sounds.xt

[Aves Dominari]

Wait wait wait... we can add sound? I looked back at 10101's stuff and I don't see anything about that; I wasn't even aware it was possible!

[Kyzrati]

Sure, you can add any sounds you want, to anything. Weapons, footsteps, SA, anything at all. The entire system is as open as the rest of the data.

10101 even added some of his own for his little nuke test.

I originally said this was possible with the R9 sound release, under the M6 release post here.

Since modders haven't been adding sound, though, and to keep mod files smaller for easier passing around on the net, I moved all existing sounds into the core directory, so you have to add new ones there, like 10101 did (check out his recent nuke test). Doesn't matter too much since final mod releases are done as standalone games, but eventually mods will become even easier to handle because I'm changing the file system so that you can split *any* data into multiple files if you want, or make mods that only add content to another mod, so sounds could be sourced in your separate mod directory as well. I've already implemented the hard part of that system, just haven't made it available yet.

It's quite easy to add sound, the main difficulty is getting/creating good sound effects-that's what takes the most time.

Music is not yet supported by the engine, but almost certainly will be, one day. (Haven't really had a need for it yet.)

[10101]

In the .ZIP is a folder 'Core' that contains files to put into the core-folder in your game. It contains 2 soundfiles and the modified sound.xt to make them work ingame.

But i have to confess...

Once upon a time Kyzrathi released a 9.0 Version of X@Com. I don't know, if it was intended or by accident, but it had the soundfiles decompiled. And i have that together with the old 8.7 and others installed. So the satellite soundfiles are modded WEAP_ROCKET_LARGE and EXPL_ROCKET_LARGE.

[Kyzrati]

It was by accident ;p

I'm going to go add a post in the private board about sound files.

[Aves Dominari]

Alright... that's amazing. I'm going to dig up something for the Needle Rifles right now, stockpile some organic sounds for Muton weaponry, and... I didn't even know this was possible! This is going to be amazing ;D

[Kyzrati]

It's funny you mention that, because one of my suggestions was going to be: "The Needle weapons really needs their own sound effects." But I didn't think you were planning on doing any sound work

[10101]

And i wasn't sure if it would work, but simply tried it.

If you can't find proper sound, try audacity. It doesn't seem to be the ultimate tool, but it is free and has a nice list of effects to play with.

[Kyzrati]

Audacity is awesome. It's my primary tool, and that of most indie devs, really. I've been using it for at least 6-7 years.

Funny you "simply tried it" 10101 ;p

[Aves Dominari]

Sept 18, 2013 17:01:48 GMT -5 Kyzrati said:

Music is not yet supported by the engine, but almost certainly will be, one day. (Haven't really had a need for it yet.)

Call me crazy, but couldn't we create music by adding a 'sound' with a very large radius to the game, then adding that sound to an invisible prop's ambiance?

[Kyzrati]

Theoretically, yes. Though in practice you generally want different kinds of control over music than you have over sounds. It would most likely end up causing problems in some way or another, or being inconvenient at least. I'm sure 10101 will want to try it now ;p

[10101]

Before i try adding music, i have to get another one to work. I tried to add an ambient sound containing more than one sound like EVEN_REAPER_GROWL etc. but instead of playing them one after another or randomly the ambient prop only plays the first one. Is there any control which would change this?

[Kyzrati]

Nope. The way ambient sounds are propagated means it's impossible to choose them randomly. You're currently limited to one sound for ambience. One after another would be impossible given the architecture. The best I could do is make it so that each prop with multiple ambient sounds chooses a random one when it's first created, but it would end up being somewhat complicated internally, and for a feature that isn't too important, so it's not supported yet.

All other sounds are allowed to use the multiple/randomized effects.

[10101]

Sounds like i have to get creative...

[Kyzrati]

Hehe.

Multiple ambient sound effects for a single prop would be done by just putting them all in one file if you really wanted to loop through them all. As for different sounds, you'd have to have multiple copies of the same prop, and spawn one randomly from a prop spawner. These are probably satisfactory solutions to a rather rare need, in any case. The current system is pretty robust where all other more common needs are concerned. If it isn't I'm sure you'll find out why and where before long ;p

[10101]

Seems to be the easiest way. Creating a single soundfile with a length of 3-10 Minutes so it doesn't get too repetitive and playing that with a single prop.. like background music. Hm. Perhaps i should start with music instead.


PS: Now i need music that's free to use :wall:

PPS: Works nice with music, but is definitely not recommendable. A customary mp3-player will do a better job (falloff in the distance, restart every round [at least],...)