hello everyone! /.-)

ok, I am going to implement a few sound-designs and music tracks into one of my experimental projects tonight. but before I can do this, I am hammering out a few stupid questions for the GAME GURU GURUS ...
U know, I am a more of a manual-guy and find time-consuming video-tutorials quite enervating. one of the annoying things with video-tuts is the fact that there are no chapters, no search-possibilities and no indexes and whatsoever. the more Twitch-videos appear, making the hours of potential videowatch longer and longer, the more it makes me wish for a real manual. I am a quick reader, really.

please note that I am a professional sound-designer and very experienced electronic producer. THAT part is easy for me and I am willing to help out in that regards if anyone needs some hints on technical issues in exchange for helping me out here on my boring noob-questions...

WHAT I WANT TO DO:

MUSIC:
basically I want to have a main background music covering the basic atmosphere & mood of the level. this music should get "busy" and energetic as soon as the player is engaged in battle or anything action-driven. I already know that I need two exact long music pieces that can easily blend into one another to "crossfade" the particular moods...

SOUND:
additionally I want to have different "sound zones" where I am planning to mix loops (winds, distant noises etc.) with different lengths in order to get never-ending immersive soundscapes to simulate an alien world / deserted alien planet... in an easy example we have one zone with 2 loops with different lengths running forever. let's say: one is high pitched desert wind (probably panning erratically) and the other one is a dark low-pitched wind tone with subtle modulations...

1.
I'm counting already 4 stereophonic audio loops, which is a total of 8 audio-streams (per channel count). Is this even legal in the engine?

2.
what I have also problems with is to fully comprehend the information of that short manual called THE MUSIC SYSTEM [ -> "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Game Guru\Docs" ]. I just did not script anything as of yet, that's probably why some of these questions sound dumb.



look, ok. but I am afraid of overwriting global / standard scripts. WHERE exactly is the path for my dedicated project (level)? I don't find anything labelled "audiobank" in my level-folder. shouldn't it be there? do I confuse something?

2.b.
or is MUSIC.LUA a script that is generated AFTER I exported my level (let's assume my game only has one)?

3.
I am reading the LUA-Manual on Steam right now, in order to avoid looking too silly, but find myself back in the situation that I don't understand the basic concept of how to START with that LUA-thang. listen, I even have my slick ATOM-editor loaded and LUA-ready (highlighting synthaxes and all).

In case that ALL scripting must be done in the "scriptbank"-folder, should I copy / rename the MUSIC.LUA-script in order to parameterize it for my game / level? whats the first step in implementing OWN music and sound into a particular level?

4.
will we have a sound / music import / implement editor any time soon?

OK. that'll be all. sorry for the dumbness. I am usually conidered an intelligent person .. I am just too busy with all kind of other stuff / work that eats up most of my brain and time-schedule instead of being used for GG.

THANX IN ADVANCE FOR ANY HELP!

music.lua is a default global script in your base scriptbank folder, it basically works with the musicplaytrack scripts, you specify your four tracks in music.lua and then use musicplaytrack1 to 4.lua in trigger zones to loop the music and switch between tracks. It doesn't need to be placed on your level, it should get copied over to standalone automatically.

If you don't want to be editing the original music.lua script then there is a simple way to override it.

1. Make a copy of music.lua and rename it to music2.lua
2. Open it in your LUA editor
3. change music_main(e) and music_init(e) to music2_main(e) and music2_init(e)
3. Change the music file references to your own music
4. Save
5. In GameGuru, place a dynamic, always active, entity (I use a barrel) somewhere hidden
on your level and add music2.lua to it

music.lua will now be overridden by music2.lua, now you put musicplaytrack1.lua, musicplaytrack2.lua, musicplaytrack3.lua, and musicplaytrack4.lua into trigger zones on your level, and when you step into the zones it will loop the music you specify in music2.lua until you enter a different musicplaytrack trigger zone. Doing it this way also has the added benefit of being assured to copy the file over to the standalone, as standalone can be a bit funny and not copy files that aren't in actual entities sometimes.

Do we need to alter the interval and length? If so, how do we figure out that mess (music may be mathematical in nature, but how the heck do you convert time to whatever that is?)

So, you are limited to 4 tracks only? What if I want 10 songs to play? 20? Then what? Make one long master song with all tracks crossfaded into one another?

Mike

thanx belidos for the quick answer!

But I still only understand half of the concept. your method makes much sense (I guess), but what would be the official way of using the original music.lua? I am just asking, because I think I have a general misunderstanding of how to work with the scripts.

meaning: what's the proper way of using the scripts, when messing around with a number of different levels / games? wouldn't the scriptbank look like a total disastrous mess after having dealt with numerous projects?

I mean: If I edit music.lua for my project "XYZ1" it will be basically useless once I start working on project "XYZ2" (if I didn't keep a copy)?

do you guys have a copy of the scriptbank somewhere else on the harddisc and "refresh" the scriptbank prior to initiate a new game / level? I don't get it...

the answer must be really simple... I know I must think something upside down here....

If you're using music.lua it has to be edited, I think it was written original without thought to multiple projects, its best to use it the way I posted to preserve the original for multiple projects, if you're worried about clutter then make a folder for your project inside the script bank and put the project specific scripts in there.

World class media, yes you can use more than 4, you just need to add more of the appropriate lines, changing them to 5,6 etc, then you need to copy the musicplaytrack script and change that to 5,6, etc (don't forget to change inside the script the numbers to 5,6, etc too).

And yes, you need to change the interval etc, I have no idea how to work that out though, I just use trial and error myself.

Also just a quick note.

GameGuru standalone does have issues occasionally copying files over, this is usually files that are called directly via script instead of being place on an object in the editor, and it's usually scripts, images, and audio.

So although the music.lua is supposed to work without adding it to the level, sometimes it won't copy over both the script and the music. To avoid this simply put the script on the object, and add the music to the audio fields in an objects property panel (it doesn't have to be any specific object, ads long as it is present in the level somewhere). With image files that are called via scripts, if they haven't copied over, simply copy/paste the images into the same folder in the standalone builds directories.

If one needs to change the interval, perhaps a explanation of what the interval is and how to change it is in order - just guessing is a terrible way to program audio.

For example, is the interval the bit rate? Mhz? So, if I convert a .wav file that is 24 bit, 48khz to 16 bit, 44.1khz, is the interval relating to this, or is it more about the total length of the track in some kind of decimal time format? If the latter, how do we figure this out?

For that matter, what is the music standard for tracks? Is it 24 bit, 48khz? 16 bit, 44.1 khz or whatever?

Is there a tutorial, manual or explanation of all of this anywhere. Music and sounds are VERY important to me, considering I am a composer and will be creating my own custom music and sounds for all my own projects and likely to sell in the TGC store as well.

Mike

If i knew any of that i would have told you in my previous post. Hopefully somebody else will be able to give you more information.

Really haven't all the answers, but checking file "Files\audiobank\music\ww2\incident.ogg", I've got:

Type: Audio
Códec: Vorbis audio(vorb)
Channels: Stereo
bit ratio: 44100 HZ
bits: 128 kb/s

And about to upload music to store:



hth

3com

Been ages since I played with this script, but fairly sure the length is needed and works the same as any other time based code. It should be in thousandths of a second, 1000 being one second. So you should be able to calculate it based on your tracks running time

Oh, forgot to add, interval is measured the same way and is way GG works out how to takes to fade between tracks. I'm not 100% as I haven't really done much with music.lua but think of it as the metronome that times when the new track comes in. At least I think that is what it is

thanx belidos. listen, do I hear something in the lines of "don't worry about cluttering, we don't either" in your answer? I am not interested in making myself more work than necessary

what would happen with a subfolder in the scriptbank for game "XYZ" ... will all the refered scripts be copied into "scripütbank/xyz" once I generate/ save the standalone? is game guru taking care of that?

hey mike,
it's basically milliseconds (ms), so you should get along with it with most DAWs. I work with Samplitude Pro X3 / Sequoia and you can read out the length in ms easily... at least it should work with Wavelab, Sound Forge etc. the same way...

if the music is already polished / mastered you should stick to 16 bit 48KHz uncompressed WAV. convert it to OGG-format (MP3 has licensing issues - still!) and keep it high resolution up of 192 K/Bits per second. personally I don't see the point nowadays to use medium quality since data-compressed audiofiles don't need much space. something between 256 and 320 K/Bits would clearly benefit if the music has a big role in your game... also explosions and sound effects like hits, punches, shots or machine gun bursts and ricochets highly benefit from proper bitrates since low bitrates often destroy the attack information in audio (the transient phase of a sound) ....

professional sound-designers in AAA-games keep single sounds like shots, steps etc in uncompressed WAV and usally in uncompressed 24 bit / 48 KHz, which is also the official [audio]format for videoformats anyway...

Thank you. Yes, almost all of my sound effects are in wav format, recorded as high quality as possible and then rendered down to 24 bit, 48khz for final product.

My music is rendered to wav at the same rates as my sounds, so I can just convert to ogg at what you suggest.

I, too, have Samplitude Pro X3. I also use Mixcraft Pro 7, Presonus Studio One Pro 3 (was on the beta test team for that one), and I use Nuendo at my office.

Mike

Cluttering is an issue, if you are placing new scripts straight into the scriptbank, it makes it harder to find scripts, and you tend to forget which are custom scripts and which are default scripts, so if you ever come to having to reinstall you can't work out which you need to backup etc.

It's always best to put your own scripts in a different folder in the script bank, at least that way you know which are which, don't worry about them copying over to standalone, as long as the script appears on the level in an entity it should transfer the folder and the script over automatically.

Likewise if you ever need to edit a default script for your own use, always do so on a copy of the script, just copy/paste it to your own folder, edit it how you want it, then use that script in your level instead, this maintains the integrity of the default scripts but allows you to have your own edited versions for use.

The way i tend to do it is, i have a few folders named things like "door scripts", "ai scripts", "music scripts" etc. these hold my edited and custom scripts that don't have level specific changes. I also have a structure of folders for each of my games, like below:

scriptbank -
----------------- The Island -
---------------------------------- Level 1
--------------------------------------------- Huds
--------------------------------------------- Tasks
--------------------------------------------- AI
--------------------------------------------- Misc
---------------------------------- Level 2
--------------------------------------------- Huds
--------------------------------------------- Tasks
--------------------------------------------- AI
--------------------------------------------- Misc


and so forth. This folder structure hold all the script that i will only be using on that level, that way you can have multiple versions of the same script for different levels without having them overwrite eachother.

Obviously this folder structure is what i use and just an example, you can do it however you like, just know that any folders you add inside the scriptbank will copy over no problem.

Doing it this way you can keep all your level specific scripts all nice and neat, easily accessible, and not cluttered.

I also do this with my entitybank, audibank, and other folders, i'm a little OCPD but at least i'm neat and tidy

Yeah, I tend to do similar to Belidos.

As a rule it is good practice to have a sensible Folder Hierarchy and use meaningful Naming conventions for all custom media. I do this for Maps, Audio, Scripts, Hud images, Terrain, and Skyboxes. I also do this for TitlesBank (just use the styles.txt to tell GG what folder to use),

It just makes it so much easier to find stuff, and if needed, to put it all back if you decide to reinstall your system, get a new harddrive, or what ever.

Reliquia....

Something I toyed with a while ago, using just one script.

The video below shows the additive music working in gameguru.

Main bass pads fill the game, wind noise at terrain level.

Brick building adds a bass throb to the music creating tension. Fades when you leave.

Warehouse adds a piano ambient track. Fades when you leave.

Balcony and walkways in warehouse produce a higher, more intense howling wind.

Music tracks play all in sync, and only using the soundbinau.lua

In your daw software you must make sure all audio tracks are the same length, then export each audio track separately, then place entities (dynamic) in your level, and finally assign sounbinau.lua as the script, have the main basic theme playing all the time, but the script will fadein and fadeout as the player approaches the entities assigned with certain sounds.

Thanx everyone! Lots of great info here....

@Tarkus1971: Really great demo, thanx galore! These kind of immersive sound-scapes, that's exactly what I am planning to achieve... It's very good and quite immersive!

Just short (If you care): Here's a constructive criticism from a sound-designer's perspective about the wind-loop. you'll need 3 variants for a cutting edge wind-athmo (Inside / outside / up in heights). As soon as you go inside a building the wind should be filtered in the mid / high range. Only the bass frequencies of the wind can penetrate architecture, mids and high sounds are absorbed / reflected at the outside walls. Meaning: Use a second loop for inside and cut off everything up of 1-1.5KHz (experiment) with the wind-loop. It will sound much more immersive. Also the wind should get more "nervous", louder and "busier" once you climb up stairs (not only louder)... These kind of things tremendously add realism and immersion to games...

EDIT:
Ah! Sorry, I just noticed it now... you already did emphasize the wind with the more howling version up... I first thought it was the same wind, just louder. mia culpa.

Tarkus1971 Really nice!

Hey Belidos, reliquia & Tarkus1971! /.-)

Ok, last week I had some time to dive into GG again and tried a whole long night to get the music / sound-scripts going, but I must have either misunderstood the concept or a detail of it or I have a bug.

I have a level with not much in it yet: A character-entity from X10 (Aio), a retextured space-craft from the Store. Lots of sharp mountains and a few alien plants. The Aio-character and the spacecraft both carry their perfectly looped MONO Wav and I used different sound-slots, also edited the script accordingly (I am a total noob to LUA-scripting). The thing is: They always cancel out each other. I can get them to sound separately, but NEVER both together at the same time. They do stand near by, which naturally would mean an acoustical crossover. I could realise it using soundzones, but I like the binaural-script WAYS more.

And why are soundszone-scripts playing a total different volume, compared to the binaural-script?

Is there some information about which sound-scripts work and what the exceptions are? They ARE conflicts, but what to avoid / what conflicts? The Sound / Music-manual is quite shy on giving away in-depth information, also the Vids all seem to work fine, when Lee is explaining sound-features...

Also, if Lee is reading, PLEASE update the Manual to include the binaural-script. It's the one we all need to use.

Thanks for the comments.

ok, binaural scripts alter the position and level of mono wavs. To get the audio wavs to the levels you require I find it best to edit them in a dedicated audio editor. Soundzones I dont think take into account any volume changes, I might be wrong....

Audacity is free, or if you are needing a paid editor, soundforge is a good one.

Tarkus1971

To what entity did you attach the main basic theme? I understand you used soundbinau.lua, ok.

To the player? Is this even possible and how?

EDIT:
Question: We have a maximum of 5 Sounds (Stereo, numbered 0,1,2,3,4) that can be streamed by GG at one time, right? So if I want to transfer what you did with the soundzones and the binaural-script to my projects I need as many versions of the script as I have sounds, right? Do I need to change the script-names?

For example:

soundbinau0.lua
soundbinau1.lua
soundbinau2.lua
...

And if I sue the soundbinau.lua-script as a binaural zone (not attached to an entity) it has ONLY one slot. This WILL conflict with a music-script playing any soundtrack on slot 0, right? Or does it mean I need to avoid the slot 0 once I use the binaural-script once? Can I really only use it one time per level?

Sorry for the stupid questions. Using this script is my very first lua-experience. I AM a king on ATARI 800 Turbo Basic XL though haha....

Gee.. I NEED a manual

Ok, I spend the night trying to attach sounds to two different entities. So far I have not succeded to have 2 binaural soundloops play at once in the same level...

1.
one entity (charracter) with the main AI-script "soundbinau.lua" from the main scriptbank-folder in GG

2.
an entitiy (elecric bolt) with its main AI-script "soundbinau2.lua" (yes, I changed the "v"-variable to either slot "0" or "2") in the very same folder (scriptbank)

my sounds are perfectly leveled, smoothly looped and MONO for usage in the binaural script... However I can only make one entity at a time to actually sound! Both my scripts work, as soon as I delete the attachement from the respectively other entity.

Since both scripts work (and using two different sound-slots, namely 0 and 2) I asume thei're good.

Is this a bug or am I slightly going mad? /.-)

OK

Mono wavs are best, you don't need to rename scripts at all, that may be why only one sound is playing at a time, I use the same sound slot as well for each entities sound as well.

Could it be your sound card?

Ok, thanx for your answer. So, I seem to have a halfway wrong undestanding of how the LUA-scripts work. Also for what the soundslots are there...

My soundcard cannot be the culpable. Its a high-end Marian Seraph AD2 with a fully extended driver-setup, including superfast ASIO-drivers and WDM. If I am making sound-design and Game Guru Level-design at the same time I switch Samplitude (My DAW) to WDM in order for the soundcard to be used by multiple clients at the same time... Normal procedure.

So, did you just say that you attach the SAME binaural-script to as many entitites as you want, and then you ll have them all playing?

yes attach the same script without renaming just put the sound you want in the relevant slot. Hopefully that should work.

Thanx Tarkus1971!

Ok, I will have another extensive GG-night tommorow.

Can u help me with a last question?

How realistic is it to use the binaural-script for entities, while at the same time playing a dynamic background-theme-music with 2-4 themes. I have already two soundtracks ready, one for "standard mood" and one for "battle-mode" ... I will probably need a few more for different interieurs like caves or secret rooms etc. ...

So in other words: Is the binaural-script compatible in terms of using it along the official music.lua-script?

I ask, because the binaural-script is quite useless for soundtracks / scores simply because its MONO upmixed to binaural shifting sound.

if you use stereo .ogg file with binaural script it will fade in and out, but does not move the sounds stereo image. Thats quite useful for soundtracks.

i only use binaural scripts as it seems to work well, the main basic soundtrack plays using musicinzone.lua, at the level start.

not sure what happens with binaural script and official music.lua together.

Ah! I see... Ok, that makes much sense. I am going to test your suggestion above now...

Just that brings up more questions: Are you able to switch the soundtrack according to dynamic situations? I mean: How would you trigger a variation of the soundtrack if you want to switch it for "battle mode" for example? My "battle soundtrack" is the "main soundtrack" with an additional sequence featuring a bitey, distorted analogue-like synth-sequence... Did anyone make a script for this cases, refering to the binaural-script?

EDIT:
Attaching all entities to the same soundbinau.lua-script does not make sense in my head. I absolutely need control about how far you can actually hear an entitiy and that's an individual parameter... So I would always want to tweak the division-factor in line 17 ...



EDIT 2:
I am giving up on attaching the script to entities and using the 3D Zone-object instead... Hope that helps.

EDIT 3:
Switched to the on-board Realtek High Defintion Audio WDM-Driver just in order to check if it could be any soundcard-issue: And no, same effect. I cannot get 2 (mono) WAVs to play at the same time using them in 2 different Sound3D-zones (I even adjusted them so they don't overlap).
They always cancel out each other, or to be precise: One dominates. If I take the zone out that I hear, the other will play healthy all along as if there was no tommorow (german expression)...I have no other sounds going on in this level, so I am starting to be really frustrated. I tried looking up in the lua-workshop on Steam (several times already), but there's nothing there about the binaural-script. I have no clue how people make it work... I quadruple-checked the script to see if it is corrupted it and even downloaded the "Sound3D"-zip again, with no success.

If you need the sound to pan as player moves attach a MONO .wav, 44.1k file to an entity that is dynamic and use soundbinau.lua, I will try and find that script if you dont have it already.

And if you want Custom music then Tarkus1971 is your man ..

Cheers everyone and a delayed HELL YEAH 2019! /.-)

Thanx Tarkus1971! I do have a working binaural script and I am fully aware of the need to use a mono-file in the script etc. - I just fail at other things, which are not clearly answered here. Or maybe I am unable to find the answer or to interprete it right, since I have not a complete understanding of the GG-audio-system.

Firstly, let me say that I have re-opned this thread just to inspire if someone has the time and dedication needed to go through this extended information here and give a summary of what are the known "impossible" scenarios when combining:

- music.lua
- soundbinau.lua
- music in zone
- sound in zone

I still cannot manage to use the binaural-script without issues in an GG-level that I am currently working on. It's frustrating, especially because I have allthe sounds and soundtracks ready and polished.

Ok, here's my scenario:

- a desert planet with spikey mountains and wide plains and an eery sun. the player wakes up in the middle of nowhere. A small exploration of a long destruction / track / lane on the ground leads him to his crashed spacraft (Where he obviously was catapulted away from when it crashed).

- one "broken robot"-entity placed besides a crashed spacecraft. the robot is defunct and erratically babbling cryptic and unintelligible gibberish. nearby the crashed spacecraft - emiting dangerous electric flashes and lightnings and chaotic, electric buzzes and intense random crackles. the player will be forced to take out some important gear from the cockpit, but the electric lighting bolts / flashes will suck life force from him if he gets to close, forcing him to act quickly. For this case the electric bolt has to sound dangerous and it has to be binaural as well...

here are my problems:

- background soundtrack is playing fine and loops exactly at the sampletime that I defined BUT it produces a small crackle / pop that should not be there. NOTE: I am a professional musician and sound-designer (with 28+ years experience in the field of electronic music)) so I am VERY experienced in creating seamless-loops for my samplers. The music IS loopable AND seamless and it plays nicely in my DAW. It loops at a perfect zero-crossing between phases and sounds immersive and seamless. To implement this background-music I used the music.lua-script loaded with only that track (There will be a "battle-music" later on for "busy" fight modes). It is a mastered stereomix in 320 KBit/s OGG-format.

- the robot-babble-loop works great so far (with the lovely binaural effect) with one annoying detail: It is definetly hearable on the whole level, regardless how far I move away - and I did create a huge outside level! The soundbinau-script does not seem to ever reach 0 volume. Why isn't everyone complaing about this problem? Some people did experience the same obstacle here, but not everyone, so I guess there is something confliciting?

- the lighting bolt-decal is not able to produce any sound. It stays silent. I tried every possibility and wrote a dedicated soundbinau2.lua-script for it. I also tried "sound in zone" etc. but with no effect. I can only hear the Soundtrack via music.lua and the babbling robot with its slightly buggy soundbinau-script.

Please forgive me one thing: I do not have a clear concept of the audio-system of Game Guru, since I don't find the attached mini-manual understandable. Also I think we need a short manual (one side is enough) for the binaural-script and how to use it properly in a level.

Ok, GG-aficionados. Can someone please enlighten me what I am possibly doing wrong? I promise to hit my head hard on the keyboard if the problem is annoyingly easy to solve

Big Thanx in advance!

Robert

can you post the soundbinau script or point me to where it lives if it's a default script.

As a musician I find the GG music command confusing at best. I use a zone to trigger the main loopable music, and place the start marker in that zone, make sure the music has at least 2 seconds of silence at the start or the music will cut in to late. I dot the level with ambient sounds or additional music tracks and effects to build up the atmosphere.

Maybe we need a sound system overhaul, with directional sound and movable sound entities, where the sound would track with an object, I believe currently this cannot happen.



Above is the soundinbinua.lua. Works quite well, only with MONO wavs though.

Line 7 looks a bit odd. Dividing the PlayerDistance by 35 is going to mean you'll need to go an awfully long way away to quiet the sound down. Plus you'd need to create new versions of this script for different distances.
Line 11 might result in a audible jump in volume. It's basically saying, 'as soon as the volume = 99, it should equal 100'. Might not be too noticeable.
Line 17 you'll need to specify the sound to stop. StopSound (e,1) for example.

This was the first script I ever wrote for Game Guru. It's bit scrappy but does the job. It uses the entity's health parameter to define a sound 'range'. I'm sure it can be improved upon.



But, yes, I agree with you that the sound controls in GG are...basic.

AE