Custom soundscapes?

First of all,
I posted this at VERC already as I've done a fair amount of testing on
it and figure that its a bit early in HL2's editing life for anybody to
really have looked into yet. At VERC there are a couple of Valve bods
who answer some of the less obvious questions, so I'm hoping I'll get a
reply from one of them. That said, on the off chance I might as well
ask here as well...and I didn't feel right taking my questions
elsewhere :biggrin: So on with the problem...

I've been having a little bit of trouble
with creating custom soundscapes, and I've come to the conclusion its
quite possibly a problem with the engine as opposed to a difficulty I'm
having.

I can create a custom soundscape and have it function in the game,
however the only way I can do this is by naming the file containing the
soundscapes "soundscapes.txt" and placing it in the "...\half-life 2
deathmatch\hl2mp\scripts" folder. This means it is used instead of the
soundscapes.txt file found in the HL2 GCF folder, thereby disabling
some of the default soundscapes.

The entity helper in hammer gives the following hint that you can create custom soundscape files...

"The name of the soundscape to use. Corresponds to an entry in the soundscapes*.txt file in the hl2acripts directory."

...Note that the typo is in the entity help, I didn't make it myself :smile:
I assume it to mean the "scripts" folder in your HL / CS:S / HL2DM mod
folder, and surely enough if I make the "soundscapes.txt" file with my
custom soundscapes in one of those folders, it works. The * in the
entity help description suggests you can create your own soundscape
files provided their name begins with "soundscapes" - an asterisk is a
typical wildcard character right? From my experimenting however, this
doesn't seem to be the case.

Anybody experimented with custom soundscapes and found the same
problem as me, or found a way around it? Or could any Valve folks give
some input on this matter? Soundscapes come across as a very powerful
tool and if mappers can't create their own easily for existing mods
then its an annoying limitation. Its like materials.txt from HL1 all
over again :sad:

From looking at some of the CS:S soundscapes, the file actually needs to be named soundscapes_mapname.txt instead of just soundscapes.txt - For example, the 'Office' soundscapes are defined in cstrike\scripts\soundscapes_office.txt.

Remember the map is actually called cs_office though, rather than
office. Looking at the HL2 soundscape files in the GCF it also seems
that the filenames don't relate to map names. I tried it anyway, but
unfortunately it still didn't work :sad:

Hmm, good point.

I've been experimenting with this as well and seem to arrive at the same point - I can't get custom soundscapes to work at all. Maybe it is just an engine thing at this moment?

Presumably then you can make your own soundscape_*.txt and reference it somehow in your map (though after searching through the FGDs it would be quite subtle), or maybe it is loaded automatically?

Perhaps a command in the compiling references your map to the soundscape txt or a custom vmtb file (or whatever that strange txt variant is that hammer uses- also used to put grass sprites in vast ground areas).

After digging through the SDK, I found that all additional soundscape
files must be referenced in "scripts/soundsapes_manifest.txt"

The manifest file with some new soundscape references:

soundscaples_manifest<br style="font-family: courier; color: orange;">

{<br style="font-family: courier; color: orange;">

"file" "scripts/soundscapes.txt"<br style="font-family: courier; color: orange;">

<br style="font-family: courier; color: orange;">

// List additional soundscape files here<br style="font-family: courier; color: orange;">

<br style="font-family: courier; color: orange;">

"file" "scripts/soundscapes_canals.txt"<br style="font-family: courier; color: orange;">

"file" "scripts/soundscapes_klab.txt"<br style="font-family: courier; color: orange;">

"file" "scripts/soundscapes_elab.txt"<br style="font-family: courier; color: orange;">

"file" "scripts/soundscapes_streetwar.txt"<br style="font-family: courier; color: orange;">

"file" "scripts/soundscapes_citadel.txt"<br style="font-family: courier; color: orange;">

"file" "scripts/soundscapes_town.txt"<br style="font-family: courier; color: orange;">

"file" "scripts/soundscapes_coast.txt"<br style="font-family: courier; color: orange;">

"file" "scripts/soundscapes_prison.txt"<br style="font-family: courier; color: orange;">

"file" "scripts/soundscapes_trainyard.txt"

"file" "scripts/my_cool_soundscape.xyz"

"file" "scripts/bogus_soundscape.abc"<br style="font-family: courier; color: orange;">

<span style="font-family: courier; color: orange;">}

It seems that it's impossible to define soundsapes on per-map basis right now.

You have to make a new mod or some intelligent map installer, that will be able to parse and/or add to the manifest file.

</span>

Thanks a lot for that! I hadn't noticed your reply until I came back to
this thread to say that (at last) a couple of people replied on my VERC
thread with the very same answer :smile: I've suggested that it would be
nice for the game to automatically load in soundscape files that match
the mapname (eg. soundscapes_map1.txt for the map "map1.bsp"), but it
is of course doubtful that this would be implented.

Gee, I would've thought that they would've made it easier to use customs sounds with your map.

Oh well, I'm sure somebody will come up with a way to do it eventually. But in the meantime no custom sounds for you! :sad:

Its not custom sounds that is the limitation mate, you can make use of
those perfectly fine I think. Soundscapes are used to script what
sounds are used in certain areas of the map, what random sounds occur
in certain areas, and more. You can still place sounds around with
ambient_generics or use the premade soundscapes, but its just not
giving you the same degree of control you could have.