[Suchiiben]

Do any of you know what I could do to put some sound into a game? Like say for instance, we have this 2D sidescroller game. How would I make the sword clings? The shouts? The footsteps?

Thanks in advance

[Adam]

i think your question is a tad general
what language you using?
_________________
https://numbatlogic.com

[Ninkazu]

If you're using QBasic, you should probably use Lithium's DS4QB++. It's at http://nemesisqb.zext.net/downloads/gametools.html

::EDIT::
I changed the link... it seems Lithium Online is now Lithium Offline... :\

[Suchiiben]

C++

I was gonna mention that, too

[Ninkazu]

C++ brings up yet another question... are you using allegro or DirectX? Or maybe OpenGL? If it's DirectX, I'm pretty sure there's a lot of coverage at http://msdn.microsoft.com on DirectSound.

I have code to play mod files without bass.dll, but the author doesn't want me to distribute it.

[Nodtveidt]

Ninkazu...there's plenty of ways to play MOD files without bass.dll, it's not like it's the only MOD library out there. FMOD, NPMOD32, Seal I believe plays MODs too but I'm not sure. Plus it's not hard to write a MOD player yourself. Allegro I think has a MOD player in it (MUGEN has MOD capabilities and it's based entirely on Allegro, so I assume it's all in the mix). That author you mention sounds like an idiot.

-nek

[Mandrake]

nope, allegro has no built in MOD lib's. You need to use JGMOD or DUMB.

[Ninkazu]

Nek, I forgot to mention that this code doesn't need stupid $1000 licensing fees paid if you plan to sell the game. It uses the MPPSDK.dll make by Oliver Lapique himself, and he requires no money to be paid to him. (BTW, Oliver Lapique made Modplug tracker)

[Bjorn]

Uhm, whatever MOD playing lib is the best... Suchiiben wanted to play sounds. There actually multiple problems associated with that.

One of them is of course, which library to use. When using DirectX, then DirectSound is what you'll want to use for sound. When using Allegro, you'll probably be best off importing your WAVs into a datafile and playing them from there. When using OpenGL or any other graphics library without sound support, you'll probably want to look for a seperate sound playing library.

Another problem is timing the sounds, and playing multiple sounds at the same time. The last thing is ultimately handled by the sound library itself or by a simple wrapper you wrote around it. The problem of timing depends on the complexity of the animation. With a smooth walking animation you'll want to play the footstep sound right at the time a foot hits the floor, so you'll probably have to think of a way to either include the play_sound command into the animation or you'll have to synchronize animation and sound and know the exact animation and sound duration.

Even a third option would be that you are actually asking how to create the sounds. IE, where on the internet to download free soundpacks or how to hold a microphone. ;-) But this was clearly not the case after you indicated the programming language.

Maybe the author is getting an idea of the versitallity of his question? We really need more info. :-)

[Ninkazu]

Well, the MOD lib I have uses DirectSound and can also play wav sound effects. A while back I wrote some code to play an mp3 one time through... but that used DirectShow... or something. Anyway, it sucked major ass. Anyone know of a DirectSound mp3 playing lib with no licensing fees attached?

[Bjorn]

Can such a thing even exist? I thought the MP3 format itself had licensing fees attached. You should be better off using OGG, but when you need to convert MP3's to OGG's, the quality will degrade. This is not the case when you've got the original WAV though, then OGG should be better.

[Rainer Deyke]

MP3 is encumbered by patents, so any free library is of questionable legality. An alternative would be to use Ogg Vorbis, which has a (supposedly) higher quality per bit rate and which has a free (BSD-style license) implementation.