Scorpion Engine

[nikosidis]

Whoooow domkid!!!
stunning art, gfx and animations!!

[coldacid]

8000Hz is the sample rate of the plain old telephone system, so while it doesn't sound great, it's not terrible. Dropping below that is never recommended, though, because you'll always hear the lack of quality at lower rates, as you noticed, Mixel.

[earok]

Looking nice Domkid! Do you mind if I post the video to the Facebook page?


Have been thinking at some point about integrating SOX into Scorpion, which I -think- would allow importing SFX from virtually any format (WAV, MP3 etc), but I think I can then set a project wide sample rate so it'll be easier to experiment with higher and lower frequencies.

[domkid]

@earok, Yes, of course,
it would be great the integration of Sox!
Thank’s

[nikosidis]

Originally Posted by earok

Looking nice Domkid! Do you mind if I post the video to the Facebook page?


Have been thinking at some point about integrating SOX into Scorpion, which I -think- would allow importing SFX from virtually any format (WAV, MP3 etc), but I think I can then set a project wide sample rate so it'll be easier to experiment with higher and lower frequencies.

This is probably a stupid question, but would it be possible for a game to detect the hardware you have and set the sample rate. Good enough hardware highest sample rate etc.
I remember some games detected if you have 2MB of RAM and if so you could have
"in game music". Uridium II was like that.

[earok]

It's a valid question - just it might be too difficult to justify putting in the engine itself (eg, I'm trying to keep it at least relatively lean despite the massive variety in games that it can create, so I have to be careful about what features I add - each feature makes the exe bigger, consuming more ram, also adding another thing that needs to be checked and tested).

My suggestion to a Scorpion developer would be, if they really want to have the game running at different levels of audio fidelity - create two copies of the project where the only difference is the HZ of the audio samples, and distribute one as the "1MB" version, one as the "2MB" version etc.

[Mixel]

Originally Posted by coldacid

8000Hz is the sample rate of the plain old telephone system, so while it doesn't sound great, it's not terrible. Dropping below that is never recommended, though, because you'll always hear the lack of quality at lower rates, as you noticed, Mixel.

Thanks for the info.. it wasn’t so much a lack of quality (they sounded fine most of the time and in Audacity) as a scary growling noise that happened sometimes when the effect is triggered- like it was probably the intended sound but played in extreeeme sloooooooow motion, haha. If I could keep it just for the boss fights I might have as a feature but my save points and punches sometimes did it too. I managed to prune effects so they’re not using up much more space anyway despite being 8000Hz, so it’s all good.

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by Mixel

Thanks for the info.. it wasn’t so much a lack of quality (they sounded fine most of the time and in Audacity) as a scary growling noise that happened sometimes when the effect is triggered- like it was probably the intended sound but played in extreeeme sloooooooow motion, haha. If I could keep it just for the boss fights I might have as a feature but my save points and punches sometimes did it too. I managed to prune effects so they’re not using up much more space anyway despite being 8000Hz, so it’s all good.

Right rate seems to be 8363hz

[earok]

Originally Posted by saimon69

Right rate seems to be 8363hz

Interesting, is there something specific about that number?

I may make that the default export HZ if I add mp3, wav etc import

[Mixel]

I just used 8000 because it's a default in Audacity and seems to work perfectly? I mean there's definitely wrong rates (ones so low that they make it malfunction) but if it works it works, surely?

[acidbottle]

Anything above 8000 should be good enough. Would personally use rate of 11,000 for music samples and 8000 for sfx where possible.

That said, upon using some of these "online converters" to shift samples from .wav to .8svx, am finding that i get errors with its playback, even outside of scorpion. Need to find a better solution so SOX would be great, provided its integration is not an utter pain.

@domkid another jaw dropping creation goin on! looking forward to picking that one up.

[Mixel]

@acidbottle audacity is free and does wav/mp3/8svx/everything conversion, every sound I’ve edited for my game has been at least a wav at some point but often also an aiff apple sample, then converted to 8svx.

[acidbottle]

Thanks again Mixel!

Also use Audacity but somehow never spotted the option for export to 8svx on there .. think a visit to specsavers is required

[Mixel]

Originally Posted by acidbottle

Thanks again Mixel!

Also use Audacity but somehow never spotted the option for export to 8svx on there .. think a visit to specsavers is required

Oh yup, I think I know why! You have to go export audio / format options/ Header: IFF / signed (well Idk if this last part is necessary)

It calls them .iff but you just rename them to .8svx

[Tsak]

Originally Posted by Mixel

Thanks for the info.. it wasn’t so much a lack of quality (they sounded fine most of the time and in Audacity) as a scary growling noise that happened sometimes when the effect is triggered- like it was probably the intended sound but played in extreeeme sloooooooow motion, haha. If I could keep it just for the boss fights I might have as a feature but my save points and punches sometimes did it too. I managed to prune effects so they’re not using up much more space anyway despite being 8000Hz, so it’s all good.

Personally I never found any reason to go below 11025 with sfx, even for a500 projects (where saving ram is more critical). There's even less reason if the project targets a1200. I'd only consider 8k if we're talking about really big samples or if the RAM situation is quite dire.

In regards to saving RAM I first preffer to see how much the samples can be cut down or get split first before I even consider compromising their sample rate. You'd be surprised how much you can crop samples without them losing an inch of their quality. Usually long fade outs or reverb residue introduces unwanted noise in the end so these are the first to get completely cropped.

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by earok

Interesting, is there something specific about that number?

I may make that the default export HZ if I add mp3, wav etc import

8363 is the value set in Milkytracker when i do resample from higher frequencies (finetune and Relative note set to 0 and adjust checkbox on)
and is considered the default value for note C-4 (should be C-2 in protracker) - if i try not to follow the guideline milky in protracker mode complains the sample is NOT at the right level

[Mixel]

Originally Posted by Tsak

Personally I never found any reason to go below 11025 with sfx, even for a500 projects (where saving ram is more critical). There's even less reason if the project targets a1200. I'd only consider 8k if we're talking about really big samples or if the RAM situation is quite dire.

I have a lot of them and they all have to be in RAM simultaneously, and I have so much graphics the ram situation is always worth considering, as I’m going to need more effects in future too. I trimmed out the fat and haven’t dropped below 11025 on anything where it makes any real difference.. some of my punch sound effects etc sounded nice way below 8000, if it wasn’t for the malfunctioning thing at least.

[acidbottle]

@earok Major thanks for your tips, the game scrolling is working as intended and is as smooth as butter.

Now, are there any thoughts or plans on waypoints or actor paths? I noticed on a unity 2d video a waypoint feature that would, in most games presumably, be pretty useful and a major time saver Indeed it wouldn't suprise me if it was already be tucked away in the engine, still got a lot to learn!

[earok]

There *was* a waypoint feature at one point (using "cpu_path"), but that was only for objects that move along a grid system and it hasn't been properly tested in a year or two. At some point I'll need to dust that off and see what I can do to improve it.


I haven't really had much time for Scorpion lately - since I've been back from vacation, I've been really busy with trying to catch up on work. It may be another week or two before I'm fully back in the swing of it.

[acidbottle]

Thats totally cool earok. Of course, family and work will always come before our own particular interests. Definately know the feeling!

I did notice the cpu_path, wave plus a few other functions tucked away in there, hopefully one day they can be put to good use.