FMOD Logistics and Testing
Using Horizontal-Resequencing
Unlike vertical re-orchestration, horizontal re-sequencing was useful for smoothly transitioning between significantly different pieces. Transition timelines were exceptionally helpful for this, allowing me to input pre-composed transitional pieces to suture separate tracks together in a natural way. This ability worked in tandem with the proximity adaptations, which added some ambient elements of the nearing area to the forest theme, to create a smooth transition between areas, with the piece fully transitioning to the next via a short “transitional ambience” that was bounced separately. This system works through a global event which features all the individual areas added as nested events in asynchronous playback, each using multiple transition and loop regions set with parameter conditions.
Transition timeline from Forest to Tomb
These transition timelines were also used in the forest theme to move from the standard theme to the solo piano variation at maximum rainfall. When composing the variation, I found the metronome didn’t allow me to use the full expression required to make a solo piano piece engaging, so I decided I would record this variation with heavy rubato. While this worked very well to fit the mood of torrential rain, it meant I could not simply use vertical re-orchestration as the versions were now desynchronised. The solution to this was to use many transition and destination markers at every chord change, meaning that as soon as the forestRain parameter hits its maximum value and the playhead meets a transition marker, the piece will crossfade slowly to the corresponding point in the other version.
Transition between "No Rain" and "Torrential Rain"
The final area in which these markers were useful was to transition between standard area themes and combat themes. Standard combat is initiated through the enemyProximity parameter, representative of the player’s proximity to threats, which slowly adds a tremolo string part and fades out the main underscore before transitioning to the combat theme for the respective area. However, as the time of the player’s exit from combat is uncertain, I composed a small exit motif for each combat theme that plays once enemyProximity is reset to one. For this, I made use of the quantisation feature of transition regions, meaning that as soon as the parameter tells the region to transition, the transition will be delayed until the next appropriate beat, ensuring the exit motif plays in time. One concern I had was that, once combat was exited, the playhead would always reset to the start of the area theme. This was a concern I removed by creating a system of eight destination markers throughout the piece that, due to eight separate transition regions I added with percentage chances, each had an equal chance of the playhead being transported to after combat (using a method suggested on this forum).
Transition between Ice area and Combat
FMOD Testing
The following videos showcase three test scenarios of theoretical player runs through the game, ensuring the music changes accordingly.
Test Run 1 (Fire)
Test Run 2 (Ice)
Test Run 3 (Tomb)