Zugg Software :: View topic

Novice Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 37

Is using MSP supposed to work in CMud yet? Because when I went to set up MSP sounds, it (a) wanted me to load in WAV files one at a time (i.e., wouldn't let me tell it the directory/subdirectories of sounds to pull from), and (b) it wouldn't add the WAV files I selected anyway.

Newbie Joined: 03 Nov 2006 Posts: 6

I found that wav files that some wav files would not work where others did. A file that has an audio format "microsoft ADPCM". The audio format can be seen from summary of the files properties in windows XP. Do not sound when called by the Play command. (the file I have of this format has been drawn from the windows sounds.
Other wav files that I use have an audio format of PCM work as expected.

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 5:38 pm

Not what you mean by "when I went to set up MSP sounds". MSP in CMUD works the same as in zMUD. You need to put the sounds into a "sounds" subdirectory of your character folder, or within the character folder itself. That's where it looks for the sounds. You shouldn't need to "set them up".

The difference between zMUD and CMUD is that CMUD uses DirectX (DirectSound and DirectShow) and will play any sound that you have the proper driver/codec for on your system. For example, CMUD allows MP3 files in MSP and can play multiple MP3s simultaneously. zMUD could only handle a limited uncompressed 8-bit wav format.

Novice Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 37

I don't want to put "sounds" into every single character subfolder. ZMud let me set, in the *general* preferences, a single folder to use for sounds, which is what I do. I have 10+ characters on the main mud I play, and it is much simpler to have an overall sounds directory to use, than to have to create multitudes of shortcuts.

Wizard Joined: 25 Mar 2003 Posts: 1113 Location: USA

Um, why would you just have a C:\CMUD\Game\Sounds directory and put all your Package/Session/etc files in the C:\CMUD\Game directory? That's the general idea, as far as I can tell.

Newbie Joined: 03 Nov 2006 Posts: 6

Novice Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 37

You are confused, and don't understand what I'm talking about. This has nothing to do with using #play. It has to do with setting up MSP triggers to work with Muds that support MSP.

--Kernighan

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 11:04 pm

I think a couple people in the thread are confusing MSP setups with the regular #PLAY command. MSP is driven by the MUD, and that's why the files have to be in the specific directory. #PLAY is driven by the zMUD/cMUD user, so they can put the sound files anywhere they want.

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

I think what kernighan is asking for is one more level of searching for sounds. While this could, and perhaps should, be done through proper use of packages to divide tasks correctly between different characters all working in the same directory. I believe it is quite a bit simpler to understand that a sound requested by MSP will first be checked for in the Character Defined Directory\Sounds folder, then subsequent parents until the CMUD application folder itself. The pattern being: Character Defined Directory\Sounds, Character Defined Directory,Character Defined Directory\..\Sounds,Character Defined Directory\.., etc. In this case if the character files were split off into My Documents then that folder would become the limit before checking CMud application directory\Sounds and CMud application directory.

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

Novice Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 37

Sure I can do that, although I'll note the very first sentence of my original post says:
"Is using MSP supposed to work in CMud yet?"

If that isn't a pretty strong hint this is about MSP sounds, what is? ;)

--Kernighan

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

Obviously not strong enough for SkicoreSK. Anyway, it's much more helpful to people browsing the forum or going through forum search results.

Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2006 6:34 am

You don't have to have a different folder for each character. If each character is on the same MUD, then each *.PKG session file is within the same directory (named for the MUD), and the SINGLE /sounds subdirectory of that folder is where it gets the sounds. This is needed to avoid MSP sounds on different MUDs from overwriting each other.

In other words, you should have the following file structure:

CMUD Directory
MUDName folder
Character1.PKG session settings for character 1 on MUDName
Character2.PKG session settings for character 2 on MUDName
Sounds folder
*.WAV files for MUDName MSP

This is the directory structure that both zMUD and CMUD expect. Each character on the same MUD has it's own session preferences in the *.PKG file, but they are all within the same subdirectory named for the MUD itself.

Also, I assume you have already gone to the Sounds preferences and set the Sound Directory there? If it's not searching that directory for sounds too, then that's a bug.

And people, let's stay polite here. The reason people use the #PLAY command as an example is that the #PLAY command uses the same code as MSP to play sounds. The #PLAY command is like the user interface to access MSP. So if a sound doesn't work with #PLAY, then it won't work with MSP.

And #PLAY *does* support the Sound directory in the preferences. If I set the sound directory to C:/WINDOWS/Media and then say "#PLAY ding.wav" then it works fine, and so MSP should be doing this too.

Newbie Joined: 03 Nov 2006 Posts: 6

Rather than making a new thread I will comment again on this one.
Sound triggers do not function when Cmud is not window on top for some reason.
I use sound triggers to draw my attention back to the mud I play for example if someone wakes me up when I am sleeping. I get bored easy and go off and look at something like these forums. Currently this does not work Sad

Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2006 5:55 pm

I think this is the normal way DirectX works. Usually only the active application can use sounds. But I know some games get around this somehow and I'll try to figure out how to do it for a future version.

Novice Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 37

Zugg, thanks for the explanation. I'll play more with getting MSP sounds to work. I still think the area under MSP Sounds in the default config area isn't working right, but I'll work to give you a reproducable set of steps if I can confirm that.

+1 on the getting the direct X Sound when not the foreground app fixed, I too tend to depend on hearing sound when ZMud is not in front. Just when I was getting excited about maybe writing a CMud MP3 player so I could stop using the odd Winamp COM interface. ;)

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

Yeah, I use play a sound when an enemy enters the room in case I'm afk or in another window. Although I'm not sure the "Uh-oh" sound I use really helps me fight!

Wizard Joined: 15 Jan 2002 Posts: 1644 Location: USA

Zugg I thought I would post this tidbit here when you are ready to change the settings for sound when cmud loses focus. If this stuff is useless then just ignore this post :p

From http://www.codeproject.com/cs/media/AmbientSounds.asp
GlobalFocus MSDN

// Holds a DirectSound SecondaryBuffer.
private Microsoft.DirectX.DirectSound.Buffer m_SoundBuffer;

// Describe the capabilities of this buffer.
BufferDescription bufferDescription = new BufferDescription();
bufferDescription.ControlVolume = true; // Let's us control the volume.
bufferDescription.ControlPan = true; // Let's us control the panning.
bufferDescription.ControlFrequency = true; // Let's us control the frequency.

// Tells the primary buffer to continue
// play this buffer, even if the app loses focus.
bufferDescription.GlobalFocus = true;

// Pass in the path to the wav file, the buffer description,
// and the Device we created above.
m_SoundBuffer = new SecondaryBuffer(m_FilePath,
bufferDescription, m_ApplicationManager.SoundDevice);

Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 10:44 pm

Cool, thanks for the info. This was trivial to fix, so I have it fixed for 1.22 thanks to you!

Newbie Joined: 24 Dec 2009 Posts: 1

I'm using Cmud in a windows vista ultimate OS and playing Midkemia Online. What I wanted to do was set up a trigger that changes the color of the pattern AND plays a sound but I can't get it to work. The trigger is set up in the following way.

#TRIGGER {You pray for the divine protection} {#play DIARMOR1.wav} {#COLOR cyan}

After reading some of the above posts I don't see any character folder inside the package for Midkemia and I simply have all my sounds in the CMUD root directory. The trigger fires off and changes the pattern to cyan but no sound. What am I doing wrong?

Enchanter Joined: 11 Feb 2003 Posts: 511 Location: USA

Did you try that as {#play DIARMOR1.wav;#COLOR cyan}?