The "How do I..." Thread

[Astrumis]

Use:
$volume soundname <value>
in your SNDINFO. 1.0 is the default value.

Mm, i believe $Volume can only be used to Decrease the sound, not increase it. Not unless it changed without me noticing.

Is there a way to increase custom weapon sounds Volume or are they fixed to a certain value? the sound file is fairly loud as it should be.. but in the game its much MUCH quieter.

i'm no sound expert but Unless theres a much easier / better way you might just have to use a Sound editing program to increase the volume to what your looking for. Audacity is a rather nice one and its free.. you'll just have to play around with Amplify / Compressors / Limiters and what not..

[edward850]

Pretty much. Fmod is explicitly designed to make sure you cannot increase the volume of sounds, otherwise this induces clipping which is all kinds of bad. As Astrumis states, use a sound editor.

[Nash]

Oooor you could mix "backwards" and utilize a ton of dynamic range available to you - design your sounds around the loudest possible sound. If your weapon sound isn't loud enough, don't try to boost it; lower down all the other sounds around it. I notice a decent number of commercial games take this route.

[Frustration]

Mmm, its a little disheartening that the sound can't be boosted with the game itself but i guess its better than having it sound like a struggling motor / sound clipping off at major points in the audio line i'll have to figure out how to do some Sound editing and what not then.

[Astrumis]

Yes it can be more than a little frustrating when dealing with sounds. Especially when you have a Rocket Launcher firing and the sound of a monster activating is louder than it!

Anyways, i actually have a few things that i'd like to ask Regarding Poly-object swing doors and Open paths.

Its not the biggest issue in the world but it can be bothersome for someone like me and if it can be fixed that'd be great, if not oh well.

Here is an album of the issue - http://imgur.com/a/7lXjN

As you can see it creates this HoM effect but its only at certain angles such as sometimes if i'm really close to the door "Opening it and walking through" the entire door will disappear which you can see in one of the images, the rest is more or less just the top thats really bothering me, is there anyway to really fix it or is it just somthing you gotta deal with if you want Swinging doors?

Second problem is also slightly bothersome, it has to do with Monsters and Cramped open paths as you can see here -

http://imgur.com/a/8YYU1

One is a cubicle and the other a door frame leading into an office "Doesn't have a swing door attached to it"

the creatures seem to have a problem going through such openings as these where they get close to it and they turn around and wander around the area they were put into. And every now and again they will manage to get through the opening and out into the larger area to chase after you.. but most of the time they either fail to go through it to attack you while his buddies are still breathing or they get stuck like hamsters in a cage, anyway to remedy this?

Also, is there a way to finely tune monsters reaction time before they attack? seeing as how ReactionTime only goes with 1 , 2..etc

1 being too fast.. 2 being a little too slow is there some way to have it somewhere inbetween 1 and 2 "1.5?"

[rollingcrow]

How can I get a projectile to check how many of an inventory are in its shooter's inventory?

[Blue Shadow]

A projectile's target is its shooter, normally. So use that to your advantage.

[TheBadHustlex]

When a weapon uses A_GiveInventory, does the player himself get that item or does the weapon have it's own inventory?

[edward850]

Weapons don't exist independently when part of the player, so anything a weapon does is considered a player action regardless.

[HeXaGoN]

How do I only include one key in a string with the 'k:' type cast in a Print, HudMessage, or StrParam statement?

Sometimes the user will have 2 binds for a specific action.
For example: they might bind the w key or the up arrow to move forward.
This would result in k:"+use" outputting "w or uparrow", and what I want is "w", so I can print, say, "wasd" rather than "w or uparrowasd".

How can I get a projectile to check how many of an inventory are in its shooter's inventory?

If you're checking it for a A_Jump statement or something like that, you can use [wiki]A_JumpIfInTargetInventory[/wiki].

Stuff about Poly Objects causing HOM's

From my memory:
[wiki]Polyobj_ExplicitLine[/wiki] will let you create Poly Objects that don't span all the way from the floor to the ceiling.
I've been able to pull off moving platforms (albeit they look like crap) with it, but an issue with that is that if an actor is standing ontop of a line or below a line (given it can collide with an actor), the PO stops moving.

I don't know a whole lot about PO's since I barely use them.

[Athel]

I want to make an enemy slide using ThrustThing. It should slide (I have sliding sprites) towards the player. How do Ido this.

[Hornetzero]

Does anyone know how to code the player in decorate such that its bobbing motion vertically is that of a horse. I'm trying to make a centaur player but I'm not sure how I can achieve the walking motion.

[edward850]

You can't actually control the viewbob.

[Astrumis]

From my memory:
[wiki]Polyobj_ExplicitLine[/wiki] will let you create Poly Objects that don't span all the way from the floor to the ceiling.

I'm not entirely sure how to use the ExplicitLine thing.

Heres a wad on how i've been doing it, it's just Dummy sectors with Voids that are the doors with Start Points and Anchors.

[edward850]

How do I only include one key in a string with the 'k:' type cast in a Print, HudMessage, or StrParam statement?

Sometimes the user will have 2 binds for a specific action.
For example: they might bind the w key or the up arrow to move forward.
This would result in k:"+use" outputting "w or uparrow", and what I want is "w", so I can print, say, "wasd" rather than "w or uparrowasd".

You cannot (at least without a large amount of guesswork with primitive string comparisons), but you are going to have to rethink that anyway, because otherwise you have the issue of printing something like "mouse3amouse2s", which is basically nonsense.

Honestly, "Use your movement keys to..." should be enough for anybody.