Guild of Writers

According to the Alcugs tutorials, adding sounds other than a footstep region is not available yet. Is this still true? Is there no way to add ambient sounds to the Ages we make?

This is kind of distressing, because what helps make a Age "feel" right, other than lighting, is also ambient sounds, be it wind, insects, birds, light music, you name it.

Well, I have good news and bad news.

The bad news is:
No, it's still not possible

But, the good news is:
It's getting really close, hanging only on figuring out how to implement it in blender. That's what I hear from Paradox anyway

It's halfway possible in the currently available PRPExplorer (it requires a hex edit if you want to change the ogg). It's a reality in my development copy of PRPExplorer... Which I would say is very unstable. Perhaps I should release it just for the heck of it.

Out of curiosity, and because I'm an engineer who likes to know what makes things tick, I opened up one of the CC Age files.
Now let me stress (before someone goes off half cocked) I'm NOT using anything that belongs to Cyan. I create my own textures, materials, models, etc, etc. But, one can learn a LOT if you look at their stuff and how they did things.

Opening up the Baron's Office, I started looking at the different layers. One thing that I saw in layer 2 was several different points, one of them being named: SfxBaronsCityMusicEmi. The only properties, unfortunately, is alctype = point and a link to the mainroom page.

Interesting, but no other info. I'll await the developement of being able to do this with great anticipation.

I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but just because where talking about this very subject I think that right now the #1 missing things from Ages is sound. (#2 Would be animations and #3 Texture animations). And as such it is what should be given priority.
Again, just my two cents.

andylegate wrote:Out of curiosity, and because I'm an engineer who likes to know what makes things tick, I opened up one of the CC Age files.
Now let me stress (before someone goes off half cocked) I'm NOT using anything that belongs to Cyan. I create my own textures, materials, models, etc, etc. But, one can learn a LOT if you look at their stuff and how they did things.

Opening up the Baron's Office, I started looking at the different layers. One thing that I saw in layer 2 was several different points, one of them being named: SfxBaronsCityMusicEmi. The only properties, unfortunately, is alctype = point and a link to the mainroom page.

Interesting, but no other info. I'll await the developement of being able to do this with great anticipation.

That's the sound emission point. All it requires is a CoordinateInterface that defines a location in 3D space.

I have successfully added ambient sounds to two Ages (multiple times) with some messy hex editing and a combination of PRPExplorer, PRPExplorer (development edition), and PrpTool. It wasn't very fun, believe me.

I'm working on a way to add ambient sounds with PyPRP by defining an emission point in Blender and editing some sound properties, but it's a bit slow because of the sheer complexity of sound classes in Plasma.

I understand, and really appriciate everyone that's trying to make it a reality. Sounds really make and break things. Many people turn down their sound while on MOUL and have shoutcast music going during parties and such. But leaving the sound down and no music either, and try walking around any of the Ages. Just doesn't feel right.

Thing is, most of the OGG sound files are located in the SFX folder, and of course we have to come up with our own custome sounds, so I'd assume they'd need to go there (unless of course things change).

By the way, is "CoordinateInterface" really a word??? hehehehehe.

andylegate wrote:By the way, is "CoordinateInterface" really a word??? hehehehehe.

No, It's not, it should be plCoordinateInterface

You tend to drop a lot of "pl"s and "hs"s when you deal with them at a rate of one per sentence

This is kind of distressing, because what helps make a Age "feel" right, other than lighting, is also ambient sounds, be it wind, insects, birds, light music, you name it.

Oh, stop complaining. It could be worse; I remember the early days of plug-in development, when all we could make was black and white Ages.