iMUSE

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

iMUSE ( I nteractive Mu sic S treaming E ngine ) is one of Michael Land and his friend Peter McConnell developed game engine , whose job it is to the music of a computer game each dynamically adapt to the scenes, characters and mood of the game. iMUSE was first used in 1991 in version 5 of the SCUMM engine for adventure games from LucasArts .

The motivation for developing the iMUSE engine was Michael Land's dissatisfaction with the music technology used at LucasArts at the time. After composing the music for The Secret of Monkey Island , he wanted a more flexible system that would allow the music to better adapt to what was happening on the screen. After initial work on the new engine, he realized that it would take more development time than planned, so he asked his friend Peter McConnell for help.

The first game in which the iMUSE engine was used was Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge , since then iMUSE has not only been used in all LucasArts adventure games, but also in the entire X-Wing computer game series.

The basic idea of ​​the system is to enable smooth transitions between pieces of music so that the background music of a game sounds like a continuous soundtrack .

Examples

A typical example of the use of the iMUSE engine in Monkey Island 2 is the cemetery on Scabb Island: While the player is outside the cemetery, eerie, mystical music is played. If you enter the cemetery, the same melody sounds in a slightly more intrusive version with a drum set. If the player enters the crypt , the background music is reduced to a single flute while maintaining the melodic theme.

In Star Wars: X-Wing , you normally hear a rather unobtrusive background melody based on the Star Wars soundtrack. But if z. For example, if a rebel spaceship enters the sector, the Rebellion Theme will sound briefly , or the first bars of the Imperial March will be started when an imperial spaceship enters the sector.

By briefly interrupting the current music of a game with variable transitions with situation-dependent, short music inserts and then continuing the original background music, it achieves the impression of a consistent soundtrack that adapts to the game, instead of relying on static background music for each game scene as was absolutely customary until then .