Sounds, sounds, oh the pretty sounds...

Cygnus.X1 · Wed Oct 24, 2012 3:32 pm

[edit]My semi-religiously-inclined motivations for sharing data may offend people.[/edit]

[edit2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proselytism - "is the act of attempting to convert people to another religion or opinion."
I care not what religion you choose to believe or not, and was merely sharing my motivations for encouraging other users to make their data available for copying. Otherwise, I care not.[/edit2]

A common complaint I see around here is the lack of varied sound in Trans. There are a few weapons fire sounds, some explosions, and a single track of background music. There are a number of aspiring musicians that play Trans and have expressed interest in creating more music for the game. I'd like to invite all those artists to use this thread to work something out.

For the rest of us that don't have the time nor talent for making music, I found something we can all use to make better noises for Trans game effects.

http://www.bfxr.net/
You can generate sounds directly from the website's flash module, or download the stand-alone (portable even!) Adobe Air application for offline use as well. It has lots of sliders and options and stuff that I honestly don't understand, but on the other hand, you don't really need to. It has lots of buttons with names like "Explosion", "Laser" etc that creates randomized sounds, so just keep clicking until you hear something close to what you want, then start twiddling sliders and such

and if that's too much for you, there is an alternative version of the program with much simpler controls. The software authors make no claims to the sounds files you generate and save, but if you do use their program and get something you want out of it, the right thing to do would be to post a credit and link to their site somewhere with the sounds you made.

The strange noises made by my WIP Nano Cannon weapon were made with that program, and it was fun making it

Wed Oct 24, 2012 4:27 pm

The biggest problem re: sound samples is that the provided weapon soudns have no oomph behind them that you would want for big, slow firing howitzer type weapons. The kinetic lick reaaaaaly dosen't suit those weapons :3.

Freesoundproject is good for samples like that, tis is something I found searching for 'plasma gun' for example, which sounds like it would be approriate for one of the more advanced large weapons in T (was thinking of the APA while looking) http://www.freesound.org/people/TheHadn ... ds/160880/ ... their liscencing rules allow for free use in all projects with proper attribution in some kind of credits document, and they'll generate a proper attribution text list of all the stuff you've downloaded to help.

They're not really a music site, though they have a number of instrument samples that would be useful for FL Studio, LMMS, or e.g. screamtracker users.

They also do 'I'ma sit here and record the ambient sounds of this city / area' recordings, which might be usable if you want crowd noise for space stations or something like that. (Just made a ticket suggesting a tag for this purpose here http://wiki.neurohack.com/transcendence ... icket/1184 )

I think they link to some of the other free sound sites too.

Cygnus.X1 · Wed Oct 24, 2012 4:33 pm

Told ya this was easier than it sounds... Oh, I made a punny!

http://mysticwolfmusic.com/tinkerer/lin ... rusGen.wav <-- the sound the Nano Cannon makes when it fires
http://mysticwolfmusic.com/tinkerer/lin ... rusRep.wav <-- the sound that a Nano swarm makes when it regens (at least, it's supposed too, coding issue I hope)
Both of these sounds were made with the Bfxr program.

http://mysticwolfmusic.com/tinkerer/lin ... oRegen.wav <-- made this, just now, in less than 5 minutes, by clicking the "Randomize" button a bunch of times just for giggles, then hearing something that reminded me of the Nano Bombs from Alien Syndrome for the Wii, and tweaking it until I was happy...

Another incredibly useful audio program that I used very often is Audacity. Some of the more advance features have a steep learning curve which can be intimidating to new users, but keep trying

Audacity is used by professional electronica musicians to create entire music tracks, it's worth learning to use. And... it's free! http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Cygnus.X1 · Wed Oct 24, 2012 5:27 pm

Star Weaver wrote:you would want for big, slow firing howitzer type weapons.

Challenge accepted!

http://mysticwolfmusic.com/tinkerer/lin ... witzer.wav <-- Howitzer?

Not good enough? Start tweaking...
http://mysticwolfmusic.com/tinkerer/lin ... .bfxrsound <-- Native Bfxr file format for above sound

Autohummer · Wed Oct 24, 2012 6:09 pm

I would like the sound of a 15.7 metre ultra-heavy capital gun firing for the Tabinka Class HCBC. Also, if possible, good-sounding Gatling gun FX, sound of VLS missile launching, and a FX for a wave motion gun.

Cygnus.X1 · Wed Oct 24, 2012 7:16 pm

Autohummer wrote:I would like the sound of a 15.7 metre ultra-heavy capital gun firing for the Tabinka Class HCBC. Also, if possible, good-sounding Gatling gun FX, sound of VLS missile launching, and a FX for a wave motion gun.

Manners...

I'm not looking for a bajillion "I want" requests... I provided a link to a tool that anybody can use to make your own sounds. Then I took on StarWeaver's suggestion just to show folks how easy it can be. Otherwise, while I'm glad to share any of my Trans work with the community for anybody to use as they see fit, I don't have the time to invest in other people's wants and needs. I will be making sounds and what-not as the mood or needs strike me for my own mods, and if you like them, good, use them. CopyCopyCopy.

I would also like to reiterate that I'd like anybody with musical talent that's interested to speak up here and hopefully get some music made for Trans

George is a busy fellow, and given that he is kind enough to dedicate some of his working time to developing a game he has yet to see any profit from, I feel it behooves us in the game's user-community to lighten his load of work as much as we can. If we can come up with a bunch of music and sound effects for the game, maybe George will then have more time to get us closer to ver 1.1, right?

FourFire · Wed Oct 24, 2012 8:08 pm

Cygnus.X1 wrote:
Autohummer wrote:I would like the sound of a 15.7 metre ultra-heavy capital gun firing for the Tabinka Class HCBC. Also, if possible, good-sounding Gatling gun FX, sound of VLS missile launching, and a FX for a wave motion gun.
Manners...

I'm not looking for a bajillion "I want" requests... I provided a link to a tool that anybody can use to make your own sounds. Then I took on StarWeaver's suggestion just to show folks how easy it can be. Otherwise, while I'm glad to share any of my Trans work with the community for anybody to use as they see fit, I don't have the time to invest in other people's wants and needs. I will be making sounds and what-not as the mood or needs strike me for my own mods, and if you like them, good, use them. CopyCopyCopy.

I would also like to reiterate that I'd like anybody with musical talent that's interested to speak up here and hopefully get some music made for Trans

George is a busy fellow, and given that he is kind enough to dedicate some of his working time to developing a game he has yet to see any profit from, I feel it behooves us in the game's user-community to lighten his load of work as much as we can. If we can come up with a bunch of music and sound effects for the game, maybe George will then have more time to get us closer to ver 1.1, right?

Plus One to this post!
I may not hold entirely with the tenants of Kopimism but it is certainly of high utility.

Amariithynar · Wed Oct 24, 2012 9:13 pm

Agreed; After all it has designations like .exe and .py for members of the faith. Quite humorous, even while the concept of keeping information shared is a very laudable one. Don't see why informing people of a religion is something so evil- I read the post initially and it was informative, not prosetylizing, and encouraged people to learn more- Laudable within the faith or out of it. And, for the record, spiritual agnostic, not Kopimist.

Now, for it to be on topic!

would this tool generate files that can be simply referenced within the XML, and, if so, could you give an example of how to input it into the game proper itself? Having the tools to create sound, or even have sound bites that you want to use is fine and dandy, but for those of us not normally elbow-deep or deeper in TLisp/XML, how do you go about doing this?

Wed Oct 24, 2012 9:34 pm

All trans needs is a wav file, or possibly mp3 or ogg, sitting around. You create a <Sound> entity for it just like you create and <Image> entity for your jpg or bmp files. I don't think there's much more to it. I'm not sure if T has any requirements on sample rate or channels, though you could check the included files for guidelines.

Amariithynar · Wed Oct 24, 2012 9:41 pm

You talk about creating <image> entities... but I am not aware of how to do that, either. thus the request for how to go about doing so. ^_^; been quite some time since I've even looked at the code outside of spellchecking and the like with the Mining Pack crew.

Cygnus.X1 · Wed Oct 24, 2012 9:54 pm

Amariithynar wrote:would this tool generate files that can be simply referenced within the XML, and, if so, could you give an example of how to input it into the game proper itself? Having the tools to create sound, or even have sound bites that you want to use is fine and dandy, but for those of us not normally elbow-deep or deeper in TLisp/XML, how do you go about doing this?

This tool generates *.WAV files.

Snips from my Athena mod (related to sounds):

Code: Select all

  <!ENTITY snXVirusGen               "0xDADA2621">
...
    <Weapon
...
      sound=             "&snXVirusGen;"
...
    >
...
    </Weapon>
...
  <Sound UNID="&snXVirusGen;" filename="Resources/xVirusGen.wav" />

Snips from my Athena mod (related to images):

Code: Select all

  <!ENTITY rsNanoShot                "0xDADA2611">
...
    <Weapon
...
    >
      <Effect><Image imageID="&rsNanoShot;" imageX="0" imageY="0" imageWidth="13" imageHeight="13" imageFrameCount="6" imageTicksPerFrame="2" randomStartFrame="true" rotationCount="1"/></Effect>
...
    </Weapon>
...
  <Image UNID="&rsNanoShot;" bitmap="Resources/NanoShot.bmp" bitmask="Resources/NanoShotMask.bmp" backColor="0x00000000" />

Amariithynar · Wed Oct 24, 2012 10:02 pm

Thank you! Exactly the sort of thing I was hoping for. So given your example, snXVirusGen is the entity that I direct it to apply to, and the .wav under sound UNID to be changed to the location of the file and its name? Or should it only ever be in resources?

Cygnus.X1 · Wed Oct 24, 2012 10:26 pm

Placing any "resource" file in a subfolder is an aesthetic choice but is not required. Many modders (and I'm a recent convert) do so to make it easier to organize their mods whilst working on them. Wait, did I just type convert? I meant that in a non-religious sense

Such will work just fine without using a subfolder.

Code: Select all

<Sound UNID="&snXVirusGen;" filename="xVirusGen.wav" />

Amariithynar · Thu Oct 25, 2012 12:46 am

Now, it states sound UNID: Is that just a repeat of the filename of the sound file, or is it an actual UNID that you have to apply for, as with other modding?

Autohummer · Thu Oct 25, 2012 1:09 am

Cygnus.X1 wrote:
Autohummer wrote:I would like the sound of a 15.7 metre ultra-heavy capital gun firing for the Tabinka Class HCBC. Also, if possible, good-sounding Gatling gun FX, sound of VLS missile launching, and a FX for a wave motion gun.
Manners...

I'm not looking for a bajillion "I want" requests... I provided a link to a tool that anybody can use to make your own sounds. Then I took on StarWeaver's suggestion just to show folks how easy it can be. Otherwise, while I'm glad to share any of my Trans work with the community for anybody to use as they see fit, I don't have the time to invest in other people's wants and needs. I will be making sounds and what-not as the mood or needs strike me for my own mods, and if you like them, good, use them. CopyCopyCopy.

I would also like to reiterate that I'd like anybody with musical talent that's interested to speak up here and hopefully get some music made for Trans

George is a busy fellow, and given that he is kind enough to dedicate some of his working time to developing a game he has yet to see any profit from, I feel it behooves us in the game's user-community to lighten his load of work as much as we can. If we can come up with a bunch of music and sound effects for the game, maybe George will then have more time to get us closer to ver 1.1, right?

I apologize for the misunderstanding on my part, for thinking that it was a request thread. I did not intend anything offensive and I beg for your pardon on this mistake.