Ambient Sound
By LiquidEgg

Ambient sound is a very important topic which people should know about. Many people see it as the key to atmosphere in any level.

Contents:

1. Stuff you need to know.
2. How To.
3. Good places to place them.
4. Variations.
5. Some good sounds and explanations.
6. Useful tools and sites.

1.Stuff you need to know.
Whether you downloaded Dromed or got it with Thief Gold, there should be an accompanying "Docs" Folder. Read all within, but especially DromedTutorial. Will get you started. Also, see Section 6 for useful Sites.

2.How To.
First, create an Air Brush, Texture it, and basically decorate it to your liking. Do all the necessary preliminaries, and then create Fnord/Marker. Place it in the middle of the room. Oh yeah, the top of the room should be sky. Okay, transform a pretty ordinary, self-respecting, open-air room into a windswept courtyard high on a mountain.(No, there’s nothing to indicate that your room is situated on a mountain, it just sounds good.) Now go into the Object Hierarchy and find Sound/Schema/amb/AMB-m05/m05wind.The directory amb is for ambient sounds. As you can see, they are divided into the missions. (Perhaps further down I will put a mission list.) This is useful for finding a sound you heard in a particular mission. Now back to your marker. Give it the property A/AmbientHacked. You should now see a input box. In the "radius" field put 20, as this will cover the entire room, unless you have made it significantly bigger than the original size (16x16x16). If you have, set a bigger radius. Override volume should be left at 0. Under flags, select Music. This basically loops the sound continuously in the area. Under Schema Name, type m05wind. Build Room Database and hit Alt G. You should now hear the wind howling. This is a working ambient sound. Congratulations!!!

3.Good places to place them.
This bit is, fortunately, far less complicated. Okay now, why dont you go and modify your room to make a Hammerite place, cut in stone. Physical/Decorative/Banner/ HammBanner is useful, as is Physical/Furniture/Church. Now mess around with the H, P, and B headings of your objects, to make the place abandoned and trashed up. Now place a marker with the same sound as in Section 2. Make a second marker, same as the first, but with the Schema Name m04moans. Place them in exactly the same place, Build Room Database, and hit Alt-G. Listen as the ghostly moans mix with the wind. Experiment with other sounds and places, till you get it right. Section 5 has some useful sounds for you atmospheric people.

4.Variations.
Hop down to section 6 to find a link to Digital Nightfall’s Thief-Dark Project.com,* the Ultimate site for Thief, and find the Dromed link, you have a now reached TEG Main, The place for Dromed. In the FAQ’s and Guides section, there are links to sites which contain all of the Hammers talk, and Garrett’s comments, it is made by some wonderful person, but sorry, I dont have the Internet handy right now. Save this site for references. Also, in Additional Tools, download Andrew Bernardz’ brilliant Thief Edit. Yes, you guessed it, this section deals with people speaking. Okay, there are two ways to make Garrett speak. One is to treat it like an ambient sound. The other is to create a VOTrap, and Link it via a SoundDescription link to the sound you want. I have only tested the first way, mind, so we’ll cover that. In our wrecked Hammer place, place a similar sound to the others, with the Schema Name gar047, and the flag RemoveProp(OneShot). Now, as he enters the radius, he should say, "I wonder what happened here?". There we go, he spoke. Also, have a poke around with levels like Bafford (Miss2), to find out other ways to make Garrett speak.

5.Some good sounds and explanations.
Here are 6 common sounds -

m05wind - The wind blowing.

m07crickets - Crickets clicking - good for suggesting nightime.

m04start - The starting sound, used in almost every Thief mission.

m07haunts - The ghostly, subhuman mutterings of haunts.

m11moans - mysterious moaning sounds.

m11bells - Constantine’s bells, those tinkling, high, freaky bells of Constantine’s.

In keeping with the whole atmosphere thing, 80 percent of these sounds are plucked from scary missions - Down In The Bonehoard, The Haunted Cathedral and Return To The Cathedral.

Mission List, as promised:

miss1 - A Keepers Training
miss2 - Lord Bafford’s Manor
miss3 - Break from Cragscleft Prison.
miss4 - Down in the Bonehoard
miss5 - Assasins
miss6 - Constantines Sword
miss7 - The Haunted Cathedral
miss8 - Does not exist.
miss9 - The Lost City
miss10 - Undercover
miss11 - Return to the Cathedral
miss12 - Escape!
miss13 - Strange Bedfellows
miss14 - Into the Maw of Chaos

There we go.

6.Some useful tools and sites.
First and foremost:

The TEG Forum.

Have Fun!!!

Questions or comments?

I can be e-mailed at superwoozle@hotmail.com,

or on the Forum.

Dont forget to use the Forum’s search function, unless you wanted to be branded as a Newbie. Dont make the same mistake I did.

This tutorial was written by LiquidEgg on the 31st of December, 1999.

*You dont have to download these if you dont want to.

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