CBP3 has been getting much good feedback from the community so far. My break will be short-lived though. After playing a few matches with some of the CBP3 team this weekend I'll be getting right back to work. I'm not sure how much this would interest anyone but none of the CBP3 songs were written start to finish, each music segment was written seperately. Not to say consistency between each segment wasn't important or achieved, just that full versions haven't been rendered. I got a head start on this and rendered Autumn Sigh. There is a short ingame clip of the map it is used in, Endura by GreenLoves, that demonstrates the dynamic music system well. The full version of the song can be heard here.

I've also finished the new cover for Killing Floor - Collected and the playlist is now final. This release is a first for me as professionally manufactured CDs will be available for sale. The CD will be released along side mp3s which will be openely available on a pay what you want basis. Killing Floor - Collected will be released in July, 2008.

The Community Bonus Pack 3 Volume 1 has just been released. It includes work from what I believe are some of the most talented level designers in the community. The pack features three of my songs, which will eventually find their way in mp3/ogg form to this site. I'm continuing my work with the team for future volumes which are now starting development. If you own Unreal Tournament 3, CBP3 is not to be missed.

I've also written several tutorials today while waiting for the release to become available. Adding Music to Maps (UT3), explains the process of adding retail, custom, or a crazy hybrid of two or more different songs to maps without modifying the original content. It doesn't go into great detail so some additional reading of other tutorials as noted may be needed. Importing Music (Unreal Engine 1) , was also written. It broadly covers the nature of MOD music and how to import MODs into the engine as well as new, more modern, emerging technologies for Unreal Tournament. Lastly, Getting Into the Modding Community is less of a tutorial and more of an advice article filled with a few words of wisdom I've learned from the past near decade working in the Unreal Engine mod community.

The topic of importing audio into Unreal Engine 3 titles is a poorly documented one. Based on the absence of official documentation in the public Unreal Developer Network site, (and even the top secret developer only area several months ago) the lack of any complete and accurate community generated information on the subject doubled with the complexity of the latest version of the Unreal Editor, it is easy to see how quickly musicians can be discouraged from participating in the Unreal Tournament 3 mod community. After months of research dating from early experimentation (and release) in January leading up to fully functional content ready to be released along side one of the most recognized names in community maps (Community Bonus Pack) I've compiled a series of tutorials that explain the whats and whys of importing music into Unreal Tournament 3. It's fairly lengthly and offers a lot of explanation aimed at people who may not be familiar with UnrealEd or the terminology. The end of each tutorial has a quick reference guide if you wish to skip over all the detailed explanations and get down to the basic meat and potatoes of the subject. Aside from a small amount of information regarding additional events that trigger music stingers, I am confident this guide is complete and accurate.

I can only hope that these guides will be used for the good of getting more able musicians to involve themselves with the modding community instead of 13 year-olds that want to learn how to import AwsomeSongFromMyCollection.mp3.

The guides can be found in the Unreal Engine 3 section of Tutorials, here. Enjoy, get educated, don't import music from your collection.

Site launch, the announcement of a pending soundtrack release (check releases), and the Community Bonus Pack III swiftly approaching it's own release, things seem to really be picking up.

Content, tutorials specifically, are in the process of being written. Everything useful I've learned about being a musician in the modding community will eventually find it's way in there. At the moment I'm giving some of the more recent tutorials I've written and recorded priority and moving into some of the explainations and complexities of designing for and implementing music in Unreal Tournament 3. So expect to see these soon.

Killing Floor development is rolling again, which is something anyone from the community has known for the past month. There will be a couple new songs from myself in the new release (Killing Floor 2.5). In light of that I've taken to creating one huge compilation of everything I've written for Killing Floor since the first public Beta. The soundtrack is loosely arranged based off old media (cassettes, vinyl) and separated into a side A and side B, so to speak. A is a stretch of ambience while B is where the action is at. The previously released material is all remastered and sounds much better, more dynamic. More details can be read on the release page but no download is available yet.

The Community Bonus Pack III is getting close to release. I'm excited. This project has given me a good chance to really work the new tech, more than I would have just playing around or doing the random contribution. Due to a lack of required tools (atrac3plus codec) all of the custom audio will have to be stripped out of the pack before it can be converted to PS3 format. Based off a poll on the CBP3 site PS3 users only make up %3 of the target audience so I wouldn't consider it a huge loss but I still think it would be cool to get custom audio on PS3.