Noisycricket

Unfortunately, just today i'm entering a busy period and i don't know when i could do that, partly because i've only gotten the walk.map to work, which is one room. I'm getting weird errors trying to set it up in other maps, but i've been guessing at what to do, so thats no surprise. It become "a mission" though, so who knows. Heres what i did: Placed an info_location entity in part of the map and named it an arbitrary #str_xx1". Then added "#str_xx1" "xx1" to the english.lang file in the Strings folder, including the quotes. Then, added a "walk.efx" text file to the EFXS folder with an reverb data set in it and named that set "xx1" and also made line one of that file say "Version 1", like the originals. I loaded up the same reverb setting that were in Mars City Hanger and wow! Too much for the walk map, but amazing to hear when it finally occurred after playing with it for 1.5 days. I could probably just record some Doom 3 video and load it, lots of room changes. One thing is for sure, the reverb that takes place in the first Thief video is easily done with these effects. Well, easily done once its set up anyway.

Works! Sounds great with tons of potential, but a little unintuitive to set up in the map and other folders. I'd love to see what it could do for a map like Politics, the elevator shaft, caverns and the underwater section, hell, the whole thing.

I'd like to see if anyone has even got it working yet. I'm trying to figure it out myself in DR, which means it could take a year or so...

Ok, so i've been doing a little research and I think i've found just about everything and more you could possibly want to know about what the .efx attributes settings are. I've found two documents that are very thorough and explain what there in term of real world sound wave activity and also exactly what there value range refers to and what a single unit represents. These two sources are: An EAX2 API guide (good explanations of terms/values): http://connect.creat...ing/EAX%202.zip and OpenAl Sdk documentation(most current): http://connect.creat...%20Windows.aspx Also Introduction to EFX (cross platform EAX i guess): http://connect.creat...20to%20EFX.aspx Creative Labs developer area: http://connect.creat...er/default.aspx One things for sure, EAX's interworkings are very sophisticated, yet understandable and its really interesting reading over the explanations on how each attribute mimics the real world. Doom 3 trivia: Its interesting to note that in the EAX2 API guide.pdf, there are 26 "environment" preset types listed. There are about 20 or so individual environment types allotted for the first level of Doom 3. All having the environment type listed as 26 (yet all having a different settings). Various presets are "EAX_ENVIRONMENT_HALLWAY" "EAX_ENVIRNOMENT_ALLEY" EAX_ENVIRONMENT_GENERIC" "EAX_ENVIRONMENT_CAVE", etc, etc. Number 26 is "EAX_ENVIRONMENT_PSYCHOTIC"...strange.

Doom 3 native works great, I just tried it out. Large rooms are especially nice sounding. And its EAX 4.0, yes. I guess you must have a ".efx" file within a .pk4 or mission folder for EAX to work. I only checked the training mission's .pk4 and it doesn't have any and im guessing the others don't either since i thought i played with EAX on while playing the other maps as well. Mappers should be able to print out the mars_city1.efx file (which is a text file) located in pack007.pk4. Then load Doom 3 at the start and go room to room listening to the sounds and noting the values being used for the area. Heres the part for the Mars City Hanger, the start of the first map (for those that have eax) // reverb mars city hangar reverb "mars city hangar" { "environment" 26 "environment size" 5.0670 "environment diffusion" 0.8360 "room" -411 "room hf" -685 "room lf" 0 "decay time" 3.3710 "decay hf ratio" 0.6990 "decay lf ratio" 1.0000 "reflections" -55 "reflections delay" 0.0750 "reflections pan" 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 "reverb" 27 "reverb delay" 0.1000 "reverb pan" 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 "echo time" 0.0850 "echo depth" 0.0000 "modulation time" 0.2500 "modulation depth" 0.0000 "air absorption hf" -5.0000 "hf reference" 5000.0000 "lf reference" 250.0000 "room rolloff factor" 0.0000 "flags" 63 } Ishtvan's writeup on the wiki: http://modetwo.net/d...Rooms_%28EAX%29 Looks like it can be done, maybe you should go ahead and get the card. If i new how to make maps, i'd test this all out on the training map ( or actually Politics, since that would probably serve the greater good at this point in time).

I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry, yet at least, if your buying it for TDM. Turning on EAX doesn't do anything, that I can tell.

Its been so long since i've played Doom 3, i couldn't tell ya. But heres some examples of EAX in action: Good example: General Effect (really shines here): http://www.youtube.c...feature=related here: http://www.encyclopedia.com/video/T-rXtSfq_Po-xfi-xtreme-music-eax-40.aspx and here(Halo) http://www.youtube.c...feature=related Occlusion: Reverberation:

Isn't an octree like half of a graphics engine?

We should charge for them like other organizations. GOOD IDEA!

Some games benefit more than others i've noticed. For that reason I missed out on EAX for a long time, then played Battlefield 2142 without EAX for a few months, then bought an X-fi card: Mind blowing...

EAX 4.0. $12 entire dollars! http://cgi.ebay.com/Creative-Sound-Blaster-Audigy-2-SB0400-7-1-PCI-Card_W0QQitemZ300371691800QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item45ef8c4918

I have noticed some problems with overall sound quality. Keep in mind, i searched the forum and saw how complicated the sound propagation stuff is, so im not expecting any sort of quick fix or anything, but i wanted to get these down somewhere so that they can eventually be fixed at least. ___ Quality reduction: My most immediate concern is that when playing a ogg file from Audacity or Media Player, the sound is crisp and detailed, yet when played in the game, some of the detail and crispness. In this case i first noticed this with new player footstep sounds im messing with. The sound volume is reduced, but i assume that is because it might be a non-positional sound since its right below the view port, which means it is subject to the globalFraction setting, reducing its volume to .8. I was trying to capture the minute details of the actual sound, like small grinding noises made from dust particles, but when imported to the game, the footstep sounds muffled. Is this happening with all of the sounds i wonder? ___ 3D positioning: Somehow, i'm getting much better sound positioning information in this youtube video than i do from the game. http://www.youtube.c...h?v=hJLEtMaYKOg This Doom3 mod shows that it is possible to have super-accurate positioning (the reverb is also interesting to hear): http://doom3.filefro...DOOM3_MOD;30066 Its like the values for the angles in which the sounds are coming from are rounded off or are not updated frequently enough. But also, it seems to jump from 45 degree off from center to 90 degrees while panning around slowly. __ Lack of Reverb: In that video, as well as doom 3 itself, there also seems to be a lot of reverb which seems to be entirely missing from TDM thus far. Stock Doom3 seems to be more than capable of producing reverb effects. This thread: Setting reverb data in the new sound engine(WIKI) seems to explain that reverbs effects are entirely up to the mapper and if there are no .efx files within the .pk4 then there will be no reverb. Are reverb effects only availble to EAX users? (I should note that im using headphones with EAX enabled and CMSS-3D in "game-mode" with an Auzentech X-fi card)

A current trend is covering the ground with 2d sprites, which doesn't look too shabby. I wonder if the D3 engine could handle that. Your sreenshots looks pretty good as is though to me.

Agree, thats why i'd just prefer to upload them, let people know they're there and move on to more sounds. I never really planned to overwrite anything.

Actually, i was wondering about more objects having their own set of sounds effects rather than more sound effects for objects already having sound effects. For now, ill just try and produce 4 sounds for each object I work with which seems over and above what AAA titles have. Its easy enough to create them and easy enough to delete lines in the sound shader files if need be. I've got some sounds in ogg format im ready to upload, anyone have a preference as to where they should be put. An NC folder in the darkmod directory or a folder in the sound_src directory or...? Average file size is about 15kb...

Sorry Loopy, im an animation guy. When i tested that, i tried it on a mat and soft sofa, which didn't yield a difference. Looks like carpets do produce a soft thump sound and seems to be chosen from a variety of soft impact sounds rather than a dedicated sound for each item. Thats all the testing i have time for atm.

Really love that lighthouse painting. I've always felt that most of the paintings in the Thief series needed a lot of help. Also, love the forest pics.

Heya, yeah, incident has a single sound. The mod currently uses up to 4 sounds per item, but doesn't yet distinguish between what the object has impacted with[that i know of]. For that reason, i've been making sounds on hard wood, which kinda produces a sound exceptable for both stone [~60% of the floor surfaces?] and wood[~40% of floor surfaces?].

I was wondering, we have 5 arrow_flight_X that occur when releasing an arrow, making the "whoosh" sound. Do those occur when arrows fly over your head too? I have 4 different bow release sounds i made and was wondering if there going to conflict with another purpose. I'll upload them if anyone would like to try them out. Also, in the archery section of the training map, when standing at the arrow quiver and firing an arrow into the nearest tree that lies along the fence to the right, I noticed the impact is completely silent, yet the tree is very close. There was no "max/min distance" string in the sound shader, so i don't know what it's default is, but I found that setting the "max distance" in the sound shader to 33 allowed for a very quiet, but very satisfying "thud" when an arrow hit the farthest target (when standing at the fence). Anyway, if this isn't something that has already been debated, are there any problems with moving this up to 33ish? Also, i made a couple decent fall-to-death sounds consisting of quick bassy thud along with cracking bones. Is there a sound just for this action? I'll also upload this and some others. edit: I was going to make some sounds for various items that don't have their own sounds yet. I've already made a few, like 4 for the large kitchen knife and 4 for the large wooden spoon. Is there any concern about performance thus far that relate to how many sounds to be used for each thing or am I safe to make 4 for each of the most common items i've thus far seen in maps?

On the list... What kind of reaction do we want here? Didn't they used to have the characters kneel down and cover their heads with both hands, shaking a little bit?

Heres a thread showing many incredible map designs and textures/coloring, a 60+ page thread of Thief 1/2 (3?) and TDM map reviews actually. Lots of interesting ideas some may already be familiar with. Makes me want to open DR. http://www.ttlg.com/...t=124349&page=6

I like the screenshots you make. I keep wanting to start a small business making animated desktops pictures, but only partly animated to save computer resources. Like having only a candle and its surroundings flicker slightly... Nice review.. I agree. (if you only knew what is being dreamed of.... )

I think 44kHz is the highest frequency Doom3 will accept? What about 16 bit vs. others? I'm still confused on what all that means....

Not a problem in any way, shape or form[im not even sure what you were concerned about;)]. One thing is for sure, we seem to need more city ambiance sounds, I see some of them used over and over. Right now we also have a lot of music tracks taking the place of environment sounds, but im not sure if thats by choice or by necessity. Hopefully some mappers will come in here and put up their requests. If you rename the the sound .pk4 files to .zip, you can extract them and see what the mod has currently. If you want to experiment with them in-game, you can re-create sound folder or any part of it and the game will use whatever you have in it instead of what is in the .pk4 files.