Hi Kerry,
First of all, please cc me directly with any questions about my book. I
don't always monitor the list.
>>That chapter explains what is REALLY going on when Director tries to
>>figure out how to play sounds. It explains all the conflicts, setups,
>>sound devices, etc.
>
>Bruce, since sound objects are new in D8, do they introduce any new twists
>we should know about, and aren't covered in your book?
I haven't played enough with D8 sound objects to comment intelligently on
that. When I was talking about how sounds are played, I was referring to
the device level and the Windows OS level regarding sound output devices,
conflicts, etc. None of that has changed in D8, as the changes were at the
Lingo level.
D8's new sound objects definitely bring some changes at the "Director"
level and I've yet to investigate/confirm these things myself.
Here are some scattered notes about what I've heard about sound in D8
(which I haven't tested myself).
At one point early in the game, Greg Yachuk wrote:
"puppetSound, sound playFile, sound stop, close, fadeIn, fadeOut are simply
redirected into the new Sound Control code."
I'm not sure if that is true, because of other things that I've heard
elsewhere.
Terry Schussler wrote:
>The puppetSound command doesn't use the new sound
>object mechanism so you won't enjoy the same lower latency mixing provided
>in Director 8.
I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding something or whether this conflicts
with what Greggy claimed.
Other reports seem to indicate that dot syntax usage will cause an error
when used on a system without a sound card, but the old syntax will not.
Again, this suggests something different is going on. It sounds like the
new sound Xtra may be loaded only if their is a sound card? (I'm not sure).
It has been reported that if you don't have a sound card installed. This
will generate an error (I'm not sure what error):
sound(1).volume = 255
But this will not:
set the volume of sound 1 = 255
Gary Rosenzweig wrote extensively about problems with Dell NT machines with
NO sound cards.
He wrote:
>>Any use of the new sound Lingo in Shockwave movies caused a "Script Error".
>>
>>Just a simple sound(1).play(member("mySound")) brought up a "script
>>error". The "the soundDeviceList" returned MacroMix and DirectSound, and
>>"the sound Device" could be set to either without helping.
>>
>>Another test showed that a puppetSound command worked fine. It was only a
>>sound().play() that didn't (tried queueing first too, but that gave an error
>>as well).
>>BTW, the Sound Control.x32 version was r201.
Whether the problem was the new sound functions or the dot syntax, I can't
say. Regardless, it only seems to be an issue for machines without a sound
card.
In separate news regarding the pan feature:
At one point Colin Holgate reported:
"I'm using pan for positional interface sounds. I accidentally found
that positive numbers don't work with Macromix. I've set the
sounddevice to QT3Mix, and that works. To be more exact, negative numbers
give a quieter sound that is paced in the center (regardless of the pan
value). Positive numbers give silence.
Greggy replied:
>Yep. I think this is in the ReadMe
>Macromix always uses the volume of the left channel for both channels.
>Panning to the left keeps the volume of both channels at maximum. Panning to
>the right reduces the volume of both channels.
>This will not be addressed in D8. Sorry.
Again, I haven't checked it personally.
In other news about new sound Lingo, Terry asked:
>Is checking the getPlayList() function results considered the best
>way to determine if a sound object is in use (ie locate a free "channel?")
Buzz Kettles replied:
> Using getPlayList() will [not be useful] if when playing a big
> sound as the last sound in a play list.
>The channel is in use, but the queue is empty. The best way to tell if a
>channel is in use sound(n).isBusy() or sound(n).status to tell
>exactly what's going on in that channel.
Larry Doyle who wrote some example movies for sound control in D8 wrote:
>The "Sound Control.dir" learning movie supplied with Director 8 has sound
>control scripts are clearly labeled and located in members 2 thru 7. Each
>script is simple, explicit, and well commented. The purpose of the movie is
>to 1) show developers the new sound control syntax in action, and 2) show
>how easy it is to create powerful sound fx with the new functionality. >
>
>Stock Macromedia behaviors are used for the user interface elements and
>make the calls to the sound control handlers located in the first seven
>members. The stock interface behaviors were used in the interest
>of keeping the focus on the new sound control functionality and utilizing
>more D8 functionality.
>
>The new sound control functionality in D8 is really awesome and I was
>amazed at how easy it is to create some very cool effects. The "Sound
>Control.dir" contains a mixer, auto panner, echo delay,and VO ducker each
>implemented with a couple simple handlers. It only scratches the surface
>of what's possible with these new commands! (BTW, if you remove the last
>"wait 60" command from the "Ducking" script it fades up smoothly, don't
>know how that got left in there.)
>
>Larry Doyle
>Cyberian Design
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>415 440 9590
>1530 Fulton St.
>San Francisco, CA 94117
That certainly isn't an exhaustive round up, but maybe it gets you going in
the right direction.
I hope that helps.
Here's Macromedia's TechNote on the soundDevice options on Windows
machines describing the pros and cons of each. I don't know if it has been
updated for D8.
<http://www.macromedia.com/support/director/ts/documents/d7_sound_mixing.htm>
Many of the sound issues are not new to D8 (such as the volume control
having no effect when QT3Mix is the sound mixer--see my other post).
Bruce
Bruce Epstein, Zeus Productions, [EMAIL PROTECTED], 732-940-2800
Check out LAST CALL - The Ultimate Bartending Sim:
http://www.zeusprod.com/games/lastcall.html
--------
Director and Lingo in a Nutshell (DiaN/LiaN) kick butt.
Free Sample Chapters: http://www.zeusprod.com/nutshell/downloads/
--------
[To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to
http://www.penworks.com/LUJ/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list,
email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
