Tutorial: Custom Sounds

There've been some requests for a tutorial on how to use sounds in halflife..
I'll just point out how to create custom sounds for there are enough tutorials on how to use and configure the ambient_genric entity to set up sounds.

Let's start:
1.Step)
First Step would actually be to figure out what you need the sound for. There're 2 types of sound - the simple and the looped sound.

2.Step)
Getting a free sound-editor. Im gonna use a free version of the goldwave editor. You can download the demo/older versions here:
http://www.goldwave.com/release.php

3.Step)
What we're actually gonna do is nothing but converting the file you chose (this might just be any format) to a half-life compatible sound!
As you found the file u want to use, load it into your Goldwave Soundeditor.

3.1)-->Making a sound Half-Life ready-->

First we must decide what quality-standard our sound is about to get!
There're 2 absolutly strict formats that describe a Half-Life compatible sound file:

LOW quality (smaller) -> 11 kHz - 8 Bit - Mono ( 11KHz = 11025Hz )
HIGH quality (bigger) -> 22 kHz - 16 Bit - Mono2 (22KHz = 22050Hz )


So let's say we want to safe out a high-quality Sound.
As you opened up the file, go on Effect->Resample, what will bring us up this dialouge:

Image

As the picture shows, we're going to set 22050Hz (22KHz).


4.Step) Looped or Not.
4.1)-->Safing out a Not-Looped sound:-->

Now, as we set up the Frequenzy by resampling our file, just go ahead and open the "safe as.." dialoge.

Image
[this picture descirbes the settings you want to use to create full-functional sound for Half-life]

For this tutorial describes creating a High-Quality Sound-File, we're going to choose the lower one:
16 bit, mono, signed. Watch out to use the PCM WAV format!
It's a bit trick for there are more than just the PCM WAV format around - so watch out.

--- you'd prefer low quality to ensure a smaller size?
Now, as you might prefer safing out a LOW-quality Sound-File, Repeat the step 3.1, but resampling to 11KHz.
Then safe the file like in step 4.1, but use the following settings:
PCM
8 bit, mono, unsigned.
---

*Sigh* That's it, you just created your own Half-Life compatible sound :-)


4.2)-->Safing out a Looped sound:-->

Now things get a bit more complicated. Before safing out the file we need to set a marker that shows Half-Life where the sound starts, and restarts.
That sounds stupid for us, the human beings, for it's really obviously when a Sound starts and when it ends! But Half-Life is far away from understanding that on its own,
thats the reason for setting up what's called "cue points".

Go to: "Tools->Cue Points"
Here, "Start Marker" should be checked:
Image

Now Click on 'Add' to create a new Cue Point. Name this one "Begin".
Image

That's It!

Now you can easily go on like in step 4.1) safing your file with appropriate settings.

Annotations about the Ambient_Generic!
Half-Life doesnt pay any attentions to the flags you set on the ambient_generic ([x] looped).
If you set a cuepoint your sound will automatically be played in a neverending loop.. if there aint no cuepoints, your sound will never be looped.

Thx to acidburn improving lil' about the tutorial :)


[ Edited ]

GJ, nice tutorial!

n1, thanks

Nice tutorial. ;)

And you only need to add one cue point. That is going to be the one where half-life jumps back when the playing of the WAV finishes.
I would also mention that you don't have to set any flags for the ambient_generic entity. They are simply ignored.