ambient sounds Created 21 years ago2003-10-11 13:20:40 UTC by high_voltage

how do i use ambient generics to play wav sounds? i placed a bunch in half-life/valve/sounds but the game refuses to play them. i dont know if they are not being recognised, but its extremely irritating

The sounds have to be

PCM,11,025 Hz, 8 Bit, Mono - hl won't play them otherwise

I'm not sure about the 8 bit sampling but you can experiment with the
format ...

If I remember correctly, the 8 Bit is fixed, you can play with the Hz levels... don't quote me.
Most sound based problems are normally caused by format as Kol suggests, but it is always worth looking at the path you have entered for the ambient generic. In the PATH dialog box of the ambient_generic put in soundfolder/filename.wav. So if you have a sound called bang.wav in the ambience folder you would enter ambience/bang.wav Note that there is a forward slash used! and that there is no need to add the half-life/valve part of the string, because that is already recognised.
If that doesn't work, post a zip file in the problem maps section of the Map Vault with the offending .wav file included.

Make sure your start volume is the same as the volume of the sound. And custom .wav files won't loop unless you copy 'em over older ones. In redemption, for example, they replaced siren with a bell sound. That's why it loops.

things like that are coded into the wav header >
for example : the speach wav's have the mouth movements coded into the wav header > you can edit the sound but its a good idea not to create new wavs - rather edit the old ones with the propper headers
like if you wanted a new water running sound > modify the the existing one etc...

its hard to get the speach sounds right,
get goldwave or something

Okay, having an ambient_generic problem here. Have a multi level map. First floor has a door leading to the "outside" which has an ambient_generic cricketts.wav. Plays fine. Now when I move to the lower level with running water I still hear the cricketts. The two locations are over/under each other. I discovered that I'm hearing the cricketts from above after I changed radius to small and moved it farther away. But I still don't get anything from my second amb_gen. I checked the wav properties and they match what kol posted above. I also read somewhere that they have to be on different channels?? I'm not finding any turorials relating to this specific issue other than adding an initial sound.

I'm using the Hammer 3.5 with Spirit. I'll post the .rmf if needed, just don't critique it too much. It is an EARLY work in progress and a learning tool.

Thanks.

BTW, does the .rmf include the .wav or do I need to submit that too?

Need to put the WAV there too.

Okay, it's in the map vault titled "newworld". Zip contains .map; .rmf; .wav. I would link to it but don't know how in this forum. So call me stupid .

Try this http://cariad.co.za/twhl/mapvault_map.php?id=395

Your friend,

Stupid

I tried out your map and it looks like your waterfall.wav file has some problems. I believe it has something to do with the wav headers as kol mentioned above. When I tried triggering the sound using a trigger_multiple, it worked OK. But the waterfall.wav file isn't looped, so it played for a moment and stopped. It would probably be easiest to use one of the 3 waterfall sounds provided by HL. For instance, when I changed the wav name in the ambient_generic to waterfall1.wav it worked the way you wanted yours to work. I can show you how to turn the cricket sound on and off as you need it, if you are interested.

I'm assuming a trigger will do that but would be glad to see what your recommendation would be. I was thinking that as you approach a room with various sounds in it that they would get louder the closer you got and therefore was the effect I was looking for. Is there a way to prevent the sounds from bleeding into the other areas? I was using a downloaded wav because I didn't have any wav files in my folders. I use Paragon CD Emulator to make images of my games and run them directly from the HD w/out the actual cd. Are the files stored in a .cab or is there someplace I can get the wavs? The game itself plays fine.

You'll need a Pak explorer to get to your sound files in HL. I had a map where there was a cricket in the basement, but you could hear it when you got up to the first floor. I had to figure a way to switch it off when the player climbed out of the basement. Yes, I have no life. : But a normal trigger_multiple can get messed up if the player stays in the trigger too long. Then the cricket chirps when you don't want him to, and is quiet when you want him chirping. Is this the same type of problem you are trying to solve?

But how about a series of triggers with masters???... Let me see if I can come up with it... No, I can?t but would be something like a trigger that activates a master that activates another trigger and deactivates the first one (the second one would turn the thing on and off when the player passes)... The second one would also activate its master so once you pass trough it you?ve got to activate another trigger in order to reactivate the second one... Grr... Much triggers!!!!. I?m gonna create a post with a new question that came to me with this.

Hey SlayerA,
I have no life either, spent almost 9hrs the other day screwing around with Hammer.

Now about that trigger. Which entity should I use to trigger the sounds. I don't really want to create a brush and tie to entity. Just something invisible the player can walk thru and start the sound. I tried a brush with "blue" texture on it. Got it to be invisible but nothing happened.

um.
Trigger_once and trigger_multiple are totally invisible.
I dont know hwat you tried but...

I SEE SAID THE BLIND MAN!

Wonderfull Wally shows me the sound files!
I'm so happy I could touch myself.

Excellent, glad you solved the trigger problem. MarlboroMetal, you are right on the money with the series of triggers and masters suggestion. That's what I used for the cricket sound and the suit-holder doors in Minimicus!

Just thinking back weeks ago when I made this topic, I was trying to get a music track playing. Is it better to just use trigger_cdaudio or summat and put the track on a disc (not intending to release the map or anything)

Yesterday i was playing cs, when suddenly this edited scary music turns on! Its like deu deow deow dewo deow and im like edited and like restarts cs, but when i play its still there, so i restart my computer.
That scary music is STILL there haunting me!
I have untill i realize i have the messiah music CD in

(written like a excited person)

ROFL

Well, got the triggers to work, placed them in strategic places. Spend a little time assigning stuff to vis groups. Figure, hmmmm, let me compile and see whatelse I can do. Oh yeah, I can add a trigger_push to keep the player from going into my (intended) one way door. Compile, now every damn thing in the map has freaking coplaner, out side world and all that crap errors. WTF! I haven't touched anything else, much less my architecture. This is getting really old.

Ahhh, welcome to the word of mapping. Hammer puts the 'fun' in dysfunctional, doesn't it? Post your zipped rmf in the problem section and we'll have a look.

Posted.

http://cariad.co.za/twhl/mapvault_map.php?id=406

SlayerA, minimicus was a GREAT mod despite of it mini plot :P. This series of triggers is a really complex thing, isn?t it???. I hope HL2 haves some kind of logic on triggers (not only standing on a trigger but also not standing and so on) so it will work easier. I also hope to upgrade my computer to play it!!!.

Yo SlayerA,
Read you post on the rmf. Will work it and let you know. Does one set of coplanar's affect other brushes in the world? The first few I looked at were in the ceiling of the waterfall room.

Oh, and uh, sorry about the "unique" texture in the upper room. Was messing around w/wally and forgot that was there.

Maybe I should create a Leisure Suit Gordon mod. ??

Okay, started deleting entity 37, 36, 35, 34, wait a min? That one doesn't exist! How do I have an entity error for something it says isn't there?

Post the compile report.

It's fixed. As it turned out, the gate I created was causing all the problems. Deleted it and all was fine. I am curious, though, why hammer will take one problem and propagate it to so many other brushes. I think the reason it couldn't find brush 34 is because it was part of a grouping.

Sorry for taking this thread so far off topic.

Ever since I intstalled Spirit all I get is a box too. Maybe it's Spirit, maybe it a config issue. I lost all of my prefabs too. I can find the .ol file but can't figure out how to get it in hammer without re-installing the prog.

presumably prefab factory isn't working

Ambient_generic is very dependant on the path. If your making a mod then you could export the sounds using Packexplorer into sound/ambience. That was the only way my ambient_generics worked.
If you're making a standard map then you have to be really careful about the .pak path. Otherwise you could export the sound into valve/sound/ambience.