Music loops

[Apothem]

Recently, since I've been messing around with a bit of music for the RPG Engine, I noticed something. There is no way to define wether or not music loops on the title screen or levels. For example, say you want to make a really strong ambience to a level, and only want music to play once around and not loop. you cant do that. When you want to add a simple mp3/wav that you only want to play once on the title screen, it will continuously loop. I believe there should be a way, either via MAPINFO or a different lump, to define if the song is looped, or how many loops the song should have.

[Enjay]

Yeah, it's been asked for before. At present, there is no easy or satisfactory solution.

[Apothem]

Yeah, it's been asked for before. At present, there is no easy or satisfactory solution.

Hence, why I asked it again I think there's got to be an easy way to implement such a feature, I'm just curious as to how many people would find such a feature useful?

[Xaser]

I would certainly use it if I had the chance. This has been bothering me for a while as well.

[Killo Zapit]

You can make non-looping mods pretty easily (C?? effect and B?? effect), and you could just import a wave as an instrument and play it once if you want.

[Enjay]

But for people with limited/ no mod programming knowledge that's not easy (which is where the "no easy... solution" part of what I said comes in). But yes, that is a possibility.

[jallamann]

If it's a TITLEMAP, would it not be possible to place a sound object at the same coordinates as the camera and play the sound only once?

[Bio Hazard]

Not if the camera is moving, and why not just ThingSound() on the camera itself?

[Xaser]

Killo Zapit's suggestion works just fine, except if you're using MP3s/OGGs (or even MIDIs, for that matter). I would personally love a way to have a song play only once, and stuff.

I wonder if it's at all possible to add an ACS command that checks to see whether a given song is finished playing or not... then it would be possible to automatically start a different song once the current one is completed. Of course, that's wishful thinking, really.

[Enjay]

With music, I think Zdoom only registers changes in music - notice how if you idclev to the map you are on the music doesn't restart. Same thing happens if two levels with seamless transition (eg HUB) use the same music. So obviously that would have to be changed before Zdoom could remember how far through a song it was.

What would happen if you played a sound as a song between saves? Would Zdoom remember how far through the sound it was or would it just register this sound has been played and therefore not play it when you loaded a save?

[DoomRater]

The problem isn't really making something play once then- the problem is getting ZDoom to know that it's playing at the moment and where it's playing it from given a save point or pause.