Custom sound effects

[Korath]

The temptation to name this post "EVERYBODY POLKA! Ha ha ha! Ho ho ho!" was nearly overwhelming.
I am at the proof-of-concept stage of being able to add additional sound effects to the game, like the special ones for the microprose Astral cards. If anybody out there is suitably talented, or even just willing to trawl through public domain sound collections or whatnot, there's plenty of design space to work with here. We could use a sound effect, for example, to be played whenever a legendary permanent enters the battlefield (played at the same time as DuelSounds/summon.wav, DuelSounds/enchant.wav, etc.); and I'm not especially happy with using DuelSounds/GemBazar.wav for all 5-colored lands, either.

(Playing the existing wav files in the DuelSounds/ directory is already possible, and actually pretty easy - all it needs is for someone to identify which sound should be played and when. "AswanJag.wav whenever a creature fights another", for example.)

[gmzombie]

You continue to amaze with the enhancements..

[stassy]

So that mean you can theoretically assign a sound for any card/permanent? Even with the same type?

[Korath]

I'm not sure what you mean by "Even with the same type", but yes, we can play sounds essentially whenever we want, with any granularity we want.

So, say, if we wanted "Play sound plnwlkr.wav whenever a card of type Planeswalker enters the battlefield", we could do that. "Play sound chandra.wav whenever a card of type Planeswalker - Chandra enters the battlefield" would be just as easy, or "Play sound chandrapy.wav whenever Chandra, Pyromaster enters the battlefield". Or "Play sound plnwlkab.wav whenever you activate a planeswalker", or "Play sound hulkSMSH.wav whenever a Beastmaster Ascension card gets a seventh quest counter placed on it".

That's all essentially zero effort - usually on the order of minutes to assign the sound, once someone actually makes the wav file and decides when it should be played.

It's harder to make a sound that currently plays not do so, so all those "various planeswalker enters the battlefield" sounds would either have to still sound ok while enchant.wav played (as it currently does), or we'd have to be very sure first what to suppress and when to do it. Suppressing the standard "play summon.wav, artifact.wav, enchant.wav, instant.wav, interrupt.wav, and/or sorcery.wav when a card of the appropriate type(s) resolves/enters the battlefield" would take a couple hours for the first one, and only minutes for any others that. But something like "Play wrldslay.wav when Worldslayer destroys all permanents, but don't play kill.wav/buried.wav for any of them" would be difficult to the point of impracticality, since those sounds are played by code that's very far removed from card_worldslayer().

[stassy]

So after having a peak at Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014 sounds (which were quite scarce ingame but the cinematics), I fiddled a bit with Audacity and it's true that between searching the interweb for freesounds and mixing them, it's not an easy task.

I made some ETB sound for Gem Bazaar (though it would rather fit Bazaar of Bagdad) and some planeswalkers, I tried hard to not stray from the path of the non copyrighted data but it's hard...really hard especially when you already have in mind the sound that should fit some cards...

Gem Bazaar : coin drop + market ambiant
Garruk : creature footstep + scream male (though it would fit any "big" creatures)
Jace : wind + cape + male snicker (sorry jace, couldn't find any young male voice so you got a senile one )
Chandra : burning forest + woman laugh (no battle cry found, would rather fit Liliana but oh well...)
Liliana : woman sound + moded monster howl into "ghost"

Source: Free sounds, Vegas 6, Voice Acting Alliance, VA is KOKORO Hane

https://www.dropbox.com/s/01cubumkuvxno ... Sounds.zip

To test them ingame, you can rename them to ENCHANT.WAV after backing up the original one, though it would play on any enchantment.

I already have some easy sounds-to-make in mind for a batch of cards (like Soldiers or flying vanillas, quite easy to guess mind you), so I would like to know if it's possible to have a specific sound for several cards...

[Korath]

For just replacement of the entering-the-battlefield sound effect (summon.wav)? Easy. Though you'll want to put some thought into how they combine - if you cast a flying vanilla soldier, should it play soldier.wav, flyvanil.wav, both, or neither?

When I asked for a replacement of GemBazar.wav, I'd meant a sound for five-color lands (which currently play that, and it doesn't fit for most of them); not a replacement for the sound played by Gem Bazaar itself.

[stassy]

I would think of a sound effect stacking, though I concede it would generate a messy sound if something like Akroma's Memorial would be cast(something that enchant flying, or activate to give flying), I like the idea to be able to make a different sound for a specific global effect, that could cover many cards at once.

An example of stacking sound would be :
- Play the sound at once, pro: no sound mod, con: messy if more than 3
- or integrate a small delay in the sound (for a flying soldier, when both sound is cast, the flying sound would have an integrated delay so player would hear first the soldier sound then the flying one even if both are played simultaneously), pro: more harmonious sound, con: a last order sound would play very late ingame
- or if the engine can do it, stack and delay the sound untouched in a specific order (don't think it's doable)

My bet is the 2nd choice would be the best, we just have to know which effect would be in what order (adding a delay in a sound with Audacity is np)

You are right, after generating the sound I though you might have wanted a sound for multiland rather than a specific card, my bad.