Hi All - Looking to get involved, mainly with the Audio side of things

[Ell]

Hi everyone,

I stumbled on this game a week or so ago and would love to be involved with some of the development. I finished uni a couple years ago with a degree in Audio for Games & Game audio programming but haven't put it to use since, so I see this as a perfect opportunity to be involved with a great project while brushing up on my programming & sound design.

I was wondering if anyone could let me know what the deal is on the development side of things? Is there a particular person involved with the sound side of things or do I just crack on and make some noises?

If I just crack on what noises are needed?

If there's any other information you guys think I should be aware of please let me know :)!

Cheers guys,

Ell

 

Edited July 24, 2017 by Ell

[Lion.Kanzen]

Welcome to our forums.

 

[Ell]

Thanks Lion, thanks for the link to the audio thread also. I'll have a read and look to get started asap :)! 

Cheers,

Ell

[Lion.Kanzen]

And pro tip:  test the game and try to figure what sounds are missing, for example archers don't have sounds, catapult i( ballista) mpacts, and can be nice have sounds for messaging and alerts like wonder or attacking is very basic and you can improve , post your work in a new topic if is possible.

[Ell]

Ok wicked i'll have a play and see what needs to be done. I'll post any work up once it's been completed. Who do I speak to about programming the sounds in? Or can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

[LordGood]

Wickeeeed!

This is probably one of the areas of this game are most lacking, I'm not too familiar with sound integration though aside from some unit noises though

[Stan`]

7 hours ago, Ell said:

Ok wicked i'll have a play and see what needs to be done. I'll post any work up once it's been completed. Who do I speak to about programming the sounds in? Or can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

Hi @Ell and welcome to the forums.

First thing first you are going to need to download the latest developpement version. If you haven't already I'd suggest you clone the svn repository. You can find more information on how to do this here in https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/BuildInstructions the section acquiring the code.

Sound files are assigned to units in template files you can find under

binaries/data/mods/public/template/units

. Template use a sort of parenting, which means they inherit stuff from one another. In those file you'll be interested by the soundgroup section defined as follows.

  <Sound>
    <SoundGroups>
      <attack>attack/weapon/arrowfly.xml</attack>
    </SoundGroups>
  </Sound>

You'll then need to make an actor file for your sound in xml format (If you are not sure feel free to ask for more details I'll be happy to help) in the following subfolders
 

binaries\data\mods\public\audio\actor

The file will look like something like this.

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no" ?>
<SoundGroup>
	<Gain>.3</Gain>
	<Priority>100</Priority>
	<ConeGain>1</ConeGain>
	<Looping>0</Looping>
	<RandOrder>1</RandOrder>
	<RandGain>1</RandGain>
	<GainUpper>0.5</GainUpper>
	<GainLower>0.4</GainLower>
	<RandPitch>1</RandPitch>
	<PitchUpper>1.2</PitchUpper>
	<PitchLower>0.8</PitchLower>
	<Threshold>100</Threshold>
	<Path>audio/attack/weapon/</Path>
	<Sound>arrowfly_28.ogg</Sound>
	<Sound>arrowfly_20.ogg</Sound>
	<Sound>arrowfly_21.ogg</Sound>
	<Sound>arrowfly_22.ogg</Sound>
	<Sound>arrowfly_23.ogg</Sound>
	<Sound>arrowfly_24.ogg</Sound>
	<Sound>arrowfly_25.ogg</Sound>
	<Sound>arrowfly_26.ogg</Sound>
	<Sound>arrowfly_27.ogg</Sound>
	<Sound>arrowfly_211.ogg</Sound>
	<Sound>arrowfly_29.ogg</Sound>
	<Sound>arrowfly_210.ogg</Sound>
</SoundGroup>

For some reason that file is in the wrong folder. I don't know if it was done on purpose.

 

16 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

And pro tip:  test the game and try to figure what sounds are missing, for example archers don't have sounds, catapult i( ballista) mpacts, and can be nice have sounds for messaging and alerts like wonder or attacking is very basic and you can improve , post your work in a new topic if is possible.

See the above xml it seems archers do have sounds.

then you'll need to add your sound in .ogg format in the following folder groups depending on what sound you have made
 

binaries\data\mods\public\audio\attack\weapon

Notes :
- Sound files are not hotloaded which mean you'll have to restart the game each time you change something.
- SoundTags include

<walk>actor/human/movement/walk.xml</walk>
<run>actor/human/movement/walk.xml</run>
<attack>attack/weapon/sword.xml</attack>
<death>actor/human/death/death.xml</death>

You can also have 'build','gather_fruit', 'gather_grain', 'gather_wood', 'gather_stone', 'gather_metal'
Not sure all are actually getting called though.

Maybe @feneur will correct me, but the one who will review your sounds will be @OmriLahav
Also maybe if nobody wrote a guide like this before this should be pinned or added to the wiki.


 

Edited July 25, 2017 by stanislas69

[feneur]

At the moment we don't really have someone who has the responsibility for audio. I think @Itms and possibly @Pureon as well have some opinion on it as least, but ideally we would find someone who can focus on it So you are definitely welcome @Ell

[Itms]

Hello Ell! It's a real pleasure to see you are motivated by the audio side of things

As feneur said, we don't have anybody in charge for real, but me and Pureon are indeed the ones you should ping in case you need something in the audio area. The topic Lion linked contains a few pointers to the things that need immediate attention, but the list there is not exhaustive at all. Don't hesitate to give your input about existing sounds if you think they could use some improvement.

I think Stan gave you all the necessary information to get you started, but in case of need you can also join our IRC channel at #0ad-dev on QuakeNet. Welcome to the community! Looking forward to hearing from you!

[Ell]

@stanislas69 @feneur @Itms Thanks for the warm welcome and information guys. I'm really looking forward to getting involved. I will get the source code set up and get stuck this weekend, hopefully i'll have some examples ready for you guys by early next week.

Just out of interest have you guys heard of FMOD Studio? Its a free Audio API for games, it has a load of functionality for manipulating sounds in real time and it can drastically reduce the amount of audio files needed, which obviously helps reduce the size of the game.

Here's a good example of some of functionality: 

I'm not sure if it could be of benefit, but could be worth a look :)!

Edited July 28, 2017 by Ell

[leper]

FMOD might be gratis for "small" users, but still uses a proprietary license, which prevents us from using it.

[Ell]

Ah bummer, that's a shame, it's a really good tool! No worries though, i'll do everything in DAW's.

[Stan`]

Looking forward to it. And I think I'm not the only one