I had an idea to make a game with a Winamp Remote blueprint but do not have the skills to pull such a task off. There seems to be Facebook, Google, and other such plugins already, but being able to run a Winamp playlist in-game on your PC would be all that is needed. The Winamp “universal key option” usage just gets in the way of gameplay key mapping too much. The current remote setup is usable over a network and that really isn’t needed. But the plugins that can detect audio and respond means we can make NPC’s that comment on the beats of your music of choice, at the very least. (“Oh come on, elevator music? We are going into a battle man, you’re killing me… already!”)
There are free SourceForge Winamp Remote source codes out there that may be able to become a blueprint, obviously, the blueprint would have to be free in the marketplace, but what does that mean for use in a game… would the game have to be free too? Something I don’t have an answer to. Just a disclosure of third-party SourceForge material hopefully.
I was just playing around with the idea of stuff to do with the new audio-driven gameplay elements, and choice is always a good thing in games, even when not provided by the developer.
I am just starting in Unreal Engine, and don’t have the skills to use blueprints yet, let alone convert other code into a usable blueprint, possibly not even C++, I have no idea.
The main thing was to just provide a few screens of different sizes that can be placed onto a flat surface of different actors in the editor, thus the developer can choose to place the screen on a PC, phone, “fallout” like arm device, or vehicle stereo and so on.
I am not aware of remote like apps for other players but they could certainly be useful too. Something to be added to the install options somehow too. Launching Winamp from the game may be too much, and I don’t recall the remote being able to do that. Just having it open before game launch should be sufficient. Some of us geeks out there would not like the app launch feature… as an unnecessary use of permission/power for a game. Windows can handle a single key Winamp startup if needed, not sure Winamp is even anywhere else, platform-wise.
I do recall the remote server it connects to has to be running and that would benefit if it could turn on and off such a server with the game, again, some of us really don’t like things running all the time for no reason, if it is required at all when the local area network is not needed.
I think such things would really benefit any app or game, the remote does pull song info and playlists from the actual Winamp player, but does not consist of building Winamp itself into such an app or game. Ideas worth having in new audio-driven gameplay, among other cool options it brings to the table.
Perhaps someone can figure this out by the time I learn to use UE myself. I may not be skilled enough to do this myself for years. I would certainly like it. Thanks in advance for looking into it if you are interested too.
Here is the link to one of such SourceForge projects, there are others out there too, if this one is no good.
https://sourceforge.net/p/winampremote1/code/
Another option would not be user-friendly in a few ways. We could use the universal key options to control such and map them to “weird not used on a keyboard” symbols. It would not likely be setup correctly by most users and would require setting Winamp settings up with weird symbols, let alone taking away the universal key usage for other nongame use without still interfering with gameplay key mapping and so on. Worst idea version in several ways, and do not recommend pursuing it. Getting a remote to work would be the most ideal approach to this kind of thing. Otherwise, this basically has the potential to make many users mad, let alone the endless support requests for them not setting it up right. Thus Winamp’s universal key use is still a bad idea. That’s my thoughts on the matter. 