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The below
article was written by Sean Baity
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"The Sims will support drop-in MP3 files for the interface screens
and for the stereos in the game.
This means that in addition to the tasty tracks the Maxis sound team has cooked up,
you will be able to customize the Neighborhood screen, Buy mode, Build mode and the
following radio stations:
Country
Rock
Classical
Jazz
The way this will work is that the game will install EMPTY music folders in a
"Music" folder. This folder will have 2 sub folders called "Modes"
and "Stations". The "Modes" folder contains the subfolders
"Build, Buy, Nhood and NhoodUS" (Nhood is for foreign countries.)
The "Stations" folder contains the folders "Classica, Country, Latin
and Rock" (Folder names can't be longer than 8 characters due to some CD-ROM
limitations.)
All these folders are also located on the game CD, but the game CD folders are filled
with Maxis MP3's. If you do not ADD any songs to the hard drive music folders then you
will get the Maxis music in all the modes and radio stations. If you DO add MP3's to
the folders on the hard drive, then the game will use the music from that folder
instead of the Maxis folders on the CD.
So in addition to all the skins, floors, walls and objects that fans can trade and
exchange, MP3's for radio stations could also be traded.
Here is some info from the readme file:
For stereo:
C:\Program Files\Maxis\THE SIMS\Music\Stations\country
C:\Program Files\Maxis\THE SIMS\Music\Stations\classica
C:\Program Files\Maxis\THE SIMS\Music\Stations\Latin
C:\Program Files\Maxis\THE SIMS\Music\Stations\rock
A stereo must be placed in a house in order to listen to stereo MP3's.
For build mode: C:\Program Files\Maxis\THE SIMS\Music\Modes\Build
For buy mode: C:\Program Files\Maxis\THE SIMS\Music\Modes\Buy
For neighborhood: C:\Program Files\Maxis\THE SIMS\Music\Modes\Nhood
MP3 stands for MPEG Audio Layer-3. MPEG is the "Moving Picture Experts
Group", working under the joint direction of the International Standards
Organization (ISO) and the International Electro-Technical Commission (IEC). MPEG
Layer-3 is the most powerful member of the MPEG audio coding family. MP3's allow
CD-quality music at a fraction of previous file sizes, by using a powerful compression
algorithm. In general near- CD Quality music is equal to 1 min - 1 meg. There are many
places on the World Wide Web to download MP3's.
For more information on MP3's please visit http://www.mp3.com/
For more information on MPEG please visit http://www.mpeg.org/MPEG/
Have fun.
I hope to see lots of custom radio stations soon!
Thanks for your support.
P.S. I might be able to release one or two of the Sim-Speak rock songs
Thursday...
Sean Baity
Assistant Producer
The Sims
www.thesims.com"
Message was posted on the SimWatch on 12/21/99 |
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- Will windows "shortcuts" work in the \Music\Stations\[type of
music] folder instead of actual MP3 files?
Yes
- Can I create a ...\Music\Stations\Metal folder and have a Metal station?
NO. The game will only read MP3's from the designated directories of Rock,
Country, Classica and Latin. You can turn the Rock station into a Metal stations
by dropping your Metal songs in there.
- Will The Sims play MP3's in any set order, or will it be random?
It just plays the list top to bottom, but there is a "next song" option.
- Is there a way to separate "voice" tracks from "song"
tracks?
All the game checks for is presence of an MP3. If you have a voice MP3 in your
rock directory, it will play that.
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