Looping Sounds

[Springheel]

Hopefully someone knows this and can save me some testing.

 

If you have a soundshader that is set as a looping sound, but it lists more than one sound file:

 

tdm_sound

{

looping 1

 

sound A

sound B

sound C

 

}

 

 

does the engine pick either A, B, or C on map start and loop that one sound over and over, or does it play A, B or C once, then select A, B or C to play for the next loop, and continue picking randomly from the list each time it loops?

[grayman]

I looked at the code, but can't understand it. Couldn't find any comments to help, either.

 

Have you tried setting up a speaker that uses this type of shader? Unless someone soon admits to already knowing the sound code, it might be the quickest way to get an answer.

[Springheel]

Did some testing, and it appears to work like this:

 

On the first round of playing the sound, code chooses A, B, or C at random.

 

For the second round, code plays sound A.

 

Sound A is looped indefinitely thereafter.

 

 

Not the most useful way of doing things. Having multiple soundshaders on looping sounds is essentially pointless.

[grayman]

Some sounds have lead-ins.

 

I suspect that, for looping shaders, when there's two sounds, the engine is supposed to play the first one once, then loop the second one from there on.

 

Perhaps the presence of three sounds is screwing up this design.

[OrbWeaver]

I suspect that, for looping shaders, when there's two sounds, the engine is supposed to play the first one once, then loop the second one from there on.

 

There's an actual "leadin" keyword though, which identifies which of the two is the lead-in sound.

 

Having multiple sounds in a loop doesn't really make sense, because multiple sounds are intended to be selected in a random fashion to avoid too much repetition, whereas a looped sound is continuous and hence repetitive by nature. I guess the code could be modified to choose one loop at random, but I'm not sure what the benefit would be since the only way you would hear the different loop is by restarting the game (at which point you're probably not going to notice the change anyway).

[Springheel]

I guess the code could be modified to choose one loop at random, but I'm not sure what the benefit would be since the only way you would hear the different loop is by restarting the game

 

It would be good when there are lots of copies of the same thing, like fire flames, so that different flames in the map wouldn't sound exactly the same.

[OrbWeaver]

It would be good when there are lots of copies of the same thing, like fire flames, so that different flames in the map wouldn't sound exactly the same.

 

Good point, I didn't think of that.