Directional see/death sound for +BOSS actors

[phi108]

The +BOSS flag for an actor gives the property: Plays See sound and Death sound at full volume (regardless of distance).
Can this sound still be full volume but come from the direction the actor is?

[Skippy]

The SVN build (or GZDoom) has an additional 'attenuation' property added to [wiki]A_PlaySoundEx[/wiki]. You can easily achieve what you want in DECORATE by specifying a null value for SeeSound and DeathSound in the actor's properties, then explicitly calling A_PlaySoundEx in the relevant states.

[phi108]

It says if the attenuation of a sound is 2 "the sound plays at full volume everywhere in the level and in surround sound."
I would just like to see this be the way that +BOSS works, without modifying the decorate for +BOSS actor.
But if anyone desires full volume, all speaker see/death sounds, then this could mess it up. But does anyone really want that anymore?

[Skippy]

I think there's a bit of confusion here. In your first post you wanted a full-volume positional sound (ie panned according to where the emitter is relative to the camera). Now you're asking for a full-volume surround sound. This is exactly how the +BOSS flag behaves already, so I assume your first statement is the valid one.

In case there's still confusion, let me point out that Doom's definition of a 'surround sound' is one that is played at the centre of the stereo mix (ie with equal volume in both left and right channels) regardless of where the emitter is positioned relative to the camera - the equivalent of a value of 2 in the attenuation parameter of A_PlaySoundEx. The +BOSS flag implies this behaviour in the original Doom executables and that's how it must stay for compatibility reasons.

If you use GZDoom or the SVN, you can easily achieve what you want with actor replacement and custom Spawn and Death states.

Code: Select all

actor CyberNoSurround : Cyberdemon replaces Cyberdemon   {
   seesound ""
   deathsound ""
   States
   {
   Spawn:
    CYBR AB 10 A_LookEx(0, 0, 0, 0, 0, "ISeeYou")
    loop
   ISeeYou:
    TNT1 A 0 A_PlaySoundEx("cyber/sight","Voice",0,1)
    Goto See
   Death:
    CYBR H 10
    CYBR I 10 A_PlaySoundEx("cyber/death","Voice",0,1)
    CYBR JKL 10
    CYBR M 10 A_NoBlocking
    CYBR NO 10
    CYBR P 30
    CYBR P -1 A_BossDeath
  }
}

[phi108]

Weird:
attenuation: Controls how the sound falls off with distance. (development version only) Legal values are:
-1: the sound drops off rapidly with distance.
0: the sound plays as normal (default).
1: the sound plays at full volume everywhere in the level.
2: the sound plays at full volume everywhere in the level and in surround sound

So attenuation of 2 is the way +BOSS does it?

Thx for code, I guess I'll just rely on decorate.

EDIT: Nevermind, I would rather not rely on decorate, and I think everyone would agree that directionality for +BOSS actors would be better, and I don't see how a small change of how a flag works would affect compatibility. If anyone doesn't want to hear where the sound is coming from, they can use A_PlaySoundEX, but otherwise, but who really needs attenuation 2?

[Skippy]

and I think everyone would agree that directionality for +BOSS actors would be better

What are you basing this on? More to the point, why do you even want it?

I don't see how a small change of how a flag works would affect compatibility

As I said before, all of the +BOSS enemies in the original Doom games had full-volume, surround-sound sight and death effects. Changing the flag would be changing the behaviour fromthat present in the original games. Therefore it's obviously a compatibility problem. You might want to try and argue that it doesn't affect gameplay, but it does - having a positional sound for the bosses will give away their location ahead of time, for example.

What you're requesting is like asking that the Archvile's fire lasts longer, or that the Heresiarch doesn't go into invulnerability mode. It's intended behaviour, and if you don't like it, you create a subsitute actor that does behave how you want it to - which you've already been shown how to do.

[Graf Zahl]

Unless you use some specific Heretic weapons, the full volume sound is the only effect of the BOSS flag, aside from a few effects that can also be set with other flags. All of these special effects only apply to Hexen and Heretic though.
If you don't want these sounds to be full volume remove the flag, simple as that!

As such, I see no need to change anything here.

[phi108]

Yet another case of Phi gettin too worked up about a new Idea. I need to think more before I suggest stuff.
I'm too lazy to do the stuff myself, so I try to get ZDoom packed with the stuff I specifically want. I guess that's not how it works E:-P

[Graf Zahl]

Most definitely not.

[HotWax]

Especially in the case where you're asking for an existing feature to change its functionality because you can't be bothered to create the custom content required to do it yourself using the already-available features.