First problem. . .I want to use background music (Hamsters stuff) in a few of my areas, but I wanted them to be a little quieter. As far as I can tell, lowering the volume on sound (from 10 to 5, lets say) does not work; tried setting both starting volume and volume. Its always the same volume. Anyone else seeing this?

Second one. . .I have an initial area with lots of Glados conversation; enough so that its pretty easy (if you are in a hurry) to start one conversation while another one is still going on. Or. . .if you are real quick, to enter the next area before the song for the first area has finished. . .so you end with with 2 conversations or sets of music playing at once.

I've tried the most obvious things (stopping sound on one with the trigger that also starts the next one), or setting volume to zero in the trigger, or doing a "kill". . .none of these work. I still get both sets of soundbytes at the same time.

Any solution for this?

Using music and dialogue more sparely?

Hmm... there should be some way to interrupt sounds, Valve does that too.

Ricotez wrote:
Using music and dialogue more sparely?

Yeah. . .you mean like dont use them both together?

Some more info. . .I am using ambient_generic, and all 3 flags are clicked; play everywhere, start silent, and is NOT looped. I use triggers to issue a PlaySound to them (and to try and StopSound the previous one, etc)

The dev wiki does say some things about these; but since most of it talks about when is NOT looped is set to false, I cant see it applying.

Maybe I should be using an env_soundscape instead?

Arghh. . . .

One issue figured out. . .

If you want to be able to do a StopSound on something that has been started with a PlaySound, then the "Is NOT looped" flag must be set to False. Apparently saying no to that doesnt make the sound loop (ie Is NOT Looped=False does not mean IsLooped). . .but it does give you more control. Maybe the rest will start working now too. . .

xitooner wrote:
Yeah. . .you mean like dont use them both together?

No, I mean use less music and dialogue. In Portal, 1 test chamber only got 1 song, if they got any at all. You don't need music all over the game, that's what makes Half-Life (and thus Portal) so different from other games where music is played all over the game.

Ricotez wrote:
No, I mean use less music and dialogue. In Portal, 1 test chamber only got 1 song, if they got any at all. You don't need music all over the game, that's what makes Half-Life (and thus Portal) so different from other games where music is played all over the game.

Well if you are thinking about it in terms of how Portal initially presented it, then sure. Heck, most chambers in Portal took less than a minute, and then it was "back in the elevator, dude". Music is traditionally added to a game to enhance the mood/tension, and. . .quickie chambers dont have either one.

On the other hand, the last few "escape" areas were VERY long, and could support one or more songs. . . also, I think there is just about as much dialogue in the last Glados chamber than there is in the ENTIRE rest of the game. Glados and her various components are chattering at you almost the whole time.

So it just depends what type of chamber you are building as to whats appropriate; there is no real rule of thumb. I do have one chamber that has a fair amount of dialogue; it will have no music because of that. I then have 3 chambers that have multiple puzzles in them; you will be in them for awhile, and and those have considerably less dialogue, and are long enough for music (one song each). I am wanting quiet mood music for the areas. But still. . .when I DO want dialogue there, I dont want Glados to have to shout over the music, and if you have played the level a few times and can do it in your sleep, you really CAN do a chamber quick enough that the song wont be over, so some volume control was. . .expected. If I cant get all of the control over sounds that I want. . .the music will have to go. We'll see.