97 lines
3.6 KiB
HTML
97 lines
3.6 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
|
|
|
|
<html><head>
|
|
<title>More about sounds and music</title>
|
|
<link href="style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
|
|
</head>
|
|
<body background="images/back.gif">
|
|
<!--START-->
|
|
|
|
|
|
<h1>More about sounds and music</h1>
|
|
|
|
In advanced mode you have a lot more control over the sounds and
|
|
pieces of music you add to your game. When you add a sound resource the
|
|
following form will show:
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<img src="images/form_sound_advanced.jpg">
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
Besides the buttons to load, save, and play sounds there are a lot
|
|
of settings now that will be discussed here.
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
First of all you can indicate the kind of sound. Four kinds are possible.
|
|
Normal sounds are in general used for sound effects in wave files (although
|
|
they can be used for midi files as well). Multiple normal sounds can play
|
|
at the same time. You can even play multiple copies of the same sound
|
|
simultaneously. Background music is similar to normal sounds but only
|
|
one can play at any moment. So once you start a new background sound, the
|
|
currently playing one will be stopped. Midi files are default background
|
|
music. 3D sound is sound for which you can apply 3D settings through
|
|
special functions. You will only need these for advanced sound effects.
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
Sound files are normally played through DirectX. This gives many possibilities
|
|
but is limited to wave and midi files. If you want to play other files, like
|
|
mp3 files, you should select the option to use the media player. This is much
|
|
more limited though. No volume changes or effects can be used and only one piece
|
|
can play at once.
|
|
Note that midi files, when played through the media player may sound different
|
|
from playing them as background or normal sounds. The reason is that the media
|
|
player uses the hardware synthesizer (which is different on each machine) while
|
|
otherwise a software version is used (which sounds the same on all machines).
|
|
Preferably don't use mp3 files in you games.
|
|
They need to be decompressed which takes
|
|
processing time and might slow down the game. The fact that the file size is
|
|
smaller does not mean that they use less memory. Also, not all machines
|
|
support them. So your game might not run on all machines.
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
Secondly, you can indicate some sound effects, like chorus or echo (only in the Pro Edition
|
|
of <i>Game Maker</i>!) You can select any combination. You can immediately
|
|
listen to the results. (When using GML code you can even change the parameters
|
|
of these effects.)
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
Also you can indicate the default volume of the sound and whether to
|
|
pan it to the left or the right speaker.
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
For all sounds you can indicate whether they should be preloaded or not.
|
|
When a sound is played it must be loaded into audio memory. If you preload
|
|
the sound this is done at the start of the game, making it immediately
|
|
available for playback. When not, it is loaded the first time it is used.
|
|
This will save memory but might give a small delay the first time the sound
|
|
is used.
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<i>Game Maker</i> does not have a built-in sound editor. But in the
|
|
preferences you can indicate external editors that you want to use for
|
|
editing sounds. If you selected these you can press the button labeled
|
|
<b>Edit Sound</b> to edit the current sound. (The <i>Game Maker</i> window will
|
|
be hidden while you edit the sound and returns when you close the sound
|
|
editor.)
|
|
|
|
<!--END-->
|
|
</body>
|
|
</html>
|
|
|
|
<!-- KEYWORDS
|
|
|
|
background music
|
|
sound kind
|
|
3D sound
|
|
sound 3D
|
|
mp3 files
|
|
sound effects
|
|
chorus
|
|
echo
|
|
volume
|
|
panning sound
|
|
preloading sounds
|
|
sound editor
|
|
editing sounds
|
|
--> |