325 lines
11 KiB
HTML
325 lines
11 KiB
HTML
<html>
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<body bgcolor=#000000 text=#999999>
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<font size=3>
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<FONT FACE="Tahoma">
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<center>
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<font size=6 color=#ffcc00>
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Anachronox Sound and Music Functionality
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</font></center>
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<br>
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<font size=5 color=#ff0000>
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Introduction<br></font>
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Anachronox uses RAD Gametool's <b>Miles Sound System</b> and Microsoft's <b>DirectMusic</b> to
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play sound effects, speech and background music. The file formates we currently support
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are .WAV and .MP3 files for the sound effects and speech effect. Background music should
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be in the .SEG format, which basically is a MOD format for MIDI. Along with the .SEG file
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there should be a corresponding .DLS file which contains all the samples needed in the .SEG
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file.
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<p>
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<font size=5 color=#ff0000>
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Sound Effect Functionality<br>
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</font>
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There are a number of ways to make sounds appear in Anachronox. I will list the <b>APE</b> and <b>Planet</b>
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functions first, to later on describe how to make the sound sources an integral part of the actual map.<p>
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<font size=4 color=#ff0000>
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Sound Effect Functionality in APE:<br>
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</font>
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From APE, there are basically 4 <b><i>extern</i></b> functions that provide the functionality we need.<p>
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<ul>
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<li> <b>playsound</b> ( filename{.WAV|.MP3} ) [ entity_id ] [ volume ] [ attenuation ]
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<li> <b>loopsound</b> ( filename{.WAV|.MP3} ) [ entity_id ] [ volume ] [ attenuation ]
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<li> <b>stopsound</b> ( filename{.WAV|.MP3} )
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<li> <b>playanimation</b> ( entity_id ) ( filename )
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</ul>
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<p>
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<table borderwidth="0" width="90%">
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<tr>
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<th valign="top" width="20%">
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<font color=0xDDDD00>
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<b>playsound</b> <b>loopsound</b>
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</font>
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</th>
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<td>
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<font size=2>
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<b>Starts the playback of a sound file. </b>
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<p>
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One argument is required, which is the relative path and filename of the sound effect to play. The file
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extension (.WAV or .MP3) must be supplied. The sound system will scan through first the subdirectory
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anoxdata/sound and secondly the directory anoxdata/music if the specified file is not found in the sound directory.
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The pathname should therefore be given as, eg, "bricks/engine3.wav". The system will then prepend "anoxdata/sound"
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and "anoxdata/music" to the given path and try to load and play the file.<p>
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If an <b>entity_id</b> is given, either as a sequence number or a classname, the system will try to locate that
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entity in the world and play the sound so it originates from that entity's midpoint.<p>
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<b>Volume</b> and <b>attenuation</b> should be a value between 0.0-1.0 and 0.0-4.0 respectively.
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<b>volume</b> is an indication on how loud the sound will be played. The default value is 0.5. This makes it
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possible to, in certain special cases, pump up the sound volume a little extra to create the effect of something REALLY
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big, like an explosion, or similar.
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The <b>attenuation</b> value is an indication of how fast the sound will fade with distance. Default value is 2.0.
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A smaller value will travel further and a higher value will be cut off faster.<p>
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The difference between the two functions is that <b>playsound</b> plays the sound once, while <b>loopsound</b>
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repeats the sound indefinitely.<br>
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Example:<br>
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"<font color=0xAADDDD>extern playsound Bricks/HighwayToHell.mp3</font>" would play your favorite AC/DC song.<br>
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"<font color=0xAADDDD>extern loopsound Bricks/HighwayToHell.mp3 ghetto_blaster 1.0 2.0</font>" would locate the entity with
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the classname ghetto_blaster and play the same song from the location of that ghetto_blaster at full volume and normal
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attenuation. The sound would then loop over and over again and move around the level if the ghetto_blaster is carried
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around by another character.
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<p><p>
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</font>
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</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<th valign="top">
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<font color=0xDDDD00>
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<b>stopsound</b>
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</font>
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</th>
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<td>
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<font size=2>
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<b>Stops the playback of a sound file. </b>
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<p>
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The system will loop through all sounds being played and, if it finds the specified filename, will shut it off.
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The filename should be the same as the name used to start the sound, but it is case-insensitive.<br>
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<b>Example:</b><br>
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"<font color=0xAADDDD>extern stopsound Bricks/HighwayToHell.mp3</font>" would stop your favorite AC/DC song.<p>
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</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<th valign="top">
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<font color=0xDDDD00>
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<b>playanimation</b>
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</font>
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</th>
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<td>
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<font size=2>
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<b>Starts the playback of a lipsynched speech sound. </b>
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<p>
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<b>entity_id</b> is, as above, either a sequence number or a classname. <b>filename</b> is the filename
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of the sound/Magpie file to play WITHOUT file extension. The facial animations work as follows: <p>
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The system tried to locate a file with that name, with either a .WAV or .MP3 extension. If the sound
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file is found, the Magpie parser tries to locate a file with the same filename, but with a .LIP
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extension. If the .LIP file is found, the information is parsed and the morph data in it
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is sent to the facial deformation graphics system. If the .LIP file is not found, the system
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will generate random lip movement data for the duration of the soundfile's length.
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<b>Example:</b><br>
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"<font color=0xAADDDD>extern playanimation 132:02 Bricks/dettagoon4</font>" would start the dettagoon4 sound and play
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the animation on the entity with the sequence number 132:02, which hopefully should be the Detta goon. :-)
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<p>
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</table>
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<p>
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<hr width=80%>
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<p>
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<font size=4 color=#ff0000>
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Sound Effect Functionality in Planet: <br>
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</font>
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From Planet, there are three sound related commands:<p>
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<ul>
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<li> <b>soundonce</b> (filename),(channel),(flush),(volume),(attenuation)
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<li> <b>soundloop</b> (filename),(channel),(flush),(volume),(attenuation)
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<li> <b>soundclear</b> (channel)
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</ul>
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<p>
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<table borderwidth="0" width="90%">
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<tr>
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<th valign="top" width="20%">
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<font color=0xDDDD00>
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<b>soundonce</b> <b>soundloop</b>
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</font>
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</th>
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<td>
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<font size=2>
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<b>Starts the playback of a sound file. </b>
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<p>
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<b>filename</b>, <b>attenuation</b> and <b>volume</b> are the same as above. However, the <b>channel</b> and <b>flush</b>
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arguments deserves some extra mention.<p>
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Basically, each entity has 4 virtual channels. This means that we can stack up to 4 sounds on a separate channel and play
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them all at once. The <b>channel</b> designates which of these channels to use [0-3]. When <b>soundonce</b> or <b>soundloop</b>
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is called with a <b>channel</b> id, the system will perform a check to see if there is another sound playing on that same channel.
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<p>
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If this is the case, we have a couple of choices. If the sound already playing on the channel has been started with soundloop
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and hence is a looping sound, that sound will be stopped immediately and the new sound played on that channel. <p>
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If, however, the previous sound wasn't a looping sound, the system will look at the <b>flush</b> flag. If the <b>flush</b> flag is set,
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the system will stop the previous sound immediately and start playback of the new sound at once. If the <b>flush</b> flag
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is '0', however, the new sound will be put on hold and playback won't start until the previous sound has finished. <p>
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This may sound complicated, but it allows for things like "play the car's starting sound(non-looped sound) and que up the
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sound of the car's running sound (a looped sound) so it will start immediately after the starting sound has finished".
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<p>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<th valign="top">
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<font color=0xDDDD00>
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<b>soundclear</b>
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</font>
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</th>
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<td>
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<font size=2>
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<b>Stops the playback of a sound file. </b>
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<p>
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<b>channel</b> basically designates which of the entity's virtual channel to shut off.<p><p>
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Well, I thought to write more here, but what more can be said? :-)
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</tr>
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</table>
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<p>
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<hr width=80%>
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<p>
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<font size=5 color=#ff0000>
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Putting sounds into the actual level<br>
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</font>
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Since the APE and Planet systems clearly aren't enough to put sounds in levels ;-), we can also do it the Die-Hard,
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QuakeII way, ie just putting the sounds into the map file and be done with it. These are the commands that you can
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put into the map file, in the definitions of <b>target_speakers</b> and <b>trigger_multiple</b>.
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<p>
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<ul>
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<li><b>noise</b> ( filename )
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<li><b>volume</b> ( value )
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<li><b>attenuation</b> ( value )
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<li><b>spawnflags</b> ( flag)
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</ul>
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<p>
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<table borderwidth="0" width="90%">
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<tr>
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<th valign="top" width="20%">
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<font color=0xDDDD00>
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<b>noise</b>
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</font>
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</th>
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<td>
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<font size=2>
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<b>Specifies the filename of the sound file to play </b>
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<p>
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The search for the filename you have specified starts in the anoxdata/sounds directory.
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<br>
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<b>Example:</b><br>
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<font color=0xAADDDD>"noise" "global/earthquake1.wav"</font> would set the sound to be an earthquake
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<p>
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<p>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<th valign="top">
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<font color=0xDDDD00>
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<b>volume</b>
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</font>
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</th>
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<td>
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<font size=2>
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<b>The volume level at which the sound should be played at. Range: 0.0 - 1.0 </b>
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<br>
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Default is '0.5'. Use a lower setting for sounds that should be more quiet and, guess what?
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Use a higher setting for sounds that should dominate the scene more.
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<br>
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<b>Example:</b><br>
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<font color=0xAADDDD>"volume" "0.3"</font> would play the sound real quiet.
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<p>
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<p>
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</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<th valign="top">
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<font color=0xDDDD00>
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<b>attenuation</b>
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</font>
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</th>
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<td>
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<font size=2>
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<b>The attenuation level for this sound. Range: 0.0 - 4.0</b>
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<br>
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Attenuation, or "How the volume fades with the distance from the sound source", is a good
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tool to add to the ambient sounds. Defualt is '2.0'. Use a lower value if you want the
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sound to be heard further away from the sound source and a higher value if the
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volume is to drop fast once you're a bit away from the sound source.<br>
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<b>Note:</b> This is purely a fictional value. It has no correspondence in the real world,
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so it's hard to tell what it "really" is. :-)
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<br>
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<b>Example:</b><br>
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<font color=0xAADDDD>"attenuation" "0.2"</font> would make the sound be heard very far away.
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<p>
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<p>
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</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<th valign="top">
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<font color=0xDDDD00>
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<b>spawnflags</b>
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</font>
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</th>
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<td>
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<font size=2>
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<b>Sets the default behavior of the sound source. Values: '1' or '2'</b>
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<br>
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A Spawnflag of '1' means that the sound is already playing when you start the level. A flag of '2' means
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that the sound source will start looping when it's targeted. (For help on Targetting, target names, origin
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and other values that are important to sounds sources, see elsewhere. :-)
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<br>
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<b>Note:</b> If the "spawnflags" are 0 (zero) or left out all together, the sound will be silent until you target
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it and then only play the sound once. (Thanks, Seneca. ;-)<br>
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<b>Example:</b><br>
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<font color=0xAADDDD>"spawnflags" "2"</font> would make sure the sound was quiet until it was targeted.
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<p>
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</td>
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</tr>
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</table>
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<p><p><p><p><p><p><p>
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<!--- <font size=5 color=#ff0000>
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Terms & Definitions (written mostly for coders)<br></font>
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-->
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</font>
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</body>
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</html>
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