Wasn't there something about Quake always looking for the soundtrack in the first drive? 

Discussion threads are for broad topics or questions that are likely to have many replies, where there is no simple answer and many people are likely to have different opinions.

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That aside, yes, you could do that. Or you could use an engine that supports loading Vorbis or MP3 files. Or add that functionality to an engine. 

or actually call the wav files from within the mod/map via sound/ambientsound entities - Quoth should have these... which doesn't help you if you need code, but Scourge of Armagon and Extras also have these entities I think.

The latter has the advantage of being able to trigger the sounds when needed instead of just playing a CD track. You can load pretty big wav files like this, although they must be mono (not that that matters much seeing as the game produces a lot of noise all the time anyway, not really audiophile listening conditions).

So there are different ways to have music in a Quake mod. In theory. I practice, I guess most ppl are going to want mp3 tracks or something. 

I miss Doom midis and the sense of silliness they bring :p 

try doom editing? it's a lot of fun and the new editors are really awesome now. not at all like the dark ages with dck and such. 

I thought about making something for Doom, but I've played it too much by now and I think that ultimately Quake's gameplay is better. More balanced guns and faster enemies... and as clever as Doom levels get Quake can do more :D 

Doom's gameplay is both faster and more balanced. Considering how sophisticated Doom levels got, Quake has still some catching up to do. 

As for playing soundtrack wavs as map ambience, this has disadvantages too. Mike Woodham's latest map used it somewhat effectively but also in a fairly hacky way. 

Main issue with Doom's gameplay imo is enemies are slower, the player is insanely fast, and the super shotgun is too good, to the point that it's in your hands for 99% of the time. Also in Quake there are fewer insanely damaging attacks. Fail to spot an ogre in quake and you are badly hurt. Fail to spot a commando in Doom and you are toast.

But anyway, this argument could go on for a while... and it's not like I don't like Doom anyway :p 

yeah, that's my one real beef with doom. there's way too much rng for a shooter. 

@Spirit: I was aware of that, that's why I started a new thread. And it indeed isn't just a simple question, some are suggesting (vaguely) to try using ports, or use custom QuakeC ambient-sound entities, or MP3s... But perhaps you're right, this got derailed in the end and people ended up suggesting me try Doom :|

@gb: Ambient sounds with ATTN_NONE you mean? Interesting. I should try it, but as far as I remember, even ATTN_NONE sounds in Quake are panned to the side of the speaker when the source is that direction too. Does this really happen to ambient-music, particularly in multiplayer where there are several listeners?

@necros and everyone below: I'm not interested in Doom editing right now, why else do you think I came here and didn't post at Doomworld? I also want to take advantage of Quake's true-3d engine that Doom 2 lacks, and Quake should be the easiest and mod-friendliest such game. 

No. It really is a simple question. Go look at some of the stuff in the Mapping Help thread here;

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In future please use Mapping Help or possible Coding Thread (under discussion threads). 

Ofter is of course often.


Although it does make me think of some kind of extra furry otter.



Hey... new monster idea... ;p 

I'm not interested in Doom editing right now, why else do you think I came here and didn't post at Doomworld? I also want to take advantage of Quake's true-3d engine that Doom 2 lacks, and Quake should be the easiest and mod-friendliest such game.

that's fine... there's no need to get angry. we're just talking here.

but as far as I remember, even ATTN_NONE sounds in Quake are panned to the side of the speaker when the source is that direction too.

i actually don't know why no one does this, but if you play sounds on the player, they are always played full volume through both speakers.
in fact, you can do this without having to change anything about the player because there are 3 sound channels that are never used in quake! in fact, they aren't even reference in the defs.qc file.
CHAN_AUTO = 0
CHAN_WEAPON = 1
CHAN_VOICE = 2
CHAN_ITEM = 3
CHAN_BODY = 4
but there's also channels 5, 6, 7.
what i'd do is just create a new constant CHAN_MUSIC as one of those unused channels.
if you play your sound on that channel, it'll never be interrupted and will always be played full volume through both speakers.

of course, this will break in coop because either you limit it to only playing music from player 1, and it sounds weird to all the other players, or you have all players playing it which just means you hear doubled up sounds.

otoh, i suppose you could changed the attenuation really high (like 5 or 6). high enough that other players wouldn't hear it but the source would... hmmmmmmm 

failed at tagging on my own messageboard :( 

I recall someone on inside3d spawning two entities to play music, at '-4096 -4096 -4096' and '4096 4096 4096' respectively. This apparently ensured there were no stereo issues (when you use ATTN_NONE so it's always constant volume. This post was not tested before submission! 

i've already done it and it works fine.

also, in SND_Spatialize() (snd_dma.c)
// anything coming from the view entity will allways be full volume
if (ch->entnum == cl.viewentity)
{
ch->leftvol = ch->master_vol;
ch->rightvol = ch->master_vol;
return;
} 

nice find... that sounds like the perfect solution then. 

stereo track split into two mono wavs? could it be done without using two ents following the player around on the correct sides? 

since quake can't do moving sounds. (i wish custom engines would do this! (and also doppler)) 

Think up a great reason for medieval hell beasts to have stereo sets. Then it's all technically environmental!

Also why does this remind me of Kingpin :p 

I did this by having music players at the max extents of each of the corners and cardinal points of a map - it still occasionally faded out though.

Playing it on the player could work, but yeah, I think it'd just remain at the info_player_start... 

In Hammer/HalfLife you put 4 ambient entities at cardinal points and you're done..

..but in Quake still you have small fades/stutter so a perfect solution does not exist

I've created my own ambient_special entity with attn_none and I'll stay with that..