How do I extract sound file info from an age?

[Zaphod]

I'm sure the sound files are referenced in the .prp files. I'll give PRPExplorer a try and see if I can get the information I'm looking for.

Thanks for all your help.

[D'Lanor]

Yes, they are. I thought you already knew that since you used PRPTool. Look under SoundBuffer for the filenames.
Uru has a rather complex sound system and there is still a lot of confusion about this. What matters for the decompression is whether the sound is streaming or static.

As GPNMilano has stated, decompression takes place during the initial installation. It also happens in an online multiplayer environment when an age is properly distributed using a dataserver and manifest file.

Only static sounds are decompressed (the name of the folder "streamingCache" is somewhat confusing). And only ogg files that are stereo can be broken down into left and right channel wav files (sorry, but you got that part wrong GPNMilano).

What makes all of this confusing is Uru's fallback system. If Uru cannot find a wav file for a static sound it will simply play the ogg file. This is convenient for writers because it means we do not have to worry about wav files for our ages, even though the game will never create these due to our wrong ways of distribution.

[GPNMilano]

D'lanor. Um, perhaps you misunderstood me, but that is what I said. an ogg file that is a stereo is broken down into the two separate files for left and right. Those that are not are simply decompressed into one file. (like the pushing of a button). As i explained, this is because for those types of sounds you don't need it to sound like it's coming from all around the player (as this wouldn't make sense for static sounds like a lever being pulled.

EDIT: Nevermind, I reread my most and realized the mistake was in the way i worded it. I seemed to imply that the ogg file was a mono format. Its not, some are some are not. The ones that are not are the ones that don't get broken down, because those static sounds are for objects that don't need to sound like they're coming from all around you. Sorry about that. That was cause of the way I worded it.

[D'Lanor]

If I understand you correctly you are saying that left-right decompression is for static/stereo/3D sounds. That was my impression as well, but I am not 100% sure about that.

I am going to digress here but there is something fishy going on with sounds in PyPRP. I have several sounds in Prad, stereo and mono, streaming and static, 3D and non 3D. I think I used just about every possible combination. And I have one sound deliberately set up as static/stereo/3D.
However in PRPTool NONE of them are showing the L/R indications that I see in Cyan's ages. It looks like PyPRP is treating every sound as mono. Or is there a sound flag nobody told us about? (Edit: actually there several flags we don't know the purpose of)

[andylegate]

I'm still curious as to WHY Zaphod is trying to make a list of each sound in the Age.

Are you trying to help make a list for the wiki or something?

[Zrax]

Just because I can, I wrote a quick little libPlasma app that can do what you're asking.

You can download it for Windows at http://uru.zrax.net/SoundList.zip. To use it, open a command prompt and type "SoundList Agename.age > Agename-Sounds.txt", and then you'll get a file (Agename-Sounds.txt) that has an alphabetical list of all of the .ogg files that the age uses.

Also, if you want to build it for Linux (or you just want to see the source ), the program's source is at http://uru.zrax.net/SoundList.cpp. You'll also need to use Subversion to get libPlasma from http://uru.zrax.net/svn/Plasma.

I hope that helps!

[Nadnerb]

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