Sound Events

Samples of sound/music, ideas or suggestions related to the development of audio assets for FreeOrion.
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LithiumMongoose
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#31 Post by LithiumMongoose »

Okay, few things. First of all, just tried the soundtest build from Zach's post, and I get the following Windows error dialog on launch: "Application has failed because MSVCR71.dll was not found." I ran Windows Update a dozen times (getting SP2 and so on) since I needed to anyway, but it didn't help. Any tips on what component this belongs to would be appreciated. The official 0.2 build of FO still launches and runs fine btw.

As to Gui's sound zip... my own personal opinions just listening to them by themselves... The following are excellent:

alert.wav
balanced_button_click.wav
farm_button_click.wav
industry_button_click.wav
research_button_click.wav

The following are not really what I had in mind for what you've assigned them to:

fleet_button_click.wav
planet_button_click.wav

And the rest in the root level of the zip seem okay, but didn't really jump out at me one way or the other.

Inside the planet backgrounds subfolder, I didn't really like the Farming series (awfully harsh-sounding for farming), or the Balanced series (too noisy and un-obvious what it is, but I see what you were trying to do).

That being said, I'm not really sure this whole focus-based sound overlay thing is the way to go. Maybe it is, and have it alternate between that and a race-specific population sound (human_small, silicoid_medium, cynoid_large, etc), back and forth and pausing some in-between, all over the continuous terrain type ogg. I dunno, just a thought.

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pd
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#32 Post by pd »

mongoose wrote:"Application has failed because MSVCR71.dll was not found."
http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/index.shtml
just copy it either into your win\system32 folder or into the folder where the executable for this soundbuild is located.

most likely you will need some other .dlls also. if you don't find them in the linked list, just search for them in a search engine of your choice.

LithiumMongoose
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#33 Post by LithiumMongoose »

Wow I'm an idiot, heh. Thanks to pd for also pointing out (on IRC) that the dll's were in the 0.2 folder as well, which I should've checked given that 0.2 was running fine, but oh well. :p

On the planet background sounds, I figure we have four options. Assume you have a medium-size human farming colony on a swamp planet:

1)
swamp.ogg ------------------------------------------------------------------->

2)
human_medium.wav (pause) <repeat>
swamp.ogg ------------------------------------------------------------------->

3)
farming_medium.wav (pause) <repeat>
swamp.ogg ------------------------------------------------------------------->

4a)
human_colony.wav (pause) farming_medium.wav (pause) <repeat>
swamp.ogg ------------------------------------------------------------------->

4b)
human_medium.wav (pause) farming_colony.wav (pause) <repeat>
swamp.ogg ------------------------------------------------------------------->

4c)
human_medium.wav (pause) farming_medium.wav (pause) <repeat>
swamp.ogg ------------------------------------------------------------------->


Personally I vote for either option 1 or 4. The first one has the (big) advantage, imo, of not cluttering up the soundscape too much. Remember, the MOO games didn't even have special sound or music for planets/colonies. And if we're planning to keep the galaxy map background music track going underneath swamp.ogg or whatever, it's even more important not to turn things into a cacaphony.

Of course, we could always pause the galaxy map music track for looking at planets and colonies, which brings us to option 4 above... which I like cuz it offers some variety in the overlay. 4a and 4b cut down on the number of sound files we need, and 4b seems to make the most intuitive sense imo (since population itself, not the focus, is what's variable on a colony).

Opinions?

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Geoff the Medio
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#34 Post by Geoff the Medio »

LithiumMongoose wrote:Opinions?
I don't really see the need for different music tracks for different planet sizes or production focus (nor do I like the idea of different sounds for different focus buttons... too gimmicky).... Unless the sizes you were referring to were meant to be colony infrastructure level (eg. drek's infrastructure labels), not planet size, in which case that's fine. Different musics for planet environments are also ok (though at higher infrastructure levels, the infra music should probably dominate or replace the environment music).

These musics should only be played on the planet detail view, however. This view seems to be there only for eye candy anyway... By which I mean that they don't seem to give any extra info, so is only there to be oogled by the player and show off Obiwan's environment renders. This means that unlike other UI components we want to be quick and easy to use, the planet detail view would be something the player will look at for more than a few seconds at a time, making a separate musical track worthwhile.

For the detail view, I'd suggest stopping the galaxy map music altogether, and just playing the track for the colony type in question. Since you're looking at it for more than a few seconds, continuity between the planet detail view music and galaxy background probably isn't so important...

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#35 Post by LithiumMongoose »

Geoff the Medio wrote:I don't really see the need for different music tracks for different planet sizes or production focus (nor do I like the idea of different sounds for different focus buttons... too gimmicky).... Unless the sizes you were referring to were meant to be colony infrastructure level (eg. drek's infrastructure labels), not planet size, in which case that's fine.
The various infrastructure tracks Gui put up are based on infrastructure size, yes. But he has different ones for each focus. My previous post was trying to argue for dropping down to just one per focus, and possibly adding in some race-specific "habitation" tracks later that would alternate with the focus ones and provide some variety, and possibly be based on the current population of the colony.

As for having different sounds for the focus-selection buttons, eh, sure it's a gimmick, but I liked the ones he posted for that lot (cept the mining one, and it was okay), so why not imo. It's even a neat little feedback mechanism for the player so he can be sure he clicked on the one he meant to. :p
Geoff the Medio wrote:Different musics for planet environments are also ok (though at higher infrastructure levels, the infra music should probably dominate or replace the environment music).
Yeah we've had environment tracks from Gui for most world types for quite a while now, and I love the idea. Infra track dominating environment track can probably be done just by varying the volume levels of each, which is one way to go, but I was thinking more along the lines of having pauses between stuff in the upper layer. If you listen to Gui's current infra music offerings it's, umm, strong sounding, I don't think we're gonna want those looping continuously with no pauses in-between. And if we pause then the partially-muted environment music isn't gonna work right.
Geoff the Medio wrote:These musics should only be played on the planet detail view, however.
But of course. The only other thing is the system tab, and it wouldn't make much sense to play them there imo.
Geoff the Medio wrote:This view seems to be there only for eye candy anyway... By which I mean that they don't seem to give any extra info, so is only there to be oogled by the player and show off Obiwan's environment renders. This means that unlike other UI components we want to be quick and easy to use, the planet detail view would be something the player will look at for more than a few seconds at a time, making a separate musical track worthwhile.
I would hope that it will eventually store extra info later on in development, but yeah.
Geoff the Medio wrote:For the detail view, I'd suggest stopping the galaxy map music altogether, and just playing the track for the colony type in question. Since you're looking at it for more than a few seconds, continuity between the planet detail view music and galaxy background probably isn't so important...
I wasn't worried about continuity so much, I was worried about the planet music and the galaxy music not blending very well if you had 3 layers of sound all going at once (galaxy + environment/terrain + infrastructure).

If we're not going to bother with infrastructure and/or racial habitation music on top the environment music, we might not need to pause the galaxy music, it depends on how galaxy and environment tracks blend in general.

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Geoff the Medio
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#36 Post by Geoff the Medio »

LithiumMongoose wrote:
Geoff the Medio wrote:This view seems to be there only for eye candy anyway... By which I mean that they don't seem to give any extra info, so is only there to be oogled by the player and show off Obiwan's environment renders. This means that unlike other UI components we want to be quick and easy to use, the planet detail view would be something the player will look at for more than a few seconds at a time, making a separate musical track worthwhile.
I would hope that it will eventually store extra info later on in development, but yeah.
I previously thought along the same lines, but after some consideration, it doesn't seem like we'd really want to have too much going on on the planet screen... The obvious reason is that having too much that can be altered or seen on individual planets means that the player might have to alter and look at individual planets a lot in order to play optimally... which means more of the dreaded micromanagement (OH NO!!!). And really, from a non-fluff game design standpoint, individual planets make no sense... they're impossible to represent idependently on the galaxy map, and having an extra layer of UI between the map and the various controls that would be assoicated with planets seems silly... So why not do everything from the system level, leaving individual planet screens as just eye candy?

Also, condiser that tzlaine refuses my request to put an extra digit or two of precision on the population numbers displayed for individual planets... IMO if the player wants to know to population more accurately, we should tell him/her... But there is some logic in tzlaine's desire to avoiding giving detailed info like that... It keeps the player focused on the big picture.
If we're not going to bother with infrastructure and/or racial habitation music on top the environment music, we might not need to pause the galaxy music, it depends on how galaxy and environment tracks blend in general.
I was thinking more along the lines of whether it would be desirable to blend them, rather than the feasibility of doing so... I'm thinking that when you click to see the detail view, the galaxy map music fades out fast (almost stopping immediately), then the planet view music starts up and rises slowly from silence to establish the appropriate mood...

guiguibaah
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Concept behind planetary sound effect

#37 Post by guiguibaah »

The approach I took to the planetary sound effects (Industry_large.wav, farming_small.wav, research_medium.wav) as mentioned in the .txt was that when one clicks on a planet that is colonised, the effect plays when the planet display window is opened. Similar to clicking on a building in your average real-time strategy game. It gives the player a quick audio cue as to what the planet's focus is set at.


Right now, since we don't have planet infrastructure implemented, I suggested these effects be keyed by the amount of product being producted on the planet. As it stands, a world can switch from Mega-farming to Mega-Industry in one turn. Should the infrastructure idea be implemented, the type of sound would depend on where the planet is in terms of it's current infrastructure. This would give the player an audio cue as to where the planet during a period of transision.


Mixing the planet infrastructure .wav's with the background .oggs woudl be challenging as they were equalized with different frequencies. You wouldn't expect to hear a sharp/clear pitched 'DING' of a smelter under 1000 meters of ocean.


If mixing the two is desireable, free orion would have to be coded for EAX or A3D support and similar environment variables into the free orion code. Perhaps when 0.4 becomes public a programmer with EAX experience will become available.
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LithiumMongoose
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Re: Concept behind planetary sound effect

#38 Post by LithiumMongoose »

guiguibaah wrote:The approach I took to the planetary sound effects (Industry_large.wav, farming_small.wav, research_medium.wav) as mentioned in the .txt was that when one clicks on a planet that is colonised, the effect plays when the planet display window is opened. Similar to clicking on a building in your average real-time strategy game. It gives the player a quick audio cue as to what the planet's focus is set at.
... Ah. :)

That simplifies things hehe. Sorry I missed your .txt file. Hrm... I'm still not completely convinced this is the best way to go for this, ie some racial habitation tracks (with small/med/large/etc based on population) would give the player a "quick audio cue" as to what race is inhabiting the planet, and how full it is.

This is also useful information, and since we're not going to support multi-racial planets (at least not for 1.0, an early design decision, meh), having to come up with blends or mixes or deal with transitions wouldn't be an issue.

That being said, we don't *have* races yet, so infrastructure ones are fine for now, and if we want to we can leave it that way later.
guiguibaah wrote:Right now, since we don't have planet infrastructure implemented, I suggested these effects be keyed by the amount of product being producted on the planet. As it stands, a world can switch from Mega-farming to Mega-Industry in one turn. Should the infrastructure idea be implemented, the type of sound would depend on where the planet is in terms of it's current infrastructure. This would give the player an audio cue as to where the planet during a period of transision.
This worries me. I don't think trying to come up with transitional infrastructure cues is going to work very well, especially given how your Balanced tracks sound, heh. Just my opinion though.
guiguibaah wrote:Mixing the planet infrastructure .wav's with the background .oggs woudl be challenging as they were equalized with different frequencies. You wouldn't expect to hear a sharp/clear pitched 'DING' of a smelter under 1000 meters of ocean.
You could always do the Uhura thing from Star Trek IV and run the sound through a "and this is what it would sound like underwater?" filter. :p

How about mixing the environment .oggs with the galaxy map background music .oggs? I'm fine with pausing the galaxy track to play the planet track if we need to, just wondering.

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planet ogg.s and stuff

#39 Post by guiguibaah »

The planet .oggs are interesting in that they're more fluff than they are practical. I figured that with any sound effect being played, the music is reduced 50% to give the effect more focus. (Such as Warcraft 3 does whenever there is speech).

I figured they could be used ...

A) When looking at an uncolonized planet..
B) When viewing the "fullscreen" mode of the planet to sho OBIwan's work
C) When browsing through a planetary encyclopedia
D) Only once when that sort of planet is viwered.
E) Not at all.

- What I could do is to create a seperate amount of 'virgin planetary effects' athat are only 2 seconds in length for quick browsing and zipping by.




As for the farming and balanced sound effect, those were the ones I had a hard time conceiving because I really don't have any idea what an oceanic or a toxic farm sounds like, so I tried to use effects that exhibited a 'wet' effect, much as what organic material is. Creating the sound effects for wet effects was fun though... Had to wash a few implements and dishes afterwards.


As for Balanced, I figured a planet that has the 'balanced' focus on it would resemble your modern day metropolis - a little bit of everything is going on at once on the planet so the focus there is on big cities that strive in the trade of such goods. Hence the vehicle-sounding noises. I tried mixing sound effects from all 4 and it just sounds like a cacophony of noises.


What I will review later on is to redo the industrial ones a tad to add such devices as robotic arms / circular saws / pressure hoses / etc. Then perhaps some industrial effects can be brought to balanced. - I'd add some dialog and chatter in the balanced one, but that chatter would seem out of place with a race that only speaks by making farting noises.
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#40 Post by pd »

This is obviously spam.

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Geoff the Medio
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#41 Post by Geoff the Medio »

If there's anybody still around doing sound (not music) stuff, I'd like to request some new interface sounds:

1) Tab Selection - on the options screen, there is a tabbed set of subscreens. Current selecting a tab plays the standard button click sound, but perhaps something else (less high pitch?) would be appropriate?

2) Enqueue - When adding a tech to the research queue, or a project to the production queue, some sound feedback would be good.

3) Remove from Queue - as above. Could be the same, but a different pitch might make a nice distinction.

4) Move in Queue - when dragging from within a queue to another place in the same queue. This could just use the enqueue sound, but if someone's keen to make a separate sound, we can try it.

5) Opening an InfoPanel on the SidePanel -
Image
(left to right, by clicking on the down arrow). Could use standard list-drop sounds, but might want something distinctive.

6) Closing an InfoPanel - as above.

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#42 Post by StratCaster »

I'll take a stab at it...

do you by chance know the file name of the current button-click sound you are refering to?

I agree with the first 3 on your list. Sounds work well for confirmation. Not sure about windows opening and closing...that can just get annoying.
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#43 Post by Geoff the Medio »

StratCaster wrote:do you by chance know the file name of the current button-click sound you are refering to?
Shockingly enough, it's "button_click.wav", in /FreeOrion/default/data/sound/

I'd actually prefer to use "button_rollover.wav" as the button click, and "text_typing.wav" as the button rollover sound, but (I believe...) LithiumMongoose disagreed.
I agree with the first 3 on your list. Sounds work well for confirmation. Not sure about windows opening and closing...that can just get annoying.
I mostly agree, though currently we have sounds for opening the sidepanel and fleets windows. I find these somewhat annoying, but it's not my decision to have them or not (by default). That said, I think the biggest problem with the sidepanel open sound in particular is that it's got a third of a second delay between the click and the sound, or so it seems. I think this is a problem with the sound itself, so if someone could tweak that, it'd make the UI feel a lot more responsive and the sound much less odd / out of place / bad. IMO.

*That* said, the infopanels I describe aren't really full windows. Rather, they're expandable subsections within a window, which is more like a drop-list or similar GUI widget. Drop lists have a (decent, IMO) sound, which I could use for the opening infopanel, but I didn't want to ignore the possibility of a distinct sound, should it be desirable by others.

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#44 Post by StratCaster »

"The mighty warships of the Vl'Hurg Empire dived screaming upon the unknowing Earth, where due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog." -Hitchhikers Guide

LithiumMongoose
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#45 Post by LithiumMongoose »

Some of these remind me of MOO3, especially newbutton1 and 9. Not that that's a bad thing. I'll play around with them as soon as I get a chance. Thanks for making them.

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