Space Engineers 2 | Guide: Adding New Music

This tutorial provides a quick start guide to adding new music tracks in the VRAGE3 Mod Editor.

Prerequisites

FMOD

For modding audio, it is necessary to have FMod Studio installed. In this case the use is free of charge.

1. Visit FMOD website[www.fmod.com]
   
2. Create your own account
   
3. Download and install the latest 2.02 release. It is important that it is version 2.02.x as the projects won't open with newer versions - FMOD Download[www.fmod.com]

Music files

Modders use their own music files. Fmod accepts most audio formats such as wav, mp3, aiff and flac. In case it is necessary to edit the music files, use an external audio editor (DAW) such as Pro Tools[www.avid.com], Cubase[www.steinberg.net], Reaper[www.reaper.fm] or Audacity[www.audacityteam.org].

VRage3

Please ensure you have followed the section on “Tool Setup and Mod Creation” in the VRAGE3 Modding Overview, eventually VRAGE3 | Guide: New Thruster Sound guide prior to starting this guide.

Creating the FMOD Project in VRAGE3 Editor

1. In VRAGE3 Editor, right click the blank space in Assets and hit Create Asset > FMOD Project
   
   
   
   
2. Enter your FMOD Project name
   
3. Double click the newly created icon to launch FMOD
   
   

Creating the Event in FMOD Studio

Creating the Event

The modder can decide what category to assign his new music to. The following categories are available:

• Space (the in-game music)
  
• Planet (available with a future version of the game)
  
• Combat (available with a future version of the game)

Note: Adding new music doesn’t discard the original game music. The game engine randomly selects between the original and modder tracks.

1. Under the Events tab, right click the blank space and hit New Folder named Music. Then right click the folder and hit New Folder again to create a subfolder named as the desired category. This is what all the subfolders would look like:
   
   
   
   
2. Let’s say we want to add new in-game music. Right click the Space subfolder, Event Defaults > 2D Timeline. Edit its name.
   
   
   
   
3. Right click on the newly created Event, Assign to Bank > Browse > your bank name
   
   
   
   
4. Drop your music file on the timeline and move it to the timeline start.
   
   

Note: Once the engine has selected this event, it will play everything from start to finish and then another event will be randomly selected to play.

Additional Steps

1. An Event can contain multiple audio tracks or music files. Simply drag and drop another music file into the audio track and position it so that the files play one after the other, crossfade, or even layer.
   
   
   
   
2. To adjust the event volume, tweak the volume knob on the Audio Track.
   
   

Setting the Mixer Routing

1. Open the Mixer window by clicking Window > Mixer or hitting ctrl+2
   
2. Under the Routing tab, drop your event under the Music Group, so the music volume value in the game menu will apply to this event.
   
   
   
   

Note: The Mixing Desk can be accessed from the Mixer window. Moving the sliders influence the whole game audio balance.

Saving the project

1. Select Scripts > VRage > Save project to VRage Editor
   
   
   
   
2. Click File > Save or ctrl+s
   
3. Close FMOD

Configure music playlists

By default, all tracks that you add to a Music category folder in FMOD Studio will be added to this category’s playlist when you play the game. You can optionally configure vanilla tracks and yours to play or not in specific music category playlists. This is only useful for deeper customization.

1. In VRAGE3 Editor, find the MusicPlaylistsConfiguration in the engine project and create a partial override of it in your project
   
   
   
   
2. Tracks are automatically loaded in the corresponding categories from the FMOD Studio project and will play automatically when this category is playing. You can add a track to another music category through the configuration. It will be added to this category’s playlist. Make sure you check “Add” in the track settings
   
   
   
   This example adds the Beethoven track from the Space category playlist to the Combat category playlist.
   
3. You can remove other tracks if they are present in a category playlist through the same list. This can be used to remove Vanilla tracks entirely. Put the track’s FMOD Studio path and make sure “Add” is unchecked in the track settings.
   
   
   
   This example removes the official OST track TT_Space_Safe10_v2 from the Space category playlist.

Test your new mod

In the VRAGE3 Mod HUB, hit the Start Game button.

Video Guide

Support & Links

In case you need more help, check out the Modding section of our Discord[discord.gg] – our team and community are there to support you!



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