Modifying the game to randomly choose from more/personally added sound files?

[6637a03450395Diego137]

For instance, the pistol has three different 'firing' sound files. I've located the files - WAVs - and I know how to overwrite them with my own. However, is it possible for me to modify the game so that it plays one of four versions I've personally added to the archive rather than just the three? Thanks for any help.

[6637a03450616voodoo47]

again, sound schemas. avoid, if for nothing else then just for the fact that your mod would become incompatible with all gamesys mods.

[6637a03450902Diego137]

voodoo47
Oh, I see -- that's a shame. Oh well. 

[6637a03450bf3Diego137]

voodoo47
Hey, for what it's worth, I managed to find a workaround. It's not perfect, but it will produce the same basic effect, and has nothing to do with sound schemas. 

[6637a034511absarge945]

voodoo47
Hey, for what it's worth, I managed to find a workaround. It's not perfect, but it will produce the same basic effect, and has nothing to do with sound schemas. 

You can't just say that and then not tell us what it is.

Having random sounds in SS2 without sound schemas would be BIG if true

[6637a034514bdCyberneticGeneral]

sarge945
Hey. Sorry for missing your message - I posted this question as a guest before I registered. No, it's nothing that special. It just involves replacing the ambience files with custom sound effect tracks that the game automatically loops. It's not exactly 'randomized', since restarting a save will automatically restart the sound effect track loop, but it suits my purpose.

[6637a0345171fdp_flint]

voodoo47
Why? Is there some kind of limitation? Could you explain in details about it?

[6637a03451811voodoo47]

yes, around 256 max schemas. that is not a lot.

[6637a03451d41ZylonBane]

Dark Engine games can't play arbitrary WAV files. All sounds are wrapped in data structures called schemas. Schemas describe a concept instead of a specific sound. Schema definitions include a sound's volume, looping behavior, left/right panning, whether it alerts AIs and how much, and lists of WAV files that can be randomly selected from, among other things.

Code: [Select]

schema fire_pistol_std
archetype WEAPON_FIRE
volume -100
f_pist1 f_pist2 f_pist3
env_tag (Event Shoot) (WeaponType Pistol) (AmmoType Std) (WeaponMode 0 1)

schema exp_std
archetype EXPLO_SCH
expstd1 expstd2 expstd3
env_tag (Event Create) (ExplosionType ExpStd)

schema elec_sparks
archetype AMB_SCH
volume -500
poly_loop 2 1500 1900
elecspk1 elecspk2 elecspk3 elecspk4 elecspk5 elecspk6With this, the engine can request a high-level concept like "big_robot_explosion", and the schema definition will take care of the low-level details. It's all very object-oriented.

The downside is that the sound schemas are baked directly into the gamesys. The gamesys is the file that ends with ".gam". It's a big binary blob that contains the data for how every object in the game behaves. While most object properties can be modified at runtime via scripts and DMLs, the sound schema system is a highly complex metadata tag soup, so sound schemas can only be added, removed, and modified using DromEd, the editor.

So the only way to make a mod that uses custom schemas would be to use a custom gamesys, which would make the mod incompatible with all other mods that use a custom gamesys. That's why minor mods don't use a custom gamesys.

yes, around 256 max schemas. that is not a lot.

You can have thousands of schemas. The 256 limit is on concept tags. Surface types, AI types, weapon types, gizmo types, etc.

[6637a03451edavoodoo47]

knew there was a 8bit limit on something.

anyway, the most important part of the message has been conveyed - don't touch the sound schemas unless there is no other option. to make it short, gamesys mods and fan missions only.

[6637a03452042ZylonBane]

Probably the 8-bit limit is because it has to basically do realtime database queries every time a sound is played. SELECT * FROM sounds WHERE event == "shoot" AND weaponType == "pistol" AND ammoType == "std" AND weaponMode == ("0" OR "1"). I imagine they really optimized this by limiting things to a single 256-entry table.

The env_tag system is kind of similar to CSS, now that I think about it, where higher-specificity schemas take precedence over lower-specificity ones.