Music in Destiny

by zumphry , Saturday, June 08, 2013, 17:09 (4002 days ago) @ uberfoop

Halo never had a completely random music selection system. It's all based on scripted triggers. Particular songs play in particular places and sync their parts and progress to particular events.

Interview

Martin O'Donnell: Well, what you're describing is the approach that film composers take when scoring movies. Of course making this happen during an interactive section of the game rather than just during the cut scenes does take some extra thought and work. I sat with the level designers and "spotted" the level as though it was a movie, with the knowledge that the music would have to be malleable rather than static. I had a system that would allow the game to trigger the start, the stop and a transition within each piece of music. I tend to write and produce linear music, pieces that have a beginning, middle and end. Sort of like almost all other music ever written perhaps? All I needed was a way to extend, contract or vary the middle section in real time.

Most pieces could be dissembled and remixed in such a way that would give me multiple, interchangeable loops that could be randomly recombined in order to keep the piece interesting as well as a variable length. I also would make alternative middle sections that could be transitioned to if the game called for such a change (i.e. less or more intense). If I needed a bigger contrast I could always start a new piece and have it either interrupt or cross fade with the piece already playing. Since I could have more than one piece playing at a time, I also made "stingers" that could just be laid over the top of another piece. It was important to experiment with all the possible combinations that the game might come up with to ensure no horrible, unintended clashes. Most of the time it worked pretty well.

(Plus here's a GDC talk from 2002, both found on Wikipedia, sorry)