ambient_generic ... too quiet

[mixer]

Hi there ...

the sounds i play with amibent_generic are scarcely audible, despite setting the volume to the max. Whats the trick to make it louder?

[A1win]

Make the wav file louder.

[mixer]

Originally Posted by A1win

Make the wav file louder.

thats already maxed out

[A1win]

Increase its bitrate then? Uh, exactly how loud sound are you trying to make?

[mixer]

bitrate has nothing to do with this ... it actually want to hear it. As it is now i have to turn up the volume so much that the sound of the foot-steps blows my speaker ...

[A1win]

Have you increased the ambient_generic's radius enough then?

[mixer]

Originally Posted by A1win

Have you increased the ambient_generic's radius enough then?

yes, i looked at other maps, in sd2 that scream when you fall into that pit. I used the same settings, radius 2048 ...

[A1win]

Some default HL2 sounds use some settings from some file or something. If it's not already, try using the wav as a custom sound by copying it to a new directory.

And post all the values of the ambient_generic so I/we don't have to ask for each of them seperately

[mervaka]

no, dont do that, there's no need to duplicate wav files. create your own sound script named <mapname>_level_sounds.txt and add your own script entries there. see ff_hunted_level_sounds.txt for an example.

the ambient_generic should link to script names, not directly to wav files. thats the HL1 way of doing things!

[mixer]

:/ i thought i get away the easy way, now i have to start reading a lot of stuff to understand the whole sound-concept ...

[mervaka]

its really easy, lets look at an example:

"ff_hunted.dying_bird"
{
	"channel"	"CHAN_STATIC"
	"volume"	"1.0"
	"soundlevel"	"SNDLVL_NONE"
	"pitch"		"95,105"
	"rndwave"
	{
		"wave"		"@ff_hunted\dying_bird_1.wav"
		"wave"		"@ff_hunted\dying_bird_2.wav"
		"wave"		"@ff_hunted\dying_bird_3.wav"
	}

first line and the first set of brackets defines the sound. the "channel" parameter can stay at CHAN_STATIC for map purposes, "volume" should default to 1.0 and lower where required, "soundlevel" i'll talk about later, but in this instance its set to SNDLVL_NONE, which means play everywhere. "pitch" is set to randomise between 95% and 105% playback (ie +-5%) on each trigger.

in this case, we're using a selection of three waves picked at random. if you just want just the one sound to play, drop the "rndwave" and the following brackets, and replace it with just one "wave" entry. the @ just means its streamed or something, i wouldnt worry too much about it.

soundlevel is effectively your radius, but calculated in approximate real world terms (dB aparently?). i had problems with this when setting up the weapons, so used a different method, "CompatibilityAttenuation". this uses decimal numbers, where 1.0 is the normal attenuation rate, but i used ~0.7 for weapons and ~0.4 for explosions.

its all rather undocumented, so i dont know quite if what i'm doing is the best way to do things. the valve developer wiki says fuck all about things like "CompatibilityAttenuation", yet mods like CS and stuff use it.

EDIT: SPAG

[mixer]

thanks mervaka, i will try this out today.