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FSX Sound files in Mission building

Hi Jim

Thanks for that. I ran a search of XP for the ding.wav file and I couldn't find it. Instead I used one of the stock files from FSX.

This worked fine as a test in the Mission Creation Tutorial but not in the SAR1 mission. I used the same sound file for testing both missions which was Pcrash1.wav which I think is the sound for a pallet being dropped.

I also encountered a strange issue where in the Tutorial mission I got one sound file of mine working and then every time a dialogue action fired it played the same sound file (Mission1.wav) regardless of the filename that was given in the dialogue action.

Do you think that there could be a problem with the install of my FSX or SDK? I have a problem that I have considered to be unrelated which is that I have no gauges in the EH-101, which I am using for the mission, and which I have simply been ignoring. Do you think the two could be linked in some way? I can't see how, but there are two strange occurrences together.

Thanks again.
 
Hi again,

I look at troubleshooting a problem in two ways; look at all the details and try to find a common element or investigate a single factor. In this case it seems better to narrow the focus.
Keep in mind that FSX and the SDK are separate programs.
I'd begin by trying to locate ding.wav. It should be in the Windows\Media folder. If it's not there it would indicate a problem with XP. Maybe your other problems are simply indicators of the root problem. I don't think this is likely but who knows?
Pcrash1.wav is just a general crash sound. It's used in FS9 as well.
I'd stick with the tutorial mission and find out why the same sound file is played inappropriately. Identifying the cause seems to be the easiest place to start. Installing your tutorial mission on another computer and then seeing the results would be helpful in identifying where to look first. If you think it would help you can zip it up and send it to me and perhaps I can spot something.
I don't see how the gauge problem could be related in any way other than some general file loss problems but let's not go there just yet.
Keep me up to date on what you find.

Jim F.
 
Hi

I decided to completely uninstall & re-install FSX and defrag and Tuneup as I went.

I fired up the mission and now Pcrash.wav works but not the Mission1.wav that I recorded. I tried changing the format with Sound Recorder and still no joy.

I have attached my mission with sounds (as recorded straight from Audacity) I would be interested to know if it works on your system.

There have been a couple of things that have happened that make me wonder about what's going on in the background, such as I changed the Incomplete.bmp for the mission and it displayed the new image for a while then randomly went back to the original despite the fact the original was over-written. It makes me wonder if the mission is backing all this up somewhere and taking it from there rather than from my mission folder / Sounds folder. It's all a bit odd. I have no other sound problems but the one I am trying to add - all the dialogues work fine in the pre-made missions.

Thanks, and Merry Christmas!
 

Attachments

Hi,

Just a quick update.
I downloaded the mission and didn't know where to install it so I checked the category GUID and saw it was Just for Fun. I copied it there. If copied elsewhere the mission title would only display on the all mission list.
I opened the complete BMP using DXTBMP and saw what appeared to be a false color image of a low flying jet (Mig?).
Pcrash wasn't referenced in the mission and Mission1 did not play. I put ding.wav in the Sound folder and pointed all Dialog actions to it and it plays fine.
I didn't notice anything non-repetitive. I'm not familiar with "Tuneup" but it makes me wonder if it hasn't introduced some instability into your system. Just going by the name it sounds as though it could.
I've recently been flying missions without using the mission compass or POIs. I didn't realize that by disabling them in one mission that carried over to the next mission. I spent more time than I care to admit trying to find out why they didn't display in your mission.
I completed the mission and got the success message and had temporarily added the complete image from another mission and it displayed. When I reinstalled the original bmp the incomplete bmp again displayed. I didn't expect that.
I tried converting Mission1 to different formats using Window's default "Sound Recorder" but can't get it to play in the mission.
I added delays to the dialog actions to get them to display longer but haven't been able to get the on-screen message to display longer. Still investigating.
I'll let you know what else I find.

Jim F.
 
Wow! It sounds like you've done a lot of work on this.

I tried to put a delay on the text message initially and it didn't work for me either - I just assumed that wasn't what the delay was for and changed it back. I didn't reference to the Crash.wav as I got that to work in my mission so I changed the reference back to Mission.wav ready for you to test.

It's interesting / worrying that you can't get the sound to play either. I pressed the play button on the file in Mission Editor and it played the file fine there just not in the actual mission. I'm just wondering now if there is something embedded in the sound file itself that is telling it not to play in the misson - something introduced in Audacity for example. It's an odd one.

Thank you very much for all the work you've put in on this, I appreciate it.

Dan.
 
Hi again,

Still don't know why your WAV files won't play in FSX but found a possible work-around.
I used the Windows XP "Sound Recorder" to record a WAV file. The not enough memory error can be ignored. Leaving silence at the end of the recording causes the text to remain on the screen longer. Prior to saving under "File\Properties" the Playback can be converted to various formats resulting in very small files.
The "Delay seconds" seems to come into play when there are several DialogActions referenced by the same trigger.
And this isn't work. I'll look at the problem, go on to something else and then an idea will occur to me and I'll check it out. It falls into the fun category. I was just hoping that something about the problem with the original WAV files would pop up but I've given it a day and it doesn't seem likely that that will happen.
Thanks for the fun!
Jim F.
 
Glad it's not too much of a chore as this was giving me a headache.

I have re-recorded the files using Audacity but on a completely different computer. The only thing I'm wondering, and it's again unlikely, but I'm using a USB Mic that seems to prevent playback when It's plugged in. I can't think how this could carry through to the file but nothing else about it seems logical either.

I'll post one of the re-recorded files when I'm near a PC. It might be worth a go.

Did you get the mission sound working using Sound Recorder? Have you tried recording any sound using Audacity which is what I am using? I am using the beta, maybe that is something to do with it.

Cheers!

Dan
 
Hi again,

Worked fine. Still no idea as to the problem with the original. I had a WAV file that was 15 seconds of silence and replaced it with the new file.
I still don't have any idea as to the cause of the original problem.
There's some stuff that I posted previously in this thread about using Audacity and the resulting file size. Using Sound Recorder I can create much smaller files than I can with Audacity and haven't been able to figure out why.
I saw your post about not using a POI and really like that. I think the idea of using smoke to identify the location is really good. I've found that using smoke can really effect the frame rate. It works fine when there isn't too much other scenery to display.

Jim F.
 
Thanks Jim.

I'll try that new file on the mission on my PC when I'm back home on Thursday. Hopefully that will be the happy conclusion to the saga :-)

I really appreciate the work you've done on this / fun you've had with this :-) If I can put this to bed then I can crack on with optimizing the effects and polishing the mission. I'll stick it on here for all once it's done.

Fingers crossed ...
 
Hi
I tried the sound files last night and they work perfectly straight out of Audacity. I uninstalled the Audacity beta and installed the last full version. I recorded another file and that worked perfectly as well. The learning point here I think is that the beta doesn't like XP or FSX or the two together.

I couldn't get the smoke effect working - it just wiped out an area of autogen scenery - but I'm not going to worry about that now, I'm just going to polish off the mission briefing and release it into the wild :-)

Thanks for all your help!

Dan.
 
Hi once more,

Sounds like your pretty much at the "enough is enough" point but perhaps for future reference. This could eliminate the first POI, the smoke can be seen at a reasonable distance.
622SUVFire.jpg


Here's how:
Begin by starting the OPT and pointing the crosshairs at the ground (location not important) then:
1) Add -> Scenery -> Gen_SceneryEffect -> Add
2) Add -> Action -> AttachEffectAction -> Add
EffectName = fx_ForestFireSmall.fx
AttachPointName = attachpt_GenericEffect
ObjectReference -> Gen_SceneryEffect
3) Select the Dialogue1 TimerTrigger and link it to the AttachEffectAction
4) Select the SUV and copy its WorldPosition (Ctrl+C)
5) Select the Gen_SceneryEffect and paste the WorldPosition (Ctrl+V)
6) Save

I think that's it.
Happy New Year, Jim F.
 
Hi,

I flew the mission again and this time the autogen trees which can be seen in the picture I posted weren't there. I don't know enough about this but I wonder if there's some progressive nature to the forest fire effect. This is mainly to acknowledge your comment about loss of autogen.

Jim F.
 
Thanks again Jim

I'll give that a go. I'm at the "Hooray! I finally finished it!" stage really. As far as fiddling is concerned, yep, it was starting to grate, but if it's as straightforward as it looks from your post then I'll give it a whirl and see if I can get it to work.

I'm not massively fussed about the Autogen stuff - I'll just place some objects there manually and get round it that way. I'll probably leave the POI there just as a means of avoiding frustration for any that are terminally lost (I try not to use them myself, but sometimes it's just got to be done), but I like the idea of giving the player a fighting chance of finding the areas by themselves.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Dan.
 
Hi

That worked. I think the problem was that I wasn't setting a trigger to activate it (I thought that as the GEN_SceneryEffect was active that it would just work from the moment the mission started. It doesn't.

For some reason this time it didn't affect my autogen scenery which is a bonus but I imagine this might be one of those unpredictable things.

Cheers, and happy New Year!

Dan.
 
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