Modifying Sounds & Sound Effects?

[WhittyMike]

Would appreciate any help in figuring out how to
(1) substitute .WAV files for existing .WAV sound effects
and (2) add .WAV files to the ambient sound effects.

When I try to to (1), the .WAV file that I tried to substitute was the "We Love The King" sound bite. I renamed the old one to save it, then copied the file I wanted with the name of the .WAV file to be played on the We Love the King event (I forgot the exact name). When I tried the game, the new sound played, but it was sped-up too much to hear what was said. The sped-up effect does not occur when I play the .WAV file in the usual fashion. Perhaps I'll compare the properties of the two .WAV files and see if that offers any clues.

As for (2), I added more .WAV files to the Ambient Sounds folder, but they did not play. Is there a playlist, and if so, how do I modify it?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Mike

 

[Zippo]

I tried subbing a .wav and had the exact opposite results! It played reaaalllllly sloooooowwww... very strange! I don't have any possible explanations

 

[Zippo]

OK I did a little more investigating and found some differences between my .wav and the original:

original wav
---------------
Size of Format: 16
Format: PCM
Channels: 1
Samplerate: 22050
Bytes/Sec: 44100
Block Align: 2
Bits/Sample: 16

new wav
-----------
Size of Format: 16
Format: PCM
Channels: 2
Samplerate: 44100
Bytes/Sec: 176400
Block Align: 4
Bits/Sample: 16


I'm guessing that the differences in playback speed is probably due to differences in the Samplerate and/or Bytes/Sec between the two files. While programs like winamp are sophisticated enough to correctly play various .wav files, the civ .wav player is probably only set up to play .wavs with a Samplerate of 22050.

This would make sense because the civ player would play my .wav file at 22050 instead of 44100, thus making it sound slow. I'm guessing that your .wav file probably has a lower Samplerate than 22050 which is why it plays fast.

Hope this helps

 

[WhittyMike]

Zippo:

Your reply convinced me I was on the right track.

I called up the Windows Sound Editor to modify the .WAV file that I wanted to use for the WLTK sound effect so that its properties matched that of the original WLTK sound effect. The Sound Editor has a "Convert" feature that makes this a piece of cake.

Now, whenever there's a WLTK event (or an event triggering a palace build), Civ3 plays a sound clip of the last line from the movie "Caddyshack" -- the Rodney Dangerfield character shouting "Hey, Everybody, We're All Gonna Get Laid!" followed by wild cheering.

Now, to find a solution to my second problem. I'd like to add more ambient sounds to the rotation. I suspect that the ambient sounds are played at random or in rotation according to specific list, probably in the SOUNDS.DLL file. I don't know what kind of program I would use to review and edit a DLL file. Any suggestions?

Whim

 

[WhittyMike]

Just to bump this back up to the first page --

Still looking for ideas of how to add additional ambient sound effects.

I've downloaded a lot of nifty and somewhat-relevant-to-history movie sound bites in .WAV format from various places on the web.

I'd like to add them to the rotation of the ambient sound effects that play in the background.

Ideas?

If the solution is to modify the SOUNDS.DLL file, with what program could I do that? A text editor won't cut it, as it appears the file is compiled from hexadecimal. I would need something that translated it to plain English (or at least Visual Basic).

Any thoughts or good ideas would be appreciated.

Whim

 

[Dark Sheer]

I believe the ambient are controlled in the .amb file. I have tried to open that file but I am not sure what program are needed to open the .amb file. I look at it using a txt editor and I can clearly see the .wav file's name inside (with other unreadable stuff of course )

 

[WhittyMike]

Originally posted by Dark Sheer
I believe the ambient are controlled in the .amb file. I have tried to open that file but I am not sure what program are needed to open the .amb file. I look at it using a txt editor and I can clearly see the .wav file's name inside (with other unreadable stuff of course )

Thanks, Dark Sheer!

Now to find out how I can modify that file.
Anyone else with an idea?

Whim

 

[Qurath]

I'm working on a program to modify the .amb files, but it still needs some tweaking(urr, okay, it still needs to be *finished* ). However, I don't believe that these files contain what you are looking for . They're 'script files' for WAVs, used as sound effects AFAIK only for units in Civ3. I might be wrong about this, though. If the playlist is inside one of these files anyway, I think I'm pretty close to finding a way to add the filenames .

By the way: I did an ASCII search for 'hawk'(one of the ambient effects) on the sound.dll(I supposed you meant sound.dll as there is no sounds.dll) and found nothing. It's probably not hardcoded into those files(and I guess that's a good thing ).

 

[WhittyMike]

I went looking for the ".amb" files and could not find them in the CivIII directory or on the disk. Where should I be looking for them?

Firaxis -- If you could help us out here, it would allow us to make a little harmless modification that would enhance users' enjoyment of the game. I've done something similar with the Links LS golf game, adding .WAV files as additional ambient sound effects on the list in that program. If you could give us a clue, we could work this out, and then you'd have a demonstration of how, why, and with what sounds the users (i.e. "customers") could add additional sound effects.

 

[Dark Sheer]

Originally posted by WhittyMike
I went looking for the ".amb" files and could not find them in the CivIII directory or on the disk. Where should I be looking for them?

Those .amb files are in the individual unit's folder

 

[Qurath]

Yep, they're in the units folders, and they're AFAIK not related to the background sound effects.

 

[WhittyMike]

Bump:crazyeyes

 

[WhittyMike]

Bump

 

[WhittyMike]

 

[WhittyMike]

Bump

 

[WhittyMike]

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[WhittyMike]

Originally posted by WhittyMike
bump...

 

[WhittyMike]

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