The Master Plan

[pakmannen 1]

Sound

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The audio part for this mod will be divided in four sections:

 

1. SFX (Soundeffect)

We have adopted this term for any sound that is played from within the code. That basically means leveldesigner wont have to bother about them. Ex: footsteps, impact sounds, weapon sounds, porcelain-cup-dropped-on-marble sounds etc.

 

2. Ambient

Sounds which are added by the leveldesigner in order to bring life to the map. Mood enhancers, if you wish. Ex: machines, birds, waterfalls and background music/loops.

 

3. Voices

Things spoken or expressed by the inhabitants of the world. That includes:

Humans, zombies, belchers, and any other creatures we might come up with.

 

4. Meta Sounds

Sounds used by the game to convey gameplay information. The pickup-loot sound, menu sounds, mission objective sounds etc.

 

Formats

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Wiki link.

To keep file sizes small, the OGG Vorbis format should be used for all ambients and SFX. You can get a free encoder here. Depending on the sound, an aproppriate nominal bitrate should be choosen. As a rule of thumb, use these encoding options:

 

44100Hz / 96kbps / mono

Use this for SFX and directional ambients.

 

44100Hz / 160kbps / stereo

Use this for omnidirectional ambients and meta-sounds. This usually means anything that goes to the \ambient or \meta folders (see below). Use your common sense: does the sound really benefit from stereo format?

 

Wave Form

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• All sounds should start and end at zero amplitude. Other values will create pops.
  
• Do not add reverb, echo or phaser effects to directional sounds. SFX should be as dry as possible.
  
• Mix at maximum volume, but avoid clipping. Volume can be adjusted in the game.
  
• Avoid fade in/outs for looping sounds. Seamless loops are favoured.
  
• Avoid downmixing a stereo sound to mono.
  
• Avoid pauses at the start and end of a sound.
  

 

File Names

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The naming of soundfiles should follow roughly this format:

[Gamemeta_] Object [_Subcategory] [_Action [_InteractionObject] [_Iteration]] [_Loop] .ogg

Examples:

frob_instrument_harp_01.ogg

mnu_button_hover.ogg

arrow_broadhead_hit_wood_01.ogg

machine_hum_01_loop.ogg

 

Folder Structure

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Wiki link.

 

The folder structure is mirrored on the ftp in TheDarkMod/sounds

 

Project management and Design documents

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- Soundeffects

- Ambients

 

Teamlist

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SFX/Ambient

• Pakmannen
  
• DarknessFalls
  
• Muze
  
• mrDischarged
  
• Theo (for now)
  
• Saxmeister
  
• Schatten
  
• drewb50
  
• comp-music
  

Voices

• New Horizon
  

File storage

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We are using CVS to share all our modfiles and once you have a finished sound it should be uploaded there. Currently all sounds are commited by myself. For works in progress you can either host the files yourself or use our FTP server.

Edited April 8, 2007 by Schatten

[pakmannen 1]

We are no longer using dotProject for our designdocuments. They are now pinned topics on this forum.

[Schatten 5]

I've merged this sticky with the one for sound folder and naming conventions.