Music.tbl
Revision information.....
- FSO Revision: 5307
music.tbl is a table file used by the FreeSpace game engine to define the music played during the game.
In FSO, this table can be further extended with any modular table with a filename ending with -mus (e.g. AF-mus.tbm, bp-mus.tbm, v_music-mus.tbm).
Description
music.tbl consists of two sections defined as follows:
- The soundtracks, which are music files intended to be played during a mission.
- The menu music, which are music files intended to be played for other purposes.
Comments (which are not read by the game engine) can be added at the start of a line or after any line containing formatting using a semicolon (;).
-mus.tbm modular tables use the exact same formatting as music.tbl.
Soundtrack
Each individual soundtrack should start with #SoundTrack Start and end with #SoundTrack End.
$Soundtrack Name:
$Soundtrack Name: is immediately followed by the name of the soundtrack. This primarily affects how the soundtrack is referred to in FRED as well as its variants. The name of the soundtrack can be prefixed with a number to keep listings organised, such as:
$Soundtrack Name: 1: Genesis
Flags
The following flags can be added in additional lines after $Soundtrack Name: in modular tables.
+nocreate
This flag should be added if the soundtrack is intended to completely overwrite an existing soundtrack.
+Cycle: FS1
This cycles the NRML and BTTL tracks the FS1 way, instead of the FS2 way.
+Allied Arrival Overlay: NO
This allows the Allied Arrival track to play on its own, as it did in FS1.
$Name:
For this section, refer to the code for FS2_Amb_A01.wav, as follows:
$Name: FS2_Amb_A01.wav 25.0 105840 ; * Ambience
The code above can be explained using the following table:
| $Name: (required) | Filename | Number of measures (m) | Samples per measure (s) | Comments (optional) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
$Name: |
FS2_Amb_A01.wav |
25.0 |
105840 |
; * Ambience
|
$Name:
The individual music segments in a soundtrack is defined using at least 12 lines, all beginning with $Name:. The FreeSpace engine parses and plays the audio file referenced in each line in the following order:
| Order | Situation | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ambience | Normal track—plays when nothing is happening or units are out of combat range |
| 2 | Allied Arrival during Ambience | Plays when a friendly unit arrives while Ambience is playing |
| 3 | Enemy Arrival during Ambience | Plays when a hostile unit arrives while Ambience is playing |
| 4 | Battle 1 | Battle track 1—plays when units are in combat range; usually segues into Battle 2 |
| 5 | Battle 2 | Battle track 2—plays when units are in combat range; usually segues into Battle 3 |
| 6 | Battle 3 | Battle track 3—plays when units are in combat range; usually segues into Battle 1 |
| 7 | Allied Arrival during Battle | Plays when a friendly unit arrives while any Battle track is playing |
| 8 | Enemy Arrival during Battle | Plays when a hostile unit arrives while any Battle track is playing |
| 9 | Victory 1 | Plays when a goal is completed |
| 10 | Victory 2 | Plays when all goals are completed and there are absolutely no hostile units present; is only called once |
| 11 | Goal Failed | Plays when the primary goals of a mission are failed; does not appear to be called in-game |
| 12 | Player Dies | Plays when the player is killed and goes to the death screen |
- The following lines can be added.
| Order | Situation | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 13 | Ambience 2 | Normal track—if Ambience 3 is defined, usually segues into it, otherwise segues into Ambience |
| 14 | Ambience 3 | Normal track—usually segues into Ambience |
The order and situation of the 12 lines cannot be changed and are required in order for the engine to parse the audio files in the correct situations. If there is no audio file available for any of the situations (such as Battle 3, for instance), a placeholder line denoting an empty track should still be included, like so:
... $Name: FS2_Btl_A02.wav 27.8 81415 ; * Battle 2 $Name: silence.wav 0.0 0 ; * Battle 3 $Name: FS2_AArv_A01.wav 1.8 105840 ; * Allied Arrival during Battle ...
Filename
The filename of the audio file must also include its file extension. FS1 and FS2 only support the playback of Waveform Audio (.wav) files; FSO supports the playback of .wav and OGG vorbis (.ogg) files.
Measures and Samples per Measure
The FreeSpace engine's dynamic music capabilities are defined using the number of measures (m) and samples per measure (s). Using m, the engine parses the audio track by dividing it into individual parts, called measures; if an event happens that would change the music being played, the game will play the current audio track until the end of the current measure, whereupon it segues into the correct audio track via a built-in crossfade. The length of the measures is defined using s, which is the number of samples in a measure.
m is user-defined and can be set to a decimal point for greater fine-tuning.
s is calculated using the following formula:
s = 2 × sample rate (hertz) × total audio length (seconds; up to 3 decimal places) ÷ m
Depending on the m and s values declared, the game may only play a portion of the actual audio file or, if the values result in it attempting to play the audio file beyond its actual length, playing nothing for a period of time after it finishes playing the actual audio file.
In the case of FS2_Amb_A01.wav, it is defined in music.tbl as an audio track that has 25 m and 105,840 s, so even though the file has an actual audio length of 62.556 seconds, the engine only ever parses the first 60 seconds of the audio file as its total audio length (hence omitting the last 2.556 seconds), split into 25 measures. This is because a reversal of the above calculation for s results in:
105,840 (s) × 25 (m) ÷ 22,050 (hertz) ÷ 2 = 60.000 seconds
The length of the measures in the audio track cannot be individually adjusted by any means—s applies to all the measures in the audio file with no exceptions.
Alternate Calculation Method
If defining m and s is too time-consuming, the following formulae can be used to still make use of the FreeSpace engine's dynamic music capabilities, and would result in a maximum of 2 seconds' silence (since each measure would be 2 seconds long):
m = audio file length (seconds; up to 3 decimal places) ÷ 2 s = 4 × sample rate (hertz)
As an example, if we use the above alternate formulae with the actual audio length of FS2_Amb_A01.wav, we get the following:
m = 62.556 seconds ÷ 2 = 31.278 s = 4 × 22,050 (hertz) = 88,200
m would be rounded to the nearest decimal point. Hence, we would input the following as the alternate length for FS2_Amb_A01.wav in music.tbl:
$Name: FS2_Amb_A01.wav 31.3 88200 ; * Ambience
Alternate Parsing Method
FSO includes an alternate way to parse individual tracks.
Instead of using $Name:, $String can be used, with the String syntax being the situation reference, such as:
$Normal 1: FS2_Amb_A01.ogg 31.3 88200 ; * Ambience
Note that this system follows a different situation order from parsing $Name:, and it also cannot be changed under any circumstances. The situation order for parsing $String:, as well as the corresponding $String: to use for each situation, is as follows:
| Order | Situation | $String: to Use |
Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ambience | $Normal 1: |
Normal track—plays when nothing is happening or units are out of combat range; usually segues into Ambience 2 |
| 2 | Ambience 2 | $Normal 2: |
Normal track—plays when nothing is happening or units are out of combat range; usually segues into Ambience 3 |
| 3 | Ambience 3 | $Normal 3: |
Normal track—plays when nothing is happening or units are out of combat range; usually segues into Ambience |
| 4 | Allied Arrival during Ambience | $Ally arrival 1: |
Plays when a friendly unit arrives while any Ambience track is playing |
| 5 | Allied Arrival during Battle | $Ally arrival 2: |
Plays when a friendly unit arrives while any Battle track is playing |
| 6 | Enemy Arrival during Ambience | $Enemy arrival 1: |
Plays when a friendly unit arrives while any Ambience track is playing |
| 7 | Enemy Arrival during Battle | $Enemy arrival 2: |
Plays when a friendly unit arrives while any Battle track is playing |
| 8 | Battle 1 | $Battle 1: |
Battle track 1—plays when units are in combat range; usually segues into Battle 2 |
| 9 | Battle 2 | $Battle 2: |
Battle track 2—plays when units are in combat range; usually segues into Battle 3 |
| 10 | Battle 3 | $Battle 3: |
Battle track 3—plays when units are in combat range; usually segues into Battle 1 |
| 11 | Goal Failed | $Failure 1: |
Plays when the primary goals of a mission are failed |
| 12 | Victory 1 | $Victory 1: |
Plays when a goal is completed |
| 13 | Victory 2 | $Victory 2: |
Plays when all goals are completed and there are absolutely no hostile units present; is only called once |
| 14 | Player Dies | $Dead 1: |
Plays when the player is killed and goes to the death screen |
Menu Music
All menu music tracks are defined in the lines within one instance of #Menu Music Start and #Menu Music End. Up to 50 menu music tracks can be defined across all .tbl and -mus.tbm files being referenced.
Each menu music track must have the following 2 lines in order:
$Name:$Filename:
For the following subsections, refer to the code used to call FS2_Brief_01.wav in-game, which is:
$Name: Brief1 $Filename: FS2_Brief_01.wav ; briefing music 1
$Name:
The first line always starts with $Name:, followed by the name of the audio track, which is mainly referred to in FRED and its variants.
$Name: Brief1
- The following flag can be added after
$Name:in modular tables:
+nocreate
This flag should be added if the track is intended to completely overwrite an existing track.$Filename:
The last line starts with $Filename:, followed by the file name of the audio track.
$Filename: FS2_Brief_01.wav ; briefing music 1
Format Sample
The following is a heavily truncated version of music.tbl located within Root_FS2.vp.
; ; music.tbl ; ; Specifies which .wav files to use for the different sections of event-driven sound-tracks ; ; format: $Name: filename.wav num_measures (samples_per_measure) ; #SoundTrack Start ; SoundTrack 0 $Soundtrack Name: 1: Genesis $Name: FS2_Amb_A01.wav 25.0 105840 ; * Ambience $Name: FS2_AArv_A01.wav 1.8 105840 ; * Allied Arrival during Normal $Name: FS2_Arv_B01.wav 3.8 81415 ; * Enemy Arrival during Normal $Name: FS2_Btl_A01.wav 25.8 66150 ; * Battle 1 $Name: FS2_Btl_A02.wav 27.8 81415 ; * Battle 2 $Name: FS2_Btl_A03.wav 39.8 81415 ; * Battle 3 $Name: FS2_AArv_A01.wav 1.8 105840 ; * Allied Arrival during Battle $Name: FS2_Arv_B02.wav 3.8 81415 ; * Enemy Arrival during Battle $Name: FS2_Vict_A01.wav 2.8 52920 ; * Victory 1 ( goal completed ) $Name: FS2_Vict_A02.wav 30.8 52920 ; * Victory 2 ( all enemies dead, goals completed ) $Name: FS2_Dth_A01.wav 23.8 132300 ; * Goal Failed $Name: FS2_Dth_A01.wav 23.8 132300 ; * Player dies #SoundTrack End ; End Soundtrack 0 ; #SoundTrack Start ; SoundTrack 1 $Soundtrack Name: 2: Exodus $Name: FS2_Amb_B01.wav 17.0 132300 ; * Ambience $Name: FS2_AArv_A01.wav 1.8 105840 ; * Allied Arrival during Normal $Name: FS2_Arv_B01.wav 4.8 81415 ; * Enemy Arrival during Normal $Name: FS2_Btl_B01.wav 39.8 132300 ; * Battle 1 $Name: FS2_Btl_B02.wav 23.8 75600 ; * Battle 2 $Name: FS2_Btl_B03.wav 31.8 75600 ; * Battle 3 $Name: FS2_AArv_A01.wav 1.8 105840 ; * Allied Arrival during Battle $Name: FS2_Arv_B04.wav 4.8 75600 ; * Enemy Arrival during Battle $Name: FS2_Vict_A01.wav 2.8 52920 ; * Victory 1 ( goal completed ) $Name: FS2_Vict_B02.wav 40.8 88200 ; * Victory 2 ( all enemies dead, goals completed ) $Name: FS2_Dth_A01.wav 23.8 132300 ; * Goal Failed $Name: FS2_Dth_A01.wav 23.8 132300 ; * Player dies #SoundTrack End ; End Soundtrack 1 ; #Menu Music Start $Name: Brief1 $Filename: FS2_Brief_01.wav ; briefing music 1 $Name: Brief2 $Filename: FS2_Brief_02.wav ; briefing music 2 $Name: Brief3 $Filename: FS2_Brief_03.wav ; briefing music 3 #Menu Music End
