Ambient Sounds

Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:47 am

I've wandered around Tamriel and noticed they mix and match a TON of different ambient sounds, however I would like to do that as well with a Garden World Space I am making. I want birds to chirp randomly and I want the wind to blow through the leaves randomly too. So far, the closest to that I can get is getting the birds to chirp once on entering the world space and then never again, until I re-enter of course. The little red-thingy in the world space that emits the sound is set to play only during the day (nighttime for owls) and is also set to 2D since I noticed the birds in Tamriel didn't seem to be coming from any particular direction. I can stand perfectly still in Tamriel and have so many birds chirp and squawk at me randomly...is there a way to get this to work? To get birds (and other assorted Ambient sounds) to randomly play (and not just the same chirp over and over, but the different pitches and such that Tamriel is host to)
I have absolutely no skill in scripting, so if it's scripts causing it I wouldn't even know where to begin looking :\
Edit: I succeeded in getting crickets to chirp constantly, by putting them on loop of course. However if I did that to a bird that chirping got awefully...annoying. Instead of looping in different pitches it just looped on ONE pitch until I exited and re-entered. So that didn't work
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Richard
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:45 am

The different sounds can be set up in the region editor settings (where you can assign random sounds with a certain percentage, just look at the vanilla regions). If you want various different sounds you need to assign a whole folder to a sound effect, the game will pick one sound from that folder randomly when it chooses to play the sound.

For example in the 'GreatForestSubRegion01' there is a 15% chance that the AMBRBirdsForest01 sound is played. That sound is linked to the sounds\FX\ambient\regions\birds\forest folder. In that folder are 21 different bird sounds. Now if you are in the region and if the game chooses to play the sound then the game will pick one of the 21 bird sounds randomly from the folder and play it.

EDIT: If you have a small worldspace (only made up of maybe 5x5 cells, obviously doesn't work well for a worldspace with 1000+ cells) and if you want 3D sounds which come from a direction then a scripted activator can be a nice idea. I did that in a dungeon I made. You simply make a script that randomly (GetRandomPercent) plays various sounds (use a random timer so pauses between sounds are not always the same) and assign it to an invisible activator (use an editor marker). You can then place the activators throughout your worldspace.
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naana
 
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Joined: Fri Dec 08, 2006 2:00 pm

Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:12 am

The different sounds can be set up in the region editor settings (where you can assign random sounds with a certain percentage, just look at the vanilla regions). If you want various different sounds you need to assign a whole folder to a sound effect, the game will pick one sound from that folder randomly when it chooses to play the sound.

For example in the 'GreatForestSubRegion01' there is a 15% chance that the AMBRBirdsForest01 sound is played. That sound is linked to the sounds\FX\ambient\regions\birds\forest folder. In that folder are 21 different bird sounds. Now if you are in the region and if the game chooses to play the sound then the game will pick one of the 21 bird sounds randomly from the folder and play it.

EDIT: If you have a small worldspace (only made up of maybe 5x5 cells, obviously doesn't work well for a worldspace with 1000+ cells) and if you want 3D sounds which come from a direction then a scripted activator can be a nice idea. I did that in a dungeon I made. You simply make a script that randomly (GetRandomPercent) plays various sounds (use a random timer so pauses between sounds are not always the same) and assign it to an invisible activator (use an editor marker). You can then place the activators throughout your worldspace.


Thank you VERY much. No wonder Tamriel doesn't have little red static-sound-meshes all over the place! I've been looking in the wrong place this whole time, thank you so much!
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Minako
 
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