Creating cave music
Randomly generating cave music in Pikmin 2 needs to have two files: a .bms (sequence) file, and a .cnd (conductor) file.
The BMS file type is a sequenced music format used in many games. For the cave music in Pikmin 2 however, it is specially-formatted. It mainly contains many short snippets of musical information to be randomized.
The CND files are the actual "songs"; they take specific groups of snippets from a BMS file, and endlessly puzzle-piece them together to form a coherent piece of music.
This guide will cover function as a walkthrough for creating your own randomly sequencing cave song. Most of the editing will be done in hexadecimal.
Requirements:
- A basic understanding of hexadecimal, and a hex editor. An editor that can dynamically resize the window is ideal. (Hex Fiend on Mac OS is a fantastic example).
- A DAW to create your own short MIDIs in, like FL Studio or Logic Pro. A DAW is also great for sketching out your song ideas beforehand.
- A MIDI to BMS converter, like flaaffy. You will be generating a lot of tiny BMS files, to turn them into "gestures".
Overview of file functions
Here are some infographics that you can reference at any time.
Conductor file functions.
How information is stored in a BMS file.
