveries are for Civ 3 conquests, but discuss aspects of the music files in vanilla as well.

First and foremost - If the music file is off, the game WILL crash to desktop with no warning and no error message. Simply put, if you change out music and your game crashes, you will instantly know it's the music. I suggest that you make no other changes for as long as you are playing with the music.

...

Contrary to what has been said about 128 bit rates and 44100 frequency, I have discovered numerous differences in both by looking closely at ALL of the music clips in every folder that I have. The Civ 3 vanilla folders for music contain wav files for the xxx(a-i) music, with mp3 xxxFull music files at 128 kbs and 44100 frequency and 11 to 1 compression.

...

...

...

I am still working on song change outs with the music.txt and musiclist.text files that came with the SOE biq when I got it. It works with the mod, but when I tried to change out some songs, it crashed hard. I discovered all the stuff about bitrates, etc by reading these tutorials and looking very carefully at every file in ALL of the music folders. I believe that my crashes may be related to length of file or undiscovered errors.

I still do not know how to change out the music using the two music text files, as even when I matched bit rate and mhz, the game still crashed. Aside from what I mentioned above, this could be as a result of a bad file, so I am changing and testing each song one at a time. I shall publish my results when I have finished, but that may be a little while because I'm up to my neck in civilopedia, script and pedcon work right now.

If you discover anything in your own change outs, I'd appreciate your posting anything that works here. I have a good # of files that I want to change in order to better balance the music in SOE, and so could use information on discoveries that worked implementing the music.text and musiclist.text method. The tiny details are the ones that are getting by me - I know all of the basics.

...

Thx for anything that finds it's way here.

Cya!

Back on topic. Recently I started putting together my own music for a scenario I'm working on. I created a music.txt file, setup the "build" folder and populated it with my custom music within the Scenario folder. I too made sure that I was using 44100Hz with a 128 bit sampling rate. I too had unexplained crashes to the desktop as soon as a particular song was about to play. Deleting that song from the music.txt resulted in the next song causing the game to crash. I believe though that both of those music files have an issue with them that prevent the game from playing. None of my other custom music caused the game to crash.

Above you mention that the compression ratio for an mp3 must be 11 to 1. I wonder if that is the issue? I don't have a sophisticated enough music converter to check but that could be why we have been having these unexplained crashes with music mp3s that otherwise appear to be correctly setup.

 

[T-mun]

Never heard of that "11 to 1 compression", and I'm a sound technician. I believe that very few programs on the market can do that. Even the best programs, those that I use. I'll be searching for infos anyway, I'll post here if I can find anything.