General Questions on music modding for PDX games

[Thevow]

Hi Everyone!

As the title implies, this is a bit of a generic post, for the purpose of attaining a general sense of direction. Apologies if there may be content that I might have overlooked that already answers these doubts.

Firstly - I've never written a mod before.

I've been considering the prospect of writing music for games for quite a while, and I arrived at the conclusion that starting to write and share some music through steam workshop mods may be a good starting point, to both get a grasp of what is required and to also set up a nice portfolio that people can interact with and give feedback.

I've found different wiki pages regarding music modding for some PDX games, for ex.:

Stellaris
Eu4
HOI4

I've also located some posts that seem to tackle some topics of mod creation, this one regarding CK3 for ex.

Now on to the questions -

• Are there further tutorials/guides besides the content on the wikis?
• Are there any specific steam workshop topics that I need to be aware of? (I couldn't find much on valve's pages... but I did drop their support a few questions)

Any suggested starting points would be greatly appreciated, as I'm a total noob regarding this topic and I'm trying to wrap my head around on where/how to start from the "bureaucratic and technical" perspective of modding.

Since I've been a longtime fan and player of PDX games, I felt that it would be the best place to start.

Thank you for your time and support!

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

Disclaimer : I'm just another forum member.

..

• Are there further tutorials/guides besides the content on the wikis?

Regarding music ? Usually not. Only know about older games though, so CK2 and back.

Best to ask and search the User Modification subforums for each game for music related content.
You then can also look and compare files and how mods for each game look, respectively are structured.

• Are there any specific steam workshop topics that I need to be aware of? (I couldn't find much on valve's pages... but I did drop their support a few questions)

Music specific ? Not that i know. Some games have a low limit on file upload size, so try a smaller mod first.
Outside music, a common mistake seems to be forgetting to turn the mod visibility in the Workshop from the initally
'hidden' status to well,..'visible' or whatever it's called.
Also for some the Workshop just doesn't work. A manual download option is always nice.

 

[Thevow]

Thank you for your reply and insight!

Regarding music ? Usually not. Only know about older games though, so CK2 and back.

Best to ask and search the User Modification subforums for each game for music related content.
You then can also look and compare files and how mods for each game look, respectively are structured.

I'll look into these, and try to focus on Music specific content. From the high-level overview I had, I think there can be degrees in which you define what music plays when ex.: play music "XYZ" only when at war.

I noticed some other options like this for EU4 - grouping certain tracks with specific cultures for example.

Music specific ? Not that i know. Some games have a low limit on file upload size, so try a smaller mod first.
Outside music, a common mistake seems to be forgetting to turn the mod visibility in the Workshop from the initally
'hidden' status to well,..'visible' or whatever it's called.
Also for some the Workshop just doesn't work. A manual download option is always nice.

Cool, thank you for the heads up! I'm focusing on writing some music, and I'll start smaller (maybe do something more specific like "Stellaris War Music".

If anyone reading this is curious, here's an excerpt of a wip track (specifically with Stellaris in mind), link is for my SoundCloud account with other stuff, but I intend to make a dedicated SoundCloud page for this modding project.

Any input is appreciated!

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

...From the high-level overview I had, I think there can be degrees in which you define what music plays when
ex.: play music "XYZ" only when at war...

If that was a question, yes that's often possible, but i'd assume there to be differences in scripting the song files
and would ask for details in the specific game forum.

....
Any input is appreciated!

Just three points left to mention that came to my mind..

I'd recommend to start a thread in each of the games modification subforums you make
music mods for and maybe link to your dedicated SoundCloud page on updates.
You can also link to or upload manual download options for your mods in these threads.

For questions there are usually QuickQuestion-QuickAnswer threads in the User Modifcation
subforums to get answers or any form of help from other modders.

The Modification suforums usualy have stickied/pinned threads with modding help or links
to such threads, but rarely for music and sometimes outdated, but still worth to check.

..this general forum doesn't have much traffic and questions regarding modding are better asked in the
specific game forum.

PS. Nice track on Soundcloud.
I hope the full thing will have tempo changes or someone might get a heartattack.