VERC: Looping custom ambient_generic sounds Half-Life Last edited 5 years ago2019-04-20 12:36:26 UTC

The Basics

The hard part of this is finding a good sound file, as the beginning and the end of the file have to transition smoothly. Once you have, you need to make it conform with the following parameters to make it loop in Half-Life:

• Sound files must be in "wav" format.
• Sound files must be 22 040 Hz, 8bit and mono
• Waves need two "cue points" - at the start and end - in order to loop.
• Sounds should be in folder #:\sierra\half-life\valve\sound. To keep things tidy, I prefer using the ambience folder for ambient sounds.

To do all this, you need a sound editing program like Cool Edit 2000, which can make "cue points" for your wav and save in the required format. There are other audio editors if you didn't like Cool Edit 2000.

Example - using Cool Edit 2000

• Open your wav file in Cool Edit.
• Click "cue list" from the view -> scrolldown menu.
• Click once at the start of your wave and click add in the cue listing menu.
• click once at the end of your wave and click add in the cue listing menu.
• Click done and save your sound to #:\sierra\half-life\valve\sound\ambience folder.

Then, in your map editor, create an ambient_generic using your new sound. By default it will now loop, playing it over and over and over... which is why the hard part is choosing a good sound.