A few questions

Yea yea yea, I know what you guys are thinking "Why the hell is he bugging us again?" :biggrin: (waits Orph's cunning remark)

I just compiled my map de_alert. Yes, I did say I compiled a map. Wow :eek: (looks at Orph)

I was able to export it to .MAP no problem. Maybe its because I created a custom .WAD with all the textures.

Anyways, here are my questions.

Turns out, entity lighting is really, I mean, really ugly. But I need lights that turn on and off. All over the level. Someone once told me a set of compiler tools could do that. Teach me? If not, does anybody have any sugestions for the placement of the light entity so that it looks good?

Second, ambience issues. I wanted to but some background music to sortof hype up the players. I was thinking Numb by Linkin Park. A) Am I allowed? B) if so, how do I do this?

Well, for now thats it. Until the next compile anyways

In future please can you post topics with some kind of indicator as to what your problem is in the title/description?

Answers:

1) Light spots can help make light entities look good (as long as you make a light fixture, somewhere where the light is actually coming from..!), so fiddle around with some of those.

2) Don't think so, and you wouldn't want to- WAVs are pretty uncompressed, and a 30 second clip is going to be a megabyte or so in size...

http://www.karljones.com/halflife/light.asp

Scroll down on that page to find info on switchable texture lights.

I suggest you not use music with vocals, this tends to be distracting. And if you used Linkin Park, you would not be allowed to do it if you distributed your map. As long as you own the CD, and you don't distribute the map, you're safe. But remember, if you do distribute it, you're commiting piracy. And some people don't like that. Best bet is to either use some of the HL music, or get some yourself (or use something by someone else with their permission).

I think you're allowed to play a certain amount of the song without infringing any copyrights. It's probably only a short amount though.

oO, sounds promissing A_S. Me goes and tries. With any luck, you'll have screens in about 30 minutes :smile:

Sorry Lep, next time, I shall proprelly name my thread

"Moron seeking help, yet again!"
or
"When do the idiocies stop!?!"
or
"Wild Card has questions"
or
"tex lights and sounds"

take your vote ladies and gentlemen.

As for the lights, I've had that problem also where the lights look a little crappy, like there is no color depth too it or something, hence the poor lighting in estate in CS, since you can turn off the lights inside, the lighting is poor in those areas. So I dont think its just you.

Just as an extra note be careful when using lights that turn off and on, because rad then needs to make extra calculations for when the light is on and when it is off.

Lep, is it preferable for people to make seperate topics for their individual problems?

Well, suprisingly compiling only took 3 minutes where Cliff Complex took nearly 2 hours, lol. And my R's peak at 400, lol. Even in the outdoor area. Maybe I should add more detail.

Anyways, I'm go try them tex lights out.

Alien_Sniper said:
Lep, is it preferable for people to make seperate topics for their individual problems?

You want cudos more than once? :biggrin:

Well it might be easier for people searching through the answer database if questions are kept seperate. :smile: I don't know the answer to your second question anyway. :biggrin:

You'll need a program to convert your mp3 into a .wav file that's compatible with halflife.

The wave files MUST be 8000Hz 16 bit Mono format.

Here's a program that should work http://www.mp3-to-wav.net/

if i remember correctly you can use 10% of the song without infringing copywrite

so for a three minute song that would be 18 secs...

Heh I knew it was 10 something, but I thought it was 10 seconds. :smile:

maybe I'll put it in when the bomb is set. lol.

You know what you could do, is set the cd audio to play the track of the Linkin Park song during the map (for whichever # it should be on the real CD) then if anyone has it, they can have the CD in the drive and play with the song. If they don't have it, they don't hear it. It would get around all the copyright stuff, and if they wanted to burn their own version it's their discretion and not your problem. So far as I know having a cd audio track playing in the background isn't a forced thing so it wouldn't cause problems with anyone playing the map.

1st off WC, i do not understand why i was singled out for funny looks in your questionnaire.. it sounded funny, or humorous, but made no real sense to me.

secondly, entity lighting doesn't look bad at all, its the application that is usually at fault, i almost always have to work at getting my lighting correct, and i am sure everyone else does too, but the fact remains, the successful mappers who get the lights perfect, didn't just happen to do so, a LOT of trial and error goes into it. usually , as in my case, its an intricate combination of ent lights with texture ones mixed.

3rdly.. my contest map double_trouble had music, you may or may not recall this, but the fact is, it did, and the song chosen actually enhanced the play IMO 100%, it set a real mood to the atmosphere, so it can be done.. i suggest only songs with no words, and songs with a long enuff repetition to allow looping, but not so short as to have a noticeable end/beginning if "IF" you do edit the song.. my song is played out in its entirety, so i didn't have any noticeable chopped out place, it began, played and ended, then began again.. most people chop it in half or so, then end up with a noticeable skip spot.

lastly, HL will give warning messages about improper sized formats or some-such, but the fact is, you can make songs pretty thin, in the sense that a 1 megs file at blah blah settings is how HL wants it, but you can reduce the settings by half and end up with a 1/2 megs song that plays just fine, with the complimentary loading error messages, but the song... plays just fine.

my suggestions are, experiment on the lights, get it right, or it will tell on you in the end as someone who can't get the lights right..

as for the song, test it in a small map, small maps always load with a minimum or hassle, and will allow you to concentrate on the song.

Alien_Sniper said:
You'll need a program to convert your mp3 into a .wav file that's compatible with halflife.

The wave files MUST be 8000Hz 16 bit Mono format.

Here's a program that should work http://www.mp3-to-wav.net/

I thought it was 11khz ??

11,000Hz, 16-bit, mono works just fine in Half-Life.

22Khz also works.

there's some more on switchable texture lighting at

http://collective.valve-erc.com/data/docs/1034150354-69206000/files/instructions.html#8

i think the ambiences have to have a frequency of 24Hz, i think......
if ne one know that im wrong can u say coz i want to know elsewell

24 hz? That's getting a bit too low for human hearing...

Yeah, you'll want 22 khz sounds, since they retain decent sound quality (sound engineers, take aim) as opposed to 11 khz. Use Sound Recorder to convert the WAV. If you have an MP3, use Winamp's DiskWriter output plugin to make it a WAV, then use Sound Recorder to convert it to a 22 khz, mono, 16 bit, PCM wave.

sndrec32.exe or something.

EDIT: Play it safe and don't use any copyrighted material. Sure, Linkin Park's crack team of ninja lawyers isn't going to bust down your door and sue you. In reality though, there's no leeway for "10% of a song" or any of that. Most everything you hear about how much is "legally acceptable" is rumor and hearsay - this includes "no more than 5 consecutive words from a book" or "10 seconds of a song" or anything. It's all supposed to be cleared with the copyright holder. (Lawyers, take aim!) So find something public domain, email Linkin Park and be rejected, or don't distribute the song with the map.

ahhh yes, i got told ages ago wat the frequency was and i couldnt remember, but thanx HP2 for that comment

Hornpipe2 said:
24 hz? That's getting a bit too low for human hearing...

The frequency listed is the sampeling rate, NOT the frequency of the sound to be played! if you could list a single frequency for the sound, it would be a monotone, and not a pleasent one at that!

Just FYI the average range perceiveable to a human is 20-20,000 Hz.

Rumple said:
if i remember correctly you can use 10% of the song without infringing copywrite

so for a three minute song that would be 18 secs...

Doesn't that mean that by using a program like Acid and good ol' sndrec32 you could nick a looping sound/set of bars/section and then loop it wothout infringing copyright? For example, take that fantastic background tune from "Clubbed to Death" by Rob Dougan, originally on the Matrix Soundtrack. That could be taken from the first 9-15 seconds (or whatever it is) and then looped. There must be some sort of condition.

For example, take that fantastic background tune from "Clubbed to Death" by Rob Dougan, originally on the Matrix Soundtrack. That could be taken from the first 9-15 seconds (or whatever it is) and then looped. There must be some sort of condition.

The tune is not actually by him, it's a classical piece by a different composer.

Also, I realize 24hz is the sample rate, not the sound frequency - but at that rate shouldn't you only be able to capture sounds up to 24hz - still borderline inaudible, yes?

EDIT: The classical piece is called "Enigma variations" by Elgar.

even a 24 hz sound would be badly reproduced at a 24 hz sampleing rate. it's just a matter of how many voltage measurements are made per second. at 24 hz I bet any sound would be percieved as a series of beeps or thumps rather than an actual tone. it's not that you wouldn't be able to hear it, it just wouldn't sound anything like the original sound. it's no different than the framerate of a video, a low framerate doesn't make it invisable, just nonsesical.

You have to sample at twice the maximum frequency present in the sampled signal in order to be able to accurately reproduce it without errors (alliasing). I don't know why anybody is talking about 24Hz for anything - it's below most peoples hearing range (you feel the vibration instead of hear it), and if you used it as a sampling rate, you would only be able to capture signals up to 12Hz - totally useless.

seems to me that hertz without decibels, is like volts without watts..

you cannot hear much no matter the hertz, without some sort of waves transmitted.. much like the shock you receive from electricity, is mostly dependant on the watts it contains..

now that i have sounded completely stupid, i think i will go away again and let this 22,000 vs. 44,000 scenario play itself out :biggrin:

It's a pointless digression Jeff. someone made a typo. I'm sure they meant to say 24 khz.

even a 24 hz sound would be badly reproduced at a 24 hz sampleing rate. it's just a matter of how many voltage measurements are made per second. at 24 hz I bet any sound would be percieved as a series of beeps or thumps rather than an actual tone. it's not that you wouldn't be able to hear it, it just wouldn't sound anything like the original sound. it's no different than the framerate of a video, a low framerate doesn't make it invisable, just nonsesical.

Good point. So you would sample at a higher rate (say, 44khz instead of 22) to get more precision, even at lower frequencies? I should probably draw up a diagram of how I see it, and then you could tell me if I was right.

And Scary_jeff, that makes sense now that I think about it. I guess a 24hz signal is actually high 24 times and low 24 times a second, so you'd need 48 hz sampling to accurately capture it.

High and low? No no no!

a 24Hz sound would not be represented using 24Hz sampling. The minimum sampling rate to capture a 24Hz sound would be 48Hz.

High and low? No no no!

a 24Hz sound would not be represented using 24Hz sampling. The minimum sampling rate to capture a 24Hz sound would be 48Hz.

I meant the sound wave. It oscillates 24 times a second, and every oscillation is high AND low, so you would have to sample at least at 48hz to get anything.

oh never mind.

You've got it horn, but even that would not give good reproduction. even if your samples happend to be at both the high and the low so to speak, you would still end up with a triangle wave rather than the true waveform... distortion hell.

Oh I see, I thought you meant high and low frequencies! If you used 48Hz sampling, you could reproduce the wave properly, because with such a sampling rate, you would put a low pass filter on the output that would turn the sawtooth into a sine wave.

That's kind of a cheap trick. quite clever though, it took me a second to realize how that would work.

Wouldn't it be more of a squared triangle than a sine? I guess it doesn't really matter at that rate though.