[Mod] Immersive Sounds [.36] [ambience]

[Neuromancer]

Great mod, but some sounds annoyed my friends when we played on multiplayer (this loud bird at day and bats in cave). But the songs played with ZynAddSubFX... Ahhhh, I love them, especially that I create things on Zyn too :).

I have noticed the same thing for a while, when I play with other users in multiplayer the frequency of the sounds greatly increases to the point where they become annoying. You have 2 options change the frequency and volume at the top to suit your liking, or if there is just one sound that is too loud go change
{name="Bats_in_Cave", length=5, gain=cave_volume} to
{name="Bats_in_Cave", length=5, gain=cave_volume * .5}
to make only that sound half as loud. My other suspicion is this, the faster your CPU the more often you will hear the sounds, and it may need to be adjusted down for that too.

What I tried to do with the cave was to make the drips very seldomly happen. Then I configured the bats so they were extremely seldom, so you got lured into a false sense of security, and just when you let your defenses down, I played the bats really loud to scare the heck out of you. You might have to tweak your settings to get this effect on your machine, but when you get it right, you'll know.

[Neuromancer]

Cool, glad you like the new song. I added it to release .13.

@Pilz: I saw you added music_1.ogg. That wasn't in the batch that Jordach gave us. Where did you find that one?

[Neuromancer]

If anyone would like to play around with sound files, check out the program I use. Audacity. It's free, cross-platform, and it's dead easy.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Allows you to combine sounds, convert to .ogg, cut and paste portions of a track and so much more. Just highlight and copy, cut, and paste.

Also, I was listening to Mythruna's sounds to see how we stack up. I think our music gives us a dimension that it doesn't have, and we have cave sounds and it doesn't. But on the whole it is much smoother than ours. There aren't these little gaps of silence in it. It also doesn't have a problem with frequency of sounds getting messed up. But we are definitely on the right track. It, like our Mod plays sounds at a random frequency and volume to give it depth and a sense of reality. It also had something I want to do, a single cricket, not too loud, but distinctly chirping randomly. I don't have a ton of games to work with, anyone care to compare our sounds to similar games and see where we could improve?

[Jordach]

If you want me to game for you. I'll do it; after I finish my project.

[Neuromancer]

Here's some new ideas from looking at the Matmos mod.

-add the ability to adjust frequency & volume of sounds while playing
-sound when swinging tool, sword or pickaxe
-sound when switching tool in hand
-sound when flying or falling

[tonyka]

If anyone would like to play around with sound files, check out the program I use. Audacity. It's free, cross-platform, and it's dead easy.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

is a professional quality tool, if you learn to use it you can create completely authentic acoustic wonders, you can even paint the waveform with a pencil ... so you need not encumber nothing to create new sounds ... is wonderful ...
in linux is present in the repositories of most distributions

[rubenwardy]

If anyone would like to play around with sound files, check out the program I use. Audacity. It's free, cross-platform, and it's dead easy.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

is a professional quality tool, if you learn to use it you can create completely authentic acoustic wonders, you can even paint the waveform with a pencil ... so you need not encumber nothing to create new sounds ... is wonderful ...
in linux is present in the repositories of most distributions

I agree, it is amazing

[sysedit]

This is a realy great mod. Thanks to all contributors.

[Matsetes]

For me it's good, but it takes too much time to load the world...

[Neuromancer]

For me it's good, but it takes too much time to load the world...

It's the large sound files, particularly the music files. If you delete the music files it will load faster.

[tonyka]

For me it's good, but it takes too much time to load the world...

can lighten the audio files, it's not complicated, you just have to have a good ear to find the perfect balance between quality and size...
are currently too high quality ... can be lightened by 50% 0 more

[Neuromancer]

can lighten the audio files, it's not complicated, you just have to have a good ear to find the perfect balance between quality and size...
are currently too high quality ... can be lightened by 50% 0 more

Thanks for the advice Tonyka. I changed the project rate from 44100 to 22050 on all the big files. The zip went from 16 meg to 13 meg. Oddly enough when I bumped some of the songs down the file size got larger, so those I left alone. The v.20 game loads in 23 seconds for me rather than 28 for the v.19 game

I believe you might be able to do a lot better. Would you like to take a crack at shrinking down all the files in version .19 and see what kind of performance improvement you can get?

[PewDiePie24]

Ya thanks so much

[VanessaE]

A better idea instead of changing the sample rate is to change the encoder bitrate or quality setting. That'll reduce your file sizes much more than a sample rate change, without as much audible quality difference.

[Neuromancer]

A better idea instead of changing the sample rate is to change the encoder bitrate or quality setting. That'll reduce your file sizes much more than a sample rate change, without as much audible quality difference.

I tried to do that in Audacity, but couldn't find a way. Can it be done in Audacity? If not does anyone know another app that works on Windows?

[tonyka]

A better idea instead of changing the sample rate is to change the encoder bitrate or quality setting. That'll reduce your file sizes much more than a sample rate change, without as much audible quality difference.

I tried to do that in Audacity, but couldn't find a way. Can it be done in Audacity? If not does anyone know another app that works on Windows?

sure if ...
I'm going to install, and look, at that long ago that I do not use ...
then I tell you how

[tonyka]

I tried a little ...
I decreased the weight of 595.4 Kb Dark_ambiance.ogg => 200 Kb

what I've done is export to ogg format, and export window, below is a button that says options ... choose and you get another window with quality level 4 by default, I have set 0,

if you divide the stereo channel into mono tracks, and doest the same, the file weighs 139 Kb

[VanessaE]

You change that setting at the time you export the file out.

First, load your original 44.1 kHz audio file into Audacity. Do not use the 22 kHz one.

Click File -> Export...

A window will pop up asking for a filename. At the bottom of the window, click the filetype drop-down and set it for Ogg Vorbis of course. Right below that widget is a wide "Options" button. For .ogg files, clicking this gives you a popup window with a single quality setting. Change that, hit "OK" and then "Save".

Load the result into a separate, dedicated audio player program (Exaile, Amarok, Rhythmbox, Windows Media Player, whatever works for you), and have someone with a good ear for compression artifacts listen as you play the exported sound file with that program. Do NOT use Audacity - you won't hear any difference since you'd be playing the original file then.

Keep lowering the quality setting and re-saving until you or your friend can hear a loss of quality. If it sounds "watery", "hollow", or has a sort of a "jingling" sound, the quality setting was too low for that sound. When you get to where the sound seems to be suffering, bump the quality setting back up two steps and re-save one last time.

Put the resultant file into your mod.

[Neuromancer]

Thanks Tonyka and Vanessa. I had a really old version of Audacity. I downloaded the new version and now I get this option.

[Neuromancer]

if you divide the stereo channel into mono tracks, and doest the same, the file weighs 139 Kb

Are you talking about doing "tracks","stereo track to mono"? I did that and my filesize was 122kb but it sounded really flat.

[tonyka]

if you divide the stereo channel into mono tracks, and doest the same, the file weighs 139 Kb

Are you talking about doing "tracks","stereo track to mono"? I did that and my filesize was 122kb but it sounded really flat.

if, by making mono sounds the same in all speakers ... but it requires much less information ... and therefore weighs less ...
I mention this only as an option to value ... it all depends on what you're willing to sacrifice to make it lighter ...

[Neuromancer]

Oddly enough, for a lot of the songs, I prefer the sound of Quality 3, 22050Hz more than Quality 0, 44100Hz. Try it with "Echos " or some other song and see what you think. I still get about a 50% reduction in filesize for both. Some of them sound so close, I can't tell the difference.

[tonyka]

I could not tell ...
i just try "Echos" with project rate 22050 Hz, quality 0, and apart to make sure the frequency in the menu "Tracks => resample" i've selected 22050 Hz

on my computer the difference is minimal ... weight and very different ...
but my audio card is old

[Neuromancer]

Guys, you tell me. I cut the file from 16 meg to 12.5 meg to 9 meg. But I'm getting conflicting results. I'm not so sure the game actually loads any faster. What are you seeing? I'm getting 30 seconds with the 16 meg file from .19 and 30 seconds from the 9 meg file from .23. Is it caching something, or does the filesize of the .ogg files not matter?

[tonyka]

o_O then do not works faster lightening sounds?
may be that audio postprocessing by Mt? in this case no matter the size and quality that would take care of Mt fit your needs ...

[Jordach]

TRY with new from the zip minetest.

[Neuromancer]

TRY with new from the zip minetest.

Hmm .4.3. Load with no mod's 10 sec. Load with ambience .23 mod 1st time 55 sec. Load with ambience mod second time 10 sec. Maybe it is faster once it gets cached?

[Neuromancer]

I'm trying to make it so you don't hear waves crashing when you are on sand but not near a large body of water.
Anyone know why my ocean detector is returning 0 water in all 4 directions even when I'm standing right next to water? I also tried height+1 on the 4 maxp y's and that didn't help either.

Your phone or window isn't wide enough to display the code box. If it's a phone, try rotating it to landscape mode.

Code: Select all

local atleast_nodes_in_t = function(pos, search_distance, height, node_name, threshold)
    minp = {x=pos.x,y=height, z=pos.z}
    maxp = {x=pos.x+search_distance,y=height, z=pos.z+1}
    nodes = minetest.env:find_nodes_in_area(minp, maxp, node_name)
    minetest.chat_send_all("x+Found (" .. node_name .. ": " .. #nodes .. ")")
    if #nodes >= threshold then
        return true
    end
    maxp = {x=pos.x,y=height, z=pos.z+1}
    minp = {x=pos.x-search_distance,y=height, z=pos.z}
    nodes = minetest.env:find_nodes_in_area(minp, maxp, node_name)   
    minetest.chat_send_all("x-Found (" .. node_name .. ": " .. #nodes .. ")")
    if #nodes >= threshold then
        return true
    end
    maxp = {x=pos.x+1,y=height, z=pos.z}
    minp = {x=pos.x,y=height, z=pos.z-search_distance}
    nodes = minetest.env:find_nodes_in_area(minp, maxp, node_name)   
    minetest.chat_send_all("z-Found (" .. node_name .. ": " .. #nodes .. ")")
    if #nodes >= threshold then
        return true
    end
    minp = {x=pos.x,y=height, z=pos.z}
    maxp = {x=pos.x+1,y=height, z=pos.z+search_distance}
    nodes = minetest.env:find_nodes_in_area(minp, maxp, node_name)
    minetest.chat_send_all("z+Found (" .. node_name .. ": " .. #nodes .. ")")   
    if #nodes >= threshold then
        return true
    end
    return false
end

local pos = player:getpos()
if atleast_nodes_in_t(pos, 40, -1, "default:water", 30 ) then
    minetest.chat_send_all("ocean")
end   


[Temperest]

Maybe try height-1? Or some higher value in case the player is standing on a beach ledge.

[Echo]

two things:
1. Use the correct node-name: "default:water_source" not "default:water"
2. you can shorten your function:

Your phone or window isn't wide enough to display the code box. If it's a phone, try rotating it to landscape mode.

Code: Select all

local atleast_nodes_in_t = function(pos, search_distance, height, node_name, threshold)
    minp = {x = pos.x - search_distance, y = height, z = pos.z - search_distance}
    maxp = {x = pos.x + search_distance, y = height, z = pos.z + search_distance}
    nodes = minetest.env:find_nodes_in_area(minp, maxp, node_name)
    minetest.chat_send_all("Found (" .. node_name .. ": " .. #nodes .. ")")
    print(dump(nodes))
    if #nodes >= threshold then
        return true
    end
    if #nodes >= threshold then
        return true
    end
    return false
end