Creating and Editing Sounds


After you've decided on a sound utility, you're ready to start creating and editing sounds. The first decision to make is how you will create the sounds. For example, are you planning to record sounds yourself with a microphone or sample sounds from a stereo cassette deck or VCR? The microphone is probably the easiest route because many multimedia computers come equipped with one. It's also the most creative route. However, you might already have some sounds in mind from a prerecorded cassette or movie, which means that you need to look into connecting an external sound source to your computer. This is covered in detail a little later in the hour .

Regardless of where you sample sounds from, the process of getting a sampled sound cleaned up for use in a game is basically the same. After you've sampled a sound, play it back to make sure that it sounds okay. It's likely that the sound will either be too loud or too soft. You can judge whether the volume of the sound is acceptable by looking at the waveform displayed in the sound editor; the waveform of a sound is the graphical appearance of the sound when plotted over time. If the sound amplitude goes beyond the top or bottom of the waveform display, you know it's definitely too loud. If you can barely hear it, it's probably too soft. To remedy this problem, you can either adjust the input level for the sound device and resample the sound or try to use amplification effects provided by the sound utility.

The best way to fix the volume problem is to adjust the input level of the sound device and resample the sound. For example, in Windows XP you can easily adjust the microphone or line input level from the Control Panel. After you have the volume of the sound at a level you like, you need to clip the sound to remove unwanted portions of it. Clipping a sound involves zooming in on the waveform in a sound editor and cutting out the silence that appears before and after the sound. This helps shorten the length of the sound and prevents unnecessary latency.

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Latency is the amount of time between when you queue a sound for playing and when the user actually hears it. Latency should be kept to a minimum so that sounds are heard when you want them to be heard without any delay. Unnecessary silence at the beginning of a sound is a common cause of latency problems.


Once you have a sound clipped, it should be ready for prime time. You might want to check out the kinds of effects that are available with the sound utility you are using. Some simple effects range from reverse to echo, with more advanced effects including fading and phase shifts. It's all up to your imagination and your discerning ears.



Sams Teach Yourself Game Programming in 24 Hours
Sams Teach Yourself Game Programming in 24 Hours
ISBN: 067232461X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2002
Pages: 271

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