TOOL: AGS Sound Manager

[Janik]

Hello everybody!

I'd like to announce that I have completed a program called the AGS Sound Manager. It is a small program designed to simplify the use of sound effects file in AGS. It manages large number of files and makes it easier to play the sounds from the AGS script language.

Basically it takes care of copying your original sound effects files to the game directory and renaming them SOUND1.WAV, SOUND2.MP3, etc. There is also a script module to make the PlaySound() calls more friendly.

Also, I've integrated an OGG encoder to compress WAV files automatically, to reduce the game size. It can be turned on and off, and you can choose the encoding quality.





The full description and help file is available here:
http://www.dmgenie.com/ags/SMHelp.html

The AGS Sound Manager is freeware, you can download the installer program here:
http://www.dmgenie.com/ags/AGSSM_Setup.exe
(The installer includes the VB6 source code).


I hope this will come in handy to some of you. I welcome any comments, bug reports or suggestions - please post them here. I hope this was the most appropriate board.

Also, I wouldn't mind having the program listed in the AGS website, in the Resources or Downloads section. Can this be done?


Thank you!

Janik

Edit: Made an installer program that includes the MSFLXGRID.OCX file that was missing from the original source. Please download and run the setup file instead of the ZIP files.

[monkey0506]

Interesting.  Looks nice.  I'll have to look into this some time...when I'm less preoccupied.

[Kweepa]

Awesome!
This looks like a good solution to sound management!

[Corey]

im missing a file called: "msflxgrd.ocx" 

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Wow. It's going straight into my site... and straight into my constant personal use.

EDIT - Same as corey.

---------------------------
AGSSoundManager
---------------------------
Component 'Msflxgrd.ocx' or one of its dependencies not correctly registered: a file is missing or invalid
---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

[TheYak]

It's an active-x control.  If it's not loaded, you can download the file..  say from here... and register it.  You copy it to the Windows\system32 folder (for XP, \system for '98), and register it by punching regsvr32 \windows\system\msflxgrd.ocx in your command line or start/run dialog.  It depends upon how picky Windows is being whether or not it's case-sensitive. 

If you've already got the file there, make a back-up.  If you get an unable to register error then it might already be registered and just need freed/reassigned.  This can be accomplished by tossing a /u after the regsvr32.  Afterwards, it may be necessary to have "regsvr32 /s . . ."

This happens since the file's a control for sharing input information among workgroups and isn't often loaded on a standard PC (unless you've installed a program or package that uses it).  For distribution of the AGS sound manager, having it install that file might be useful.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

For distribution of the AGS sound manager, having it install that file might be useful.

INdeed. Will you create an installer?

[Janik]

INdeed. Will you create an installer?

Sorry, I hadn't realized that the grid control was not commonly installed. I will make an installer, it's not very difficult - I use Inno Setup (http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php).

Thank you YakSpit for providing the download link to the control in the mean time!


Edit: I've made a quick installer program here:
http://www.dmgenie.com/ags/AGSSM_Setup.exe

This should fix the missing control error message.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

\o/ NOW it goes up on my site.

[HeirOfNorton]

This is NEAT.
Out of curiosity, have you considered making this as a COM plugin for AGS? It doesn't look like it would be that hard to conver it, and that way folks could use it directly in AGS instead of opening it as a seperate program. Not sure which way more people would prefer.
HoN

[Janik]

Out of curiosity, have you considered making this as a COM plugin for AGS? It doesn't look like it would be that hard to conver it, and that way folks could use it directly in AGS instead of opening it as a seperate program. Not sure which way more people would prefer.

I think that could be done relatively easily since it's already in VB (I don't know how I'd put the menus, though), but it was faster to develop as a stand-alone application.

Does anybody else think they would like it better as a COM plugin?

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

You COULD talk to Netmonkey. He's been working on just sucha  thing for quite a while now.

[strazer]

I see in the screenshot that the program asks for the location of the game's Compiled directory.
You do know that sound files belong in the game directory and will be bundled into the exe/vox when the game is compiled, right?

[Janik]

Yes, I'm aware of that; but you can put the files in the compiled folder and AGS will find them just as well. I like to do that because it makes the game folder itself less cluttered. If you don't use the provided code module, it doesn't matter what the path is; if you do, there is a file called SoundList.dat that is created; it is loaded by the module and that needs to be in the path of the compiled EXE.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

But it does raise the issue of what about all the users who don't mind the cluttering. Especially now that the only files in the game directory are the sound files, whereas speech and music have their own folders.

[Scorpiorus]

Great work with the sound manager!


As for the issue in question: yes, you can put sound files in the COMPILED folder and the AGS engine will pick them up there but there is a couple of reasons why the original sounds should preferably be stored in GAME folder instead.
The COMPILED folder is to contain the release version of the game, one the game developer will be distributing. It should therefore be always possible to sweep the COMPILED folder and then successfully recreate its contents (ctrl-s) from the game resource files (that's located in the GAME folder). Having any resource files (eg. sounds in that case) in the COMPILED folder breaks the rule and one may occasionally lose the original resources upon cleaning the COMPILED folder.

Another issue, is that, as strazer says, AGS bundles them into either the additional package files or the exe module itself. There were occasions when people having sound/music files in the COMPILED folder eventually distributed their games with both the original sound/music files and their bundled versions (music.vox, speech.vox and those embedded into exe module itself) which results in unnecessary increased (sometimes even doubled!) filesize of the game distribution package.

Why the engine can successfully read resource files located in the EXE's folder is because that way the game developer have an opportunity to release game patches by just uploading a fixed version of a broken file instead having to re-upload the whole game.

As for cluttering the GAME folder, as Rui pointed out, AGS will be storing speech and music resources in their own folders -- so it should reduce the number of files in the GAME folder.

But I can appreciate that changing the way how AGS Sound Manager currently works can be not trivial because of technical issues.

[Janik]

It should therefore be always possible to sweep the COMPILED folder and then successfully recreate its contents (ctrl-s) from the game resource files (that's located in the GAME folder). Having any resource files (eg. sounds in that case) in the COMPILED folder breaks the rule and one may occasionally lose the original resources upon cleaning the COMPILED folder.

[...] There were occasions when people having sound/music files in the COMPILED folder eventually distributed their games with both the original sound/music files and their bundled versions (music.vox, speech.vox and those embedded into exe module itself) which results in unnecessary increased (sometimes even doubled!) filesize of the game distribution package.

As for cluttering the GAME folder, as Rui pointed out, AGS will be storing speech and music resources in their own folders -- so it should reduce the number of files in the GAME folder.

All good points - I agree that it's better to put the sound files in a separate folder (presumably Game\Sounds). The SoundList.dat file still needs to be in \Compiled; so the solution is just to have two paths, one for Compiled and the other can be anywhere else (as long as AGS can find it). As far as the Sound Manager is concerned, it does not cause any problem.

Thank you for your input! I will try to implement those changes in the next few days.

[Scorpiorus]

I agree that it's better to put the sound files in a separate folder (presumably Game\Sounds).

I'm not sure why it is that way, but according to v2.71beta changes only music and speech would have their own folders. Sounds are to be located in the main GAME folder.