GRiN_desmond22

Yes, please do - that would be much appreciated.

Well the soundcard might be good for music production (I have an M-Audio myself for music production, although that's on a Mac), but that doesn't mean it's suitable for game audio output, which is a blend between mono sounds played in 3d, mono sounds played in 2d and stereo sounds played in 2d. Creative have had some problems with their OpenAL (which our sound engine is built around) having soundcards treat those different kinds of sounds (mono/stereo, 2d/3d) differently, but an updated driver is coming by the end of this month I've heard. If Creative doesn't fix it soon enough, we'll fix it - although that means we have to identify each and every soundcard that produces the bug. The fact that you post here on the forum and let us know you have the problem, and also state what sound card you have, is great. Integrated sound cards generally produce the same problem, but you can try. I, however, would suggest you run the audio in general software mode until we have a fix for this.

Thanks for the replay! EAX is disabled already, and the speaking settings are set correctly.... It's your soundcard. It's treating 2d stereo sounds differently than other sounds, making the 1st person weapon (which is a stereo sound played in 2d) lower. We'll patch this for any soundcard that we are informed has this problem - although I suggest you get a better sound card because that would not only fix this issue but make the game sound a lot better overall. Ask anyone who has upgraded to an Creative X-Fi card.

Give them Grin Dudes a tap on the shoulder from me He did. Very nice. Larsa, I'm glad to hear you enjoy the beta. I guess it's even easier to enjoy the game when you've gotten some behind-the-scenes info on the amounts of thought and effort that is put into the product. Hope yesterday's lectures were interesting.

Thanks Sleepdoc and everyone else for the commendation - it's very much appreciated. I've said it before and I say it again: Sound is so very neglected in games. Screenshots are of course the first media that is released for an upcoming game, and from that point onwards it seems graphics is pretty much all that the game's about, what's everybody's interested in and measuring the game by. Being a tactical shooter with lots of emphasis on scanning your environment, I felt GRAW was the right game to put a lot of work into the sound not only quality-wise but also in terms of how the sounds are handled by the engine. You can only go so far to make a recording of a grenade sound like a real grenade - then when you've reached that quality limit, you have to expand on the handling of that recording in the game, by the engine, to increase the quality of the sound design. The echoes are one example. It's the kind of thing you don't find in any other game, and took me a lot of work to create - I'm surprised it actually took so long (ten months since release) before someone commented on the fact that all weapon fire actually produce their own individual echo sound. Great to hear that when someone actually did notice, it became a real "wow, stop and stand in awe"-moment. That's really inspiring for me, to hear those kinds of stories - so thanks once again, Sleepdoc. I'd pass the commendation on to the audio team if there was one. The truth is it's only me and a programmer who developed the engine features needed for the sound. I wonder oh I wonder why other games in their credits list so many members in their audio teams. What are they all for? I was one single guy working on the sound on GRAW, a 14 month project, and if I may say so myself I created quite and impressive audio profile for that game. I guess in other game studios, they all take 19 minute coffee breaks every twenty minutes..?

It's all described in detail in this thread (a thread linked from the very beginning of the first post of this thread you're reading right now). I can't waste time helping people who can't even follow step-by-step instructions. However, since I am so kind, I'll still give you a quick answer: 1. Don't touch anything in the /data/sound/folder. Period. 2. Make duplicates of the .xml files (grenade_frag_wave.xml & grenade_frag_sound.xml in you case) and put them in the corresponding folder in the /local/ folder (/local/english/sound/weapons/grenade/ in your case) 3. Delete all wave header data in the *_wave.xml (instructions in point 10 in the thread linked in the beginning of this post). 4. Put your own sounds in the same folder as your edited .xml file (that is, the /local/english/sound/weapons/grenade folder in your case). The sounds should be in .wav format - as that is how they are specified in the *_wave.xml file. Did you even check any xml file, or the thread linked in the beginning of this post? If you did, you wouldn't have to ask whether the file format of the sounds should be .ogg or .wav. 5. Rename your sounds so that they correspond to the ones listed in the *_wave.xml. You have to replace all sounds - you can't just put new explosion sounds in the folder and leave out, say, the sounds of the grande landing on the ground, because then the greande won't make any sound when it lands on the ground. Missing sounds might even crash the game. 6. Read my previous posts before asking for personal help: 6-A. The thread you're reading right now, from the beginning (since it seems you haven't read even that). 6-B. This thread 6-C. Once again, the thread linked from the beginning of this post.

Yes, haha, you should be getting warmer...

In the data/sound/weapons folder, you have subfolders for all weapons in the game. These subfolders contain xml files (e.g. "g36_sound.xml") which you can view to see what different sounds compose the character of a weapon (single shot firing, full auto firing, echoes, reload sounds, trigger click, equip, unequip, go to ironsight, go from ironsight, etc). It's an xml document though, and not a list "per se". These sounds are "called for" from the wave-bank belonging to that sound-bank (e.g. "g36_wave.xml"), and these are the wave files you need to exchange if you want to mod the weapon sounds. Good luck with the modding.

Ditto.

It does make sense, because in the animation the soldier has one knee in the ground which he drags after himself. I know that anyone who goes into crouched position does that to become a harder target, to not be seen as well, and when someone doesn't want to be seen he probably doesn't want to be heard either - but it's a balance between realism and gameplay. Some scream for realism, some - such as yourself - have the sense to understand that total realism doesn't always cater for a fun game. In the sequel, we'll lower the sound you make when dragging your knee across the ground in that manner. So that's one point off you list.

That piece of music isn't any longer than the part that's in the webkit, although in the webkit I let the song loop on the final beat. It's not used anywhere in the game but maybe in the ending credits. If so, it's in the "menu_music_wave.bank" file.

It's not in lossless wav format in the game - it's ADPCM compressed waves, which are far from lossless. Wav is not necessarily a lossless media type, so in this case the 192kbps mp3's in the webkit are in better quality than you can find the music in the game. Same goes for the sound effects. The music is also looped to fit on a website. I doubt that the skills needed to extract the sound from the game and edit it to make it loop seamlessly, and the urge to make a website, are often contained in a single person - so I put up "the effort", that you apparently sarcastically appreciated, for anyone with lacking mod/sound editing skills who still wants to make a website with music on it. In other words, it's not for people's Ipods, and yeah, if you want the whole song on the Ipod it's better to extract the music from the game. Once again though, the wavs in the game are far from lossless.

Thanks, it's good to be of help to anyone who is interested in sound modding. Merry Christmas to you too, and a Happy New Year! /simon, aka "Desmond Tutu"

If you've followed my instructions in this thread you wouldn't have any "offset" attributes in the wavebank to ask questions about. I don't know any nice way to say this, but here goes: I refuse to help you if I can't trust that you've done things the way I've instructed you to - the array of possible mistakes from your end would just be endless, so I wouldn't know where to start when addressing your issues. So, once again, check this thread - and pay extra attention to point #10.

I don't follow. How do you mean there's a "glitch"? If the glock is set to full auto (by the player, in the game) and the player presses fire, "loop" will start playing, and once the player releases the fire button, "loop" will be cut off by "end". If the glock is set to semi outo (single shot), the sound "1shot" will play every time the player presses the fire button. This is all handled by the script, not by anything in the soundbank or wavebank. What glitch are you talking about? You have to be describe in more detail what the problem is, I don't see how this could be one.

No, if you're really stuck (if you really suck ) post your questions in the forums - preferably in an existing thread with the right topic. This way everyhone can take part in my answers. However, if days go by without be answering, THEN you can PM me - to send a link to the thread and tell me there are unanswered questions there. Once again, please do not send me questions via PM - use the forums. /simon

Ok, if you've read this thread and still don't get it, I'll write a little here to try to clear things up for you happy modders: 1) A wavebank is essentially a list of wavefiles either lying in the same folder or compressed in a .bank file lying in the same folder. The list also specifies the name the wavefiles are given by which they are recognized by the soundbank. 2) A soundbank is a list of "sounds" (an abstract object, not an actual wavefile) that can be called on by the script. Essential information such as the "rolloff" and "gain" of a sound are specified within the sound tag. 3) The sound in a soundbank calls for a sound in its corresponding wavebank; for example, the script for the Beretta pistol calls for its sounds in the beretta_sound.xml soundbank, and that soundbank in turn calls for the wavefiles found in the beretta_wave.xml wavebank. A sound can be set to randomly choose from a set of waves every time the cue is played, or randomly pitch the sound to make it sound less repetitive. Look in my xml documents to see the names for these attributes - they're self explaining. 3) The beretta_wave.xml wavebank in turn calls for the actual wave data in beretta_wave.bank. This is a single file containing all the sounds associated with the beretta. You cannot compress your own .bank files - we haven't released the tools for that. You can, however, create uncompressed wavebanks, or wavebanks containing wavefiles with lower sample rate (22050 or 11025 Hz) to save RAM. The wave files will have to lie "as is" in the same folder as the wavebank. 4) Any wavebank you put under local/english/sound/.. that has a corresponding wavebank under data/sound/.. will be used instead of the one in the data/sound/.. folder. This way you can exchange wavebanks without editing the original ones. Hope that helps. ______________________________________________________ Advanced Soundbanks: Sequences and looped sounds Soundbanks can be pretty advanced, with looped cues, queues and sequences of sounds, and sounds calling for other sounds. For example, look at sound/environment/birds/birds_sound.xml. The sound "birds" found in this soundbank is the sound you place in trees throughout a level to have bird singing coming from that location. The sound "birds" randomly calls for either one of the sounds "bird_a_looper" through "bird_f_looper". Each of those sounds contain a sequence - a call for another sound ("bird_a_looper" calls for "bird_a", etc) and a "wait". The sound this sequence calls for in turn contains a set of very short bird sounds as well as a call for the sound "pause". The sound "pause" in turn only contains a forced "wait" of random length (2-12 seconds). This is how things happen once you've placed the sound "birds" in a tree somewhere on the map, and start playing that map: 1. The script calls for the sound "birds" once the level starts. 2. The sound randomly selects one of the sounds it contains. Once any of these "daughter sounds" are done, the "mother sound" ("birds") would have to be retriggered - but an environmental sound placed in the level editor such as "birds" will only be triggered by the script once - when the level starts - so we've made sure that any sound it randomly plays is looped in eternety. This way the bird starts singing once the level starts, and it will never stop, and the script will never have to care about that environemental sound again. 3. Let's say that the "birds" sound randomly selects "bird_e_looper". This calls for the sound "bird_e_looper" further up in the xml code (a sound called on by another sound (a "daughter sound") always has to be above the "mother sound" in the xml code - so that it is read into the memory before it. 4. The sound "bird_e_looper" is a sequence containing a call for "bird_e" and then a "wait" (a wait is not a sound or a wavefile, but a sequence event that tells the sound sequence to wait until the previous instance in the sequence (in this case the sound "bird_e") is done before continuing to the next instance in the sequence. A "wait" can also contain a random or fixed delay of the following instance. Anyway, "bird_e_looper" only contains a call for "bird_e" and then a wait - this in combination with the fact that the sound ("bird_e_looper") is set to loop will cause it to play the sound "bird_e", and once that is done, wait for "0" seconds and then start the sequence all over again, forever. 5. Every time the sound "bird_e" is called on by "bird_e_looper", it randomly selects either of these waves from the birds_wave.xml file: bird_e_01, bird_e_02, bird_e_03, bird_e_04, bird_e_05 and bird_e_06, or it plays the sound "pause". Any of these waves (which are six different short short pieces of a bird call) or sounds (which as you know is a random wait of 2-12 seconds) are a events which the sound knows when its done with - and once it is done it will, as you know, return this information ("i'm done") to the mother sound ("bird_e_looper") whose looping sequence will go to the next instance ("wait") and then loop, meaning it will call back to "bird_e" in an instant. When this looping procedure is set in motion, it will cause this kind of sound: bird_e_looper calls for bird_e, who randomly selects "bird_e_02" bird_e returns "i'm done" to bird_e_looper, which waits for "0" seconds and starts over bird_e_looper calls for bird_e, who randomly selects "bird_e_01" bird_e returns "i'm done" to bird_e_looper, which waits for "0" seconds and starts over bird_e_looper calls for bird_e, who randomly selects "bird_e_05" bird_e returns "i'm done" to bird_e_looper, which waits for "0" seconds and starts over bird_e_looper calls for bird_e, who randomly selects "bird_e_02" bird_e returns "i'm done" to bird_e_looper, which waits for "0" seconds and starts over bird_e_looper calls for bird_e, who randomly selects "bird_e_04" bird_e returns "i'm done" to bird_e_looper, which waits for "0" seconds and starts over bird_e_looper calls for bird_e, who randomly selects "pause" pause plays its sequence causing it to randomly pick an amount of seconds (2-12) to wait pause randomly picks 8 seconds, and waits for that period of time bird_e returns "i'm done" to bird_e_looper, which waits for "0" seconds and starts over bird_e_looper calls for bird_e, who randomly selects "bird_e_01" bird_e returns "i'm done" to bird_e_looper, which waits for "0" seconds and starts over bird_e_looper calls for bird_e, who randomly selects "bird_e_03" bird_e returns "i'm done" to bird_e_looper, which waits for "0" seconds and starts over... ...and it goes on and on and on and on... to a player walking around near the tree in which the sound source for the "birds" sound is placed, it will sound like a totally random "chirp chip-chip, chirrrp, chirp-chirp... (pause for X amount of seconds) ...chrip-chrip-chirrrrp, chip-chip... (pause for X amount of seconds) ...chirp, chip-chirp...." It is essentially a neverending, never repeating bird call - superior in all ways to a looping wave file of a bird: A) A looping file would quickly become repetitive, and the player would not only see through the illusion but maybe even become annoyed with it B) To make it less obvious that a looping wave is looping, you would have to make it very long - and if you wanted the bird to occasionally go silent and wait for a second, that would be a second of silence in the wave file which would be a complete waste of memory AND a voice (channel) on the sound card. In my solution, all silences are only abstract "wait" instances in a sound sequence which neither take up RAM nor take up a voice on the sound card while "playing". Also, the randomization in the "birds" sound means that if you put "birds" sound sources all over the map, each of them will randomly pick their own bird sound of the six "virtual birds" ("bird_a" through "bird_f") I've put in the "birds" sound randomizer, and stick to looping that "bird" - so there will be a plethora of different bird sounds everywhere and you don't have to do the job of typing in different sounds for each sound source you place in the map. Now tell me I'm not a genius. /simon

This is a completely erroneous, it's supposed to be: "Here, 60 young men work in an office that is as single-gendered as a fire department."

Thanks, and Merry Christmas to you guys as well. Poita especially.

1: No, the patch does however have "RECON" and "FIREFIGHT" [GR] COOP. 2: Yes, the mission is not over when the TL dies - and if that happens someone else takes over the role of TL.

I'll put an end to this fruitless discussion. The screenshot is from the PC version - and it was taken before we had a created a unique character model for the non-ghost NPC's. Hence, it looks like it's a ghost manning the minigun, and not regular soldier as it is in the retail version.

Patch it!

I can only refer to my first post in this very thred. Please read it again.

Yeah this was fun. We should do it every now and then.

Why POSTPONE?! Why not play now, AND next Saturday?! Sure, the game will be more fun then, but it's still fun now. I wanna play now, dammit.