Vehicle Config Issues

[spectrersg 9]

Disclaimer: this is my first vehicle I've been playing around with the config so excuse my noobiness.

I'm trying to use custom .wav's that I developed for a vehicle I'm in the process of making. I have two sounds made, a engine_low.wav and an engine_hi.wav.

In the vehicle config I'm trying to call up the sounds as follows:

		class EngineLowOut {
			sound[] = {"\vehicle\sounds\ext_engine_low.wav", 1, 1, 300};
			frequency = "1.0 min (rpm + 0.5)";
			volume = "engineOn*camPos*(rpm factor[0.85, 0])";
		};

		class EngineHighOut {
			sound[] = {"\vehicle\sounds\ext_engine_hi.wav", 1, 1, 300};
			frequency = "1.0 min (rpm + 0.5)";
			volume = "camPos*engineOn*(rpm factor[0.85, 0])";
		};

		class IdleOut {
   				sound[] = {"\vehicle\ext_engine_low.wav",1,1,150};
  				 frequency = "1";
  				 volume = "engineOn*(rpm factor[0.3, 0])";

Now my first question:

When the vehicle is idle and at low speeds the sound is correct. But the faster I go, the vehicle gets quieter and quieter till you can barely hear it. Is there something wrong with the config for the EngineHiOut? If so, how can I fix it so that it's substantially loud.

#2 - The vehicle, which is on water and under the Wheeled_APC class, goes from 0 - it's max terrainspeed of 50 in a matter of a second. How do I slow the acceleration down?

Below are possible factors messing with this, I think:

	terrainCoef = 10;
	terrainspeed = 50;
        waterSpeedFactor = 3.0;

#3 - How do I increase the rate at which the vehicle slows down? I currently have a brakeDistance = 200; but it doesnt seem to want to effect it too much.

Any in all help would be extremely helpful. Thanks for reading.

Edited October 18, 2010 by SpectreRSG

[CarlGustaffa 4]

1. Well, rpm factor[0.85, 0] seems off for EngineHighOut, considering the same ramp is used for EngineLowOut. Isn't copy & paste errors cute? :p

For the rest, sorry, I've never done vehicle sounds.

[spectrersg 9]

I had changed it, but with nothing as an end result that was any different. So I copied it from the engine low; still no noticeable difference.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Sorry, really not my field. I wasn't even aware that you could use .wav files, I always converted mine to wss. Maybe check out how others have done their configs. I checked out vopsc_wheeled, and see even him use rampup for some engine classes and rampdown for other engine classes, while rampup is being used for enginehigh on both. Really confusing. It's either a mistake or the engine in some cases reverses the ramp automatically, I don't know.

I expect you have tested that both sounds work with volume = "1"? And that you tried with a dummy sound for enginelow, so that only enginehigh would be heard?

[spectrersg 9]

Yes both work with volume 1. And I have been basing it off what I have seen in other PBOs. I'll edit this post when I try to dummy sound.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

How do you work? Do you exit the game each time you edit? Or do you rely on the new beta command mergeConfigFile? I've noticed using the new command that I have to reload mission twice before the change kicks in (at least for sound work). That could explain why you didn't hear a change when changing the ramp direction.

EngineHighOut really sounds like the volume should increase with rpm rather than decrease. Also, did you try for another type of vehicle, say an airplane or regular car? Lastly, it can help a lot using "off sounds", i.e. samples that say the numbers 1, 2, or airplane marker sounds, cats and dogs or birds or whatever :) etc rather than actual engine sounds (that may be hard to distinguish from one another).

[spectrersg 9]

No, every test of the vehicle I fully close Arma, edit, repack and install the pbo, and start up again.

It's almost as if the rpm factor is being reversed in the settings for the EngineHighOut:

volume = "camPos*engineOn*(rpm factor[0.85, 0])";

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Unless there is something weird the engine does for that particular class, I still say you are the one reversing the ramp by using factor[0.85,0] for both High and Low, instead of factor[0,0.85] for High (in theory should increase with rpm instead of decreasing with rpm, which you want for Low).

Also check that theory by applying it to a vanilla vehicle first, and using "0" for Low. Maybe something is whacked up in other parts of the vehicles config?

Oh, and I strongly suggest using mergeConfigFile for this. No more exiting game to do tweaks. It's a life saver for modders.

Read up on factor here.

Edited October 21, 2010 by CarlGustaffa

[spectrersg 9]

Ah ha, that was the problem with the enginehiout sound, thanks Carl.

Any idea on #3 and #2 in my original post?

[CarlGustaffa 4]

See, I told you in the first post that copy & paste errors are cute ;) Then I got confused about it because I saw the same mistake in one of the vop sound configs. Didn't cross my mind to actually check if the sound came out wrong for that particular vehicle though :p

But no, sorry, no clue about any of the other config related issues.