Ambient sounds - how to easily know what a schema sounds like?

JarlFrank on 14/2/2016 at 14:17

So, I'm at the stage of my mission where all is done except for some small bugfixes and placing ambient sounds.

I've read in a beginner tutorial that those are done by placing schema files. So far so good. The schemas can be adjusted in size like brushes so they fill the area you want them to be in. Great.

Only problem is: it's a pain in the ass to find out what a schema sounds like, so if you want to find the right ambient it can get tiresome quickly. The tutorial says that you can listen to them by typing it into the Dromed command line, something like "play schema_name", but manually typing in every schema name there is to listen to them all is a lot of work.

Is there any easier way to listen to them?

Unna Oertdottir on 14/2/2016 at 14:49

Quote Posted by JarlFrank

I've read in a beginner tutorial that those are done by placing schema files. So far so good. The schemas can be adjusted in size like brushes so they fill the area you want them to be in. Great.

What?
You need a sound trap or an ambient hacked object.

Quote:

Only problem is: it's a pain in the ass to find out what a schema sounds like, so if you want to find the right ambient it can get tiresome quickly. The tutorial says that you can listen to them by typing it into the Dromed command line, something like "play schema_name", but manually typing in every schema name there is to listen to them all is a lot of work.

Is there any easier way to listen to them?

Use Media Edit/Thief Edit.

(http://www.thiefmissions.com/tafferstavern/dloads.html)

Yandros on 14/2/2016 at 14:57

Indeed, you don't "place schema files" or resize them. I don't know what tutorial said that but it's way off. You simply create a Marker and give it the A > Ambient hacked property, and put the schema name in there and set the radius. If you want it to emanate from the location of the marker (like the sound of a machine or crickets) then you're done. If you want it to become the global ambient, like background music, then you set the Environmental flag.

As for browsing them, Unna is right, and it gets easier as you become more familiar with the schemas used for environmental ambients. The best thing is if you know what OM has the one you want, open its schema file and you should be able to find it pretty quickly.

JarlFrank on 14/2/2016 at 16:21

That's what I meant by placing schemas:

(https://nickdablin.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/217-part-eight/)

Quote:

We're going to have Sound > Schema > AMBIENTS > AMB_M13 > m13wind playing in the street. It's a sound of low wind blowing. But you don't have to take my word for it, you can listen to schemas in the editor yourself. It's not the most intuitive process, but it works. Find the name of the schema you want to hear, then close the Object Hierarchy, click the console, type play_schema xxx and hit Enter (where xxx is the Schema name). So in this case you would type play_schema m13wind. You should hear a spooky wind sound if your speakers are on. If you want to stop the sound playing, type halt_schemas and press Enter.

Once you've listened to the schema, create a fnord > marker, and place it in the centre of the street. Now open the marker's properties and add A > AmbientHacked. This property adds a schema to the marker. Type 32 for Radius. This tells the sound to fade out as you get 32 units away from the marker. For Schema Name, type m13wind.

And thanks for the link, Unna, I'll check that program out!

john9818a on 14/2/2016 at 19:41

You don't necessarily need to play them in dromed. If you are looking for original ambient sounds just load an OM that is similar to yours and walk around while listening. When you hear something you would like to use in your FM Alt-E back to edit mode and look at the properties of the ambient marker. Typically OM ambient are tailored for specific types of missions so locating some with the absence and mood you are looking for should'nt be too difficult. Some of the ambients like wind are used relatively often so you might have an easier time using those in future missions simply by memorizing them.

Yandros on 14/2/2016 at 20:46

Another way to preview them is to just open up snd.crf and start listening to sound files, then find the schema name via search of the schema files for the WAV filename to figure out the schema that uses it.

JarlFrank on 14/2/2016 at 22:29

Quote Posted by Yandros

then find the schema name via search of the schema files for the WAV filename to figure out the schema that uses it.

Uh... how do I do that? When I double click a schema to see what it contains, I don't see any WAV filenames.

Say, I wanna find the schema containing SFX/SINGING2.WAV that I found with the Thief Media Edit tool. How do I go about finding it?

EDIT:
The worst thing about looking at schema files in dromed is that some don't play any sound at all when I use the "play schema" command! It's like they're completely silent schemas, for whatever reason... it's driving me crazy!

R Soul on 14/2/2016 at 22:45

You need to look in the schema files. You may already have them, e.g. if you have the Dromed Toolkit. I can't remember if Tafferpatcher includes Dromed. If you don't have the files, get them from here: (http://www.thiefmissions.com/telliamed/schema118r1.zip)

A while ago Microsoft decided to help you by only letting you search through .txt, docx or any common file format. It might be possible to change the indexing options, but one thing that'll definitely work is Notepad++. That has a 'find in files' tool.

edit: the command is play_schema somename
Or use the menu. Extra > Schema > Play Schema...

Kurhhan on 14/2/2016 at 22:45

Quote Posted by JarlFrank

Go to all AMB files in schema folder, open it with notepad and then try to find SINGING2 (ctrl + F and type SINGING2).
SINGING2 is part of M11singing schema in AMB_M11.

JarlFrank on 14/2/2016 at 22:50

What program do I open the AMB files with? They can't be opened with WinRAR.

EDIT: Ah, right, with Editor. Thanks!