dbeachy1
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Hi all,
It's Tuesday! (Well, at least it still is on the USA's east coast, albeit barely.) XR Sound and the newly updated XR vessels have been released! Special thanks to all the Orbiter-Forum members who helped to beta-test XR Sound and the new XR vessels.
XR Vessel Release Highlights
- XR vessels now use XRSound, and therefore no longer need to bundle their sound files with each vessel anymore: all sounds are included with the XRSound download.
- Removed UMMu support since UMMu crashes in Orbiter 2016. Mmu support will be restored when the new designed-for-Orbiter-2016 oMMU ships. oMMU will be in alpha testing with the XR vessels in the coming weeks.
- Resolved braking performance issues in Orbiter 2016.
XRSound Summary
In addition to providing a C++ API for vessels to use, XRSound also provides over 450 available, fully configurable, default sounds and voice callouts for all Orbiter vessels and add-on authors to use via the XRSound.dll Orbiter module. In addition to the global XRSound.cfg file that configures default sounds for all vessels, you can also edit or create Orbiter vessel-class-specific config files, such as the included XRSound-DeltaGlider.cfg, etc., that assigns default sounds to vessel-specific animations and landing gear without requiring recompiling the vessel or doing any coding.
Here is a demo video of XRSound with Orbiter 2016's default "Welcome to Orbiter 2016" scenario (this is using XRSound with its default settings -- no customization):
Special thanks to Loru for creating the XRSound logo and a brand-new ambient music track that by default plays in external views in space (details below). :tiphat:
XRSound Features
- Automatically adds default sounds for any Orbiter vessel that defines thrusters -- not just XR vessels! You can also manually assign sounds to any vessel class via its XRSound-<vessel class>.cfg file; e.g., XRSound-DeltaGlider.cfg.
- Each sound or group of sounds is fully configurable via XRSound.cfg and optional Orbiter vessel class-specific config files, or via the XRSound SDK (included).
- Includes 450+ sound files, including all XR voice callouts by actress Sally Beaumont and 141 ATC callouts from STS-114 and STS-121 featuring CAPCOM Julie Payette. (These default ATC callouts are a combination of all three STS sound packs currently on my Web site.)
- Add-on authors are free to use any of the sounds in their own vessels (just please don't redistribute the files).
- Includes new Solar Serenity ambient music track created by and licensed from Grzegorz Lorens ("Loru" here on Orbiter-Forum) that plays in external views in space by default. This is configurable like any other sound. (For a lossless version of Loru's Solar Serenity, take a look here.)
- All default sounds are fully configurable, including:
- Air conditioning
- Audio greeting voice callout on simulation start
- Fully configurable music support that can play files from a folder
- Wind effects while landed in an atmosphere
- Main engine sound
- Hover engine sound
- Retro engine sound
- RCS sounds
- Switch on / Switch off clicks for RCS and AF Ctrl changes
- RCS mode change voice callouts ("Rotation", "Translation", "Off")
- AF Ctrl mode voice callouts ("Off", "Pitch", "On")
- Crash sound
- Hard landing sound
- Tire chirp on touchdown for vessels that define landing gear animation ID via their XRSound-<class name>.cfg file. [You can set `LogVesselAnimations = 1` in XRSound.cfg to log the animation IDs for all vessels as you activate each animation.]
- Tires rolling sound; volume varies by ship velocity
- One additional custom engine sound per vessel (e.g., the SCRAM engines in the stock DeltaGlider-S). Configurable via a given vessel class's XRSound-<vessel class>.cfg file.
- Wheel brakes sound
- Takeoff and landing voice callouts ("100 knots", "Wheels up" / "Liftoff", "You are cleared to land", "Warning: gear is up", "Touchdown", "Wheel stop", etc.)
- Wind sound and plasma sound in flight; volume varies by dynamic pressure
- Autopilot on / off sound tones
- Ambient sounds configurable by pointing to a folder in XRSound.cfg; twelve ambient sounds are included by default, but there is no limit to the number of ambient sounds supported. Minimum and maximum playback interval is configurable.
- Altitude voice callouts
- Docking distance voice callouts
- Docking and undocking voice callouts and sounds
- Docking radar sounds whose beep interval varies by the distance to the docking port
- Mach voice callouts ("Mach 1", "Mach 2", "Mach 27 Plus", "Subsonic", etc.)
- ATC sounds played at random at configurable intervals from a specific folder. Like all other sounds and groups, the folder can be changed at runtime via an SDK call, and may be configured via XRSound.cfg or XRSound-<vessel class>.cfg otherwise.
- Users can add sound events to any existing Orbiter vessel's animations simply by editing that vessel's class's XRSound-<classname>.cfg file. Includes .cfg files for each of the default Orbiter vessels.
- Includes C++ SDK for add-on authors to use in their own vessels (the new XR vessel versions use it).
- Users can replace or disable any or all of the default sounds via the XRSound SDK or XRSound.cfg.
- XRSound.lib is statically linked; no need to bundle Visual Studio redistribution files with an add-on in order to use XRSound, and add-ons that link with XRSound.lib can still run without XRSound.dll installed.
- No limit to the number of sound slots that vessels may use.
- No limit to the number of vessels in the simulation.
- No limit to the number of ATC radio chatter files for a given "frequency" (i.e., folder): you just configure the ATC folder in your XRSound.cfg, and any sound files in that folder are played at random for ATC chatter.
- Parameters for minimum and maximum times between ATC chatter playback are configurable via XRSound.cfg.
- Uses irrKlang Pro sound engine internally, which supports the following sound file formats:
- RIFF WAVE (*.wav)
- Ogg Vorbis (*.ogg)
- MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (*.mp3) [via ikpMP3.dll plugin, included]
- Free Lossless Audio Codec (*.flac) [via ikpFlac.dll plugin, included]
- Amiga Modules (*.mod)
- Impulse Tracker (*.it)
- Scream Tracker 3 (*.s3d)
- Fast Tracker 2 (*.xm)
- Additional sound formats may be supported by dropping irrKlang plugin DLLs into $ORBITER_ROOT.
- Refer to the comments in $ORBITER_ROOT\XRSound\XRSound*.cfg files for full details about configuring XRSound.
- Refer to the comments in XRSound.h (used with static library XRSound.lib or XRSoundD.lib) in $ORBITER_ROOT\Orbitersdk\XRSound for more information about the XRSound API.
Here's a simple XRSound SDK example:
Code:
#include "XRSound.h"
// could use #define for IDs instead since sound IDs are just signed integers, but an enum is cleaner
enum MySounds
{
SystemReset // value 0
};
class MyVessel : public VESSEL4
{
...
XRSound *m_pXRSound;
bool bResettingTheSystem;
};
void MyVessel::clbkPostCreation()
{
m_pXRSound = XRSound::CreateInstance(this); // create sound engine instance for this vessel
// load a custom sound for this vessel
m_pXRSound->LoadWav(SystemReset, "XRSound\Default\System Reset.wav", XRSound::Radio); // returns false if file not found
// disable the default "100 knots" voice callout
m_pXRSound->SetDefaultSoundEnabled(XRSound::OneHundredKnots, false);
// replace the default docking voice callout with a custom one that resides in $ORBITER_ROOT\MySoundsFolder
m_pXRSound->LoadWav(XRSound::DockingCallout, "MySoundsFolder\My custom docking callout.mp3", XRSound::Radio);
}
void MyVessel:::clbkPreStep(double simt, double simdt, double mjd)
{
if (m_bResettingTheSystem)
{
// play our custom sound: don't loop it, and use max volume
m_pXRSound->PlayWav(SystemReset, false, 1.0); // returns false if play fails
m_bResettingTheSystem = false; // so we don't keep looping it (although calling PlayWav if a sound is [I]already[/I] playing can only change its volume or loop settings: it will not stop and restart it.
}
}
MyVessel::~MyVessel()
{
// as with any other allocated member variables, always remember to clean up the XRSound engine instance in your destructor! :)
delete m_pXRSound;
}
Code:
if (m_pXRSound->LoadWav(SystemReset, "My new message.ogg", XRSound::Radio)) // does sound file exist?
m_pXRSound->PlayWav(SystemReset); // play the sound using defaults of loop = false and max volumeOne important thing to note regarding performance is that LoadWav is lightweight and does not actually load the sound data into memory: it simply 1) verifies that the file exists and is readable, and 2) saves the file path and playback type in the master sound map in memory for this vessel. Sound data is only loaded when it is played, and it automatically released when no longer needed: this is all managed by the underlying irrKlang Pro sound engine.
Refer to $ORBITER_ROOT\Orbitersdk\XRSound\XRSound.h for more information about the SDK.
Also, if you have some old vessels that require OrbiterSound to play their custom sound effects, Face is developing an OrbiterSound-to-XRSound bridge DLL that transparently forwards OrbiterSound calls to XRSound so they can be played -- it is currently in beta testing.
As always, you can download XRSound and the latest XR vessels on my Web site, and you may browse the XRSound User Manual as well.
Happy Orbiting! :tiphat:
P.S. if you are an XRSound beta tester, nothing has changed in these builds since the latest beta versions, so you do not need to re-download them. However, if you want to download the latest XR Sound User Manual, binaries, and XRSound.h, you can get it here. That download includes everything except the sounds themselves.
@Woo482 and @Xyon: I pushed the official 1.00 XRSound source up to my server so you can both download it to back it up. Link and password are unchanged from the betas.
P.P.S. As part of something we set up during the XRSound beta tests, Woo482 and Xyon will always keep copies of the latest version of the XRSound source code and project files in case I am hit by a PSB (Programmer-Seeking Bus), in which case they would release the source code to the community as open-source so that XRSound could (i.e., will) continue to be maintained in perpetuity for new Orbiter versions. But for now, I'm being extra careful when crossing the street... :ninja:
