[REQ] Radio Broadcasts

ryuzu · 03-21-07, 06:14 PM

So digging a bit in SH4 the radio broadcast possibilities look interesting.

To summarise there are two ways of playing modded sound; the gramophone (just like SHIII) and the new radio set.

The radio is already stocked by Ubi surprisingly, but the way it works you may never know about it

It seems the radio is designed such that it will play files at specified times/dates - just like real radio you have to have your set switched on and tuned in! Given that the broadcasts are only a few seconds long, unless you know it's coming the chances of having the radio on at that time are slim!

The data is just a set of text files and ogg (and some wave) files. Each radio station is set up in a text file. A quite cool thing is that the radio stations have dates so you could have one station in Manila initially English language, being shutdown and replaced by a Japanese one

Plus the stations can be given a specified frequency so you can have a US, Japanese, Australian, Chinese station etc There appears to be a coordinate system possibly coupled with a range parameter - if so (and if that works) it would be v. cool to only get transmissions when in range of the transmitter. (As a side note, I suppose you could incorporate this into missions - special forces transmissions at certain times etc)

So here's the requests

1) Obviously, news clips at the right times (perhaps repeated each hour for a day since they can easily be missed), and some stock radio music to fill in the gaps.

As I see it, a US Sub will have its own English language records, so the radio may as well be foreign (Japanese, Chinese etc) music and speech, while other English language stations may be just speech broadcasts (with minimal music to fill in the gaps).

2) The problem with the radio system as it stands is knowing when a broadcast is on. As it is you'd need to leave the radio on all the time to hear them... There are a couple of possiblities here 1) Use a text file - this is what I did, just read the config file to see the dates for broadcast and made sure I was there and tuned in 2) Set the the broadcasts like the real thing so that they occur at the same time each day (or week if that's too much news!) 3) Provide a little window in game which provides a list of broadcast times & dates.

I've had a bit of a dig, one problem is easy access to Japanese music and speech broadcasts from that period. Probably need a Japanese speaker/reader to assist with that process....

r.

tedhealy · 03-21-07, 06:46 PM

Yes, Japanese broadcasts will be hard to come by. I would suggest that how often something gets broadcasts is determined by it's length.

If you have a news bulletin that in real life ran on march 12, 1943, and it's 18 seconds long, I'd say run it maybe two or three times a day starting on the 12th for the next seven to ten days.

If you've got something significantly longer, then maybe run it less. Like only once a day for next three to five days. Just my thoughts but something like that would have to be tested in game to see if repeating them like that is too much or not enough. I guess it also sort of depends on how many broadcasts we can get.

Here's a link that has links to lots of radio material.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=107195

EDIT

Ok, looking at how the files are set up it doesn't look like we determine for how long something runs. It just lists the start day, time, radio station folder, and file name. If we wanted something to repeat I guess we'd have to manually re-enter that event in as many times as we wanted it to repeat.

tedhealy · 03-22-07, 01:44 PM

Anyone looking into the radio ini's?

[CHANNEL]
Name=Washington
Folder=Washington
Freq=22
Antenna=01.01.1930-01.01.2000:44.16,-35.10:100000

First 3 lines seem self-explanatory, but what about the last one?

1st part seems to be the date of operation for the station - january 1930 to january 2000. What about the last part though 44.16,-35.10:1000000? Any ideas?

I'm going to guess that part of it is the location of the broadcast and possibly the 10000 is the power of the station. Or at least I'm hoping that's part of it so we could have local radio stations with low power that you'll only pick up when you get near them.

NoLine · 03-22-07, 02:51 PM

Antenna=01.01.1930(startdate)-01.01.2000(enddate):44.16,-35.10(position in world):100000(strenght or range)

me thinks

cheers
NoLine

ryuzu · 03-22-07, 04:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NoLine

Antenna=01.01.1930(startdate)-01.01.2000(enddate):44.16,-35.10(position in world):100000(strenght or range)

me thinks

cheers
NoLine

That would be my guess too. I created another station easily enough, but getting it to play anything (even a cut and paste of the Washington data) didn't work. I think it will work, just need to dig a bit more.

Update to my first as well, it looks like the news on the radio plays well after the event time - in fact I suspect it either will continue playing until the next event (i.e. anytime you turn on the radio the same thing will be playing until the next event is triggered) or there is some other place where the devs defined how long to play an event clip...

r.

tedhealy · 03-23-07, 12:44 AM

I've got a ton of radio broadcasts and I'm trying to put some together as a test for dec 7th and 8th 1941.

I've run into a few issues. Some files are 30 minutes long or longer. Now some people may want to sail out of pearl in real time on dec 7th/8th, but I don't (that is I'm assuming we can leave Pearl on the 7th or 8th). I've got enough 30 minute files to go from 1400 to midnight in real time on the 7th.

For now, I'm ignoring those files and concentrating on files between 10 seconds and a few minutes. I need to get a better idea of how the radio is handled if there are quite a few files in the queue and you use time compression.

Another issue, I've got a small number of radio programs like the Jack Benny show that are 15 to 30 minutes long. Some have news flashes that give away the date, some don't. I'm thinking that adding a second radio station on a different frequency called "Entertainment" or some such name to denote it will just be old time radio stuff might be a nice idea. If we could get a good number of them, you could tune into the entertainment frequency and hear only those shows and play them at set times. Like rerun the same Jack Benny show every Sunday night at 1900 for a month or more. Rerun a different show every Monday night at 1900 for the same period of time. I guess it depends on how many files we have for often and for how many months they need to get repeated.

...or something like that...I'm just sort of rambling on ideas.

EDIT: Unfortunately, Dec. 8th looks like the first day you can be in a boat for a quick mission, and Dec. 10 (maybe 9th too) is the first day you can get in a boat in the career. It's a shame because there are tons of audio files for the 7th and 8th.

ryuzu · 03-23-07, 06:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tedhealy

I've got a ton of radio broadcasts and I'm trying to put some together as a test for dec 7th and 8th 1941.

I've run into a few issues. Some files are 30 minutes long or longer. Now some people may want to sail out of pearl in real time on dec 7th/8th, but I don't (that is I'm assuming we can leave Pearl on the 7th or 8th). I've got enough 30 minute files to go from 1400 to midnight in real time on the 7th.

For now, I'm ignoring those files and concentrating on files between 10 seconds and a few minutes. I need to get a better idea of how the radio is handled if there are quite a few files in the queue and you use time compression.

Another issue, I've got a small number of radio programs like the Jack Benny show that are 15 to 30 minutes long. Some have news flashes that give away the date, some don't. I'm thinking that adding a second radio station on a different frequency called "Entertainment" or some such name to denote it will just be old time radio stuff might be a nice idea. If we could get a good number of them, you could tune into the entertainment frequency and hear only those shows and play them at set times. Like rerun the same Jack Benny show every Sunday night at 1900 for a month or more. Rerun a different show every Monday night at 1900 for the same period of time. I guess it depends on how many files we have for often and for how many months they need to get repeated.

...or something like that...I'm just sort of rambling on ideas.

EDIT: Unfortunately, Dec. 8th looks like the first day you can be in a boat for a quick mission, and Dec. 10 (maybe 9th too) is the first day you can get in a boat in the career. It's a shame because there are tons of audio files for the 7th and 8th.

Well the reports may be repeated and if they don't mention the date then they could still work - perhaps with a bit of trimming to remove anything that makes the broadcast too specific to Dec 7/8...

I think anything, even if the dates don't quite match up, will be an improvement on the very short messages we get at the moment - particularly multiple channels.

By the way, each radio event includes a field for text - this looks like the text that eventually goes in the Radio Messge log in the game. So that means that you could put in some text that just says that a new broadcast is available (the devs seem to have included the entire text of the transmission - that seems like too much work and would clog up the radio log with useless data).

r.

P_Funk · 03-23-07, 06:42 AM

This seems like it has modding potential. Imagine adding radio communiques from base? You could have new ways to create ambience mods. I'm feeling my obcessive SH3 loyalty soften just a smidgen.

tedhealy · 03-23-07, 11:46 AM

I did some testing just to make sure how things work.

Whether you are in time compression or not, the radio files will start playing at the right time. No worries about TC causing radio broadcasts to be missed. The broadcast does NOT drop you out of TC.

Radio broadcasts queue up when in time compression. So if you have a 20 minute broadcast for startTime=19:00 and a 30 second broadcast for startTime=21:00, but you are in TC at 19:00 and 21:00 comes and goes while you are still hearing the first 20 minute broadcast, the 2nd 30 second broadcast will play immediately after the previous one finishes. So you will not miss the next broadcast if you miss it's start time while in TC listening to an earlier broadcast.

The Radio_track.wav that plays repeating music when no broadcast is heard also seems to play in the background during broadcasts. This should probably be replaced with a barely audible static sound or some such thing.

The earliest start day/time out of Pearl is dec 10, 6:00. The latest seems to be around 16:00 on dec 10. So files for earlier than dec 10 will mostly not be used. Some could be played the first week, the 10th - 17th, and still be ok as they are summaries of the events. A lot are breaking news bulletins about the attack that probably can't be used.

I named the ini text file that goes along with the radio broadcast wrong, so I need to retest that to see what happens with those.

EDIT: added ini txt files that go along with the radio broadcasts don't seem to do anything. Or you need to set them up somewhere else because just adding them to the broadcast folder doesn't do anything. No txt radio message is received when the audio plays. Perhaps they play a part somewhere else? Maybe in the "newspaper" in between patrols? I don't know.

EDIT2: I didn't see any newspaper after going back to pearl. I thought I remember reading about that feature from somewhere. So I'm not sure where or how those ini txt files that go with the radio broadcast audio are used.

ryuzu · 03-23-07, 12:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tedhealy

I did some testing just to make sure how things work.

Whether you are in time compression or not, the radio files will start playing at the right time. No worries about TC causing radio broadcasts to be missed. The broadcast does NOT drop you out of TC.

Radio broadcasts queue up when in time compression. So if you have a 20 minute broadcast for startTime=19:00 and a 30 second broadcast for startTime=21:00, but you are in TC at 19:00 and 21:00 comes and goes while you are still hearing the first 20 minute broadcast, the 2nd 30 second broadcast will play immediately after the previous one finishes. So you will not miss the next broadcast if you miss it's start time while in TC listening to an earlier broadcast.

The Radio_track.wav that plays repeating music when no broadcast is heard also seems to play in the background during broadcasts. This should probably be replaced with a barely audible static sound or some such thing.

The earliest start day/time out of Pearl is dec 10, 6:00. The latest seems to be around 16:00 on dec 10. So files for earlier than dec 10 will mostly not be used. Some could be played the first week, the 10th - 17th, and still be ok as they are summaries of the events. A lot are breaking news bulletins about the attack that probably can't be used.

I named the ini text file that goes along with the radio broadcast wrong, so I need to retest that to see what happens with those.

EDIT: added ini txt files that go along with the radio broadcasts don't seem to do anything. Or you need to set them up somewhere else because just adding them to the broadcast folder doesn't do anything. No txt radio message is received when the audio plays. Perhaps they play a part somewhere else? Maybe in the "newspaper" in between patrols? I don't know.

EDIT2: I didn't see any newspaper after going back to pearl. I thought I remember reading about that feature from somewhere. So I'm not sure where or how those ini txt files that go with the radio broadcast audio are used.

Some good work there.

I'm not sure about the text files - are you talking about the files in

Data\Sound\Radio\Washington\Events

There are two types of file in the folder.

The first is simply called Events.cfg - there is only one of these and it lists the times and dates of all events and links the relevant sound clip.

Then for each event there is a .cfg file named the same as the associated .ogg file. For example

In events.cfg we have :

[EVENT]
StartDate=07.12.1941
StartTime=19.00.00
MediaFile=News_Intro_Line_02.ogg

Then there is a .cfg file called News_Intro_Line_02.ogg.cfg which contains :

[NEWS]
Title=December 7th, 1941
Body=Many popular Sunday afternoon entertainment programs have been interrupted by radio bulletins with the news of the “sneak attack” against Pearl Harbor. The news sends a shock wave across the nation and results in a tremendous influx of volunteers in the U.S. armed forces. The attack united the nation behind the President and effectively ended the isolation sentiment in the country.

It is this Body text that seems to appear in the message log as text (by message log I'm referring to the radio message log displayed in the submarine itself).

Let me know if you need anything tested or looked at by the way - I'm happy to help!

r.

tedhealy · 03-23-07, 01:56 PM

Hmm, in Data\Sound\Radio\Washington\Events, I have the ogg file and a ini file for the broadcast. Nota .cfg, but an .ini. The contents are the same though - [NEWS], Title=, and Body=.

News_1941_01.ogg
and
News_1941_01.ogg.ini

When I add entries to the events.ini and add the 2 new files to the events folder, the added radio .mp3 file plays as expected and on time in game, but the txt .ini file that goes with it produces no results. The 'Body' text does not show up in the captain's log.

I'll have to look at this further. Maybe I've got something spelled wrong in the file name or the headers.

I've more or less finished the month of december for the files I have. I went ahead and did december 7th and 8th even though they may never be heard because of patrol starting dates mostly being the 10th. I've also not used any BBC radio reports in hopes of gathering enough of those to give the BBC it's own frequency/station. I only have 4 BBC broadcasts for december right now.

I've also not used roughly 20 some files because they simply are too long. Most are 30 minutes long and run on december 7th. If I used those and you actually could start on december 7th that's some 10 hours of audio. So if you used time compression, those would queue up and you'd be hearing about pearl harbor for a long time.

Here's what I've got so far.

Quote:

;1941 news
;=========

;MOD START
;=========

;DECEMBER 1941

[EVENT]
StartDate=7.12.1941
StartTime=14.00.00
MediaFile=1941-12-07CBSFootballBroadcast-WarBulletin.mp3

[EVENT]
StartDate=7.12.1941
StartTime=14.10.00
MediaFile=1941-12-07CBSAttemptsToCallHonolulu.mp3

[Event]
StartDate=7.12.1941
StartTime=14.20.00
MediaFile=1941-12-07CBSJohnCharlesDalyReportsPearlHarborAttack.mp3

[EVENT]
StartDate=7.12.1941
StartTime=14.39..00
MediaFile=1941-12-071439NBCRManilaBombed.mp3

[EVENT]
StartDate=7.12.1941
StartTime=14.32.00
MediaFile=1941-12-071432NBCBBulletinOnPearlHarborAttack.mp3

[EVENT]
StartDate=7.12.1941
StartTime=14.37.00
MediaFile=1941-12-071437CBSBobTroutOnBritishReaction.mp3

[EVENT]
StartDate=7.12.1941
StartTime=16.09.00
MediaFile=1941-12-071609NBCRKGUHonoluluReport.mp3

[EVENT]
StartDate=7.12.1941
StartTime=21.00.00
MediaFile=1941-12-07_CBSAnalysisfPearlHarborAndManillaAttacks.mp3

[EVENT]
StartDate=8.12.1941
StartTime=12.27.00
MediaFile=dec8-41-1.mp3

[EVENT]
StartDate=8.12.1941
StartTime=15.30.00
MediaFile=1941-12-080009NBCBBertSilanReportsManilaBombing.mp3

[EVENT]
StarDate=8.12.1941
StarTime=21.00.00
MediaFile=1941-12-08CBSFordWilkinsInManila.mp3

[EVENT]
StartDate=10.12.1941
StartTime=16.00.00
MediaFile=1941-12-10CBSWorldNewsToday.mp3

[EVENT]
StartDate=10.12.1941
StartTime=20.00.00
MediaFile=spe_1941_1209_roosevelt.mp3

[EVENT]
StartDate 11.12.1941
StartTime=15.00.00
MediaFile=dec11-41US.mp3

[EVENT]
StartDate=26.12.1941
StartTime=12.00.00
MediaFile=News_Intro_Line_02.ogg

[EVENT]
StartDate=26.12.1941
StartTime=12.00.03
MediaFile=1941-12-26-ChurchillinWashingtontocongre.mp3

;January 1942

tedhealy · 03-23-07, 01:59 PM

and here's my playlist

Quote:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
dec 6 1941
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

NOT USED
xLong recap of news today
1941-12-06-WorldNewsToday.mp3
14:40

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
dec 7 1941
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

14.00.00
xEarly - football game interrupt with news flash
1941-12-07CBSFootballBroadcast-WarBulletin.mp3
:23

14.10.00
xLate evening - early
1941-12-07_CBSAttemptsToCallHonolulu.mp3 - CBS Calls Honolulu - gets no answer
1:04

14.20.00
xEarly - Early reports of attack
1941-12-07CBSJohnCharlesDalyReportsPearlHarborAttack.mp3
2:20

14.32.00
x
Breaks into programming to announce attack
1941-12-071432NBCBBulletinOnPearlHarborAttack.mp3
:40

14.39.00
X interrupt news on manila
1941-12-071439NBCRManilaBombed.mp3
:50

14.37.00
x BEFORE BBC reports
1941-12-071437CBSBobTroutOnBritishReaction.mp3
1:09

16.09.00
X break
NBC interrupt with tinny call report
1941-12-071609NBCRKGUHonoluluReport.mp3
3:09

21.00.00
B
xLate evening - early
1941-12-07_CBSAnalysisPearlHarborandManillaAttacks - CBS military analysis on attack - back to NYPHIL
3:19
?????

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx BBC - NOT FOR WASHINGTON xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

BBC Report on far east and pearl
1941-12-08_BBC_Wilfred_Pickles_News_on_the_Far_East.mp3
:43

BBC - NOT FOR WASHINGTON
1941-12-07_AlvarLiddell_JapaneseAttackOnPearlHarbor - BBC report/summary
:57

BBC - NOT FOR WASHINGTON
xLAST
1941-12-07BBCWashingtonReactionToPearlHarborAttack.mp3 - BBC report mentions speech tomorrow
:52

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx BBC xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

dec 8 1941

12.27.00
dec8-41-1.mp3
ALSO leadup and FDR SPEECH
9:45

15.30.00
manila is being bombed
1941-12-080009NBCBBertSilanReportsManilaBombing.mp3
:32

21.00.00
Recap of attacks
1941-12-08CBSFordWilkinsInManila.mp3
8:36

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx BBC - NOT FOR WASHINGTON xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

BBC REPORT - SOME FDR SPEECH
1941-12-08-Roosevelt-BBC.mp3
1:54

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx BBC xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

dec 10 1941

16.00.00
1941-12-09CBSWorldNewsToday.mp3
NEWS ROUND UP from the 9th, but should serve on 10th
14:44

20.00.00
dec11-41US.mp3
FDR Fireside chat
27:53

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

dec 11 1941

15.00.00
dec11-41US.mp3
WAR DECLARATION
2:40

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
dec 26 1941

12.00.00
1941-12-26-ChurchillinWashingtontocongre.mp3
Churchill
1:17

tedhealy · 03-23-07, 02:17 PM

And of course those added files are in addition the handful of ones that came with the game for december. So far all that weighs in at 29 MB un-zipped. December 1941 is the bulk of files that I have with a few other months matching or having more.

Looking at other months
jan 42 - 1 file
feb 42 - 3
mar 42 - 1
april 42 - 1
june 42 - 2
aug 42 -1
sep 42- 1
oct 42 - 4
nov 42- 6
dec 42 -3

jan 43 - 2
feb 43 -2
april 43 -1
may 43 -2
june 43 -2
july 43 - 6
aug 43 -8
sep 43 -6
oct 43 -4
nov 43 -1
dec 43 -3

jan 44 -9
feb 44 -9
mar 44 -11
april 44 -3
may 44 -3
june 44 -32
july 44 -2
aug 44 -11
sep 44 -6
nov 44 -2
dec 44 -4

jan 45 -4
feb 45 -2
march 45 - 17
april 45 - 26
may 45 -30
aug 45 -16

Perhaps during those slow months or months with no broadcasts is where I can put in the old time radio shows. Looking over things, I don't have as many of those as I thought. Just 20 of them for some 40 months. Unless I can find at least double that, I would think a different station for entertainment would not be worth it. I could just slip some of these 30 minute shows into months without much radio traffic and repeat them for that month every sunday (or whatever day) at 19:00 or 20:00.

EDIT: Actually I might take that back, I've found quite a few more old time radio shows, we'll see.

tedhealy · 03-23-07, 05:06 PM

Radio Los Angeles up and running on frequency 38

I"ve now got 85 radio shows, most of which are 30 minutes long. I will try to set the start date for a show to the actual air date. If there are too many shows for that day or week or month though, I'll run it later. At the very least I won't run a show before it was broadcast in real life.

I'll probably do something like every sunday night at 20:00, tune into frequency 38. That would come out to about 160 shows give or take for the entire war, so some shows will get repeated for 2 weeks or more.

Another way to approach it might be to give each show a 1 to 2 week time period to air, but instead of just starting it every sunday night at 20:00, give it a stardate of Sunday, Wednesday, Friday for that 1 to 2 week period. That way if you miss it the first time, you've still got a few more chances to catch it....I think I like that better. That way you can tune in and catch something on radio Los Angeles and if you miss the start date, you'll only have to wait a couple of days for it to be repeated until it's 1 or 2 weeks is up and a new show starts.

I'll also be continuing to do the radio washington news broadcasts, and I've also got some 70 to 80 songs for a grammophone pack.

ryuzu · 03-23-07, 05:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tedhealy

Radio Los Angeles up and running on frequency 38

I"ve now got 85 radio shows, most of which are 30 minutes long. I will try to set the start date for a show to the actual air date. If there are too many shows for that day or week or month though, I'll run it later. At the very least I won't run a show before it was broadcast in real life.

I'll probably do something like every sunday night at 20:00, tune into frequency 38. That would come out to about 160 shows give or take for the entire war, so some shows will get repeated for 2 weeks or more.

Another way to approach it might be to give each show a 1 to 2 week time period to air, but instead of just starting it every sunday night at 20:00, give it a stardate of Sunday, Wednesday, Friday for that 1 to 2 week period. That way if you miss it the first time, you've still got a few more chances to catch it....I think I like that better. That way you can tune in and catch something on radio Los Angeles and if you miss the start date, you'll only have to wait a couple of days for it to be repeated until it's 1 or 2 weeks is up and a new show starts.

I'll also be continuing to do the radio washington news broadcasts, and I've also got some 70 to 80 songs for a grammophone pack.

Sounds good

You're right about the filenames - I thought they were .cfg like everything else but they are in fact .ini.

r.

03-21-07, 06:14 PM	#1
ryuzu Navy Dude Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 171 Downloads: 20 Uploads: 0	[REQ] Radio Broadcasts So digging a bit in SH4 the radio broadcast possibilities look interesting. To summarise there are two ways of playing modded sound; the gramophone (just like SHIII) and the new radio set. The radio is already stocked by Ubi surprisingly, but the way it works you may never know about it It seems the radio is designed such that it will play files at specified times/dates - just like real radio you have to have your set switched on and tuned in! Given that the broadcasts are only a few seconds long, unless you know it's coming the chances of having the radio on at that time are slim! The data is just a set of text files and ogg (and some wave) files. Each radio station is set up in a text file. A quite cool thing is that the radio stations have dates so you could have one station in Manila initially English language, being shutdown and replaced by a Japanese one Plus the stations can be given a specified frequency so you can have a US, Japanese, Australian, Chinese station etc There appears to be a coordinate system possibly coupled with a range parameter - if so (and if that works) it would be v. cool to only get transmissions when in range of the transmitter. (As a side note, I suppose you could incorporate this into missions - special forces transmissions at certain times etc) So here's the requests 1) Obviously, news clips at the right times (perhaps repeated each hour for a day since they can easily be missed), and some stock radio music to fill in the gaps. As I see it, a US Sub will have its own English language records, so the radio may as well be foreign (Japanese, Chinese etc) music and speech, while other English language stations may be just speech broadcasts (with minimal music to fill in the gaps). 2) The problem with the radio system as it stands is knowing when a broadcast is on. As it is you'd need to leave the radio on all the time to hear them... There are a couple of possiblities here 1) Use a text file - this is what I did, just read the config file to see the dates for broadcast and made sure I was there and tuned in 2) Set the the broadcasts like the real thing so that they occur at the same time each day (or week if that's too much news!) 3) Provide a little window in game which provides a list of broadcast times & dates. I've had a bit of a dig, one problem is easy access to Japanese music and speech broadcasts from that period. Probably need a Japanese speaker/reader to assist with that process.... r.

03-21-07, 06:46 PM	#2
tedhealy Grey Wolf Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: St. Louis, MO, USA Posts: 772 Downloads: 13 Uploads: 0	Yes, Japanese broadcasts will be hard to come by. I would suggest that how often something gets broadcasts is determined by it's length. If you have a news bulletin that in real life ran on march 12, 1943, and it's 18 seconds long, I'd say run it maybe two or three times a day starting on the 12th for the next seven to ten days. If you've got something significantly longer, then maybe run it less. Like only once a day for next three to five days. Just my thoughts but something like that would have to be tested in game to see if repeating them like that is too much or not enough. I guess it also sort of depends on how many broadcasts we can get. Here's a link that has links to lots of radio material. http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=107195 EDIT Ok, looking at how the files are set up it doesn't look like we determine for how long something runs. It just lists the start day, time, radio station folder, and file name. If we wanted something to repeat I guess we'd have to manually re-enter that event in as many times as we wanted it to repeat. Last edited by tedhealy; 03-21-07 at 07:53 PM.

03-23-07, 12:44 AM	#6
tedhealy Grey Wolf Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: St. Louis, MO, USA Posts: 772 Downloads: 13 Uploads: 0	I've got a ton of radio broadcasts and I'm trying to put some together as a test for dec 7th and 8th 1941. I've run into a few issues. Some files are 30 minutes long or longer. Now some people may want to sail out of pearl in real time on dec 7th/8th, but I don't (that is I'm assuming we can leave Pearl on the 7th or 8th). I've got enough 30 minute files to go from 1400 to midnight in real time on the 7th. For now, I'm ignoring those files and concentrating on files between 10 seconds and a few minutes. I need to get a better idea of how the radio is handled if there are quite a few files in the queue and you use time compression. Another issue, I've got a small number of radio programs like the Jack Benny show that are 15 to 30 minutes long. Some have news flashes that give away the date, some don't. I'm thinking that adding a second radio station on a different frequency called "Entertainment" or some such name to denote it will just be old time radio stuff might be a nice idea. If we could get a good number of them, you could tune into the entertainment frequency and hear only those shows and play them at set times. Like rerun the same Jack Benny show every Sunday night at 1900 for a month or more. Rerun a different show every Monday night at 1900 for the same period of time. I guess it depends on how many files we have for often and for how many months they need to get repeated. ...or something like that...I'm just sort of rambling on ideas. EDIT: Unfortunately, Dec. 8th looks like the first day you can be in a boat for a quick mission, and Dec. 10 (maybe 9th too) is the first day you can get in a boat in the career. It's a shame because there are tons of audio files for the 7th and 8th. Last edited by tedhealy; 03-23-07 at 01:54 AM.

03-23-07, 06:42 AM	#8
P_Funk Ocean Warrior Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Canada, eh? Posts: 2,537 Downloads: 129 Uploads: 0	This seems like it has modding potential. Imagine adding radio communiques from base? You could have new ways to create ambience mods. I'm feeling my obcessive SH3 loyalty soften just a smidgen. __________________

03-23-07, 11:46 AM	#9
tedhealy Grey Wolf Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: St. Louis, MO, USA Posts: 772 Downloads: 13 Uploads: 0	I did some testing just to make sure how things work. Whether you are in time compression or not, the radio files will start playing at the right time. No worries about TC causing radio broadcasts to be missed. The broadcast does NOT drop you out of TC. Radio broadcasts queue up when in time compression. So if you have a 20 minute broadcast for startTime=19:00 and a 30 second broadcast for startTime=21:00, but you are in TC at 19:00 and 21:00 comes and goes while you are still hearing the first 20 minute broadcast, the 2nd 30 second broadcast will play immediately after the previous one finishes. So you will not miss the next broadcast if you miss it's start time while in TC listening to an earlier broadcast. The Radio_track.wav that plays repeating music when no broadcast is heard also seems to play in the background during broadcasts. This should probably be replaced with a barely audible static sound or some such thing. The earliest start day/time out of Pearl is dec 10, 6:00. The latest seems to be around 16:00 on dec 10. So files for earlier than dec 10 will mostly not be used. Some could be played the first week, the 10th - 17th, and still be ok as they are summaries of the events. A lot are breaking news bulletins about the attack that probably can't be used. I named the ini text file that goes along with the radio broadcast wrong, so I need to retest that to see what happens with those. EDIT: added ini txt files that go along with the radio broadcasts don't seem to do anything. Or you need to set them up somewhere else because just adding them to the broadcast folder doesn't do anything. No txt radio message is received when the audio plays. Perhaps they play a part somewhere else? Maybe in the "newspaper" in between patrols? I don't know. EDIT2: I didn't see any newspaper after going back to pearl. I thought I remember reading about that feature from somewhere. So I'm not sure where or how those ini txt files that go with the radio broadcast audio are used. Last edited by tedhealy; 03-23-07 at 12:20 PM.

03-22-07, 01:44 PM	#3
tedhealy Grey Wolf Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: St. Louis, MO, USA Posts: 772 Downloads: 13 Uploads: 0	Anyone looking into the radio ini's? [CHANNEL] Name=Washington Folder=Washington Freq=22 Antenna=01.01.1930-01.01.2000:44.16,-35.10:100000 First 3 lines seem self-explanatory, but what about the last one? 1st part seems to be the date of operation for the station - january 1930 to january 2000. What about the last part though 44.16,-35.10:1000000? Any ideas? I'm going to guess that part of it is the location of the broadcast and possibly the 10000 is the power of the station. Or at least I'm hoping that's part of it so we could have local radio stations with low power that you'll only pick up when you get near them.

03-22-07, 02:51 PM	#4
NoLine Medic Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: AN85 Posts: 167 Downloads: 55 Uploads: 0	Antenna=01.01.1930(startdate)-01.01.2000(enddate):44.16,-35.10(position in world):100000(strenght or range) me thinks cheers NoLine

03-23-07, 02:17 PM	#13
tedhealy Grey Wolf Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: St. Louis, MO, USA Posts: 772 Downloads: 13 Uploads: 0	And of course those added files are in addition the handful of ones that came with the game for december. So far all that weighs in at 29 MB un-zipped. December 1941 is the bulk of files that I have with a few other months matching or having more. Looking at other months jan 42 - 1 file feb 42 - 3 mar 42 - 1 april 42 - 1 june 42 - 2 aug 42 -1 sep 42- 1 oct 42 - 4 nov 42- 6 dec 42 -3 jan 43 - 2 feb 43 -2 april 43 -1 may 43 -2 june 43 -2 july 43 - 6 aug 43 -8 sep 43 -6 oct 43 -4 nov 43 -1 dec 43 -3 jan 44 -9 feb 44 -9 mar 44 -11 april 44 -3 may 44 -3 june 44 -32 july 44 -2 aug 44 -11 sep 44 -6 nov 44 -2 dec 44 -4 jan 45 -4 feb 45 -2 march 45 - 17 april 45 - 26 may 45 -30 aug 45 -16 Perhaps during those slow months or months with no broadcasts is where I can put in the old time radio shows. Looking over things, I don't have as many of those as I thought. Just 20 of them for some 40 months. Unless I can find at least double that, I would think a different station for entertainment would not be worth it. I could just slip some of these 30 minute shows into months without much radio traffic and repeat them for that month every sunday (or whatever day) at 19:00 or 20:00. EDIT: Actually I might take that back, I've found quite a few more old time radio shows, we'll see. Last edited by tedhealy; 03-23-07 at 02:36 PM.

03-23-07, 05:06 PM	#14
tedhealy Grey Wolf Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: St. Louis, MO, USA Posts: 772 Downloads: 13 Uploads: 0	Radio Los Angeles up and running on frequency 38 I"ve now got 85 radio shows, most of which are 30 minutes long. I will try to set the start date for a show to the actual air date. If there are too many shows for that day or week or month though, I'll run it later. At the very least I won't run a show before it was broadcast in real life. I'll probably do something like every sunday night at 20:00, tune into frequency 38. That would come out to about 160 shows give or take for the entire war, so some shows will get repeated for 2 weeks or more. Another way to approach it might be to give each show a 1 to 2 week time period to air, but instead of just starting it every sunday night at 20:00, give it a stardate of Sunday, Wednesday, Friday for that 1 to 2 week period. That way if you miss it the first time, you've still got a few more chances to catch it....I think I like that better. That way you can tune in and catch something on radio Los Angeles and if you miss the start date, you'll only have to wait a couple of days for it to be repeated until it's 1 or 2 weeks is up and a new show starts. I'll also be continuing to do the radio washington news broadcasts, and I've also got some 70 to 80 songs for a grammophone pack.

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