Ixmucane2 wrote:Alluro wrote:I seriously would not worry about this whole silly thing about MP3 licensing. Th format is in such widespread use.
You should worry. Corporations hate everybody
and are greedy, especially when patent royalties are their main source of revenue and when financial collapse makes their managers even less rational than normal.
But can't you use other music formats with Game Maker? For example, Ogg Vorbis, if available, would be a perfect solution (similar to MP3, but unencumbered).
Added a bit of info for you in bold. In all reality, the big legal fiascoes you hear about MP3 patent violation usually occurs between the big corporations with deep pockets, like when they add MP3 support to their products (MP3 players) without authorization. I find it very suspicious that these patent holders, who never manufactured, distributed, or otherwise made available the technologies themselves, suddenly make huge extortionary demands against large companies when 1) MP3 format had been used widespread for nearly a decade and 2) their patents are only a few years from expiring. These entities are known pejoratively as "patent trolls."
Natively, Game Maker only supports MIDIs, WAVs, and MP3's. Other formats like Ogg Vorbis need extensions. The big reason why I stick with MP3's is because almost everybody knows what an MP3 file is. Therefore, customizing the soundtrack is a simple matter of one taking his/her existing mp3's and renaming them to the names used by the game.
I'm using an FMOD sound system extension for XF-EX, which DOES support OGG, and the following formats:
1. AIFF - (Audio Interchange File Format)
2. ASF - (Advanced Streaming format, includes support for the audio tracks in video streams)
3. ASX - (playlist format - contains links to other audio files. To access contents, the FMOD Ex tag API is used)
4. DLS - (DownLoadable Sound format for midi playback. Can also be used as a stand alone container format in FMOD)
5. FLAC - (Lossless compression codec)
6. FSB - (FMOD sample bank format generated by FSBank and FMOD designer tool)
7. IT - (Impulse tracker sequenced mod format. FMOD Ex also fully supports resonant filters in .IT files, and the per channel or per instrument echo effect send, that can be enabled in ModPlug Tracker. This is cross platform effect support and does not require DirectX like other libraries do.)
8. M3U - (playlist format - contains links to other audio files. To access contents, the FMOD Ex tag API is used)
9. MID - MIDI using operating system or custom DLS patches.
10. MOD - (Protracker / Fasttracker and others sequenced mod format)
11. MP2 - (MPEG I/II Layer 2)
12. MP3 - (MPEG I/II Layer 3, including VBR support)
13. OGG - (Ogg Vorbis format)
14. PLS - (playlist format - contains links to other audio files. To access contents, the FMOD Ex tag API is used)
15. RAW - (Raw file format support. The user can specify the number of channels, bitdepth, format etc)
16. S3M - (ScreamTracker 3 sequenced mod format)
17. VAG - (PS2 / PSP format, playable on all platforms!)
18. WAV - (Microsoft Wave files, inlcluding compressed wavs. PCM, MP3 and IMA ADPCM compressed wav files are supported across all platforms in FMOD Ex, and other compression formats are supported via windows codecs on that platform).
19. WAX - (playlist format - contains links to other audio files. To access contents, the FMOD Ex tag API is used)
20. WMA - (Windows Media Audio format)
21. XM - (FastTracker 2 sequenced format)
22. XMA - (Xbox 360 only)
The age of Alluro and JudgeSpear is over.