Teaser Video....and a chance to test out the game early.

Meowskivich · Post by **Meowskivich** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 6:40 pm

So, some of you folk have heard me mumblin' and grumblin' in some threads about me holding off on the release on my game for the Heart of the OHR, but I'm betting some of ye might be thinking I'm blowin' smoke. However, I isn't. BEHOLD, A TEASER VIDEO!!!

And I'd like to extend the invitation to those who desire to do testing, the more the merrier. Also, let me know if you don't mind testing the incomplete version (basically, lacking in music, and that's it. It will be fully playable). I currently have a couple things to tweak before I'd let you folk test it, but by this weekend I should have a playable demo. Let me know here! -Meowskivich

Meowskivich · Post by **Meowskivich** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 8:16 pm

(also, quick question: Why does the OHRRPGCE make imported mp3s sound SUPER silent in-game while mids are just dandy and normal volume?)

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 8:30 pm

Meowskivich wrote:(also, quick question: Why does the OHRRPGCE make imported mp3s sound SUPER silent in-game while mids are just dandy and normal volume?)

Have you used any sound effects?

mp3 and ogg music, as well as all sound effects will be the same volume level.

midi music on some computers is played using a separate volume mixer, so on some computers midi can possible be much louder or much quieter than other sounds.

Meowskivich · Post by **Meowskivich** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 9:04 pm

Indeed I do use sound effects.
And I suppose that's "sorta" nice to know, and terrible at the same time...
glad there's an in-game volume adjuster.

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 9:42 pm

Meowskivich wrote:Indeed I do use sound effects.
And I suppose that's "sorta" nice to know, and terrible at the same time...
glad there's an in-game volume adjuster.

How does the OHRRPGCE's mp3 volume and midi volume compare to other music-playing programs on your computer? Like iTunes, or a youtube video, or whatever?

BMR · Post by **BMR** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 12:03 am

Not sure if I'm making much sense, but wouldn't it be easier to just convert all sound effects and music to OGG using Audacity or something? That way, you wouldn't have to bother with midi vs OGG volume or anything.

Meowskivich · Post by **Meowskivich** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 4:25 am

@James
Honestly, with just about everything else vs. OHRRPGCE, mid and mp3 volumes are pretty darn close, while being pretty diverse with the OHRRPGCE. When I pop various musics in for the windows media player I've no need of adjusting volumes, but when playing mah game I go from "okay, this is good" on the overworld, since it's a mid, to "....have I gone deaf?" quiteness of the mp3 musics in various spots. Though one of the songs is pretty low volume in the first place, thus making this the big issue.
Not sure if I'm getting me point described well or not. Kinda half-asleep right now.
Basically, mp3s are about 75% to 50% as loud as mids are for me. Perhaps I should get this tested by some people to see if they're having the same issues, but from my computer, and my friend's computer, we've had the same volume issues.

and @bmr
I could convert all audio if I really wanted to, but I'd rather not go out of my way to loop-hole something that might be able to be fixed.

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 4:46 pm

Oh, yes, Windows media player will always play midi and mp3 at the same volume because it runs midi through a wavetable synth and plays it using the wave mixer. The midi volume mixer is totally ignored by Windows Media player and almost all other programs. We would love to ignore it too, but the music library that the OHRRPGCE relies on (SDL_mixer) is kinda crappy and doesn't give us that option.

What I want to know is how the volume compares if you play an mp3 in windows media player and then the same mp3 in the ohrrpgce. I would expect them to be at the same volume, and if they are not, then you might ahve found a new volume bug that is different from theone I already know about.

You describe midi music as being much louder in ohrrpgce, so I would expect that if you play the same midi in windows media player it would play much quieter than the midi sounds in the ohrrpgce

I don't know if I am making sense... let me explain in another way:

If your music sounds like this, then we already know about the bug:

Code: Select all

mp3 in windows media player&#58; Normal
midi in windows media player&#58; Normal
mp3 in ohrrpgce&#58; Normal
midi in ohrrpgce&#58; LOUDER THAN EVERYTHING ELSE

However, if you are describing this:

Code: Select all

mp3 in windows media player&#58; Normal
midi in windows media player&#58; Normal
mp3 in ohrrpgce&#58; really quiet compared to everything else
midi in ohrrpgce&#58; Normal

then you may have found a different bug. This would be especially strange because the ohrrpgce plays mp3 music and sound effects at exactly the same volume level, so it should be impossible for this to happen:

Code: Select all

mp3 in ohrrpgce&#58; really quiet compared to everything else
sound effects in ohrrpgce&#58; Normal

Meowskivich · Post by **Meowskivich** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 6:39 pm

I am a describin' choice number two:

mp3 in windows media player: Normal
midi in windows media player: Normal
mp3 in ohrrpgce: really quiet compared to everything else
midi in ohrrpgce: Normal

I just went and checked things out to make sure, and it's pretty much that way. :/

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 9:19 pm

Okay... interesting... What about sound effects? Are they playing at the same volume as the mp3?

FnrrfYgmSchnish · Post by **FnrrfYgmSchnish** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:30 pm

If the problem he's having is anything like the MP3-volume issues that came up when I was making Fat Frog: The Movie, I'm guessing sound effect volume will be normal even though MP3 music plays quieter than everything else.

I actually have the scripts set the volume higher when MP3s are being played, since they ended up so much quieter than the rest of the soundtrack (all midis)... but the sound effects were no problem.

Meowskivich · Post by **Meowskivich** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 2:06 am

Fnrrf there pretty much hits the nail dead-on.

Sound effects are just peachy, the mp3s....quieter.

So, no, the sound effects are louder than mp3s.

Post by **TMC** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 6:27 am

The default volume setting in Game.exe is 50%. In music_sdl, this volume setting affects only music, not sound effects, which play at 100% (that's pretty much a bug). It might not affect MIDI music either; I can't remember. In music_native/native2 it affects only MIDI music, and nothing else (that's a bug).

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 2:10 pm

Oh! That makes sense.

Unfortunately I can't think of any workarounds that don't involve replacing SDL_mixer or disabling the in-game volume control completely :(

Post by **TMC** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 9:20 pm

SDL_mixer does support setting the volume of sound effects, so we just need to do so. I'm obviously going to do that as part of implementing sound effect volumes (in "the next few weeks"). It also supports setting the MIDI volume on Windows, so I'm not sure why MIDI music wouldn't play as quiet as OGG music does.

We could also default to 100% volume instead of 50%. We can check which games actually use the "set music volume" command.