POI Sound FX Emitter Blocks!

EvilPolygons

EvilPolygons

Scavenger
I'd really like to see (hear!) audio emitters added for POI creators.

More than simply adding creepy ambiance to POIs (which would nice), sound fx blocks would allow creators to enhance gameplay within POIs via audio cues.

Sound effect emitter blocks would be a great way to hint at secret locations or stashes in POIs or to lead players into traps and ambushes. Sound fx would also be useful for "guiding" players through POIs much the same way POI designers often use flashlights or torches.

This feature has been on my wishlist for quite awhile. I don't know if anyone at TFP actually reads this section, but I figure it can't hurt to try!
 
Have you looked at minscripts using trigger volumes? Load up the aaa_script_test POI in the editor and see some examples. You technically use a volume to play the sound, but you can place it on a block like a speaker as they did in the test POI. I used this in a POI I'm working on to trigger an announcement sound when you enter a certain room. In this pic the green highlighted volume is the one that plays the sound, the bigger red volume is the trigger volume that activates the other volume.
1750384656883.png
 
@bdubyah

*One day later...*

Played around with the sound command last night. Using volumes and triggers to play sound fx in this way has some annoying limitations, but it's still pretty darn cool and quite useful.

The biggest annoyance is that the sound command is way too simple and defers totally to sound attributes found in Sounds.xml.
For example, unless a sound is already flagged as "Loop=true" in Sounds.xml, there's no way to create audio loops directly via the min script. Sure, I guess you can add your own modded Sounds.xml with a looped version of whatever vanilla sound file you want to play, but that seems a bit heavy handed. I'd much rather be able to simply type "sound breakleg loop" into the text box and be done with it.

There's also the opposite problem -- I couldn't figure out a way to stop a looped sound effect once it had been triggered.

So, yeah. Very cool feature, but it really needs some extra functionality.
 
EvilPolygons said:
@bdubyah

*One day later...*

Played around with the sound command last night. Using volumes and triggers to play sound fx in this way has some annoying limitations, but it's still pretty darn cool and quite useful.

The biggest annoyance is that the sound command is way too simple and defers totally to sound attributes found in Sounds.xml.
For example, unless a sound is already flagged as "Loop=true" in Sounds.xml, there's no way to create audio loops directly via the min script. Sure, I guess you can add your own modded Sounds.xml with a looped version of whatever vanilla sound file you want to play, but that seems a bit heavy handed. I'd much rather be able to simply type "sound breakleg loop" into the text box and be done with it.

There's also the opposite problem -- I couldn't figure out a way to stop a looped sound effect once it had been triggered.

So, yeah. Very cool feature, but it really needs some extra functionality.
Click to expand...

We have talked about a loop function in the future. Lots of new audio setups in the new 2.0 T5s if you haven't experienced them yet.
 
Laz Man said:
We have talked about a loop function in the future. Lots of new audio setups in the new 2.0 T5s if you haven't experienced them yet.
Click to expand...

That would be super useful. In fact, a number of the audio properties from sounds.xml would be super useful if the sound command could use them as extra arguments. Audio volume, for example: I noticed a lot of the game sounds are just way too quiet to use via min script.

But still, it really is a cool feature. My first min script test was adding a glass breaking sound to the zombie dog hallway in the Spencer Mansion (Resident Evil 1) POI. I didn't try making the dogs jump through the window or anything crazy, lol. But you hear glass breaking right when they attack now, which is still pretty awesome. :D

Also, FYI, "twitch_weather_fog" is a GREAT sound effect for triggering when a player enters a well-hidden secret area!
 
And to add onto those suggestions, having an easy way to play the sound when selecting it would be a nice addition. I can easily scan sounds.xml to find ones, but being able to quickly play several while in the editor would be nice so you can find the one you want easily. Even is it's just a console command and not directly tied to the editor, that would be fine.
 
bdubyah said:
And to add onto those suggestions, having an easy way to play the sound when selecting it would be a nice addition. I can easily scan sounds.xml to find ones, but being able to quickly play several while in the editor would be nice so you can find the one you want easily. Even is it's just a console command and not directly tied to the editor, that would be fine.
Click to expand...

Yes. This. I found myself playtesting a POI over and over just to try out different sounds because there's no way to preview the sound files from the editor. I guess I could unpack all the sound files and then alt-tab out of the game to preview them in Windows...? But jeez that's an annoying workaround.
 
Wish I could retitle the original post, because when I made it, I didn't know about sound volumes and min scripts. Oh well.

Anyway, another feature request concerning the sound command:

I know it probably isn't doable because of some fundamental Unity-related issue or limitation, but it would be great if custom sound files could be used directly from a mod's resources folder without having to be bundled up in a unity3d file.

Maybe I'm just lazy, but having to jump through Unity SDK hoops simply to add a couple of spooky sound effects to your POI? Man, that's frustrating.
 
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