Yeah, certainly mp3 isn’t the recommended format, but doesn’t MonoGame provide a way to convert audio into ‘binary’ files or something? I don’t use MonoGame and never used the pipeline in XNA, so I don’t know if that’s correct though.
Generally we use a lossless format like wav for asset distribution so the developers can convert that to any format they please, converting from mp3 to ogg certainly isn’t a good practice since it may generate all kinds of artifacts and distortions, in fact converting from any lossy format to another isn’t recommended if quality is a concern, unless of course you’re compressing substantially so the quality of the source won’t affect the output that much. (e.g.: if you want a very low bitrate ogg, it won’t matter (much) if the source is flac or 320kbps mp3).
@EricMatyas your work is simply awesome! I don’t use MonoGame but I’m here for some help with a lib I’m trying to use with FNA and came across your post. I have used your musics in a game recently (still early WIP but playable), here is the link. I didn’t know you were active in this community. Just want to say thank you for your amazing contribution to the indie gamedev community!
I don’t know… patents take quite a bit of time to expire and can be renewed. That being said I’m not particularly up to date in regards to mp3 since it’s not really used in the gaming industry with very few exceptions.
On April 23, 2017, Technicolor’s mp3 licensing program for certain mp3
related patents and software of Technicolor and Fraunhofer IIS has been
terminated.
So it hasn’t expired, but rather it’s been terminated.
EDIT: The stated reason for terminating the patents is that mp3 is no longer relevant as there are many better codecs out there today.
The content pipeline has always been able to read MP3 files and process them into the appropriate license-friendly compressed streaming format for the target platform.
I’ve just uploaded over 100 new stone and metal texture images, standard and seamless, that I took at a couple of archaeological sites over the weekend. I think a lot of the stone textures could work well for castles and other structures.
I’ve uploaded a bunch of new texture images, both seamless and standard, on the following pages:
TXR - Brick
TXR - Metal
TXR - Wood
If anyone happens to need a couple of distressed wooden door images, they are on my TXR - WOOD page as well. I think they look really cool. As always, feel free to edit as needed.
I’ve opened a fur textures page and uploaded about 70 images, both seamless and standard, to get it started. Some of them might be useful for other things, like carpets, rugs, etc. Some also have funky weaves so I included them for fun.
I’ve added about 50 new paper textures derived mostly from old book covers, but there are also some distressed blank pages. They are on my TXR - Paper page: