Sound files now tweakable in Mini Tweaker

[timetraveller]

Hi Guys,

Just finished a huge tweak file for changing sound file values (all 264 of them, all game ambience, explosions, etc., not voices)

Values you can change for every sound-

Loop
Play
Volume
VolumeVar
Pitch
PitchVar
Is3D
DopplerFactor
MinRadius
MaxRadius
Category
Priority
Delay

MaxRadius looks to be interesting, as do some others.

New tweak file is at:
www.delraydepot.com/tt/Sh3_sdl.zip

Unzip and save to the Mini Tweaker's \TweakFiles folder. The TweakFiles.zip package has been updated as well.

Hope you sound guys can do something with this. Have fun.

TT

http://img173.imageshack.us/img173/239/soundtweak1bt.gif

[Marhkimov]

Oh, we can use this to increase the range at which we can hear airplanes.

Man, I wonder what else we can do??


Just awesome! :up:

[CCIP]

Very cool!

Now I'm going to need to get this to tweak the prop noises a little.

Couple of suggestions for people:

TONE DOWN THE DAMN INTERIOR NOISE and electric props. They're so irritating :rotfl:
(seriously, silent running is supposed to be... silent)

I would also suggest increasing the max range and volume for things like ship propellers and DC explosions a bit - since sound travels very efficiently through water, it's odd when you only start hearing a full-power destroyer bearing down on you from a measly half-mile. :hmm:

[B1989N]

Looks great! Thanks! Will try.

[CCIP]

Oh, and TT - since sound setting like this are in the data...

Any chance you could find some of the settings for graphics sprites? I'm especially interested in things like smoke and bubbles. It would be nice to have taller smoke plumes in the game, for example.

[Marhkimov]

Oh, and TT - since sound setting like this are in the data...

Any chance you could find some of the settings for graphics sprites? I'm especially interested in things like smoke and bubbles. It would be nice to have taller smoke plumes in the game, for example.

I think that stuff is outside the data folder. There's a file in the 'SilentHunterIII' folder called particles.ACT, and there's also a .DAT in the 'Library' folder.

[timetraveller]

Oh, and TT - since sound setting like this are in the data...

Any chance you could find some of the settings for graphics sprites? I'm especially interested in things like smoke and bubbles. It would be nice to have taller smoke plumes in the game, for example.

I'll have a look CCIP. This one promises to be a little more difficult. Enigma Rising Tide has a cool setup for tweaking this stuff. It's all in text files. No so with this game. hehe

Thanks guys.

TT

[CCIP]

and there's also a .DAT in the 'Library' folder.

Well THAT's the one I'd like a look at.

If you could try and get a set of rules for the mini-tweaker or file analyzer for that, TT, it'd be much appreciated :)

[timetraveller]

Just had a look in particles.dat. Man, there's a ton of stuff in there. Gotta study it some more. It'll be one complicated rule, but doable, I think.

TT

[CCIP]

Excellent! :)

I thought smoke and things like that were hard-coded, but now that I saw that sound settings like these can be altered, I figured the particles could be looked at, also.

There's a lot of good potential there. From improving smoke to fixing those FPS-killing oil fires.

***

Has anyone checked what 'MinRadius' does for the sound settings? It's not like the sound disappears if you get too close to the source. I'm trying to figure out, meanwhile, how to make certain things more audible at a distance from the boat :hmm:

[timetraveller]

I see some objects (not all) also have an AmbientVolume value defined in their .DSD file. Just wondering how this interacts with the corresponding Volume level in the Sh3.sdl file.

Could be that the SH3.sdl file states the overall max volume, and the separate DSD file the actual level? If changing the Volume value in the SH3.sdl file makes no difference on some objects, I bet that's the case.

TT

[iambecomelife]

I can't wait until the particles can be edited :D . The files are pretty difficult to edit with a hex editing program. The changes are definitely possible; we've just been waiting for an easier way to make them.

[gdogghenrikson]

Hi Guys,

Just finished a huge tweak file for changing sound file values (all 264 of them, all game ambience, explosions, etc., not voices)

Man, do yo ever sleep

[timetraveller]

Hi Guys,

Just finished a huge tweak file for changing sound file values (all 264 of them, all game ambience, explosions, etc., not voices)

Man, do yo ever sleep

hehe Sure.

Actually if I had to type all 4500+ lines of that file manually, I'd probably throw in the towel and take up stamp collecting.

A special version of File Analyzer calculates all the offsets and names and produces a preliminary file. A little text editing or another program filters it further. That one took me about an hour.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. hehe

particles.dat has me scratchin' my head. That may be a manual operation. I might have to pick out the smoke and oil fire stuff and code it by hand. YUK.

TT

[Observer]

timetraveller,

One more request. Can you take a look at the tile_***_***.RL files in the terrain\maps\map2 folder? I think it has the graphics that define the current grid location. If possible, I'd like to modify this to go from the current 2 grid location (BE93) to a four grid location (BE9336).

[timetraveller]

timetraveller,

One more request. Can you take a look at the tile_***_***.RL files in the terrain\maps\map2 folder? I think it has the graphics that define the current grid location. If possible, I'd like to modify this to go from the current 2 grid location (BE93) to a four grid location (BE9336).

hmmm.... just had a look in a hex editor. Nothing in there stands out right at first. I wonder if they are RAW files like the big maps? There doesn't seem to be any TGAs in there.

Each tile series has 18 pieces (18 separate .RL files). Interesting...the Kregsmarine maps are squares of 9.....might be some relationship

TT

[Observer]

timetraveller,

One more request. Can you take a look at the tile_***_***.RL files in the terrain\maps\map2 folder? I think it has the graphics that define the current grid location. If possible, I'd like to modify this to go from the current 2 grid location (BE93) to a four grid location (BE9336).

hmmm.... just had a look in a hex editor. Nothing in there stands out right at first. I wonder if they are RAW files like the big maps? There doesn't seem to be any TGAs in there.

Each tile series has 18 pieces (18 separate .RL files). Interesting...the Kregsmarine maps are squares of 9.....might be some relationship

TT

I'm almost positive there are the KM map squares. I've tried them as RAW files without luck, though I might have missed something.

I also looked at them in hex and didn't see anything. There's something about these files, I just don't know what it is. I wonder if they are some compressed file format.

[gouldjg]

Yet another great tool,

I was hoping to tackle the popping bulbs when crushing because I am going to slow crushing down, I wanted to not get annoyed at the pop pop pop pop pop.

Another future plan is helped along :up: :up: :up: :up:

[timetraveller]

timetraveller,

One more request. Can you take a look at the tile_***_***.RL files in the terrain\maps\map2 folder? I think it has the graphics that define the current grid location. If possible, I'd like to modify this to go from the current 2 grid location (BE93) to a four grid location (BE9336).

hmmm.... just had a look in a hex editor. Nothing in there stands out right at first. I wonder if they are RAW files like the big maps? There doesn't seem to be any TGAs in there.

Each tile series has 18 pieces (18 separate .RL files). Interesting...the Kregsmarine maps are squares of 9.....might be some relationship

TT

I'm almost positive there are the KM map squares. I've tried them as RAW files without luck, though I might have missed something.

I also looked at them in hex and didn't see anything. There's something about these files, I just don't know what it is. I wonder if they are some compressed file format.

Could be. There are 162 .RL files (9x18). Not sure if that number is significant, but they are contained withing the Terrain\Maps... folder along with the big .RAW image. Maybe ground height information for sea and land?

Tile files are used in Microsoft Train Simulator in this way. They contain elevation data.

TT

[CB..]

what did you make of the large grey scale world map image ? it has grey lighter bands north and south -- i had the feeling this might be giving the game some method of testing if ice burgs should appear or not--(i know they are scripted but perhaps they had other ideas?) or this might be the method the game uses to switch the sky sea colours as you cross the boundaries

many thanks for the amazing tools!! :sunny:

[Nippelspanner]

Great Work! :up:

[timetraveller]

what did you make of the large grey scale world map image ? it has grey lighter bands north and south -- i had the feeling this might be giving the game some method of testing if ice burgs should appear or not--(i know they are scripted but perhaps they had other ideas?) or this might be the method the game uses to switch the sky sea colours as you cross the boundaries

many thanks for the amazing tools!! :sunny:

Thanks.

I saw those bands, too (north and west on my display). Then a minute later they disappeared. I loaded the image again and they were there again. If I minimize the image, then restore it, they are gone. Must be a bug in PaintShopPro when they initially render the image since it's so huge?

TT

[CB..]

[I saw those bands, too (north and west on my display). Then a minute later they disappeared. I loaded the image again and they were there again. If I minimize the image, then restore it, they are gone. Must be a bug in PaintShopPro when they initially render the image since it's so huge?

TT
:up:
wonder what the game uses them for- if yours are north west and mine are north south is the game dynamically redrawing this image for some reason?

[timetraveller]

[I saw those bands, too (north and west on my display). Then a minute later they disappeared. I loaded the image again and they were there again. If I minimize the image, then restore it, they are gone. Must be a bug in PaintShopPro when they initially render the image since it's so huge?

TT
:up:
wonder what the game uses them for- if yours are north west and mine are north south is the game dynamically redrawing this image for some reason?

If you're talking about the bands being there when the image is displayed in an image editor (like PSP or Photoshop), it believe it's just a rendering problem due to the huge size of the image. Not sure if you mean the bands show up in-game or not (been a long time since I really played this game - hehe).

TT

[CB..]

ok i see! sorry bowt that TT--- perhaps the image is there for a function that wasn't incorporated into the game---it's the fact that its greyscale and not a full colour graphical image that caught my attention--my bets on the game somehow reading if for the correct locations to change the sky sea colours from the sky and sea dats

was perhaps wondering if painting a "chess board effect" (black /grey squares all over the map--) on this image would give contantly changing sky sea colours and livening up the lack lustre weather a bit--

[Marhkimov]

I tried changing a few of the SH3.sdl values in game, but to no avail. Is there anyone out there who has found out what exactly do all of these values mean?

Loop
Play
Volume
VolumeVar
Pitch
PitchVar
Is3D
DopplerFactor
MinRadius
MaxRadius
Category
Priority
Delay


I wanted to hear destroyers from farther away, so I tried upping the MaxRadius for all destroyer sounds, but nothing happened in-game. I haven't had the time to test out any other settings (ok, it's more like I'm too lazy... :lol: )

Also, is volume capped at 100? If I set it to 200, will the sounds be twice as loud?

[timetraveller]

I tried changing a few of the SH3.sdl values in game, but to no avail. Is there anyone out there who has found out what exactly do all of these values mean?

Loop
Play
Volume
VolumeVar
Pitch
PitchVar
Is3D
DopplerFactor
MinRadius
MaxRadius
Category
Priority
Delay


I wanted to hear destroyers from farther away, so I tried upping the MaxRadius for all destroyer sounds, but nothing happened in-game. I haven't had the time to test out any other settings (ok, it's more like I'm too lazy... :lol: )

Also, is volume capped at 100? If I set it to 200, will the sounds be twice as loud?

I suspect it is capped at 100. Won't hurt to try though.

My guesses-

Loop -loop the sound or not, also possibly a loop# value here
Play -to play or not
Volume -obvious
VolumeVar -variation in volume throughout the time of the sound
Pitch -tone
PitchVar -variance
Is3D -stereo or not?
DopplerFactor -doppler effect as sound moves by. aircraft for example.
MinRadius -??
MaxRadius -??
Category -??
Priority -mixing priority when sound is mixed with other sounds?
Delay -delay before sound start?

TT

[timetraveller]

ok i see! sorry bowt that TT--- perhaps the image is there for a function that wasn't incorporated into the game---it's the fact that its greyscale and not a full colour graphical image that caught my attention--my bets on the game somehow reading if for the correct locations to change the sky sea colours from the sky and sea dats

was perhaps wondering if painting a "chess board effect" (black /grey squares all over the map--) on this image would give contantly changing sky sea colours and livening up the lack lustre weather a bit--

Somewhere I thought I saw a greyscale map where the oceans were slightly different colors. Can't find the graphic now. I thought this is what they used to signify the difference in Atlantic, Med, and Arctic.

TT

[CB..]

cheers TT i might be getting the two mixed up-- :oops: