Wasn't sure if this should go in the Unreal Music forum or this one...

I'm working on a KHG project which makes dynamic use of UMX music files (much like Unreal SP did) instead of the CD Audio tracks. Each CD track contains two songs, about two minutes or so of fast-paced orchestral Klingon music and then about a minute or so of quieter suspenseful themes. I always thought that this was strange and didn't work well with the pacing or atmosphere at all. So I separated the fast-paced tracks from the suspenseful ones and made them loop seamlessly by working with the audio data in a DAW. I even extended some of the suspenseful themes because they were simply too short. Then I packaged them into UMX files and will trigger them at appropriate times during the game by creating new Triggers and MusicEvents. My preliminary tests have been successful and it has really impacted the pacing of the game! The goal is to get the game entirely independent of requiring the CD (I'm talking about the CD tracks specifically, however, for my own personal use, I've already hacked the windrv.dll file to remove the CD check because it's so annoying).

The point of doing all this is A) for the fun and creativity, and B) even if you have the CD in your drive the music doesn't always play and when it does it's far too loud. The CD tracks don't always play because the game is hardcoded to look for the tracks in the first CD-ROM device only. So if you have multiple CD drives or have a virtual drive the tracks won't play unless the device your CD or CD image is loaded in is the first CD drive device. This requires going into Administrative Tools and reconfiguring the drive letters which is annoying. This solves that whole problem and also the problem of volume control as it is now configurable in-game!

As for the fun part, here's an example. In level two, the Klingon city where you have to break into the guarded compound, the orchestral music now plays as normal (but with the added benefit of seamless looping), but when you head down into the sewers underneath the city, the music changes to the quieter suspenseful theme (and loops seamlessly). Then when you come back up from the sewer inside the building the music shifts back again to the klingon theme. There are a lot of ways I can think of to utilize these dynamic changes effectively throughout the game (some I'll need help with!). Some levels could even start with the suspenseful theme first and shift to the fast-paced battle music later on when meeting large groups of enemies. It's been a fun project to work on. Encountered a few snags, but found workarounds.

I do have some questions I'd like to pose to those who may know (or may know a way to find) answers:

1) When you beat a level in KHG the screen changes to show your game stats for that level. When this happens it stops the currently playing music and plays CD track 7. I've been trying to find where this occurs in scripts but I can't find any. The game responds to these endoflevel events with two kinds of teleporters: AVITeleporter (which plays a mission briefing AVI for the next level) or just Teleporter (for levels that are split up into multiple parts and don't have a mission briefing in between). However, I can find no reference to music changes in either scripts or in the Gamestats script. Would this be hardcoded somewhere else by any chance? What are the chances of finding and altering this functionality?

2) I've been poking around the KHG menu scripts to try and add a menu item for setting music volume via a slider like the current sound volume slider. The menu system still baffles me, however, as the scripts for each menu reference what happens when you interact with each item but I cannot find where the menu lists themselves are setup or how to add a new entry. Any help here? Remember, KHG is not a UWindow game so it uses the classic Unreal menu, if that makes a difference.

...I'm sure there were more questions I had, but I can't recall them now. When I remember I'll post them.

Nobody can help? Is this forum just not that lively lately? 

You're right. Upon reflection that was incredibly insensitive of me, I apologize. Please excuse my ignorant behaviour, not a very good first impression. It was not my intention to make anyone feel insulted or anything.

Thanks for you response! Please remember that I am completely new to Unreal editing and I don't know all of the functions of every actor and their possibilities. I have a great amount of respect for everyone's abilities and understanding of the Unreal engine here! I don't know very much, but I do learn fairly quickly. I stumbled through the code and the wiki and discovered things like the ZoneInfo actor and the ZonePlayerEvent and such after spending a lot of time with it. I did tests with ZonePlayerEvent and it works, the problem is it's not very ideal, especially with the sewers. Because the sewers contain water zones every time you dive underwater and come back up for air the music re-cues again each time. Also, the world above has no ZoneInfo actors. I read that LevelInfo acts as a ZoneInfo actor for all zones that don't have one, but setting its ZonePlayerEvent is inneffective and does nothing. Plus, even if it worked, there are multiple zones above ground so leaving each of these zones would also re-cue THAT music cue, unless there's a more intelligent way I can be setting it up...for now I'm not quite sure how.

In mission 10 (on the Andorian ship) there are sections where you can exit the ship and traverse the outer hull both to find secrets and to advance further in the level. Setting space's ZoneInfo ZonePlayerEvent to the music cue works fine. However, each secret door outside the ship is also a separate zone so entering the secret and exiting again re-cues the space music again. Also, the zones inside the ship have no ZoneInfo actors. Using LevelInfo's ZonePlayerEvent doesn't work, it wouldn't be ideal anyway because entering different zones inside the ship and exiting would have the same problem as the space secrets, the music gets re-cued. Adding a ZoneInfo actor and setting its ZonePlayerEvent strangely does not work at all. I don't understand why. Is there some special property or setting that must be set for each ZoneInfo to be active?

I really wish there was a way to trigger Triggers based on certain conditions, like whether the player is in a certain zone or not. Having multiple triggers on the inside and outside of doors is another answer, but then if you even walked by the door the music would change even if you don't enter it. It would be nice if the Trigger (or the MusicEvent) would only trigger if the music isn't playing already. But I don't know if UnrealEd 219 is even capable of that.

Thanks so much for your help I don't take it lightly. Happy holidays and a Happy New Year to you all!

Large Trigger radii...I didn't think of that! That would definitely work well for a sewer/above ground setting. That would definitely insure that the wrong track doesn't get played at the wrong time. For space/spaceship zones, however, that would be a little harder to pull off. Though I cold have small Triggers at all the airlock exits and have larger ones encompassing the insides of the ships/space stations.

As far as looking at the maps themselves, that's pretty much exactly what I am doing. What I'm doing is making changes to all the existing maps (rather than creating new ones) to implement dynamic UMX tracks instead of the straight CD track calls that are present in each level's LevelInfo. The maps don't have any special actors for music changes because the game uses CD audio tracks which just play through the duration of the whole level. The only MusicEvents present are stops for cutscenes and level changes in certain areas. KHG does have unique actors for different functions, but one for music changes isn't one of them unfortunately.

Unreal's design centers around this capability, however, as it was designed for dynamic UMX music obviously. They are much more linear and have a continuous "point a to point b" styled approach. KHG's level designs don't take this into account and are a little more like the old-school self-contained "large maze" design so it's harder to approach to make these changes. It's a tough job, probably tougher than its worth, but I enjoy the challenge of solving puzzles like this. Plus it helps me understand the engine all the more. I have aspirations of creating a new self-contained series of maps for KHG as there really haven't been any custom maps made for it at all, and this is all experience gained to that end. But that's a long ways off if I even get to it. For now, these challenges will suffice.

How about my earlier question about customizing the menu? As I said, I've found the classes for what happens in each menu screen (New Game, Options, etc), but I cannot find a way to add or edit new entries to a specific menu. I've tried to search up on customizing Unreal menus but there isn't much information. I've also tried looking at Unreal's menu design (the old style menu, not UWindow) and haven't found anything either. Is this something hardcoded perhaps or are there menu entry listings somewhere else that I'm not looking?

Thanks!

Ahh. So multiple small Triggers inside a large one will cause the large one to trigger again when exited. That is indeed not favourable. I'll have to brush up on Unreal Scripting then. Seeing as my other two questions in my first post have to do more with scripting, I'll wait for someone more knowledgeable there to respond. Thanks for your advice! I may have more questions about mapping later on as I go.

You are to be congratulated for doing this, while most people are trying to hack a WAV into a UMX.

The opening needs more beef, and sounds thin compared to the original.
Other than that very well done 

Thanks! Like I said, these take ages to do. This one took me over half a day's work and it's only about a quarter done. So it's slow, but fun to see it come together.

No, the KHG tracks are high quality, stereo, mixed and mastered.