Importing Music

This page will outline the procedure for getting music from various file formats on your hard drive into the Music Browser in the editor, from where it can be used in your map.

Differences between File Formats

First of all, you have to know which music format you've used so you can use the proper process to import it into your map.

Before I start with the more complex stuff, I can tell you that CD audio files don't need to be imported into any Unreal package - they're read directly from the CD and played back while the game is playing.

To import music modules, you need to make sure the MOD meets to the audio quality demands that I posted above. After this, it's easy: you need to open up the music browser in UEd, go to File > Import... and select the MOD and hit open. After this, a popup appears, asking you for the package you want to import the MOD to. It's usually best to keep everything as it is and click OK to import the MOD. After this, don't forget to Save the imported music package. In the music browser, go to File > Save as... and choose OK. This will create a umx package containing your custom MOD in the music folder. All music files are to be stored in the Music folder. See Engine Directory Structure for more info.

The same rules are to be used when importing direct music files, like MID files.

If you want to import real audio files, like WAV, MP3 or AIFF, there's a problem: Unreal Engine games don't support this kind of format (except for Wheel of Time and the newer Unreal Engine games). I'll explain a little later how you can import music for games that use the newer Unreal Engine, like Unreal 2 & UT2003. First how to import real audio files for older Unreal games, like Unreal, UT & Deus Ex.

I've seen a lot of people asking for a way to import real audio files into a umx. And I've also noticed that a lot of them have imported the audio file as wav into MPT (ModPlug Tracker), but upon playback in the game, the track looped back after the first 30 seconds or so which was too soon, seeing their audio files were a lot longer. So after a bit experimentation, I (The Alien) have found a way to solve this problem, though I doubt that I'm the first one to find this out. Anyway, I've written a tute on it, which you can find [here]. The trick to making the music play all the way to the end and then loop back to the beginning is also included.

As I said before, the newer generation of the Unreal Engine supports real audio, but only when used in the Ogg Vorbis format. The pros about this format are that companies don't need to pay money to aquire an MP3 license and the high compression rate (almost as high or higher than that of MP3). It has been confirmed that the Unreal Engine galaxy sound system isn't used anymore. Furthermore, word is that the new sound system doesn't support music modules at all, but this isn't 100% certain. So it could even be possible that we won't even see the umx packages in UT2003 and U2...

Anyway, there are not many ogg converters available just yet. The only one I know of is the plugin for winamp, which you can get [here]. You can use this to convert other real audio to ogg files and use them in your maps. As time passes, the ogg vorbis format will become more and more popular, so expect to see ogg converters for other audio players to become available. You can go to www.vorbis.com to find links and direct downloads of Ogg Vorbis software, as well as all the information you could possibly want on this type of music format.

Related Topics

Category Mapping
Category Tutorial

I hate to say it, but his link to his tute on making the song repeat in maps is missing. I'm trying to do this, but am having a hard time finding anything on this topic.

So I went looking, and I just found some good tutorials

first off to get set up:

http://www.planetdeusex.com/heliowalton/Tutorial-Mp3-to-Umx.htm

Be sure to get modplug player and tracker, or tracker won't play your stuff. Oh, and just get the song to .it format, don't put it in a map yet.

Now to get your music to loop in a map:

http://www.bulldozer.utjag.co.uk/WaveToUMX.htm but had to do it differently. Where it says

Now, just like you would select any text in a textarea, select all 3 chars from the Patern Speed and use "CTRL C" to copy it to clipboard.
From the Patern Numbers, now select the next patern, being the Patern 1.
Select again that same area, that this time is empty, be carefull to select the entire "Effect" area, and Use "CTRL V" to paste the chars you've copied earlier from patern 0.

That didn't work for me. The song would only play once...

So I copied the entire section for both channels, instead of just the pattern speed, then went to pattern 1, and pasted it across both channels, so that they look identical to the first line in pattern 0. The song loops indefinitely now.

Before you do all that, though, in modplug tracker, you can take a wav file and enhance it a lot with tracker, go to general tab, and in effects, check bass expansion, surround, agc, and in resample put it to high quality. Now go to the bottom, and under effect plugins, click on select plugin... and under DirectX Media Audio Effets, check on ParamEq, click okay, then under Channels one and two (or more?) in the effect: box, change to FX1: ParamEq, and under effects plugin, over to the right, chose Dry mix. Then set it to loop by following the directions above...

{BL}Ticklemonster