Sound Editor

Introduction

The Sound Editor is used to tell the Shoot ‘Em Up Kit about any sound effects or music you create. This could include whether it is a stereo or 3D sound, whether it should be looped (meaning it would be played continuously) and whether any subtitles should be displayed.

Individual sounds can be grouped to form a Sound Cue which, when played, selects a random sound from the group. This avoids repetition and phasing effects.

To open the Sound Editor click the icon on the Tool Bar.

Adding a Sound Item

First put the sound (as a .wav or .ogg file) into the My Documents/Shoot-Em-Up Kit Projects/audio folder if it is to use in all projects, or the My Documents/Shoot-Em-Up Kit Projects/projects/[PROJECT NAME]/audio folder if it is for a single project only. Next select the Sound Item icon in the Sound Editor menu. This gives a list of existing Sound Items with the option to Play, Copy or Delete each one, or to Create New.

Clicking Create New or clicking on an existing Sound Item will open up the Properties window:

Properties

Name	Name for the sound.
Filename	Name of the .wav or .ogg audio file. Click to open file selection dialog.
Sound Type	Whether the sound is a 2D or 3D sound
Min Falloff (3D only)	Sets how far away the sound must be before its volume is affected by distance, eg a jet engine would seem as loud 20m away as it would 0m away.
Max Falloff (3D only)	Sets how far away the sound must be for it to be no longer audible.
Pan (2D only)	Sets how far to the left or the right speaker the sound is played.
Loop	Specifies whether the audio should be looped or played once.
Stream	Specifies whether the audio should be read from the hard-disk as it is played. It is recommended that only the music files should be streamed. A file which is not streamed is read into memory and played from there.
Pitch Variance	Sets the maximum amount the pitch should be adjusted each time it is played. Varying the pitch slightly avoid phasing effects when two identical sounds are played almost simultaneously, and adds a subtle change to avoid repetition if the same sound is played frequently. Pitch variance should be set to 0 for music to avoid the music being played at slightly different pitches each time.

Clicking the OK button will add the Sound Item to the list. Clicking the Cancel button will return to the list without making any changes.

Creating a Sound Cue

Sound Cues contain one or more Sound Items which will be played when the Sound Cue is triggered in-game. Sound Cues could include Gun Fire, Explosion or Background Music. If a Sound Cue contains more than one Sound Item then one will be chosen whenever the Sound Cue is Triggered, based on its weighting and when the sound was last played. This way some Sounds Items with a low weighting will only be played rarely, and sounds can be set so they will not be repeated for a specified duration. These options give a lot of control over how the sound effects are played.

Select the Sound Cue icon in the Sound Editor menu . This gives a list of existing Sound Cues with the option to Play, Copy or Delete each one, or to Create New.

Clicking Create New or clicking on an existing Sound Cue will open up the Properties window:

Properties

Name	Name for the sound.
Sound Item	Select which Sound Item is to be used.
Usage Weighting	Sets a weighting to influence how frequently a sound is chosen. Sound Items with a higher weighting are chosen more frequently than those with a lower weighting.
Min Repeat Time	Sets how many seconds must pass before the sound can be played again.

The last Sound Item in the list is blank ('None'). To add a new Sound Item, set this to the required sound. To remove a Sound Item from the list, set it to None.

Clicking the OK button will add the Sound Cue to the list. Clicking the Cancel button will return to the list without making any changes.