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digitalmars.D - GuitarHero/RockBand fans... side project anyone?

reply Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> writes:
So, I'm a massive fan of music games. I'll shamefully admit that I was
tragically addicted to Dance Dance Revolution about 10 years ago. Recently,
it's Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

I quite like the band ensemble games, they're good party games, and great
rhythm practise that's actually applicable to real instrument skills too.

The problem is though, that Neversoft and Harmonix completely fucked up the
GH and RB franchises. Licensing problems, fragmented tracklists. It's
annoying that all the songs you want to play are spread across literally 10
or so different games, and you need to constantly change disc's if you want
to play the songs you like.

I've been meaning to kick off a guitar hero clone since GH2 came out. I
started one years ago as a fork of my Guitar Hero song editor for PS2, and
I added support for drums before GH4 or RB were conceived, but then when
they announced those games they stole my thunder and it went into
hibernation.

I'm very keen to resurrect the project (well, start a new one, with clean
code, in D).
Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would be interested
in joining a side project like this? It's a lot more motivating, and much
more fun to work in a small team.

It's an interesting union of skills; rendering, audio processing,
super-low-latency synchronisation, mini and communications processing,
animation, UI and presentation.

I have done all this stuff commercially, so I can act as a sort of project
lead of people are interested, but haven't tried to write that sort of
software before.

It also seems like a good excuse to kick off a fairly large scale and
performance intensive D project, which I like to do from time to time.
Dec 12 2013
next sibling parent reply "Rikki Cattermole" <alphaglosined gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 10:43:24 UTC, Manu wrote:

 So, I'm a massive fan of music games. I'll shamefully admit 
 that I was
 tragically addicted to Dance Dance Revolution about 10 years 
 ago. Recently,
 it's Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

 I quite like the band ensemble games, they're good party games, 
 and great
 rhythm practise that's actually applicable to real instrument 
 skills too.

 The problem is though, that Neversoft and Harmonix completely 
 fucked up the
 GH and RB franchises. Licensing problems, fragmented 
 tracklists. It's
 annoying that all the songs you want to play are spread across 
 literally 10
 or so different games, and you need to constantly change disc's 
 if you want
 to play the songs you like.

 I've been meaning to kick off a guitar hero clone since GH2 
 came out. I
 started one years ago as a fork of my Guitar Hero song editor 
 for PS2, and
 I added support for drums before GH4 or RB were conceived, but 
 then when
 they announced those games they stole my thunder and it went 
 into
 hibernation.

 I'm very keen to resurrect the project (well, start a new one, 
 with clean
 code, in D).
 Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would be 
 interested
 in joining a side project like this? It's a lot more 
 motivating, and much
 more fun to work in a small team.

 It's an interesting union of skills; rendering, audio 
 processing,
 super-low-latency synchronisation, mini and communications 
 processing,
 animation, UI and presentation.

 I have done all this stuff commercially, so I can act as a sort 
 of project
 lead of people are interested, but haven't tried to write that 
 sort of
 software before.

 It also seems like a good excuse to kick off a fairly large 
 scale and
 performance intensive D project, which I like to do from time 
 to time.


I would be happy to help with the gui side of thing just to get 
DOOGLE more inline with what is required from it. Assuming DOOGLE 
is ok for it.
It is designed to work on top of games so it is perfect for this 
type of thing I'm just worried of its state and being ready.
Dec 12 2013
next sibling parent reply Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> writes:
On 12 December 2013 21:14, Rikki Cattermole <alphaglosined gmail.com> wrote:


 On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 10:43:24 UTC, Manu wrote:


 So, I'm a massive fan of music games. I'll shamefully admit that I was
 tragically addicted to Dance Dance Revolution about 10 years ago.
 Recently,
 it's Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

 I quite like the band ensemble games, they're good party games, and great
 rhythm practise that's actually applicable to real instrument skills too.

 The problem is though, that Neversoft and Harmonix completely fucked up
 the
 GH and RB franchises. Licensing problems, fragmented tracklists. It's
 annoying that all the songs you want to play are spread across literally
 10
 or so different games, and you need to constantly change disc's if you
 want
 to play the songs you like.

 I've been meaning to kick off a guitar hero clone since GH2 came out. I
 started one years ago as a fork of my Guitar Hero song editor for PS2, and
 I added support for drums before GH4 or RB were conceived, but then when
 they announced those games they stole my thunder and it went into
 hibernation.

 I'm very keen to resurrect the project (well, start a new one, with clean
 code, in D).
 Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would be interested
 in joining a side project like this? It's a lot more motivating, and much
 more fun to work in a small team.

 It's an interesting union of skills; rendering, audio processing,
 super-low-latency synchronisation, mini and communications processing,
 animation, UI and presentation.

 I have done all this stuff commercially, so I can act as a sort of project
 lead of people are interested, but haven't tried to write that sort of
 software before.

 It also seems like a good excuse to kick off a fairly large scale and
 performance intensive D project, which I like to do from time to time.


 I would be happy to help with the gui side of thing just to get DOOGLE
 more inline with what is required from it. Assuming DOOGLE is ok for it.
 It is designed to work on top of games so it is perfect for this type of
 thing I'm just worried of its state and being ready.


It would be a good test for any UI framework. Hooking it up to
project-specific input api, and producing project specific outputs (in the
way of rendering backend).
The biggest challenge for any UI system though, is tooling. You can't be
expected to lay out rich and natural UI's by typing magic numbers in text
files... are there's open-source tools you use for construction and layout?
Dec 12 2013
parent "Rikki Cattermole" <alphaglosined gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 12:17:22 UTC, Manu wrote:

 On 12 December 2013 21:14, Rikki Cattermole 
 <alphaglosined gmail.com> wrote:


 On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 10:43:24 UTC, Manu wrote:


 So, I'm a massive fan of music games. I'll shamefully admit 
 that I was
 tragically addicted to Dance Dance Revolution about 10 years 
 ago.
 Recently,
 it's Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

 I quite like the band ensemble games, they're good party 
 games, and great
 rhythm practise that's actually applicable to real instrument 
 skills too.

 The problem is though, that Neversoft and Harmonix completely 
 fucked up
 the
 GH and RB franchises. Licensing problems, fragmented 
 tracklists. It's
 annoying that all the songs you want to play are spread 
 across literally
 10
 or so different games, and you need to constantly change 
 disc's if you
 want
 to play the songs you like.

 I've been meaning to kick off a guitar hero clone since GH2 
 came out. I
 started one years ago as a fork of my Guitar Hero song editor 
 for PS2, and
 I added support for drums before GH4 or RB were conceived, 
 but then when
 they announced those games they stole my thunder and it went 
 into
 hibernation.

 I'm very keen to resurrect the project (well, start a new 
 one, with clean
 code, in D).
 Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would 
 be interested
 in joining a side project like this? It's a lot more 
 motivating, and much
 more fun to work in a small team.

 It's an interesting union of skills; rendering, audio 
 processing,
 super-low-latency synchronisation, mini and communications 
 processing,
 animation, UI and presentation.

 I have done all this stuff commercially, so I can act as a 
 sort of project
 lead of people are interested, but haven't tried to write 
 that sort of
 software before.

 It also seems like a good excuse to kick off a fairly large 
 scale and
 performance intensive D project, which I like to do from time 
 to time.


 I would be happy to help with the gui side of thing just to 
 get DOOGLE
 more inline with what is required from it. Assuming DOOGLE is 
 ok for it.
 It is designed to work on top of games so it is perfect for 
 this type of
 thing I'm just worried of its state and being ready.


 It would be a good test for any UI framework. Hooking it up to
 project-specific input api, and producing project specific 
 outputs (in the
 way of rendering backend).
 The biggest challenge for any UI system though, is tooling. You 
 can't be
 expected to lay out rich and natural UI's by typing magic 
 numbers in text
 files... are there's open-source tools you use for construction 
 and layout?


Currently its all hard coded. At some point I want to build a 
WYSIWYG editor for it. However there is a lot of infrastructure 
that would go into that unfortunately so not really short term 
goal.
Its unfortunately really does need I need to do x for reason y 
please provide it type of thing. You can only do so much 
theoretical planning of the library without getting bored.
Dec 12 2013
prev sibling parent reply "Chris" <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 11:14:05 UTC, Rikki Cattermole 
wrote:

 On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 10:43:24 UTC, Manu wrote:

 So, I'm a massive fan of music games. I'll shamefully admit 
 that I was
 tragically addicted to Dance Dance Revolution about 10 years 
 ago. Recently,
 it's Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

 I quite like the band ensemble games, they're good party 
 games, and great
 rhythm practise that's actually applicable to real instrument 
 skills too.

 The problem is though, that Neversoft and Harmonix completely 
 fucked up the
 GH and RB franchises. Licensing problems, fragmented 
 tracklists. It's
 annoying that all the songs you want to play are spread across 
 literally 10
 or so different games, and you need to constantly change 
 disc's if you want
 to play the songs you like.

 I've been meaning to kick off a guitar hero clone since GH2 
 came out. I
 started one years ago as a fork of my Guitar Hero song editor 
 for PS2, and
 I added support for drums before GH4 or RB were conceived, but 
 then when
 they announced those games they stole my thunder and it went 
 into
 hibernation.

 I'm very keen to resurrect the project (well, start a new one, 
 with clean
 code, in D).
 Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would 
 be interested
 in joining a side project like this? It's a lot more 
 motivating, and much
 more fun to work in a small team.

 It's an interesting union of skills; rendering, audio 
 processing,
 super-low-latency synchronisation, mini and communications 
 processing,
 animation, UI and presentation.

 I have done all this stuff commercially, so I can act as a 
 sort of project
 lead of people are interested, but haven't tried to write that 
 sort of
 software before.

 It also seems like a good excuse to kick off a fairly large 
 scale and
 performance intensive D project, which I like to do from time 
 to time.


 I would be happy to help with the gui side of thing just to get 
 DOOGLE more inline with what is required from it. Assuming 
 DOOGLE is ok for it.
 It is designed to work on top of games so it is perfect for 
 this type of thing I'm just worried of its state and being 
 ready.


DOOGLE (kind of a pun in Ireland):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Father_Ted_characters#Father_Dougal_McGuire

Check it out on youtube ("Father Ted").
Dec 13 2013
parent "Rikki Cattermole" <alphaglosined gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 12:30:36 UTC, Chris wrote:

 DOOGLE (kind of a pun in Ireland):

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Father_Ted_characters#Father_Dougal_McGuire

 Check it out on youtube ("Father Ted").


I had no idea when I named it that. Since it was based originally 
from OOGL (c++ lib). Although different spelling.
Dec 13 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Meta" <jared771 gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 10:43:24 UTC, Manu wrote:

 So, I'm a massive fan of music games. I'll shamefully admit 
 that I was
 tragically addicted to Dance Dance Revolution about 10 years 
 ago. Recently,
 it's Guitar Hero and Rock Band.


You're 6 years behind the curve =). My brother got Guitar hero 2 
for Christmas one year and I was instantly hooked. Guitar Hero 3 
still remains my most played game besides maybe Civilization IV.



 The problem is though, that Neversoft and Harmonix completely 
 fucked up the
 GH and RB franchises. Licensing problems, fragmented 
 tracklists. It's
 annoying that all the songs you want to play are spread across 
 literally 10
 or so different games, and you need to constantly change disc's 
 if you want
 to play the songs you like.


Did they ever... It's really Activision's fault for running 
Guitar Hero into the ground. I remember them releasing a 
statement around 2009 saying that they planned to release 6 new 
Guitar Hero games within that year alone. It was then that I knew 
it was over.


 I've been meaning to kick off a guitar hero clone since GH2 
 came out. I
 started one years ago as a fork of my Guitar Hero song editor 
 for PS2, and
 I added support for drums before GH4 or RB were conceived, but 
 then when
 they announced those games they stole my thunder and it went 
 into
 hibernation.


Have you heard of Frets on Fire? 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frets_on_Fire
I remember trying this out several years ago, though it didn't 
really have that smoothe Guitar Hero feel.


 I'm very keen to resurrect the project (well, start a new one, 
 with clean
 code, in D).
 Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would be 
 interested
 in joining a side project like this? It's a lot more 
 motivating, and much
 more fun to work in a small team.


I wish I had the time.
Dec 12 2013
parent reply Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> writes:
On 12 December 2013 21:37, Meta <jared771 gmail.com> wrote:


 On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 10:43:24 UTC, Manu wrote:


 So, I'm a massive fan of music games. I'll shamefully admit that I was
 tragically addicted to Dance Dance Revolution about 10 years ago.
 Recently,
 it's Guitar Hero and Rock Band.


 You're 6 years behind the curve =). My brother got Guitar hero 2 for
 Christmas one year and I was instantly hooked. Guitar Hero 3 still remains
 my most played game besides maybe Civilization IV.



I wouldn't say I'm 6 years behind... I just haven't gotten over it yet. I'm
like that.
I still break out my Amiga from time to time when I feel nostalgic (I was
stuck on that wagon waaaaay too long aswell).

I was on to Guitar Hero from day one. I imported it from the US shortly
after launch, so I had it 6 months before everyone else in Australia (we
always get stuff a year late!).
During GH1, 2, 3 (world tour), there was a big custom-song community, with
loads of torrents of the bootleg PS2 game, re-fitted with custom songs
floating around on the internets.
I was involved in the birth of the GH custom song movement, initially
reverse engineering the PS2 song formats so I could import the songs off
the PS2 disc's into my custom engine (I wanted to play on other platforms
initially).
Others got involved, people started working on tools. My GH engine
transformed into an editor which was the go-to tool for creating custom
guitar hero songs, and I even heard word that some preferred it to the
in-house tools at Harmonix and Neversoft, apparently they had staff who
preferred to use my editor at work ;)
I met with some of the guys at GDC and asked them where my credit was at
the end of the game... and maybe a cheque would be nice (that game was
worth billions!). They become uncomfortable ;)

 The problem is though, that Neversoft and Harmonix completely fucked up the

 GH and RB franchises. Licensing problems, fragmented tracklists. It's
 annoying that all the songs you want to play are spread across literally
 10
 or so different games, and you need to constantly change disc's if you
 want
 to play the songs you like.


 Did they ever... It's really Activision's fault for running Guitar Hero
 into the ground. I remember them releasing a statement around 2009 saying
 that they planned to release 6 new Guitar Hero games within that year
 alone. It was then that I knew it was over.



Indeed. So the first goal of my resurrected project, is to collate the
entire back-catalog into one unified experience.

I was involved in a similar project called StepMania back when, which
solved the same problem with Dance Dance Revolution. Guitar Hero/Rock Band
needs the same treatment.
It also needs a proper editor and a webstore allowing any indy musicians to
create songs and sell them for a dollar each. Nothing gets you into a bands
songs more than physically playing them over and over again with friends.


 I've been meaning to kick off a guitar hero clone since GH2 came out. I

 started one years ago as a fork of my Guitar Hero song editor for PS2, and
 I added support for drums before GH4 or RB were conceived, but then when
 they announced those games they stole my thunder and it went into
 hibernation.


 Have you heard of Frets on Fire? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
 Frets_on_Fire
 I remember trying this out several years ago, though it didn't really have
 that smoothe Guitar Hero feel.



Yes, it's fucking terrible. It's also written in Java, which might partly
explain the first bit...
Fortunately, I'm a professional, and I'm certain I can accurately reproduce
the feel of the proper games. My editor already does. It just needs to be
fleshed out with lots of presentation work.
I also expect it to run on my consoles. Obviously console ports are
important! :)


 I'm very keen to resurrect the project (well, start a new one, with clean

 code, in D).
 Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would be interested
 in joining a side project like this? It's a lot more motivating, and much
 more fun to work in a small team.


 I wish I had the time.


I don't really have time either, but some things just have to be done! :)
Dec 12 2013
next sibling parent reply "Arjan" <arjan ask.me.to> writes:
 Have you heard of Frets on Fire? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
 Frets_on_Fire
 I remember trying this out several years ago, though it didn't 
 really have
 that smoothe Guitar Hero feel.



 Yes, it's fucking terrible. It's also written in Java, which 
 might partly
 explain the first bit...


I'm pretty sure it has been written in python (to prove one could 
write games using python), also there is FoFix a (better?) clone 
also python.

My kids do play FoFix from time to time. But nothing beats 
minecraft.
Dec 12 2013
next sibling parent "Francesco Cattoglio" <francesco.cattoglio gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 14:38:54 UTC, Arjan wrote:

 My kids do play FoFix from time to time. But nothing beats 
 minecraft.


In terms of resource hog? Sure thing! :D
Dec 12 2013
prev sibling parent reply Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> writes:
On 13 December 2013 00:38, Arjan <arjan ask.me.to> wrote:


 Have you heard of Frets on Fire? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

 Frets_on_Fire
 I remember trying this out several years ago, though it didn't really
 have
 that smoothe Guitar Hero feel.



 Yes, it's fucking terrible. It's also written in Java, which might partly
 explain the first bit...


 I'm pretty sure it has been written in python (to prove one could write
 games using python), also there is FoFix a (better?) clone also python.

 My kids do play FoFix from time to time. But nothing beats minecraft.


Oh yeah, you're probably right. I just remembered that it wasn't written in
a real language ;)
It doesn't feel very tight, and the synchronisation window is super wide. I
suspect this is because the libraries they use aren't really meant for
low-latency real-time use, and they have no access to the hardware/drivers
directly, so they have to allow for a huge margin of error.
Dec 12 2013
parent "Arjan" <arjan ask.me.to> writes:
On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 14:52:10 UTC, Manu wrote:

 On 13 December 2013 00:38, Arjan <arjan ask.me.to> wrote:


 Have you heard of Frets on Fire? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

 Frets_on_Fire
 I remember trying this out several years ago, though it 
 didn't really
 have
 that smoothe Guitar Hero feel.



 Yes, it's fucking terrible. It's also written in Java, which 
 might partly
 explain the first bit...


 I'm pretty sure it has been written in python (to prove one 
 could write
 games using python), also there is FoFix a (better?) clone 
 also python.

 My kids do play FoFix from time to time. But nothing beats 
 minecraft.


 Oh yeah, you're probably right. I just remembered that it 
 wasn't written in
 a real language ;)
 It doesn't feel very tight, and the synchronisation window is 
 super wide. I
 suspect this is because the libraries they use aren't really 
 meant for
 low-latency real-time use, and they have no access to the 
 hardware/drivers
 directly, so they have to allow for a huge margin of error.


I have no idea what is required for a game like that, but I've 
been on a project where python is used in machine control (wafer 
handling) at control frequencies / sampling rates up to 100Hz. 
Although 100Hz was not achieved easily. Indeed no direct access 
to hw/drivers from python it usually goes through c-wrappers.
Dec 12 2013
prev sibling parent Bruno Medeiros <brunodomedeiros+dng gmail.com> writes:
On 12/12/2013 12:40, Manu wrote:

 I was involved in a similar project called StepMania back when, which
 solved the same problem with Dance Dance Revolution. Guitar Hero/Rock
 Band needs the same treatment.


You worked on StepMania? Nice! I used that program (game?) a lot when 
playing DDR, back in the time where I was living in a place with a DDR 
mat. It's even more fun when you can get songs and tracks you like in 
DDR, which you cant with arcade machines, one is stuck with their 
selection..
Feb 10 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Mike Parker <aldacron gmail.com> writes:
On 12/12/2013 7:43 PM, Manu wrote:

 Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would be
 interested in joining a side project like this? It's a lot more
 motivating, and much more fun to work in a small team.

 It's an interesting union of skills; rendering, audio processing,
 super-low-latency synchronisation, mini and communications processing,
 animation, UI and presentation.

 I have done all this stuff commercially, so I can act as a sort of
 project lead of people are interested, but haven't tried to write that
 sort of software before.

 It also seems like a good excuse to kick off a fairly large scale and
 performance intensive D project, which I like to do from time to time.


I've never played any of those guitar games, but I do play guitar. And 
this project sounds intriguing. Time management is always a problem for 
me, but I could be motivated to put a few hours a week into something 
like this in the New Year.
Dec 12 2013
parent reply Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> writes:
On 12 December 2013 22:35, Mike Parker <aldacron gmail.com> wrote:


 On 12/12/2013 7:43 PM, Manu wrote:


 Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would be
 interested in joining a side project like this? It's a lot more
 motivating, and much more fun to work in a small team.

 It's an interesting union of skills; rendering, audio processing,
 super-low-latency synchronisation, mini and communications processing,
 animation, UI and presentation.

 I have done all this stuff commercially, so I can act as a sort of
 project lead of people are interested, but haven't tried to write that
 sort of software before.

 It also seems like a good excuse to kick off a fairly large scale and
 performance intensive D project, which I like to do from time to time.


 I've never played any of those guitar games, but I do play guitar. And
 this project sounds intriguing. Time management is always a problem for me,
 but I could be motivated to put a few hours a week into something like this
 in the New Year.


Yeah, it's a problem for me too. That's the main reason I post for interest
from others. If there's team involvement, I feel a greater sense of
enthusiasm and responsibility, and it becomes a lot harder to ignore :)
What's your key skillset?

Mmm, I'm a guitar player too, and have decent rhythm, but never really
played drums. Guitar Hero/Rock Band alone took me from not being able to
play drums, to being able to physically play drums reasonably well.
I knew I reached a milestone when I was playing Neil Peart songs without
trouble! :P
Actually, these games are much better for drums than guitar, since the
drums on hardest difficulty is an accurate representation of the recording
artist's skills, whereas the little plastic guitars are only good for
hand-eye coordination and rhythmic skill.
Dec 12 2013
next sibling parent Mike Parker <aldacron gmail.com> writes:
On 12/12/2013 9:50 PM, Manu wrote:


 What's your key skillset?


I've been making dinky little 2D games for years. So I've got what's 
required for that much down pretty well (simple AI, networking, 2D 
graphics, basic audio). I've also dabbled with 3D, I've never done 
anything complex there beyond simple terrain rendering, though.
Dec 12 2013
prev sibling parent reply "John Colvin" <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 12:57:42 UTC, Manu wrote:

 the
 drums on hardest difficulty is an accurate representation of 
 the recording
 artist's skills.


Well apart from dynamic control* and any real sense of 
groove/feel. There a lot more to being a drummer than just 
hitting the drums like a metronome with arms.
Nevertheless, it's a lot more representative than the guitars and 
it does teach some of the necessary skills.

*or did that get included later in the franchise?
Dec 12 2013
parent reply Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> writes:
On 13 December 2013 00:19, John Colvin <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com>wrote:


 On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 12:57:42 UTC, Manu wrote:


 the
 drums on hardest difficulty is an accurate representation of the recording
 artist's skills.


 Well apart from dynamic control* and any real sense of groove/feel. There
 a lot more to being a drummer than just hitting the drums like a metronome
 with arms.
 Nevertheless, it's a lot more representative than the guitars and it does
 teach some of the necessary skills.

 *or did that get included later in the franchise?


Sure. But you can still work on those things while playing the game, those
aspects of your performance just won't be accurately recorded or scored.
My drums (from 'band hero', typically considered the best ones they ever
made) do report impact sensitivity, although it's not used by the game for
some reason.

For me, I never played drums, and there's a lot of motor skills required to
tightly synchronise all those limbs that are perfectly applicable skills I
developed while playing those games.
I was so sloppy synchronising hands and feet at first, and my left hand was
kinda gump, would never keep up with my right hand in rolls, and when i
tried to synchronise fast double kicks with hand rolls... keeping all those
motions tight is stuff I wouldn't have if I didn't play those games.
Dec 12 2013
parent reply Marco Leise <Marco.Leise gmx.de> writes:
Am Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:48:38 +1000
schrieb Manu <turkeyman gmail.com>:


 Sure. But you can still work on those things while playing the game, those
 aspects of your performance just won't be accurately recorded or scored.
 My drums (from 'band hero', typically considered the best ones they ever
 made) do report impact sensitivity, although it's not used by the game for
 some reason.
 
 For me, I never played drums, and there's a lot of motor skills required to
 tightly synchronise all those limbs that are perfectly applicable skills I
 developed while playing those games.
 I was so sloppy synchronising hands and feet at first, and my left hand was
 kinda gump, would never keep up with my right hand in rolls, and when i
 tried to synchronise fast double kicks with hand rolls... keeping all those
 motions tight is stuff I wouldn't have if I didn't play those games.


Hey, I keep drumming on everything I find. Tables, stools and
especially my cheap keyboard. That keyboard has a certain
crunch to it. I'm worried about my notebook though. I hope the
hard disk can handle the shocks. :) I just can't keep calm to a
good rock song.
But whenever a real drummer sees me drumming on a bar table,
they gotta show me that there is more to it and I wonder how
one can ever learn to coordinate two hands and the feet to play
different rhythms and above that hit the correct drum.

-- 
Marco
Dec 13 2013
parent reply Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:
On 2013-12-13 21:03, Marco Leise wrote:


 Hey, I keep drumming on everything I find. Tables, stools and
 especially my cheap keyboard. That keyboard has a certain
 crunch to it. I'm worried about my notebook though. I hope the
 hard disk can handle the shocks. :) I just can't keep calm to a
 good rock song.
 But whenever a real drummer sees me drumming on a bar table,
 they gotta show me that there is more to it and I wonder how
 one can ever learn to coordinate two hands and the feet to play
 different rhythms and above that hit the correct drum.


I've been drumming so much on my desk that the finish (or what it's 
called) has been wear done.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg
Dec 13 2013
parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
On 12/13/13 12:17 PM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:

 On 2013-12-13 21:03, Marco Leise wrote:


 Hey, I keep drumming on everything I find. Tables, stools and
 especially my cheap keyboard. That keyboard has a certain
 crunch to it. I'm worried about my notebook though. I hope the
 hard disk can handle the shocks. :) I just can't keep calm to a
 good rock song.
 But whenever a real drummer sees me drumming on a bar table,
 they gotta show me that there is more to it and I wonder how
 one can ever learn to coordinate two hands and the feet to play
 different rhythms and above that hit the correct drum.


 I've been drumming so much on my desk that the finish (or what it's
 called) has been wear done.


I'll just leave this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNn3pJKaV2s

Andrei
Dec 13 2013
next sibling parent "Szymon Gatner" <noemail gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 21:44:00 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu
wrote:

 On 12/13/13 12:17 PM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:

 On 2013-12-13 21:03, Marco Leise wrote:


 Hey, I keep drumming on everything I find. Tables, stools and
 especially my cheap keyboard. That keyboard has a certain
 crunch to it. I'm worried about my notebook though. I hope the
 hard disk can handle the shocks. :) I just can't keep calm to 
 a
 good rock song.
 But whenever a real drummer sees me drumming on a bar table,
 they gotta show me that there is more to it and I wonder how
 one can ever learn to coordinate two hands and the feet to 
 play
 different rhythms and above that hit the correct drum.


 I've been drumming so much on my desk that the finish (or what 
 it's
 called) has been wear done.


 I'll just leave this here: 
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNn3pJKaV2s

 Andrei


Holy Cow! Speechless...
Dec 13 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Meta" <jared771 gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 21:44:00 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

 I'll just leave this here: 
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNn3pJKaV2s

 Andrei


Ha, not bad. How long ago was this?
Dec 13 2013
parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
On 12/13/13 3:06 PM, Meta wrote:

 On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 21:44:00 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 I'll just leave this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNn3pJKaV2s

 Andrei


 Ha, not bad. How long ago was this?


2009.

Andrei
Dec 13 2013
parent "Light Keeper" <someone present.time> writes:
On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 23:38:57 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

 On 12/13/13 3:06 PM, Meta wrote:

 Ha, not bad. How long ago was this?


 2009.

 Andrei


"Uploaded on May 19, 2008"

They are among us...
Dec 13 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Marco Leise <Marco.Leise gmx.de> writes:
Am Fri, 13 Dec 2013 13:44:01 -0800
schrieb Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org>:


 On 12/13/13 12:17 PM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:

 On 2013-12-13 21:03, Marco Leise wrote:


 Hey, I keep drumming on everything I find. Tables, stools and
 especially my cheap keyboard. That keyboard has a certain
 crunch to it. I'm worried about my notebook though. I hope the
 hard disk can handle the shocks. :) I just can't keep calm to a
 good rock song.
 But whenever a real drummer sees me drumming on a bar table,
 they gotta show me that there is more to it and I wonder how
 one can ever learn to coordinate two hands and the feet to play
 different rhythms and above that hit the correct drum.


 I've been drumming so much on my desk that the finish (or what it's
 called) has been wear done.


 
 I'll just leave this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNn3pJKaV2s
 
 Andrei


*Seriously*? That's really you. What a strange beat. The
vocals were way to quiet/shy. Other than that great
performance. :D
You know, it is very surprising to see people you know from
"D" do things not related to programming, including writing
books about it or teaching it. I guess that's why many forums
have an off topic section where people can introduce
themselves or just talk about drumming or UFOs.
Take Jacob Carlborg for example. I thought he is a dead
serious guy who writes a serialization library and would not
be drumming on his desk till the paint is gone, because he's
just too serious to be moved by music. Keep telling stories
guys!

--
Marco
Dec 13 2013
parent Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:
On 2013-12-14 01:37, Marco Leise wrote:


 Take Jacob Carlborg for example. I thought he is a dead
 serious guy who writes a serialization library and would not
 be drumming on his desk till the paint is gone, because he's
 just too serious to be moved by music. Keep telling stories
 guys!


Haha, far from. If that were the case I would probably be done by now 
:). I'm listening to music all the time. Unfortunately they don't like 
that at work, neither the drumming on the desk :(

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg
Dec 14 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> writes:
On 14 December 2013 07:44, Andrei Alexandrescu <
SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote:


 On 12/13/13 12:17 PM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:


 On 2013-12-13 21:03, Marco Leise wrote:

  Hey, I keep drumming on everything I find. Tables, stools and

 especially my cheap keyboard. That keyboard has a certain
 crunch to it. I'm worried about my notebook though. I hope the
 hard disk can handle the shocks. :) I just can't keep calm to a
 good rock song.
 But whenever a real drummer sees me drumming on a bar table,
 they gotta show me that there is more to it and I wonder how
 one can ever learn to coordinate two hands and the feet to play
 different rhythms and above that hit the correct drum.


 I've been drumming so much on my desk that the finish (or what it's
 called) has been wear done.


 I'll just leave this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNn3pJKaV2s



Haha awesome. I have to say, I really didn't see that coming! :)
Dec 13 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent Joseph Rushton Wakeling <joseph.wakeling webdrake.net> writes:
On 13/12/13 22:44, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 On 12/13/13 12:17 PM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:

 On 2013-12-13 21:03, Marco Leise wrote:


 Hey, I keep drumming on everything I find. Tables, stools and
 especially my cheap keyboard. That keyboard has a certain
 crunch to it. I'm worried about my notebook though. I hope the
 hard disk can handle the shocks. :) I just can't keep calm to a
 good rock song.
 But whenever a real drummer sees me drumming on a bar table,
 they gotta show me that there is more to it and I wonder how
 one can ever learn to coordinate two hands and the feet to play
 different rhythms and above that hit the correct drum.


 I've been drumming so much on my desk that the finish (or what it's
 called) has been wear done.


 I'll just leave this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNn3pJKaV2s


How many drummers is the DConf band going to have? :-D
Dec 14 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Iain Buclaw <ibuclaw gdcproject.org> writes:
On Dec 14, 2013 8:15 AM, "Joseph Rushton Wakeling" <
joseph.wakeling webdrake.net> wrote:

 On 13/12/13 22:44, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 On 12/13/13 12:17 PM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:

 On 2013-12-13 21:03, Marco Leise wrote:


 Hey, I keep drumming on everything I find. Tables, stools and
 especially my cheap keyboard. That keyboard has a certain
 crunch to it. I'm worried about my notebook though. I hope the
 hard disk can handle the shocks. :) I just can't keep calm to a
 good rock song.
 But whenever a real drummer sees me drumming on a bar table,
 they gotta show me that there is more to it and I wonder how
 one can ever learn to coordinate two hands and the feet to play
 different rhythms and above that hit the correct drum.



 I've been drumming so much on my desk that the finish (or what it's
 called) has been wear done.



 I'll just leave this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNn3pJKaV2s



 How many drummers is the DConf band going to have? :-D


Well we need at least two if we want to do a King Crimson cover.  ;)

Regards
-- 
Iain Buclaw

*(p < e ? p++ : p) = (c & 0x0f) + '0';
Dec 14 2013
parent Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:
On 2013-12-14 11:26, Iain Buclaw wrote:


 Well we need at least two if we want to do a King Crimson cover.  ;)


It's always fun with more than one drum kit on the stage.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg
Dec 14 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Iain Buclaw <ibuclaw gdcproject.org> writes:
On Dec 14, 2013 10:26 AM, "Iain Buclaw" <ibuclaw gdcproject.org> wrote:

 On Dec 14, 2013 8:15 AM, "Joseph Rushton Wakeling" <


joseph.wakeling webdrake.net> wrote:

 On 13/12/13 22:44, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 On 12/13/13 12:17 PM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:

 On 2013-12-13 21:03, Marco Leise wrote:


 Hey, I keep drumming on everything I find. Tables, stools and
 especially my cheap keyboard. That keyboard has a certain
 crunch to it. I'm worried about my notebook though. I hope the
 hard disk can handle the shocks. :) I just can't keep calm to a
 good rock song.
 But whenever a real drummer sees me drumming on a bar table,
 they gotta show me that there is more to it and I wonder how
 one can ever learn to coordinate two hands and the feet to play
 different rhythms and above that hit the correct drum.



 I've been drumming so much on my desk that the finish (or what it's
 called) has been wear done.



 I'll just leave this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNn3pJKaV2s



 How many drummers is the DConf band going to have? :-D


 Well we need at least two if we want to do a King Crimson cover.  ;)


And as well as a drum kit, we could have people on specific percussive
instruments - djembe, anyone?  :)
Dec 14 2013
parent reply Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:
On 2013-12-14 11:28, Iain Buclaw wrote:


 And as well as a drum kit, we could have people on specific percussive
 instruments - djembe, anyone?  :)


I always liked the guy playing percussion in the back of many concerts 
with Eric Clapton.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICpxgxThG7s - 2:50, 5:44
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O6R-ZOuMjY - 5:32

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg
Dec 14 2013
parent reply Joseph Rushton Wakeling <joseph.wakeling webdrake.net> writes:
On 14/12/13 14:23, Jacob Carlborg wrote:

 On 2013-12-14 11:28, Iain Buclaw wrote:


 And as well as a drum kit, we could have people on specific percussive
 instruments - djembe, anyone?  :)


 I always liked the guy playing percussion in the back of many concerts with
Eric
 Clapton.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICpxgxThG7s - 2:50, 5:44
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O6R-ZOuMjY - 5:32


Ray Cooper.  Who has played with just about everybody, on everything ... :-)
Dec 14 2013
parent Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:
On 2013-12-14 15:07, Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:


 Ray Cooper.  Who has played with just about everybody, on everything ...
 :-)


Yeah, I looked him up at Wikipedia.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg
Dec 14 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:
On 2013-12-13 22:44, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:


 I'll just leave this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNn3pJKaV2s


Hehe, nice. Although I can basically only hear the drums.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg
Dec 14 2013
parent Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
On 12/14/13 4:43 AM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:

 On 2013-12-13 22:44, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:


 I'll just leave this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNn3pJKaV2s


 Hehe, nice. Although I can basically only hear the drums.


Yah, it's on my wife's cell phone... it was an adaptation of Jimi 
Hendrix's "Fire". It's a good piece for the drums. 
http://ultimateclassicrock.com/jimi-hendrix-fire-song-premiere/

Andrei
Dec 14 2013
prev sibling parent Bruno Medeiros <brunodomedeiros+dng gmail.com> writes:
On 13/12/2013 21:44, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 On 12/13/13 12:17 PM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:

 On 2013-12-13 21:03, Marco Leise wrote:


 Hey, I keep drumming on everything I find. Tables, stools and
 especially my cheap keyboard. That keyboard has a certain
 crunch to it. I'm worried about my notebook though. I hope the
 hard disk can handle the shocks. :) I just can't keep calm to a
 good rock song.
 But whenever a real drummer sees me drumming on a bar table,
 they gotta show me that there is more to it and I wonder how
 one can ever learn to coordinate two hands and the feet to play
 different rhythms and above that hit the correct drum.


 I've been drumming so much on my desk that the finish (or what it's
 called) has been wear done.


 I'll just leave this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNn3pJKaV2s

 Andrei


Daaaammn! Seriously impressed, awesome stuff! :)
Feb 10 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Francesco Cattoglio" <francesco.cattoglio gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 10:43:24 UTC, Manu wrote:

 I'm very keen to resurrect the project (well, start a new one, 
 with clean
 code, in D).
 Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would be 
 interested
 in joining a side project like this? It's a lot more 
 motivating, and much
 more fun to work in a small team.


I absolutely agree, small teams keep you motivated and discussing 
ideas makes the work so much faster.
I can tell you I am interested. I have been thinking about 
music-based games for quite a long time, and even took part of 
the team that produced a music-based game in a Videogame Design 
and Programming class in University. Unfortunately the group 
leader was... well... a bad leader in my opinion, and the tool 
used was Unity.

This said, if you plan on starting your code from scratch, you 
might actually want to do something different from Guitar Hero. 
EG: Have you ever played Synaesthete? 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp0Gasls0Sg

I find it both amazing and ADDICTING AS HELL, every time I listen 
to the songs I feel like playing it over and over and over again.
Dec 12 2013
parent Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> writes:
On 13 December 2013 00:18, Francesco Cattoglio <
francesco.cattoglio gmail.com> wrote:


 On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 10:43:24 UTC, Manu wrote:


 I'm very keen to resurrect the project (well, start a new one, with clean
 code, in D).
 Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would be interested
 in joining a side project like this? It's a lot more motivating, and much
 more fun to work in a small team.


 I absolutely agree, small teams keep you motivated and discussing ideas
 makes the work so much faster.
 I can tell you I am interested. I have been thinking about music-based
 games for quite a long time, and even took part of the team that produced a
 music-based game in a Videogame Design and Programming class in University.
 Unfortunately the group leader was... well... a bad leader in my opinion,
 and the tool used was Unity.

 This said, if you plan on starting your code from scratch, you might
 actually want to do something different from Guitar Hero. EG: Have you ever
 played Synaesthete? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp0Gasls0Sg

 I find it both amazing and ADDICTING AS HELL, every time I listen to the
 songs I feel like playing it over and over and over again.


It looks like Beatmania meets Geometry Wars meets... something that I can't
quite recall what it is.
It still has the element of a timed sequences against a music track, so
that maps perfectly. The presentation of that game is a project in itself,
but I don't see why such an extensible system shouldn't be supported.

For me, the entire point is to make a GH/RB engine. I want to play those
games, but I'm sick of swapping disc's all the time, and I also want to
open it up to a proper custom song community.
I like to make projects like that as extensible and customisable as
possible. You could add a Synaesthete plugin for instance, or probably more
universally, add support for any other instruments or presentation modes
people like. Bring back dance pad mode! ;)
The core of the work is an extensible frontend, and a good input
recognition system combined with tight synchronisation.

The frontend, UI, presentation, etc is probably 80% of the work. I can
probably knock the GAME part together in a weekend.
It needs a good extensible theme system where the front-end experience can
be scripted to mimic existing games, or evolved to do new and interesting
things that people can tinker with.
StepMania did this well. There were community skins for the official Dance
Dance Revolution games, but the default one extended the game in ways
Konami never did. People also added other game modes/styles on top of it
which made it an interesting game in its own right, even though it stated
as an engine/emulator for an existing game.
I think the starting point is important though to gain initial
users/contributors, who all agree on initial goals, ie, to accurately
emulate the GH/RB experience.
Dec 12 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:
On 2013-12-12 11:43, Manu wrote:

 So, I'm a massive fan of music games. I'll shamefully admit that I was
 tragically addicted to Dance Dance Revolution about 10 years ago.
 Recently, it's Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

 I quite like the band ensemble games, they're good party games, and
 great rhythm practise that's actually applicable to real instrument
 skills too.


I wouldn't agree with that, at least not for Guitar Hero. I had issues 
with the timing. When I played I tried to time the music, but that 
didn't work. Instead I had to time the screen to get any points.


 The problem is though, that Neversoft and Harmonix completely fucked up
 the GH and RB franchises. Licensing problems, fragmented tracklists.
 It's annoying that all the songs you want to play are spread across
 literally 10 or so different games, and you need to constantly change
 disc's if you want to play the songs you like.

 I've been meaning to kick off a guitar hero clone since GH2 came out. I
 started one years ago as a fork of my Guitar Hero song editor for PS2,
 and I added support for drums before GH4 or RB were conceived, but then
 when they announced those games they stole my thunder and it went into
 hibernation.

 I'm very keen to resurrect the project (well, start a new one, with
 clean code, in D).
 Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would be
 interested in joining a side project like this? It's a lot more
 motivating, and much more fun to work in a small team.


Cool idea.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg
Dec 12 2013
next sibling parent reply Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> writes:
On 13 December 2013 01:47, Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> wrote:


 On 2013-12-12 11:43, Manu wrote:


 So, I'm a massive fan of music games. I'll shamefully admit that I was
 tragically addicted to Dance Dance Revolution about 10 years ago.
 Recently, it's Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

 I quite like the band ensemble games, they're good party games, and
 great rhythm practise that's actually applicable to real instrument
 skills too.


 I wouldn't agree with that, at least not for Guitar Hero. I had issues
 with the timing. When I played I tried to time the music, but that didn't
 work. Instead I had to time the screen to get any points.


Sounds like your system was calibrated poorly, or there is latency in your
AV setup, or your TV/stereo is cheap. There's lots of sources of latency
that can affect those games. You just have to make sure to eliminate them
before you can play it properly.
I can easily play those games without looking at the screen at all. But I
did need to do some fiddling to get it properly synchronised. I felt about
30-40ms latency when I first switched to the 360 versions.
The old PS2 games were much better since they had no digital outputs,
there's no buffering anywhere along the chain. Still depends on your TV
displaying the signal it receives immediately though.

 The problem is though, that Neversoft and Harmonix completely fucked up

 the GH and RB franchises. Licensing problems, fragmented tracklists.
 It's annoying that all the songs you want to play are spread across
 literally 10 or so different games, and you need to constantly change
 disc's if you want to play the songs you like.

 I've been meaning to kick off a guitar hero clone since GH2 came out. I
 started one years ago as a fork of my Guitar Hero song editor for PS2,
 and I added support for drums before GH4 or RB were conceived, but then
 when they announced those games they stole my thunder and it went into
 hibernation.

 I'm very keen to resurrect the project (well, start a new one, with
 clean code, in D).
 Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would be
 interested in joining a side project like this? It's a lot more
 motivating, and much more fun to work in a small team.


 Cool idea.

 --
 /Jacob Carlborg
Dec 12 2013
parent Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:
On 2013-12-12 17:16, Manu wrote:


 Sounds like your system was calibrated poorly, or there is latency in
 your AV setup, or your TV/stereo is cheap. There's lots of sources of
 latency that can affect those games. You just have to make sure to
 eliminate them before you can play it properly.
 I can easily play those games without looking at the screen at all. But
 I did need to do some fiddling to get it properly synchronised. I felt
 about 30-40ms latency when I first switched to the 360 versions.
 The old PS2 games were much better since they had no digital outputs,
 there's no buffering anywhere along the chain. Still depends on your TV
 displaying the signal it receives immediately though.


Most likely a calibration issue. I don't own Guitar Hero myself so I've 
never tired to calibrate it.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg
Dec 12 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "John Colvin" <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 15:47:48 UTC, Jacob Carlborg 
wrote:

 On 2013-12-12 11:43, Manu wrote:

 So, I'm a massive fan of music games. I'll shamefully admit 
 that I was
 tragically addicted to Dance Dance Revolution about 10 years 
 ago.
 Recently, it's Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

 I quite like the band ensemble games, they're good party 
 games, and
 great rhythm practise that's actually applicable to real 
 instrument
 skills too.


 I wouldn't agree with that, at least not for Guitar Hero. I had 
 issues with the timing. When I played I tried to time the 
 music, but that didn't work. Instead I had to time the screen 
 to get any points.


As a lifelong musician this annoyed the hell out of me. The whole 
experience ends up like reading annoying flashy sheet music. Low 
latency is critical.
Dec 12 2013
parent reply Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> writes:
On 13 December 2013 02:28, John Colvin <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com>wrote:


 On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 15:47:48 UTC, Jacob Carlborg wrote:


 On 2013-12-12 11:43, Manu wrote:


 So, I'm a massive fan of music games. I'll shamefully admit that I was
 tragically addicted to Dance Dance Revolution about 10 years ago.
 Recently, it's Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

 I quite like the band ensemble games, they're good party games, and
 great rhythm practise that's actually applicable to real instrument
 skills too.


 I wouldn't agree with that, at least not for Guitar Hero. I had issues
 with the timing. When I played I tried to time the music, but that didn't
 work. Instead I had to time the screen to get any points.


 As a lifelong musician this annoyed the hell out of me. The whole
 experience ends up like reading annoying flashy sheet music. Low latency is
 critical.


It is quite sad how few people seem to know how, or make the effort to
setup their system properly, or know what the typical sources of latency
are... or even that there's such a thing as latency in the first place.
It's possible to make it near-perfect... but when I go to other peoples
houses and try to play, it never is. And then I start fiddling with their
AV system for an hour while everyone get's angry at me and tells me it's
perfect, and have no idea what I'm fussing about >_<
Dec 12 2013
parent reply "John Colvin" <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 17:04:32 UTC, Manu wrote:

 On 13 December 2013 02:28, John Colvin 
 <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com>wrote:


 On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 15:47:48 UTC, Jacob Carlborg 
 wrote:


 On 2013-12-12 11:43, Manu wrote:


 So, I'm a massive fan of music games. I'll shamefully admit 
 that I was
 tragically addicted to Dance Dance Revolution about 10 years 
 ago.
 Recently, it's Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

 I quite like the band ensemble games, they're good party 
 games, and
 great rhythm practise that's actually applicable to real 
 instrument
 skills too.


 I wouldn't agree with that, at least not for Guitar Hero. I 
 had issues
 with the timing. When I played I tried to time the music, but 
 that didn't
 work. Instead I had to time the screen to get any points.


 As a lifelong musician this annoyed the hell out of me. The 
 whole
 experience ends up like reading annoying flashy sheet music. 
 Low latency is
 critical.


 It is quite sad how few people seem to know how, or make the 
 effort to
 setup their system properly, or know what the typical sources 
 of latency
 are... or even that there's such a thing as latency in the 
 first place.
 It's possible to make it near-perfect... but when I go to other 
 peoples
 houses and try to play, it never is. And then I start fiddling 
 with their
 AV system for an hour while everyone get's angry at me and 
 tells me it's
 perfect, and have no idea what I'm fussing about >_<


You just described my life :p
Dec 12 2013
parent Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> writes:
On 13 December 2013 04:48, John Colvin <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com>wrote:


 On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 17:04:32 UTC, Manu wrote:


 On 13 December 2013 02:28, John Colvin <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com

wrote:


  On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 15:47:48 UTC, Jacob Carlborg wrote:

  On 2013-12-12 11:43, Manu wrote:

  So, I'm a massive fan of music games. I'll shamefully admit that I was

 tragically addicted to Dance Dance Revolution about 10 years ago.
 Recently, it's Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

 I quite like the band ensemble games, they're good party games, and
 great rhythm practise that's actually applicable to real instrument
 skills too.


 I wouldn't agree with that, at least not for Guitar Hero. I had issues
 with the timing. When I played I tried to time the music, but that
 didn't
 work. Instead I had to time the screen to get any points.


 As a lifelong musician this annoyed the hell out of me. The whole
 experience ends up like reading annoying flashy sheet music. Low latency
 is
 critical.


 It is quite sad how few people seem to know how, or make the effort to
 setup their system properly, or know what the typical sources of latency
 are... or even that there's such a thing as latency in the first place.
 It's possible to make it near-perfect... but when I go to other peoples
 houses and try to play, it never is. And then I start fiddling with their
 AV system for an hour while everyone get's angry at me and tells me it's
 perfect, and have no idea what I'm fussing about >_<


 You just described my life :p


Hey, I hear you man! ;)
Dec 12 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Joseph Rushton Wakeling <joseph.wakeling webdrake.net> writes:
On 12/12/13 16:47, Jacob Carlborg wrote:

 Instead I had to time the screen to get any points.


Not defending Guitar Hero here, but sometimes it is necessary to follow visual 
rather than sonic cues in performance -- e.g. the brass players and others at 
the back of a symphony orchestra will often play ahead of musicians at the very 
front, because the sound takes longer to get from them to the audience. 
There's 
a lot of subtle internal stuff that goes on with different sections of the 
orchestra having to react and play differently in order to keep the whole 
together, and a lot of that needs to be be modulated by following visual cues
of 
one kind or another from various different people, sometimes against the grain 
of what your ears are getting.

Then there are things like some extreme contemporary music where different 
musicians are effectively in different tempi -- you can play with a
click-track, 
but sometimes it's easier or preferable to have flashing lights give you your 
own personal tempo.

Plugged-in performance isn't really my area, but it wouldn't surprise me if 
having to deal with latency is an occasional occupational challenge there --
can 
anyone confirm? :-)
Dec 12 2013
parent "John Colvin" <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 17:43:57 UTC, Joseph Rushton 
Wakeling wrote:

 Plugged-in performance isn't really my area, but it wouldn't 
 surprise me if having to deal with latency is an occasional 
 occupational challenge there -- can anyone confirm? :-)


It's a big deal when recording. Low latency drivers for lower-end 
audio interfaces are a constant source of problems, and it's 
common to run out of time in the prescribed latency (defined by 
buffer size and the sample rate) to do the audio processing you 
want, leading to having to render things offline or use less cpu 
intensive plugins.

Digital mixers of the sort that are ubiqitous at modern gigs have 
had a lot of work put in to them to achieve as much as possible 
at as low a latency as possible.
Dec 12 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent Iain Buclaw <ibuclaw gdcproject.org> writes:
On 12 December 2013 17:43, Joseph Rushton Wakeling
<joseph.wakeling webdrake.net> wrote:

 On 12/12/13 16:47, Jacob Carlborg wrote:

 Instead I had to time the screen to get any points.



 Not defending Guitar Hero here, but sometimes it is necessary to follow
 visual rather than sonic cues in performance -- e.g. the brass players and
 others at the back of a symphony orchestra will often play ahead of
 musicians at the very front, because the sound takes longer to get from them
 to the audience.  There's a lot of subtle internal stuff that goes on with
 different sections of the orchestra having to react and play differently in
 order to keep the whole together, and a lot of that needs to be be modulated
 by following visual cues of one kind or another from various different
 people, sometimes against the grain of what your ears are getting.


You know, I've never had that... but then again I haven't had the
fortune of being in a band where distance between the first and back
musicians is > 200 metres.  (Because sound doesn't travel *that* slow
;)


 Then there are things like some extreme contemporary music where different
 musicians are effectively in different tempi -- you can play with a
 click-track, but sometimes it's easier or preferable to have flashing lights
 give you your own personal tempo.

 Plugged-in performance isn't really my area, but it wouldn't surprise me if
 having to deal with latency is an occasional occupational challenge there --
 can anyone confirm? :-)


Only in the recording studio - if the time it takes for sound to leave
your instrument, into the microphone, through the walls into the
studio booth, into the mixer (and assuming digital) from the mixer to
the sound card, to the DAW software mixer which is taking the
recording and mixing it in with the playing tracks (optional live
effects processing being done) back to the sound card, to the mixer,
through the walls into the studio room, into the headphones of the
receiver playing the instrument...  is greater than 22ms, then the
person playing experiences a delay in the time he plays to the time he
hears himself in the song.  If that happens, you are not in a good
situation. =)
Dec 12 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Joseph Rushton Wakeling <joseph.wakeling webdrake.net> writes:
On 12/12/13 19:15, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 You know, I've never had that... but then again I haven't had the
 fortune of being in a band where distance between the first and back
 musicians is > 200 metres.  (Because sound doesn't travel *that* slow
 ;)


Well, it's not _just_ about the speed of sound, there are also things like the 
speed of attack of different instruments and so on.

Then again, ever been to a performance of one of those pieces that ask for some 
musicians to be placed in different locations round the back of the concert
hall 
for spatial effects?  Things can get fun with that ... :-)


 Only in the recording studio - if the time it takes for sound to leave
 your instrument, into the microphone, through the walls into the
 studio booth, into the mixer (and assuming digital) from the mixer to
 the sound card, to the DAW software mixer which is taking the
 recording and mixing it in with the playing tracks (optional live
 effects processing being done) back to the sound card, to the mixer,
 through the walls into the studio room, into the headphones of the
 receiver playing the instrument...  is greater than 22ms, then the
 person playing experiences a delay in the time he plays to the time he
 hears himself in the song.  If that happens, you are not in a good
 situation. =)


So, if your latency is 22ms, think of how that corresponds to sound travelling 
in space: you only need to be separated by about 7.5m for that kind of delay to 
kick in.
Dec 12 2013
parent reply "John Colvin" <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 18:31:58 UTC, Joseph Rushton 
Wakeling wrote:

 On 12/12/13 19:15, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 You know, I've never had that... but then again I haven't had 
 the
 fortune of being in a band where distance between the first 
 and back
 musicians is > 200 metres.  (Because sound doesn't travel 
 *that* slow
 ;)


 Well, it's not _just_ about the speed of sound, there are also 
 things like the speed of attack of different instruments and so 
 on.

 Then again, ever been to a performance of one of those pieces 
 that ask for some musicians to be placed in different locations 
 round the back of the concert hall for spatial effects?  Things 
 can get fun with that ... :-)


 Only in the recording studio - if the time it takes for sound 
 to leave
 your instrument, into the microphone, through the walls into 
 the
 studio booth, into the mixer (and assuming digital) from the 
 mixer to
 the sound card, to the DAW software mixer which is taking the
 recording and mixing it in with the playing tracks (optional 
 live
 effects processing being done) back to the sound card, to the 
 mixer,
 through the walls into the studio room, into the headphones of 
 the
 receiver playing the instrument...  is greater than 22ms, then 
 the
 person playing experiences a delay in the time he plays to the 
 time he
 hears himself in the song.  If that happens, you are not in a 
 good
 situation. =)


 So, if your latency is 22ms, think of how that corresponds to 
 sound travelling in space: you only need to be separated by 
 about 7.5m for that kind of delay to kick in.


Delay between people isn't really the problem, it's delay in 
hearing yourself that's the killer. Although 22ms is the normally 
quoted limit for noticing the latency, it actually depends on 
frequency. Even regardless of frequency, i typically find that 
anything less than 64ms is ok, less than 128ms is just about 
bearable and anything more is a serious problem for recording a 
tight-sounding performance.
Dec 12 2013
next sibling parent reply Joseph Rushton Wakeling <joseph.wakeling webdrake.net> writes:
On 12/12/13 19:52, John Colvin wrote:

 Delay between people isn't really the problem, it's delay in hearing yourself
 that's the killer.


Think people listening to people they hear with delay for their musical cues, 
and the people they are listening to listening to _them_ for their musical
cues, 
and the feedback effect that might result ... :-)  You have to get used to the 
fact that the right time to play may sound like the wrong time to play relative 
to some other group spatially separated from you.

By the same token, if everyone plays precisely with the conductor, they don't 
actually play precisely together as far as the audience is concerned, which is 
why professional orchestras tend to play a bit behind the conductor's beat.
Dec 12 2013
parent reply "John Colvin" <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 20:20:46 UTC, Joseph Rushton 
Wakeling wrote:

 On 12/12/13 19:52, John Colvin wrote:

 Delay between people isn't really the problem, it's delay in 
 hearing yourself
 that's the killer.


 Think people listening to people they hear with delay for their 
 musical cues, and the people they are listening to listening to 
 _them_ for their musical cues, and the feedback effect that 
 might result ... :-)  You have to get used to the fact that the 
 right time to play may sound like the wrong time to play 
 relative to some other group spatially separated from you.


I don't doubt it's a problem, but at least in the orchestra or 
with acoustic instruments in general you have the luxury of 
having hand-ear synchronization. For an electric guitarist in the 
studio, you have actual latency between when you feel the pick 
strike in your hand and when you hear it in your ears, sometimes 
up to 64ms. It's a complete nightmare.


 By the same token, if everyone plays precisely with the 
 conductor, they don't actually play precisely together as far 
 as the audience is concerned, which is why professional 
 orchestras tend to play a bit behind the conductor's beat.


An interesting side-effect of this is in recordings of 
orchestras. In order to reconstruct the feel of the music from 
the audiences* perspective, you actually have to time-delay the 
different mics from different sections!

*but where in the audience? Decisions, decisions...
Dec 13 2013
parent reply Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> writes:
On 13 December 2013 19:31, John Colvin <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com>wrote:


 On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 20:20:46 UTC, Joseph Rushton Wakeling
 wrote:


 On 12/12/13 19:52, John Colvin wrote:


 Delay between people isn't really the problem, it's delay in hearing
 yourself
 that's the killer.


 Think people listening to people they hear with delay for their musical
 cues, and the people they are listening to listening to _them_ for their
 musical cues, and the feedback effect that might result ... :-)  You have
 to get used to the fact that the right time to play may sound like the
 wrong time to play relative to some other group spatially separated from
 you.


 I don't doubt it's a problem, but at least in the orchestra or with
 acoustic instruments in general you have the luxury of having hand-ear
 synchronization. For an electric guitarist in the studio, you have actual
 latency between when you feel the pick strike in your hand and when you
 hear it in your ears, sometimes up to 64ms. It's a complete nightmare.



I've experienced the same slowing effect I mentioned before in this context
too.
Have you ever trying playing with a delay AND an uncomfortably high
latency? Since you're playing with a delay, you're effectively playing
against yourself from a couple 100ms ago. If you play when you hear
yourself, but there's an effective latency on that note trigger, it will
compound that latency, and you'll drift towards a slower tempo as you play.
It's so weird when I feel myself do it, but it's awfully hard to control (I
don't have mates to play music with... I play a lot with a delay/looper).


 By the same token, if everyone plays precisely with the conductor, they

 don't actually play precisely together as far as the audience is concerned,
 which is why professional orchestras tend to play a bit behind the
 conductor's beat.


 An interesting side-effect of this is in recordings of orchestras. In
 order to reconstruct the feel of the music from the audiences* perspective,
 you actually have to time-delay the different mics from different sections!

 *but where in the audience? Decisions, decisions...
Dec 13 2013
parent reply Jerry <jlquinn optonline.net> writes:
Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> writes:


 On 13 December 2013 19:31, John Colvin <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com> wrote:

 I've experienced the same slowing effect I mentioned before in this context
 too.
 Have you ever trying playing with a delay AND an uncomfortably high latency?
 Since you're playing with a delay, you're effectively playing against yourself
 from a couple 100ms ago. If you play when you hear yourself, but there's an
 effective latency on that note trigger, it will compound that latency, and
 you'll drift towards a slower tempo as you play.
 It's so weird when I feel myself do it, but it's awfully hard to control (I
 don't have mates to play music with... I play a lot with a delay/looper).


One of the worst examples of this I've heard of was pipe organs in a
very large church.  The organist console sits at the opposite end of the
church from the pipes, perhaps 100 feet away from some pipes, leading to
extremely large delays.  I read one account where low notes had a 300ms
delay from pressing the pedal.

Jerry
Dec 17 2013
parent "Mike James" <foo bar.com> writes:
"Jerry" <jlquinn optonline.net> wrote in message 
news:87r49bzawu.fsf optonline.net...

 Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> writes:


 On 13 December 2013 19:31, John Colvin <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com> 
 wrote:

 I've experienced the same slowing effect I mentioned before in this 
 context
 too.
 Have you ever trying playing with a delay AND an uncomfortably high 
 latency?
 Since you're playing with a delay, you're effectively playing against 
 yourself
 from a couple 100ms ago. If you play when you hear yourself, but there's 
 an
 effective latency on that note trigger, it will compound that latency, 
 and
 you'll drift towards a slower tempo as you play.
 It's so weird when I feel myself do it, but it's awfully hard to control 
 (I
 don't have mates to play music with... I play a lot with a delay/looper).


 One of the worst examples of this I've heard of was pipe organs in a
 very large church.  The organist console sits at the opposite end of the
 church from the pipes, perhaps 100 feet away from some pipes, leading to
 extremely large delays.  I read one account where low notes had a 300ms
 delay from pressing the pedal.

 Jerry


Yeh - I had a friend who restored and played theatre organs. He said you had 
to play to the sheet music and completely ignore the sound.

-=mike=-
Dec 18 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx> writes:
On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 09:20:38PM +0100, Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:

 On 12/12/13 19:52, John Colvin wrote:

Delay between people isn't really the problem, it's delay in hearing
yourself that's the killer.


 
 Think people listening to people they hear with delay for their
 musical cues, and the people they are listening to listening to
 _them_ for their musical cues, and the feedback effect that might
 result ... :-)  You have to get used to the fact that the right time
 to play may sound like the wrong time to play relative to some other
 group spatially separated from you.
 
 By the same token, if everyone plays precisely with the conductor,
 they don't actually play precisely together as far as the audience
 is concerned, which is why professional orchestras tend to play a
 bit behind the conductor's beat.


Ahh, so *that's* why they do that!! I've always been wondering why the
orchestra always seems to be out-of-beat with the conductor, and why the
conductor's beats don't seem to line up with the actual sound.

Thanks!!


T

-- 
If it's green, it's biology, If it stinks, it's chemistry, If it has numbers
it's math, If it doesn't work, it's technology.
Dec 12 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent Joseph Rushton Wakeling <joseph.wakeling webdrake.net> writes:
On 12/12/13 22:13, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 Ahh, so *that's* why they do that!! I've always been wondering why the
 orchestra always seems to be out-of-beat with the conductor, and why the
 conductor's beats don't seem to line up with the actual sound.


There's quite a nice blog post describing some of the reasons behind this here, 
if you're interested:
http://blog.davidhthomas.net/2006/12/but-im-with-the-conductor/
Dec 12 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> writes:
On 13 December 2013 04:52, John Colvin <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com>wrote:


 On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 18:31:58 UTC, Joseph Rushton Wakeling
 wrote:


 On 12/12/13 19:15, Iain Buclaw wrote:


 You know, I've never had that... but then again I haven't had the
 fortune of being in a band where distance between the first and back
 musicians is > 200 metres.  (Because sound doesn't travel *that* slow
 ;)


 Well, it's not _just_ about the speed of sound, there are also things
 like the speed of attack of different instruments and so on.

 Then again, ever been to a performance of one of those pieces that ask
 for some musicians to be placed in different locations round the back of
 the concert hall for spatial effects?  Things can get fun with that ... :-)


  Only in the recording studio - if the time it takes for sound to leave

 your instrument, into the microphone, through the walls into the
 studio booth, into the mixer (and assuming digital) from the mixer to
 the sound card, to the DAW software mixer which is taking the
 recording and mixing it in with the playing tracks (optional live
 effects processing being done) back to the sound card, to the mixer,
 through the walls into the studio room, into the headphones of the
 receiver playing the instrument...  is greater than 22ms, then the
 person playing experiences a delay in the time he plays to the time he
 hears himself in the song.  If that happens, you are not in a good
 situation. =)


 So, if your latency is 22ms, think of how that corresponds to sound
 travelling in space: you only need to be separated by about 7.5m for that
 kind of delay to kick in.


 Delay between people isn't really the problem, it's delay in hearing
 yourself that's the killer. Although 22ms is the normally quoted limit for
 noticing the latency, it actually depends on frequency. Even regardless of
 frequency, i typically find that anything less than 64ms is ok, less than
 128ms is just about bearable and anything more is a serious problem for
 recording a tight-sounding performance.


Latency between recording musicians has a strange effect of gradually
slowing the tempo down. Ie, if both musicians are playing with headphone
monitors or something, and there is a small latency in the system.
If you are playing together, but then you feel a 20ms latency between you
and the other musician, you tend to perceive yourself as playing slightly
too fast, and then adjust by slowing a fraction, the same thing happens in
the other direction, so you're both constantly slowing by a fraction to
maintain perception of synchronisation, and the tempo gradually slows.
It's almost an unconscious psychological response, quite hard to control in
the studio.

Man, my day job works in quantities of 16ms (1 frame), and I have spent
many hours resolving inter-frame synchronisation issues (16ms out of
synch). Maybe I'm just hyper-sensitive, but 64ms is extremely noticeable to
me. 128ms is like an eternity!
Consider, 16th notes at 120bpm (not unusual in metal, I assure you), are
only 125ms apart, that more than an entire note out.
Around 4ms is what professional recording setups aim for.
Dec 12 2013
next sibling parent reply "John Colvin" <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 03:13:16 UTC, Manu wrote:

 On 13 December 2013 04:52, John Colvin 
 <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com>wrote:


 On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 18:31:58 UTC, Joseph Rushton 
 Wakeling
 wrote:


 On 12/12/13 19:15, Iain Buclaw wrote:


 You know, I've never had that... but then again I haven't 
 had the
 fortune of being in a band where distance between the first 
 and back
 musicians is > 200 metres.  (Because sound doesn't travel 
 *that* slow
 ;)


 Well, it's not _just_ about the speed of sound, there are 
 also things
 like the speed of attack of different instruments and so on.

 Then again, ever been to a performance of one of those pieces 
 that ask
 for some musicians to be placed in different locations round 
 the back of
 the concert hall for spatial effects?  Things can get fun 
 with that ... :-)


  Only in the recording studio - if the time it takes for 
 sound to leave

 your instrument, into the microphone, through the walls into 
 the
 studio booth, into the mixer (and assuming digital) from the 
 mixer to
 the sound card, to the DAW software mixer which is taking the
 recording and mixing it in with the playing tracks (optional 
 live
 effects processing being done) back to the sound card, to 
 the mixer,
 through the walls into the studio room, into the headphones 
 of the
 receiver playing the instrument...  is greater than 22ms, 
 then the
 person playing experiences a delay in the time he plays to 
 the time he
 hears himself in the song.  If that happens, you are not in 
 a good
 situation. =)


 So, if your latency is 22ms, think of how that corresponds to 
 sound
 travelling in space: you only need to be separated by about 
 7.5m for that
 kind of delay to kick in.


 Delay between people isn't really the problem, it's delay in 
 hearing
 yourself that's the killer. Although 22ms is the normally 
 quoted limit for
 noticing the latency, it actually depends on frequency. Even 
 regardless of
 frequency, i typically find that anything less than 64ms is 
 ok, less than
 128ms is just about bearable and anything more is a serious 
 problem for
 recording a tight-sounding performance.


 Latency between recording musicians has a strange effect of 
 gradually
 slowing the tempo down. Ie, if both musicians are playing with 
 headphone
 monitors or something, and there is a small latency in the 
 system.
 If you are playing together, but then you feel a 20ms latency 
 between you
 and the other musician, you tend to perceive yourself as 
 playing slightly
 too fast, and then adjust by slowing a fraction, the same thing 
 happens in
 the other direction, so you're both constantly slowing by a 
 fraction to
 maintain perception of synchronisation, and the tempo gradually 
 slows.
 It's almost an unconscious psychological response, quite hard 
 to control in
 the studio.



Interesting. This isn't a phenomena that I've experienced to be 
honest, generally people's tendency to speed up has dominated 
most sessions that are without click.

Also, 20ms round-trip latency? That's unusually small.
Dec 13 2013
parent Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> writes:
On 13 December 2013 19:22, John Colvin <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com>wrote:


 On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 03:13:16 UTC, Manu wrote:


 On 13 December 2013 04:52, John Colvin <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com

wrote:


  On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 18:31:58 UTC, Joseph Rushton Wakeling

 wrote:

  On 12/12/13 19:15, Iain Buclaw wrote:

  You know, I've never had that... but then again I haven't had the

 fortune of being in a band where distance between the first and back
 musicians is > 200 metres.  (Because sound doesn't travel *that* slow
 ;)


 Well, it's not _just_ about the speed of sound, there are also things
 like the speed of attack of different instruments and so on.

 Then again, ever been to a performance of one of those pieces that ask
 for some musicians to be placed in different locations round the back of
 the concert hall for spatial effects?  Things can get fun with that ...
 :-)


  Only in the recording studio - if the time it takes for sound to leave


 your instrument, into the microphone, through the walls into the
 studio booth, into the mixer (and assuming digital) from the mixer to
 the sound card, to the DAW software mixer which is taking the
 recording and mixing it in with the playing tracks (optional live
 effects processing being done) back to the sound card, to the mixer,
 through the walls into the studio room, into the headphones of the
 receiver playing the instrument...  is greater than 22ms, then the
 person playing experiences a delay in the time he plays to the time he
 hears himself in the song.  If that happens, you are not in a good
 situation. =)


 So, if your latency is 22ms, think of how that corresponds to sound
 travelling in space: you only need to be separated by about 7.5m for
 that
 kind of delay to kick in.


 Delay between people isn't really the problem, it's delay in hearing
 yourself that's the killer. Although 22ms is the normally quoted limit
 for
 noticing the latency, it actually depends on frequency. Even regardless
 of
 frequency, i typically find that anything less than 64ms is ok, less than
 128ms is just about bearable and anything more is a serious problem for
 recording a tight-sounding performance.


 Latency between recording musicians has a strange effect of gradually
 slowing the tempo down. Ie, if both musicians are playing with headphone
 monitors or something, and there is a small latency in the system.
 If you are playing together, but then you feel a 20ms latency between you
 and the other musician, you tend to perceive yourself as playing slightly
 too fast, and then adjust by slowing a fraction, the same thing happens in
 the other direction, so you're both constantly slowing by a fraction to
 maintain perception of synchronisation, and the tempo gradually slows.
 It's almost an unconscious psychological response, quite hard to control
 in
 the studio.



 Interesting. This isn't a phenomena that I've experienced to be honest,
 generally people's tendency to speed up has dominated most sessions that
 are without click.


Haha, that's true. Naturally, I've observed that too, but that just happens
all the time regardless! :)
Maybe it requires a slightly higher latency than 20ms, but it does reach a
point where the interplay between musicians who are each trying to
unconsciously re-sync against the others causes some weird changes in
overall tempo.
When it reaches the conscious stage, then they just say it's broken and
demand the tech to fix it. But there's a window there that triggers the
unconscious micro-re-sync efforts, and that's where it gets weird in my
experience.


Also, 20ms round-trip latency? That's unusually small.


God I hope not. Depends on how many digital effects are in the loop I guess.
It's not show-stopping latency, but I start to feel it personally at 20ms
or so. Like I said before though, I might have trained myself to be
hyper-sensitive.



 Dec 13 2013



prev sibling  parent  "David Nadlinger" <code klickverbot.at>  writes:


On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 03:13:16 UTC, Manu wrote:

 On 13 December 2013 04:52, John Colvin

 Delay between people isn't really the problem, it's delay in 
 hearing
 yourself that's the killer. Although 22ms is the normally 
 quoted limit for
 noticing the latency, it actually depends on frequency. Even 
 regardless of
 frequency, i typically find that anything less than 64ms is 
 ok, less than
 128ms is just about bearable and anything more is a serious 
 problem for
 recording a tight-sounding performance.


 […]

 Man, my day job works in quantities of 16ms (1 frame), and I 
 have spent
 many hours resolving inter-frame synchronisation issues (16ms 
 out of
 synch). Maybe I'm just hyper-sensitive, but 64ms is extremely 
 noticeable to
 me. 128ms is like an eternity!
 Consider, 16th notes at 120bpm (not unusual in metal, I assure 
 you), are
 only 125ms apart, that more than an entire note out.
 Around 4ms is what professional recording setups aim for.


Yep, I'd be quite surprised if a professional musician (at least 
one playing a somewhat percussive instrument) wouldn't notice a 
20ms delay, given how obvious small delays are for me when e.g. 
playing a VST instrument when the audio interface buffer size is 
too large or a plugin is slowing down the whole system due to 
delay compensation in the host software. In digital (live) pro 
audio, latencies in the low single-digit microseconds are usually 
considered acceptable, with more it depends on the circumstances.

Of course, the threshold for being able to play in sync in 
relation to other musicians is quite a bit higher, and what I've 
seen some singers do on big opera stages (think e.g. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bregenzer_Festspiele) is nothing 
short of amazing.

David



 Dec 13 2013



prev sibling next sibling parent  "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx>  writes:


On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 10:47:36PM +0100, Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:

 On 12/12/13 22:13, H. S. Teoh wrote:

Ahh, so *that's* why they do that!! I've always been wondering why
the orchestra always seems to be out-of-beat with the conductor, and
why the conductor's beats don't seem to line up with the actual
sound.


 
 There's quite a nice blog post describing some of the reasons behind
 this here, if you're interested:
 http://blog.davidhthomas.net/2006/12/but-im-with-the-conductor/


Interesting! Makes total sense, though. You're dealing with 100+ human
players, and keeping them all in sync is quite challenging. It's totally
different if you're playing a computer-conducted orchestra, where
everything is mechanically kept in top-notch sync. :P  For some reason,
that doesn't sound as good as a live orchestra.

(I read somewhere that it is due to our brains automatically filtering
out repetitive stimuli.  The precise timing of computer-generated music
produces an exact, mechanical rhythm, which causes the brain to tune
out, resulting the perception of dullness or tiredness. Human players,
OTOH, are always ever so slightly off beat, and the slight variations
keep the brain interested and not tune out. Same thing applies to the
precise attack velocities of computer-generated notes -- after a while
it feels tiring because it's exactly the same velocity over and over.
Human players produce quite a wide variety of attack velocities, even
when playing the same notes over and over, which makes it far more
interesting to listen to. Inexactness isn't always a bad thing!)


T

-- 
Study gravitation, it's a field with a lot of potential.



 Dec 12 2013



prev sibling  parent  Iain Buclaw <ibuclaw gdcproject.org>  writes:


On 13 December 2013 03:12, Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> wrote:

 On 13 December 2013 04:52, John Colvin <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com>
 wrote:

 On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 18:31:58 UTC, Joseph Rushton Wakeling
 wrote:

 On 12/12/13 19:15, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 You know, I've never had that... but then again I haven't had the
 fortune of being in a band where distance between the first and back
 musicians is > 200 metres.  (Because sound doesn't travel *that* slow
 ;)



 Well, it's not _just_ about the speed of sound, there are also things
 like the speed of attack of different instruments and so on.

 Then again, ever been to a performance of one of those pieces that ask
 for some musicians to be placed in different locations round the back of the
 concert hall for spatial effects?  Things can get fun with that ... :-)



 Only in the recording studio - if the time it takes for sound to leave
 your instrument, into the microphone, through the walls into the
 studio booth, into the mixer (and assuming digital) from the mixer to
 the sound card, to the DAW software mixer which is taking the
 recording and mixing it in with the playing tracks (optional live
 effects processing being done) back to the sound card, to the mixer,
 through the walls into the studio room, into the headphones of the
 receiver playing the instrument...  is greater than 22ms, then the
 person playing experiences a delay in the time he plays to the time he
 hears himself in the song.  If that happens, you are not in a good
 situation. =)



 So, if your latency is 22ms, think of how that corresponds to sound
 travelling in space: you only need to be separated by about 7.5m for that
 kind of delay to kick in.



 Delay between people isn't really the problem, it's delay in hearing
 yourself that's the killer. Although 22ms is the normally quoted limit for
 noticing the latency, it actually depends on frequency. Even regardless of
 frequency, i typically find that anything less than 64ms is ok, less than
 128ms is just about bearable and anything more is a serious problem for
 recording a tight-sounding performance.



 Latency between recording musicians has a strange effect of gradually
 slowing the tempo down. Ie, if both musicians are playing with headphone
 monitors or something, and there is a small latency in the system.
 If you are playing together, but then you feel a 20ms latency between you
 and the other musician, you tend to perceive yourself as playing slightly
 too fast, and then adjust by slowing a fraction, the same thing happens in
 the other direction, so you're both constantly slowing by a fraction to
 maintain perception of synchronisation, and the tempo gradually slows.
 It's almost an unconscious psychological response, quite hard to control in
 the studio.


You could argue that it makes the musicians *real*. :)

It is however one reason why I prefer recording all musicians playing
together rather than in isolation.  I love the sound of music from the
60s/70s, in which the musicians that made those records never worked
to click tracks. The result is that their timing is all over the place
- speeding up, slowing down, what have you.  I love it, it gives you a
feeling of excitement, and it sounds great.  :)



 Dec 13 2013



prev sibling  parent  Manu <turkeyman gmail.com>  writes:


On 13 December 2013 03:43, Joseph Rushton Wakeling <
joseph.wakeling webdrake.net> wrote:


 On 12/12/13 16:47, Jacob Carlborg wrote:


 Instead I had to time the screen to get any points.


 Not defending Guitar Hero here, but sometimes it is necessary to follow
 visual rather than sonic cues in performance -- e.g. the brass players and
 others at the back of a symphony orchestra will often play ahead of
 musicians at the very front, because the sound takes longer to get from
 them to the audience.  There's a lot of subtle internal stuff that goes on
 with different sections of the orchestra having to react and play
 differently in order to keep the whole together, and a lot of that needs to
 be be modulated by following visual cues of one kind or another from
 various different people, sometimes against the grain of what your ears are
 getting.


Hey that's a really interesting thought actually. I never considered that.
I suppose this would only be applicable in a large auditorium though?
I have a whole new appreciation for the conductor upon that revelation
alone! :)
Modern music has a conveniently placed foldback speaker, or even in-ear
monitor... you all hear each other at the same time, it's easy enough to
synchronise.

Then there are things like some extreme contemporary music where different

 musicians are effectively in different tempi -- you can play with a
 click-track, but sometimes it's easier or preferable to have flashing
 lights give you your own personal tempo.

 Plugged-in performance isn't really my area, but it wouldn't surprise me
 if having to deal with latency is an occasional occupational challenge
 there -- can anyone confirm? :-)


Plugged in performance still uses low-tech analog technology, specifically
to eliminate latency. Modern recording hardware has an element of wrangling
latency, although that was more of a problem 5-10 years ago than it is now.
At all comes from the switch to digital technology, where you need to start
buffering blocks of audio, and performing burst transmissions. That's where
latency really starts creeping into the system.
Certainly prevalent in GH, which is running on cheap consumer hardware,
which isn't really even designed for true low-latency gameplay (not to the
standards a good musician expects).
The work-around is a bunch of in-game knobs to specify latency offsets for
various outputs (video/audio), against the input
(controllers/keyboard/midi) which may also have its own latency.
People need to properly understand the problem before they can configure
these knobs properly, and most general players just don't even bother, they
play right off the screen and ignore the music.



 Dec 12 2013



prev sibling next sibling parent reply =?UTF-8?B?UsOpbXkgTW91w6t6YQ==?= <remy.moueza gmail.com>  writes:


If, when writting "mini and communication processing", you meant MIDI 
(Musical Instrument Digital Interface) instead of mini, you may be 
interesting by my bindings to the RtMidi library:
  - https://github.com/remy-j-a-moueza/drtmidi
  - RtMidi website: http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~gary/rtmidi/index.html

On 12/12/2013 11:43 AM, Manu wrote:

 So, I'm a massive fan of music games. I'll shamefully admit that I was
 tragically addicted to Dance Dance Revolution about 10 years ago.
 Recently, it's Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

 I quite like the band ensemble games, they're good party games, and
 great rhythm practise that's actually applicable to real instrument
 skills too.

 The problem is though, that Neversoft and Harmonix completely fucked up
 the GH and RB franchises. Licensing problems, fragmented tracklists.
 It's annoying that all the songs you want to play are spread across
 literally 10 or so different games, and you need to constantly change
 disc's if you want to play the songs you like.

 I've been meaning to kick off a guitar hero clone since GH2 came out. I
 started one years ago as a fork of my Guitar Hero song editor for PS2,
 and I added support for drums before GH4 or RB were conceived, but then
 when they announced those games they stole my thunder and it went into
 hibernation.

 I'm very keen to resurrect the project (well, start a new one, with
 clean code, in D).
 Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would be
 interested in joining a side project like this? It's a lot more
 motivating, and much more fun to work in a small team.

 It's an interesting union of skills; rendering, audio processing,
 super-low-latency synchronisation, mini and communications processing,
 animation, UI and presentation.

 I have done all this stuff commercially, so I can act as a sort of
 project lead of people are interested, but haven't tried to write that
 sort of software before.

 It also seems like a good excuse to kick off a fairly large scale and
 performance intensive D project, which I like to do from time to time.





 Dec 12 2013



 next sibling parent  Manu <turkeyman gmail.com>  writes:


On 13 December 2013 06:42, R=C3=A9my Mou=C3=ABza <remy.moueza gmail.com> wr=
ote:


 If, when writting "mini and communication processing", you meant MIDI
 (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) instead of mini, you may be
 interesting by my bindings to the RtMidi library:
  - https://github.com/remy-j-a-moueza/drtmidi
  - RtMidi website: http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~gary/rtmidi/index.html



I did. Very handy!


On 12/12/2013 11:43 AM, Manu wrote:

 So, I'm a massive fan of music games. I'll shamefully admit that I was
 tragically addicted to Dance Dance Revolution about 10 years ago.
 Recently, it's Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

 I quite like the band ensemble games, they're good party games, and
 great rhythm practise that's actually applicable to real instrument
 skills too.

 The problem is though, that Neversoft and Harmonix completely fucked up
 the GH and RB franchises. Licensing problems, fragmented tracklists.
 It's annoying that all the songs you want to play are spread across
 literally 10 or so different games, and you need to constantly change
 disc's if you want to play the songs you like.

 I've been meaning to kick off a guitar hero clone since GH2 came out. I
 started one years ago as a fork of my Guitar Hero song editor for PS2,
 and I added support for drums before GH4 or RB were conceived, but then
 when they announced those games they stole my thunder and it went into
 hibernation.

 I'm very keen to resurrect the project (well, start a new one, with
 clean code, in D).
 Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would be
 interested in joining a side project like this? It's a lot more
 motivating, and much more fun to work in a small team.

 It's an interesting union of skills; rendering, audio processing,
 super-low-latency synchronisation, mini and communications processing,
 animation, UI and presentation.

 I have done all this stuff commercially, so I can act as a sort of
 project lead of people are interested, but haven't tried to write that
 sort of software before.

 It also seems like a good excuse to kick off a fairly large scale and
 performance intensive D project, which I like to do from time to time.







 Dec 12 2013



prev sibling next sibling parent  Danni Coy <danni.coy gmail.com>  writes:


Have you looked at Rocksmith? If I were going to spend a lot time
doing a guitar/music game - I would probably look in that direction.
As far as I know most audio professionals consider lantencies under
20ms acceptable but preferably smaller. from what I understand the
brain itself has a latency of about 12ms.

On Fri, Dec 13, 2013 at 1:18 PM, Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> wrote:

 On 13 December 2013 06:42, Rémy Mouëza <remy.moueza gmail.com> wrote:

 If, when writting "mini and communication processing", you meant MIDI
 (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) instead of mini, you may be
 interesting by my bindings to the RtMidi library:
  - https://github.com/remy-j-a-moueza/drtmidi
  - RtMidi website: http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~gary/rtmidi/index.html



 I did. Very handy!



 On 12/12/2013 11:43 AM, Manu wrote:

 So, I'm a massive fan of music games. I'll shamefully admit that I was
 tragically addicted to Dance Dance Revolution about 10 years ago.
 Recently, it's Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

 I quite like the band ensemble games, they're good party games, and
 great rhythm practise that's actually applicable to real instrument
 skills too.

 The problem is though, that Neversoft and Harmonix completely fucked up
 the GH and RB franchises. Licensing problems, fragmented tracklists.
 It's annoying that all the songs you want to play are spread across
 literally 10 or so different games, and you need to constantly change
 disc's if you want to play the songs you like.

 I've been meaning to kick off a guitar hero clone since GH2 came out. I
 started one years ago as a fork of my Guitar Hero song editor for PS2,
 and I added support for drums before GH4 or RB were conceived, but then
 when they announced those games they stole my thunder and it went into
 hibernation.

 I'm very keen to resurrect the project (well, start a new one, with
 clean code, in D).
 Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would be
 interested in joining a side project like this? It's a lot more
 motivating, and much more fun to work in a small team.

 It's an interesting union of skills; rendering, audio processing,
 super-low-latency synchronisation, mini and communications processing,
 animation, UI and presentation.

 I have done all this stuff commercially, so I can act as a sort of
 project lead of people are interested, but haven't tried to write that
 sort of software before.

 It also seems like a good excuse to kick off a fairly large scale and
 performance intensive D project, which I like to do from time to time.









 Dec 12 2013



prev sibling  parent  Manu <turkeyman gmail.com>  writes:


On 13 December 2013 14:07, Danni Coy <danni.coy gmail.com> wrote:


 Have you looked at Rocksmith?



I have, and I definitely want to work that in... but game-ify it a bit more=
.
That's substantially more work though, so I think GH is a simpler first
target which will get UI and presentation out of the way, encourage more
users+contributors, and should leave a good framework for any tightly
synchronised gameplay.

It would be a very interesting piece of work though for someone awesome at
signal analysis, to take an input audio stream and effectively break it
into midi trigger information.
Given that, it's easy to make a game on top.

If I were going to spend a lot time

 doing a guitar/music game - I would probably look in that direction.
 As far as I know most audio professionals consider lantencies under
 20ms acceptable but preferably smaller. from what I understand the
 brain itself has a latency of about 12ms.

 On Fri, Dec 13, 2013 at 1:18 PM, Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> wrote:

 On 13 December 2013 06:42, R=C3=A9my Mou=C3=ABza <remy.moueza gmail.com=


 wrote:

 If, when writting "mini and communication processing", you meant MIDI
 (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) instead of mini, you may be
 interesting by my bindings to the RtMidi library:
  - https://github.com/remy-j-a-moueza/drtmidi
  - RtMidi website: http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~gary/rtmidi/index.html



 I did. Very handy!



 On 12/12/2013 11:43 AM, Manu wrote:

 So, I'm a massive fan of music games. I'll shamefully admit that I wa=








s

 tragically addicted to Dance Dance Revolution about 10 years ago.
 Recently, it's Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

 I quite like the band ensemble games, they're good party games, and
 great rhythm practise that's actually applicable to real instrument
 skills too.

 The problem is though, that Neversoft and Harmonix completely fucked =








up

 the GH and RB franchises. Licensing problems, fragmented tracklists.
 It's annoying that all the songs you want to play are spread across
 literally 10 or so different games, and you need to constantly change
 disc's if you want to play the songs you like.

 I've been meaning to kick off a guitar hero clone since GH2 came out.=








 I

 started one years ago as a fork of my Guitar Hero song editor for PS2=








,

 and I added support for drums before GH4 or RB were conceived, but th=








en

 when they announced those games they stole my thunder and it went int=








o

 hibernation.

 I'm very keen to resurrect the project (well, start a new one, with
 clean code, in D).
 Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would be
 interested in joining a side project like this? It's a lot more
 motivating, and much more fun to work in a small team.

 It's an interesting union of skills; rendering, audio processing,
 super-low-latency synchronisation, mini and communications processing=








,

 animation, UI and presentation.

 I have done all this stuff commercially, so I can act as a sort of
 project lead of people are interested, but haven't tried to write tha=








t

 sort of software before.

 It also seems like a good excuse to kick off a fairly large scale and
 performance intensive D project, which I like to do from time to time=








.









 Dec 12 2013



prev sibling next sibling parent  "Peter Alexander" <peter.alexander.au gmail.com>  writes:


On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 10:43:24 UTC, Manu wrote:

 Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would be 
 interested
 in joining a side project like this?


I'm... interested. That's about all I can commit to at the moment 
:-)

As for skillset... well I've been doing gamedev commercially for 
about 5 years now (last 4 years on console/PC) and I generally do 
a mix of high-level game logic, and core systems. I could quite 
happily do graphics, physics, as well. Not massively experienced 
with audio unfortunately. I do play guitar though :-D

Please keep me informed.



 Dec 12 2013



prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Szymon Gatner" <noemail gmail.com>  writes:


On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 10:43:24 UTC, Manu wrote:

 So, I'm a massive fan of music games. I'll shamefully admit 
 that I was
 tragically addicted to Dance Dance Revolution about 10 years 
 ago. Recently,
 it's Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

 I quite like the band ensemble games, they're good party games, 
 and great
 rhythm practise that's actually applicable to real instrument 
 skills too.

 The problem is though, that Neversoft and Harmonix completely 
 fucked up the
 GH and RB franchises. Licensing problems, fragmented 
 tracklists. It's
 annoying that all the songs you want to play are spread across 
 literally 10
 or so different games, and you need to constantly change disc's 
 if you want
 to play the songs you like.

 I've been meaning to kick off a guitar hero clone since GH2 
 came out. I
 started one years ago as a fork of my Guitar Hero song editor 
 for PS2, and
 I added support for drums before GH4 or RB were conceived, but 
 then when
 they announced those games they stole my thunder and it went 
 into
 hibernation.

 I'm very keen to resurrect the project (well, start a new one, 
 with clean
 code, in D).
 Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would be 
 interested
 in joining a side project like this? It's a lot more 
 motivating, and much
 more fun to work in a small team.

 It's an interesting union of skills; rendering, audio 
 processing,
 super-low-latency synchronisation, mini and communications 
 processing,
 animation, UI and presentation.

 I have done all this stuff commercially, so I can act as a sort 
 of project
 lead of people are interested, but haven't tried to write that 
 sort of
 software before.

 It also seems like a good excuse to kick off a fairly large 
 scale and
 performance intensive D project, which I like to do from time 
 to time.


Hi, I am experienced C++ programmer, recently switched to indie 
gamedev (1 title released commercially, another on the way). I am 
really interested in this for 2 reasons:
1) a chance to work with someone of your experience
2) as soon as it is possible (that would be D working on iOS) I 
would like to do a transition from C++ to D in our projects so 
new experience in D (and in the industry) is just perfect

Please consider me!



 Dec 13 2013



 next sibling parent reply "Rikki Cattermole" <alphaglosined gmail.com>  writes:


On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 12:37:21 UTC, Szymon Gatner wrote:

 Hi, I am experienced C++ programmer, recently switched to indie 
 gamedev (1 title released commercially, another on the way). I 
 am really interested in this for 2 reasons:
 1) a chance to work with someone of your experience
 2) as soon as it is possible (that would be D working on iOS) I 
 would like to do a transition from C++ to D in our projects so 
 new experience in D (and in the industry) is just perfect

 Please consider me!


 From the sounds of it, it'll be a community project so no 
worries, just join in.
Have a talk with the GDC compiler guys about helping with ARM 
support and getting on iOS. They could definitely use the help!
Although from my knowledge there probably will be issues with 
tool chain not verified by Apple.



 Dec 13 2013



 next sibling parent reply "Szymon Gatner" <noemail gmail.com>  writes:


On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 13:06:16 UTC, Rikki Cattermole 
wrote:

 On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 12:37:21 UTC, Szymon Gatner 
 wrote:

 Hi, I am experienced C++ programmer, recently switched to 
 indie gamedev (1 title released commercially, another on the 
 way). I am really interested in this for 2 reasons:
 1) a chance to work with someone of your experience
 2) as soon as it is possible (that would be D working on iOS) 
 I would like to do a transition from C++ to D in our projects 
 so new experience in D (and in the industry) is just perfect

 Please consider me!


 From the sounds of it, it'll be a community project so no 
 worries, just join in.
 Have a talk with the GDC compiler guys about helping with ARM 
 support and getting on iOS. They could definitely use the help!
 Although from my knowledge there probably will be issues with 
 tool chain not verified by Apple.


Thing is, I feel nowhere near qualified to work on a compiler. 
And compiler is really just a beginning. Even with Xcode 
preparing iOS app that is written in C++ and not Objective-C is 
still far from easy.



 Dec 13 2013



  parent reply Manu <turkeyman gmail.com>  writes:


On 13 December 2013 23:53, Szymon Gatner <noemail gmail.com> wrote:


 On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 13:06:16 UTC, Rikki Cattermole wrote:


 On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 12:37:21 UTC, Szymon Gatner wrote:


 Hi, I am experienced C++ programmer, recently switched to indie gamedev
 (1 title released commercially, another on the way). I am really interested
 in this for 2 reasons:
 1) a chance to work with someone of your experience
 2) as soon as it is possible (that would be D working on iOS) I would
 like to do a transition from C++ to D in our projects so new experience in
 D (and in the industry) is just perfect

 Please consider me!


 From the sounds of it, it'll be a community project so no worries, just
 join in.
 Have a talk with the GDC compiler guys about helping with ARM support and
 getting on iOS. They could definitely use the help!
 Although from my knowledge there probably will be issues with tool chain
 not verified by Apple.


 Thing is, I feel nowhere near qualified to work on a compiler. And
 compiler is really just a beginning. Even with Xcode preparing iOS app that
 is written in C++ and not Objective-C is still far from easy.


Really? Everything I've ever written on iOS was in full C++, with just one
.m file to boot, and marshall the view and input events :)
I think doing the same with D would be equally trivial. A game doesn't need
access to the full iOS UI library. Any OS service calls can be wrapped in C
functions in the marshalling .m file.



 Dec 13 2013



 next sibling parent reply "Szymon Gatner" <noemail gmail.com>  writes:


On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 14:50:18 UTC, Manu wrote:

 On 13 December 2013 23:53, Szymon Gatner <noemail gmail.com> 
 wrote:


 On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 13:06:16 UTC, Rikki Cattermole 
 wrote:


 On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 12:37:21 UTC, Szymon Gatner 
 wrote:


 Hi, I am experienced C++ programmer, recently switched to 
 indie gamedev
 (1 title released commercially, another on the way). I am 
 really interested
 in this for 2 reasons:
 1) a chance to work with someone of your experience
 2) as soon as it is possible (that would be D working on 
 iOS) I would
 like to do a transition from C++ to D in our projects so new 
 experience in
 D (and in the industry) is just perfect

 Please consider me!


 From the sounds of it, it'll be a community project so no 
 worries, just
 join in.
 Have a talk with the GDC compiler guys about helping with ARM 
 support and
 getting on iOS. They could definitely use the help!
 Although from my knowledge there probably will be issues with 
 tool chain
 not verified by Apple.


 Thing is, I feel nowhere near qualified to work on a compiler. 
 And
 compiler is really just a beginning. Even with Xcode preparing 
 iOS app that
 is written in C++ and not Objective-C is still far from easy.


 Really? Everything I've ever written on iOS was in full C++, 
 with just one
 .m file to boot, and marshall the view and input events :)
 I think doing the same with D would be equally trivial. A game 
 doesn't need
 access to the full iOS UI library. Any OS service calls can be 
 wrapped in C
 functions in the marshalling .m file.


That is exactly what I do too, all C++ + some .mm files. I rather 
meant debugging capabilities of Xcode (well now mych better in v5 
but still crap compared to VC), code signing, provisions and a 
need to use command line instead of IDE for archiving etc. Tbh I 
am using CMake to keep my projects portable so that is a part of 
a problem but still ;)



 Dec 13 2013



  parent reply Manu <turkeyman gmail.com>  writes:


On 14 December 2013 01:09, Szymon Gatner <noemail gmail.com> wrote:


 On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 14:50:18 UTC, Manu wrote:


 On 13 December 2013 23:53, Szymon Gatner <noemail gmail.com> wrote:

  On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 13:06:16 UTC, Rikki Cattermole wrote:

  On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 12:37:21 UTC, Szymon Gatner wrote:

  Hi, I am experienced C++ programmer, recently switched to indie gamedev

 (1 title released commercially, another on the way). I am really
 interested
 in this for 2 reasons:
 1) a chance to work with someone of your experience
 2) as soon as it is possible (that would be D working on iOS) I would
 like to do a transition from C++ to D in our projects so new
 experience in
 D (and in the industry) is just perfect

 Please consider me!


 From the sounds of it, it'll be a community project so no worries, just
 join in.
 Have a talk with the GDC compiler guys about helping with ARM support
 and
 getting on iOS. They could definitely use the help!
 Although from my knowledge there probably will be issues with tool chain
 not verified by Apple.


 Thing is, I feel nowhere near qualified to work on a compiler. And
 compiler is really just a beginning. Even with Xcode preparing iOS app
 that
 is written in C++ and not Objective-C is still far from easy.


 Really? Everything I've ever written on iOS was in full C++, with just one
 .m file to boot, and marshall the view and input events :)
 I think doing the same with D would be equally trivial. A game doesn't
 need
 access to the full iOS UI library. Any OS service calls can be wrapped in
 C
 functions in the marshalling .m file.


 That is exactly what I do too, all C++ + some .mm files. I rather meant
 debugging capabilities of Xcode (well now mych better in v5 but still crap
 compared to VC), code signing, provisions and a need to use command line
 instead of IDE for archiving etc. Tbh I am using CMake to keep my projects
 portable so that is a part of a problem but still ;)


Indeed, but I would just never try and debug the iOS build :)
I always debug the PC build, and then occasionally you need to fix a
straggling iOS specific issue... but they're typically few and far between,
particularly if your tech has good portability to start with.



 Dec 13 2013



  parent reply "Szymon Gatner" <noemail gmail.com>  writes:


On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 15:28:41 UTC, Manu wrote:

 On 14 December 2013 01:09, Szymon Gatner <noemail gmail.com> 
 wrote:


 On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 14:50:18 UTC, Manu wrote:


 On 13 December 2013 23:53, Szymon Gatner <noemail gmail.com> 
 wrote:

  On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 13:06:16 UTC, Rikki 
 Cattermole wrote:

  On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 12:37:21 UTC, Szymon Gatner 
 wrote:

  Hi, I am experienced C++ programmer, recently switched to 
 indie gamedev

 (1 title released commercially, another on the way). I am 
 really
 interested
 in this for 2 reasons:
 1) a chance to work with someone of your experience
 2) as soon as it is possible (that would be D working on 
 iOS) I would
 like to do a transition from C++ to D in our projects so 
 new
 experience in
 D (and in the industry) is just perfect

 Please consider me!


 From the sounds of it, it'll be a community project so no 
 worries, just
 join in.
 Have a talk with the GDC compiler guys about helping with 
 ARM support
 and
 getting on iOS. They could definitely use the help!
 Although from my knowledge there probably will be issues 
 with tool chain
 not verified by Apple.


 Thing is, I feel nowhere near qualified to work on a 
 compiler. And
 compiler is really just a beginning. Even with Xcode 
 preparing iOS app
 that
 is written in C++ and not Objective-C is still far from easy.


 Really? Everything I've ever written on iOS was in full C++, 
 with just one
 .m file to boot, and marshall the view and input events :)
 I think doing the same with D would be equally trivial. A 
 game doesn't
 need
 access to the full iOS UI library. Any OS service calls can 
 be wrapped in
 C
 functions in the marshalling .m file.


 That is exactly what I do too, all C++ + some .mm files. I 
 rather meant
 debugging capabilities of Xcode (well now mych better in v5 
 but still crap
 compared to VC), code signing, provisions and a need to use 
 command line
 instead of IDE for archiving etc. Tbh I am using CMake to keep 
 my projects
 portable so that is a part of a problem but still ;)


 Indeed, but I would just never try and debug the iOS build :)
 I always debug the PC build, and then occasionally you need to 
 fix a
 straggling iOS specific issue... but they're typically few and 
 far between,
 particularly if your tech has good portability to start with.


LOL so I am not the only one he does iOS programming more on 
Windows than on Mac. Btw I was very surprised to see that most 
(if not all) attendees of DConf had Mac Books. I hate mine with 
passion.



 Dec 13 2013



 next sibling parent  Joseph Rushton Wakeling <joseph.wakeling webdrake.net>  writes:


On 13/12/13 16:35, Szymon Gatner wrote:

 LOL so I am not the only one he does iOS programming more on Windows than on
 Mac. Btw I was very surprised to see that most (if not all) attendees of DConf
 had Mac Books. I hate mine with passion.


How many of them had installed Linux in place of Mac OS? ;-)



 Dec 13 2013



prev sibling next sibling parent  Manu <turkeyman gmail.com>  writes:


On 14 December 2013 01:35, Szymon Gatner <noemail gmail.com> wrote:


 On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 15:28:41 UTC, Manu wrote:


 On 14 December 2013 01:09, Szymon Gatner <noemail gmail.com> wrote:

  On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 14:50:18 UTC, Manu wrote:

  On 13 December 2013 23:53, Szymon Gatner <noemail gmail.com> wrote:

  On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 13:06:16 UTC, Rikki Cattermole wrote:


  On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 12:37:21 UTC, Szymon Gatner wrote:


  Hi, I am experienced C++ programmer, recently switched to indie
 gamedev


 (1 title released commercially, another on the way). I am really
 interested
 in this for 2 reasons:
 1) a chance to work with someone of your experience
 2) as soon as it is possible (that would be D working on iOS) I would
 like to do a transition from C++ to D in our projects so new
 experience in
 D (and in the industry) is just perfect

 Please consider me!


  From the sounds of it, it'll be a community project so no worries,


 just
 join in.
 Have a talk with the GDC compiler guys about helping with ARM support
 and
 getting on iOS. They could definitely use the help!
 Although from my knowledge there probably will be issues with tool
 chain
 not verified by Apple.


  Thing is, I feel nowhere near qualified to work on a compiler. And


 compiler is really just a beginning. Even with Xcode preparing iOS app
 that
 is written in C++ and not Objective-C is still far from easy.


  Really? Everything I've ever written on iOS was in full C++, with


 just one
 .m file to boot, and marshall the view and input events :)
 I think doing the same with D would be equally trivial. A game doesn't
 need
 access to the full iOS UI library. Any OS service calls can be wrapped
 in
 C
 functions in the marshalling .m file.


 That is exactly what I do too, all C++ + some .mm files. I rather meant
 debugging capabilities of Xcode (well now mych better in v5 but still
 crap
 compared to VC), code signing, provisions and a need to use command line
 instead of IDE for archiving etc. Tbh I am using CMake to keep my
 projects
 portable so that is a part of a problem but still ;)


 Indeed, but I would just never try and debug the iOS build :)
 I always debug the PC build, and then occasionally you need to fix a
 straggling iOS specific issue... but they're typically few and far
 between,
 particularly if your tech has good portability to start with.


 LOL so I am not the only one he does iOS programming more on Windows than
 on Mac.



Fuck, I'm yet to meet a programmer who does iOS programming on a Mac...
Many of my (professional) friends and colleagues even use Hackintoshes to
do their iOS dev!
I'd never give a cent to Apple and support their exclusive, proprietary,
walled-garden wanker's club if I can help it! ;)



 Btw I was very surprised to see that most (if not all) attendees of DConf
 had Mac Books. I hate mine with passion.


Me too! I was absolutely astonished! Sickened even!
It was 100 times worse when I was standing on that bloody stage looking at
100 little glowing apple logo's on the backs of everyone's screens, twice!
I did manage to resist the urge for public (and filmed) comment, it took
every bit of restraint I had though :P

That said, I'm not so exclusive to not support their platform in my
software. And they do have a good appstore, which is viable for indy's.



 Dec 13 2013



prev sibling next sibling parent  Joseph Rushton Wakeling <joseph.wakeling webdrake.net>  writes:


On 13/12/13 17:48, Manu wrote:

 Fuck, I'm yet to meet a programmer who does iOS programming on a Mac... Many of
 my (professional) friends and colleagues even use Hackintoshes to do their iOS
dev!
 I'd never give a cent to Apple and support their exclusive, proprietary,
 walled-garden wanker's club if I can help it! ;)


Do you mind if I frame this and put it on my wall? :-)



 Dec 13 2013



prev sibling  parent reply Manu <turkeyman gmail.com>  writes:


On 14 December 2013 02:55, Joseph Rushton Wakeling <
joseph.wakeling webdrake.net> wrote:


 On 13/12/13 17:48, Manu wrote:


 Fuck, I'm yet to meet a programmer who does iOS programming on a Mac...
 Many of
 my (professional) friends and colleagues even use Hackintoshes to do
 their iOS dev!
 I'd never give a cent to Apple and support their exclusive, proprietary,
 walled-garden wanker's club if I can help it! ;)


 Do you mind if I frame this and put it on my wall? :-)


Haha, go for it!
Fortunately the Apple fanaticism has mellowed out in recent years. There
was a time not too long ago where I'd have been mauled in the streets by
a fanboy lynch mob of for making claims like that...

I'd say there's a massive bias in games though since most gamedevs are
windows users. Windows is the only real PC based market for games, and all
the dev-tools for consoles are windows based too, so I guess it stands to
reason that you don't meet too many gamedev's with an insatiable lust for
Apple products.



 Dec 13 2013



 next sibling parent reply "Dicebot" <public dicebot.lv>  writes:


On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 17:11:23 UTC, Manu wrote:

 I'd say there's a massive bias in games though since most 
 gamedevs are
 windows users. Windows is the only real PC based market for 
 games, and all
 the dev-tools for consoles are windows based too, so I guess it 
 stands to
 reason that you don't meet too many gamedev's with an 
 insatiable lust for
 Apple products.


I hope so much for Valve success here, despite all the DRM crap 
they use :) This industry could have used some small 
cross-platform earthquake :P



 Dec 13 2013



  parent  Manu <turkeyman gmail.com>  writes:


On 14 December 2013 03:22, Dicebot <public dicebot.lv> wrote:


 On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 17:11:23 UTC, Manu wrote:


 I'd say there's a massive bias in games though since most gamedevs are
 windows users. Windows is the only real PC based market for games, and all
 the dev-tools for consoles are windows based too, so I guess it stands to
 reason that you don't meet too many gamedev's with an insatiable lust for
 Apple products.


 I hope so much for Valve success here, despite all the DRM crap they use
 :) This industry could have used some small cross-platform earthquake :P


Me too. I think Steam is the most exciting platform to emerge in many
years. I hope they do well.



 Dec 13 2013



prev sibling  parent reply Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com>  writes:


On 2013-12-13 18:11, Manu wrote:


 I'd say there's a massive bias in games though since most gamedevs are
 windows users. Windows is the only real PC based market for games, and
 all the dev-tools for consoles are windows based too, so I guess it
 stands to reason that you don't meet too many gamedev's with an
 insatiable lust for Apple products.


Unfortunately most games suck on Mac OS X. I don't know if they're just 
badly coded, if it's the drivers or the OpenGL implementation. Many 
games that work perfectly fine at highest resolution and detail level on 
Windows is barley playable on low settings on Mac OS X. Only a few games 
are good on Mac OS X.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg



 Dec 13 2013



 next sibling parent  "Szymon Gatner" <noemail gmail.com>  writes:


On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 20:25:14 UTC, Jacob Carlborg wrote:

 On 2013-12-13 18:11, Manu wrote:


 I'd say there's a massive bias in games though since most 
 gamedevs are
 windows users. Windows is the only real PC based market for 
 games, and
 all the dev-tools for consoles are windows based too, so I 
 guess it
 stands to reason that you don't meet too many gamedev's with an
 insatiable lust for Apple products.


 Unfortunately most games suck on Mac OS X. I don't know if 
 they're just badly coded, if it's the drivers or the OpenGL 
 implementation. Many games that work perfectly fine at highest 
 resolution and detail level on Windows is barley playable on 
 low settings on Mac OS X. Only a few games are good on Mac OS X.


Notable is Witcher 2 which you can get for Mac for free if you 
already have PC version. And I agree it works worse than on 
Windows.



 Dec 13 2013



prev sibling next sibling parent reply Manu <turkeyman gmail.com>  writes:


On 14 December 2013 06:25, Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> wrote:


 On 2013-12-13 18:11, Manu wrote:

  I'd say there's a massive bias in games though since most gamedevs are

 windows users. Windows is the only real PC based market for games, and
 all the dev-tools for consoles are windows based too, so I guess it
 stands to reason that you don't meet too many gamedev's with an
 insatiable lust for Apple products.


 Unfortunately most games suck on Mac OS X. I don't know if they're just
 badly coded, if it's the drivers or the OpenGL implementation. Many games
 that work perfectly fine at highest resolution and detail level on Windows
 is barley playable on low settings on Mac OS X. Only a few games are good
 on Mac OS X.



I've done mac ports before. In terms of scheduling though, it always gets
barely any time or attention.
Bare minimum to get it running, and doesn't help that it's usually being
written by a windows programmer working against his will :)



 Dec 13 2013



  parent  Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com>  writes:


On 2013-12-14 03:48, Manu wrote:


 I've done mac ports before. In terms of scheduling though, it always
 gets barely any time or attention.
 Bare minimum to get it running, and doesn't help that it's usually being
 written by a windows programmer working against his will :)


Yeah, I guess that's one of the biggest problems, it's always ports. Mac 
is rarely part of the main platforms. And we shouldn't even start 
talking about Cider (commercial version of Wine).

BTW, I read on a forum that for Bioshock Infinity they deliberately 
remove the highest resolutions and visual details on the Mac version 
because Mac OS X only supports OpenGL 3.x. But now with the latest Mac 
OS X Mavericks which supports OpenGL 4.x they have released patches to 
enable the highest resolutions and visual details. I'm wondering how 
much of an issue this is, too old OpenGL implementation.

I'm not so experienced with game development but I would think that it's 
fairly easy to build cross-platform games, at least for computers. For 
other applications it seems like the biggest issue is the GUI. But since 
most games use a completely custom GUI anyway that wouldn't be a so much 
of a problem.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg



 Dec 14 2013



prev sibling  parent reply Marco Leise <Marco.Leise gmx.de>  writes:


Am Fri, 13 Dec 2013 21:25:13 +0100
schrieb Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com>:


 Unfortunately most games suck on Mac OS X. I don't know if they're just=20
 badly coded, if it's the drivers or the OpenGL implementation. Many=20
 games that work perfectly fine at highest resolution and detail level on=


=20

 Windows is barley playable on low settings on Mac OS X. Only a few games=


=20

 are good on Mac OS X.


Read about Valve's port of Left 4 Dead 2 here:
http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/

They say their Linux port ran at 6 FPS before they started
optimizing. But it was also in part due to a bad OpenGL
implementation. (I remember even Doom 3 running at 2 FPS on my
previous PC until the drivers were updated. -.-)

Anyways here is an excerpt:

"[=E2=80=A6] Running Left 4 Dead 2 on Windows 7 with Direct3D drivers,
we get 270.6 FPS as a baseline. The data is generated from an
internal test case.

When we started with Linux, the initial version we got up and
running was at 6 FPS. This is typical of an initial successful
port to a new platform.
Performance improvements fall into several categories:

* Modifying our game to work better with the kernel
* Modifying our game to work better with OpenGL
* Optimizing the graphics driver

An example of the first category would be changing our memory
allocator to use more appropriate Linux functions. This was
achieved by implementing the Source engine small block heap
to work under Linux. The second category would include reducing
overhead in calling OpenGL, and extending our renderer with new
interfaces for better encapsulation of OpenGL and Direct3D. [=E2=80=A6]"

--=20
Marco



 Dec 14 2013



  parent  Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com>  writes:


On 2013-12-14 13:54, Marco Leise wrote:


 Read about Valve's port of Left 4 Dead 2 here:
 http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/

 They say their Linux port ran at 6 FPS before they started
 optimizing. But it was also in part due to a bad OpenGL
 implementation. (I remember even Doom 3 running at 2 FPS on my
 previous PC until the drivers were updated. -.-)


Yeah, I've heard of that. Unfortunately that's Linux and not Mac OS X. 
Hopefully the games will get better on Mac OS X as well.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg



 Dec 14 2013



prev sibling  parent reply Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com>  writes:


On 2013-12-13 15:50, Manu wrote:


 Really? Everything I've ever written on iOS was in full C++, with just
 one .m file to boot, and marshall the view and input events :)
 I think doing the same with D would be equally trivial. A game doesn't
 need access to the full iOS UI library. Any OS service calls can be
 wrapped in C functions in the marshalling .m file.


No need for an Objective-C file. The Objective-C methods can be accessed 
through the C functions available in the Objective-C runtime from D. 
Although, as been mentioned many times before, that's verbose and 
cumbersome. Both are ugly solutions, don't know which is the least ugly.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg



 Dec 13 2013



  parent reply Manu <turkeyman gmail.com>  writes:


On 14 December 2013 01:39, Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> wrote:


 On 2013-12-13 15:50, Manu wrote:

  Really? Everything I've ever written on iOS was in full C++, with just

 one .m file to boot, and marshall the view and input events :)
 I think doing the same with D would be equally trivial. A game doesn't
 need access to the full iOS UI library. Any OS service calls can be
 wrapped in C functions in the marshalling .m file.


 No need for an Objective-C file. The Objective-C methods can be accessed
 through the C functions available in the Objective-C runtime from D.
 Although, as been mentioned many times before, that's verbose and
 cumbersome. Both are ugly solutions, don't know which is the least ugly.



Maybe one day we'll get extern(Obj-C), that'll be an exciting day :)



 Dec 13 2013



  parent  Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com>  writes:


On 2013-12-13 17:49, Manu wrote:


 Maybe one day we'll get extern(Obj-C), that'll be an exciting day :)


I couldn't agree more :)

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg



 Dec 13 2013



prev sibling  parent reply Manu <turkeyman gmail.com>  writes:


On 13 December 2013 23:06, Rikki Cattermole <alphaglosined gmail.com> wrote:


 On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 12:37:21 UTC, Szymon Gatner wrote:


 Hi, I am experienced C++ programmer, recently switched to indie gamedev
 (1 title released commercially, another on the way). I am really interested
 in this for 2 reasons:
 1) a chance to work with someone of your experience
 2) as soon as it is possible (that would be D working on iOS) I would
 like to do a transition from C++ to D in our projects so new experience in
 D (and in the industry) is just perfect

 Please consider me!


 From the sounds of it, it'll be a community project so no worries, just
 join in.
 Have a talk with the GDC compiler guys about helping with ARM support and
 getting on iOS. They could definitely use the help!
 Although from my knowledge there probably will be issues with tool chain
 not verified by Apple.


One step at a time :)
It doesn't need to be released on the appstore, a running proof of concept
would be a nice first step.
Probably easier to start on Android though, and perhaps even more relevant
these days.



 Dec 13 2013



  parent reply "Szymon Gatner" <noemail gmail.com>  writes:


On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 14:48:13 UTC, Manu wrote:

 On 13 December 2013 23:06, Rikki Cattermole 
 <alphaglosined gmail.com> wrote:


 On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 12:37:21 UTC, Szymon Gatner 
 wrote:


 Hi, I am experienced C++ programmer, recently switched to 
 indie gamedev
 (1 title released commercially, another on the way). I am 
 really interested
 in this for 2 reasons:
 1) a chance to work with someone of your experience
 2) as soon as it is possible (that would be D working on iOS) 
 I would
 like to do a transition from C++ to D in our projects so new 
 experience in
 D (and in the industry) is just perfect

 Please consider me!


 From the sounds of it, it'll be a community project so no 
 worries, just
 join in.
 Have a talk with the GDC compiler guys about helping with ARM 
 support and
 getting on iOS. They could definitely use the help!
 Although from my knowledge there probably will be issues with 
 tool chain
 not verified by Apple.


 One step at a time :)
 It doesn't need to be released on the appstore, a running proof 
 of concept
 would be a nice first step.
 Probably easier to start on Android though, and perhaps even 
 more relevant
 these days.


As a indie I can tell you that Android is ridiculously hard (or 
impossible) to make a living on... Google made it so easy to 
install apps that piracy is a norm. Apple has its flaws (Xcode 
was a horrible horrible thing before very recently when they 
switched to clang) but there is a chance to get your investment 
back at least.



 Dec 13 2013



  parent  Manu <turkeyman gmail.com>  writes:


On 14 December 2013 00:54, Szymon Gatner <noemail gmail.com> wrote:


 On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 14:48:13 UTC, Manu wrote:


 On 13 December 2013 23:06, Rikki Cattermole <alphaglosined gmail.com>
 wrote:

  On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 12:37:21 UTC, Szymon Gatner wrote:

  Hi, I am experienced C++ programmer, recently switched to indie gamedev

 (1 title released commercially, another on the way). I am really
 interested
 in this for 2 reasons:
 1) a chance to work with someone of your experience
 2) as soon as it is possible (that would be D working on iOS) I would
 like to do a transition from C++ to D in our projects so new experience
 in
 D (and in the industry) is just perfect

 Please consider me!


 From the sounds of it, it'll be a community project so no worries, just
 join in.
 Have a talk with the GDC compiler guys about helping with ARM support and
 getting on iOS. They could definitely use the help!
 Although from my knowledge there probably will be issues with tool chain
 not verified by Apple.


 One step at a time :)
 It doesn't need to be released on the appstore, a running proof of concept
 would be a nice first step.
 Probably easier to start on Android though, and perhaps even more relevant
 these days.


 As a indie I can tell you that Android is ridiculously hard (or
 impossible) to make a living on... Google made it so easy to install apps
 that piracy is a norm. Apple has its flaws (Xcode was a horrible horrible
 thing before very recently when they switched to clang) but there is a
 chance to get your investment back at least.


It's true. But this project isn't intended to make money, so at least if we
can proof-of-concept, then we're one step closer than we were.



 Dec 13 2013



prev sibling  parent  Manu <turkeyman gmail.com>  writes:


On 13 December 2013 22:37, Szymon Gatner <noemail gmail.com> wrote:


 On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 10:43:24 UTC, Manu wrote:


 So, I'm a massive fan of music games. I'll shamefully admit that I was
 tragically addicted to Dance Dance Revolution about 10 years ago.
 Recently,
 it's Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

 I quite like the band ensemble games, they're good party games, and great
 rhythm practise that's actually applicable to real instrument skills too.

 The problem is though, that Neversoft and Harmonix completely fucked up
 the
 GH and RB franchises. Licensing problems, fragmented tracklists. It's
 annoying that all the songs you want to play are spread across literally
 10
 or so different games, and you need to constantly change disc's if you
 want
 to play the songs you like.

 I've been meaning to kick off a guitar hero clone since GH2 came out. I
 started one years ago as a fork of my Guitar Hero song editor for PS2, and
 I added support for drums before GH4 or RB were conceived, but then when
 they announced those games they stole my thunder and it went into
 hibernation.

 I'm very keen to resurrect the project (well, start a new one, with clean
 code, in D).
 Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would be interested
 in joining a side project like this? It's a lot more motivating, and much
 more fun to work in a small team.

 It's an interesting union of skills; rendering, audio processing,
 super-low-latency synchronisation, mini and communications processing,
 animation, UI and presentation.

 I have done all this stuff commercially, so I can act as a sort of project
 lead of people are interested, but haven't tried to write that sort of
 software before.

 It also seems like a good excuse to kick off a fairly large scale and
 performance intensive D project, which I like to do from time to time.


 Hi, I am experienced C++ programmer, recently switched to indie gamedev (1
 title released commercially, another on the way). I am really interested in
 this for 2 reasons:
 1) a chance to work with someone of your experience
 2) as soon as it is possible (that would be D working on iOS) I would like
 to do a transition from C++ to D in our projects so new experience in D
 (and in the industry) is just perfect

 Please consider me!


Awesome.
Consider yourself considered! Although open-source doesn't really have
try-outs. Just make pull requests, and if it's suitable it gets merged;
you're now a contributor! :P

I'd really like to use this as an excuse to push D-on-iOS/Android forward.
The arm compiler more-or-less works, we should definitely try and apply it.
iOS or Android are both relevant modern targets.

I'm encouraged by the number of interested people actually!
I thought it would be a nice idea - fun community side project which
stresses lots of the aspects of D which I feel don't get enough attention;
real-time, low-latency, cross-platform...
One of the key reasons I put it to the forum like this, was because I'm
interested to get other contributors who might not be typical game coders,
and try and get contributors who would write more idiomatic D code than I
would involved to keep me in check.
My D code is kinda C-ish... I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing,
but I want to see what an ambitious (commercial-grade) game looks like
written in D, not in C-ish-D. It'll be a great case study, and a fun
project.

I'll get a project skeleton together soon. I'm off to do the family
christmas thing from tomorrow, but I'll get to it after that, next time I'm
sitting here wondering what to do. Or perhaps sooner, about 5 minutes after
the next time my girlfriend fires up Guitar Hero ;)
I'll populate the issue tracker with a task-list for a first-playable
milestone as I see it, and people can join and grab bits that they like.



 Dec 13 2013



prev sibling  parent reply "deadalnix" <deadalnix gmail.com>  writes:


On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 10:43:24 UTC, Manu wrote:

 So, I'm a massive fan of music games. I'll shamefully admit 
 that I was
 tragically addicted to Dance Dance Revolution about 10 years 
 ago. Recently,
 it's Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

 I quite like the band ensemble games, they're good party games, 
 and great
 rhythm practise that's actually applicable to real instrument 
 skills too.

 The problem is though, that Neversoft and Harmonix completely 
 fucked up the
 GH and RB franchises. Licensing problems, fragmented 
 tracklists. It's
 annoying that all the songs you want to play are spread across 
 literally 10
 or so different games, and you need to constantly change disc's 
 if you want
 to play the songs you like.

 I've been meaning to kick off a guitar hero clone since GH2 
 came out. I
 started one years ago as a fork of my Guitar Hero song editor 
 for PS2, and
 I added support for drums before GH4 or RB were conceived, but 
 then when
 they announced those games they stole my thunder and it went 
 into
 hibernation.

 I'm very keen to resurrect the project (well, start a new one, 
 with clean
 code, in D).
 Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would be 
 interested
 in joining a side project like this? It's a lot more 
 motivating, and much
 more fun to work in a small team.

 It's an interesting union of skills; rendering, audio 
 processing,
 super-low-latency synchronisation, mini and communications 
 processing,
 animation, UI and presentation.

 I have done all this stuff commercially, so I can act as a sort 
 of project
 lead of people are interested, but haven't tried to write that 
 sort of
 software before.

 It also seems like a good excuse to kick off a fairly large 
 scale and
 performance intensive D project, which I like to do from time 
 to time.


Have you considered Step mania and Fret on fire ? (Huge fan of 
musical games here too)



 Dec 13 2013



  parent  Manu <turkeyman gmail.com>  writes:


Yeah, both have come up earlier in this thread.

I used to contribute to step mania 10-12 years ago. I did the Xbox port,
among other details. It's a project for a different time. It's not as
extensible as it could be.

FoF... well... it's written in python. I'll leave it at that ;)
I'd say fof is pretty terrible...
On 14 Dec 2013 17:45, "deadalnix" <deadalnix gmail.com> wrote:


 On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 10:43:24 UTC, Manu wrote:


 So, I'm a massive fan of music games. I'll shamefully admit that I was
 tragically addicted to Dance Dance Revolution about 10 years ago.
 Recently,
 it's Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

 I quite like the band ensemble games, they're good party games, and great
 rhythm practise that's actually applicable to real instrument skills too.

 The problem is though, that Neversoft and Harmonix completely fucked up
 the
 GH and RB franchises. Licensing problems, fragmented tracklists. It's
 annoying that all the songs you want to play are spread across literally
 10
 or so different games, and you need to constantly change disc's if you
 want
 to play the songs you like.

 I've been meaning to kick off a guitar hero clone since GH2 came out. I
 started one years ago as a fork of my Guitar Hero song editor for PS2, and
 I added support for drums before GH4 or RB were conceived, but then when
 they announced those games they stole my thunder and it went into
 hibernation.

 I'm very keen to resurrect the project (well, start a new one, with clean
 code, in D).
 Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would be interested
 in joining a side project like this? It's a lot more motivating, and much
 more fun to work in a small team.

 It's an interesting union of skills; rendering, audio processing,
 super-low-latency synchronisation, mini and communications processing,
 animation, UI and presentation.

 I have done all this stuff commercially, so I can act as a sort of project
 lead of people are interested, but haven't tried to write that sort of
 software before.

 It also seems like a good excuse to kick off a fairly large scale and
 performance intensive D project, which I like to do from time to time.


 Have you considered Step mania and Fret on fire ? (Huge fan of musical
 games here too)





 Dec 14 2013