DMDonuts Sample

Description

DM Donuts is a variation of the Space Donuts sample that adds interactive music.

Path

Source: (SDK root)\Samples\Multimedia\Dmusic\Src\DMDonuts

Executable: (SDK root)\Samples\Multimedia\DMusic\Bin

User's Guide

Before running the program, make sure that you've set your MIDI control panel to your default MIDI device. DirectMusic will use this for hardware MIDI. If there is no sound when you run DMDonuts, it was unable to find the music subdirectory.

While the donut floats in space, notice that the music is subtle and spacey. Press the arrow keys to move the ship. Bounce around and see how the music and rhythm respond.

Shoot the donut by firing with the space bar. Immediately there is an explosion of music and the background music grows in intensity.

Press the 7 key on the numeric keypad. This turns on the shields. Notice how the music becomes muted as if you were listening from inside the shield.

When all the donut fragments are destroyed, notice that the music immediately transitions into an ending, then starts the next level on the start of the next musical theme.

Notice that the music is never the same.

You can control the ship with the joystick if you prefer, by changing the input device under the Game menu.

The following is a complete list of game commands. All numbers must be entered from the numeric keypad. "Joy" refers to a joystick button.

Key	Command
ESC, F12	Quit
4	Turn left
6	Turn right
5 (Joy 3)	Stop
8	Accelerate forward
2	Accelerate backward
7 (Joy 2)	Shields
SPACEBAR (Joy 1)	Fire
ENTER	Start game
F1	Toggle trailing afterimage effect on/off
F5	Toggle frame rate display on/off
F7	Turn music on/off
F10	Main menu

The display defaults to 640x480 at 256 colors. You can specify a different resolution and pixel depth on the command line.

The game uses the following command line switches, which are case-sensitive:

e	Use software emulation, not hardware acceleration
t	Test mode, no input required
x	Stress mode. Never halt if you can help it

These switches may be followed by three option numbers representing x-resolution, y-resolution, and bits per pixel. For example:

donuts -t 800 600 16

Programming Notes

Techniques illustrated include the following:

Composing and performing style-based segments.
Autotransitions on game state changes.
Motifs (short musical clips) to highlight actions. Because the motifs track the rhythm and harmony of the underlying music, they add to the music while providing sonic reinforcement.
Dynamic bands that change the orchestration in response to real-time events.

By default, this sample runs on the software synthesizer. In Windows 95 and Windows 98, undefine the _SOFTWARE_SYNTH_ compile flag and recompile the sample to receive the best sound when using good wavetable synthesizers (that follow the GS/DLS1 standards for volume and velocity behavior). The newly compiled version will not run on Windows 2000.