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[zwei]

Hey, I saw the post on the wiki requesting feedback, and so I thought I'd offer my experiences with it.

First of all let me say this is a really cool idea.  I like the way it works, by reading the gamelog.  I think that's really creative.  And I think it has a lot of potential.  Those are kind of disclaimers, because I wasn't really into the program, even though I think it's really cool.

I think that the program is cool, but I found the soundpack problematic.  For one thing, there were sounds-- multiple sounds, frequently-- for banal activity.  This meant that, for instance, I couldn't listen to music at the same time, or if I did, I would be using soundsense to no purpose.  The variety of sounds makes sense if you're trying to make a soundscape for DF, but I was hoping that I could get an auditory cue for important events so that I could easily do other things and let DF run, and for that, the variety of sounds were a problem, because I didn't necessarily know what each sound referred to, and it didn't seem like I was going to learn that with so many different sounds.

I thought about editing the sound pack, and looked into it, but what I found were about a bazillion sounds.  Even deleting the ones that I didn't want to hear seemed like it wouldn't be worth the trouble.  I also didn't notice any parses along the lines of "The [any dwarven profession] gives into pain!" and I wasn't sure if that was possible with the setup-- handling events differently based on subject/object.  For instance, I would love to know when one of my dwarves is injured, but I don't want to know every time that a goblin is injured.  I might want to know when a goblin swings at a dwarf, but not want to know when a dwarf swings at a dwarf (as it's likely to just be sparring-- and I can pause on berserk anyways).  I probably care a lot more about doors being destroyed, when they're not being destroyed by a troll, and I don't care if it's a hatch or a door.

It seems like there's an effort to making a complete sound file, but I think that maybe if that sound file was LESS complete, I would have gotten more out of soundsense.  If that sound pack had been more abstract, that would have improved my experience even more-- it's the difference between my computer dinging and saying, "You've got mail!" and I prefer the former.  If there are any earlier versions of soundpacks, with less variety, with more focus on important events, I think it'd be cool if you offered them for download, instead of just the megapack.

I hope this is taken in the right way-- I don't mean to suggest you have to listen to me and make soundsense the way I want it to be.  That would be really presumptuous of me.  I appreciate the existence of soundsense for the sake of the people that enjoy it, and I appreciate everybody going to all this work to be helpful to the DF community.  I'm just offering this feedback in case it's useful to anyone somehow.

Thanks for feedback, it is always nice to hear things that spring some more ideas to improve this.

I have to agree with you myself - soundsense covers a lot, possibly more that it should. Main idea behind editable packs was that people would create their own suited for more specific needs (different playstyles, mods, etc...), that never really crystalized.

I wholeheartedly welcome anyone who made their own more "lite" or "specialty" packs to post them here.

For now, I have simple idea for next release to deal with this, I will simply assign sounds importance and add some control to gui to allow user select threshold. (so you should be able to hear only important anouncements, them+enviromental fluff or everything...)

As for better handling context - sadly, it is very hard to do because text messages miss lots of context (you could try to give dwarves easily distinguishable nicknames/profession names for example to give something that would be unique to dwarves.) Some are easier - you can mod your troll-door interaction, for example.

Hi everyone, I'm new here.  Ok, back to important stuff.

New release: http://df.zweistein.cz/soundsense/soundSense_30_139.zip

Fixed bug with positioning of sounds
Added ETA and data rate display to updater
Moved most of readme.txt to wiki page ( http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Utility:SoundSense )

Also, soundpack got some small fixes (sounds for magma forges loosing power, mining sounds, etc...)

I love the SoundSense utility, music and sounds are great and they are wonderful additions to df.
But, there is a problem with playback of some specific files from soundpack in java on linux as some guys reported it to you already.
SoundSense throws exceptions: javax.sound.sampled.UnsupportedAudioFileException: could not get audio input stream from input file: could not get audio input stream from input file.
When it happens while playing game, SoundSense tries to open file repeatedly and cpu spikes into the sky
Files that couse troubles are:
./packs/seasons/spring2.mp3
./packs/seasons/Peer Gynt - grieg - in the hall of the mountain king.mp3
./packs/seasons/10s_silence.mp3
I managed to 'fix' that files by convertig them to wav and to mp3 with lame encoder , so data in them is  not corrupted in some substantial way.
Did creation process of that files varied from processes for the rest of the files?
About linux installation for testing purposes - have you considered running let's say ubuntu in virtualbox? Installation takes like half an hour or you can grab one of ready disk images with it preinstalled? It would also resolve problem with wrong line-endings in soundSense.sh file
--
axsytry

They were all preprocesses same way - with mp3gain tool, so it is quite a mystery. I suppose I can reencode them same way - wav and back.

But I would rather fix bug...

10s_silence.mp3 baffles me, It was created in audacity like many other sounds, so it is a bit on wtf.

As for linux - i have partition set aside for it since last reinstall, it is mostly matter of taking time to do it properly and getting development enviroment up and running (eclipse, other tools...). Matter of setting priorities and scavenging time, but i think i have no other choice than to debug in in linux.

[Nil Eyeglazed]

As for better handling context - sadly, it is very hard to do because text messages miss lots of context (you could try to give dwarves easily distinguishable nicknames/profession names for example to give something that would be unique to dwarves.) Some are easier - you can mod your troll-door interaction, for example.

Yeah, if I'm not mistaken, it already would be (mostly) possible in soundsense to distinguish between friendlies giving in to pain and hostiles giving in to pain.  You'd have some strings like:

The axedwarf gives in to pain! ->play pain1.mp3
The miner gives in to pain! ->play pain1.mp3
The dwarven child gives in to pain! ->play pain1.mp3
etc.

The hostile list would be a lot, lot longer....

It's doable, but inelegant, and would lead to a lot of work for making the sound pack.  (One slightly more elegant way to handle this would be to look for a definitions folder, maybe even one of several for modded games, and read for synonyms; the contents of domestic.txt, for instance, might be "dog;cat;cow;goat" etc., leading to string parses like "The [domestic] gives in to pain!")

With enough edits to the soundpack, one could actually deal with all sparring events, barring unknown custom professions-- just a string for every combination of dwarven military profession with every other dwarven military profession.  It's true, that would miss the occasional berserk dwarf fight, and maybe somebody has modded in bad dwarves someplace.

[Jake]

Is is absolutely necessary for the automatic update function to delete every sound file that isn't part of the official sound pack? Manually re-adding them to seasons.xml would have been one thing, but now I've got to spelunk through My Music to find and copy them over again as well.

I am... somewhat irritated, to say the least.

[zwei]

Is is absolutely necessary for the automatic update function to delete every sound file that isn't part of the official sound pack? Manually re-adding them to seasons.xml would have been one thing, but now I've got to spelunk through My Music to find and copy them over again as well.

I am... somewhat irritated, to say the least.

Oh.

I am sorry. Intention was to cleanup obsolete files.

Wel, guess good news is that in next version, you will have checkbox that says "do not delete unnecesary files".

As for better handling context - sadly, it is very hard to do because text messages miss lots of context (you could try to give dwarves easily distinguishable nicknames/profession names for example to give something that would be unique to dwarves.) Some are easier - you can mod your troll-door interaction, for example.

Yeah, if I'm not mistaken, it already would be (mostly) possible in soundsense to distinguish between friendlies giving in to pain and hostiles giving in to pain.  You'd have some strings like:

The axedwarf gives in to pain! ->play pain1.mp3
The miner gives in to pain! ->play pain1.mp3
The dwarven child gives in to pain! ->play pain1.mp3
etc.

The hostile list would be a lot, lot longer....

It's doable, but inelegant, and would lead to a lot of work for making the sound pack.  (One slightly more elegant way to handle this would be to look for a definitions folder, maybe even one of several for modded games, and read for synonyms; the contents of domestic.txt, for instance, might be "dog;cat;cow;goat" etc., leading to string parses like "The [domestic] gives in to pain!")

With enough edits to the soundpack, one could actually deal with all sparring events, barring unknown custom professions-- just a string for every combination of dwarven military profession with every other dwarven military profession.  It's true, that would miss the occasional berserk dwarf fight, and maybe somebody has modded in bad dwarves someplace.

Frankly, I would rather welcome explicit differentiation of messages relating to hostiles and friendlies. That is easily best solution.

IMO, most usefull filter would be ability to reaiably tell apart sparring related messages. Shame - game knows it, but does not output it to logs.

[Greiger]

Doesn't sparring generate a "lightly tapping the target" always at the end?  Couldn't it be possible to just throw a NOT onto the line stonesense reads to make it ignore combat output that shows up at the same second as that phrase?

Might still get the misses and parries, but it would filter out the stuff that sounds like actual combat and just have sounds you would expect to hear from sparring.  Not an ideal solution, but probably an improvement.

[zwei]

New release: http://df.zweistein.cz/soundsense/soundSense_31_144.zip

* autoupdate now allows you to keep your files :-) - uncheck delete/replace checkboxes next to button so that updater will only fetch new stuff.
* there is global filter for played sounds - from 0 (only seasonal music) all the way to 4 (everything). New attribute playbackThreshhold of sound controlls which sounds exactly are played.

Also, took a look at newgrounds and added some new tracks to seasons along with other small tweaks.

Doesn't sparring generate a "lightly tapping the target" always at the end?  Couldn't it be possible to just throw a NOT onto the line stonesense reads to make it ignore combat output that shows up at the same second as that phrase?

Might still get the misses and parries, but it would filter out the stuff that sounds like actual combat and just have sounds you would expect to hear from sparring.  Not an ideal solution, but probably an improvement.

Indded, you can do that, but as noted, you have lots of other messages.

[Mukatsuku]

I really love Soundsense!!! I didn't mind the lack of sound in Dwarf Fortress because I'd be so enthralled that I thought it would just be a distraction, but now I can't really imagine playing without it.
Thank you so much!

[Flaede]

I really love Soundsense!!! I didn't mind the lack of sound in Dwarf Fortress because I'd be so enthralled that I thought it would just be a distraction, but now I can't really imagine playing without it.
Thank you so much!

Same here. I mess with the exact sounds a bit (and remove some things) but the sounds make things SO much more easy to run in the background and do something else whilst playing DF.

[Greiger]

*Fortress running in background while browsing the forume*
*wilheim scream*
"Ok what the fuck just happened?  Oh the butcher finally got off his lazy ass and butchered that donkey."*goes back to reading forums*

P.S. It doesn't sound like it but that's my way of saying this is an awesome program.

[ATiGr]

absolutely awesome!
this really add depth to the game play!
a must have!

[Mukatsuku]

Anyone have recommendations for music to add for the seasons? (just edited the xml file and added to the number, ie summer5.mp3)

I've added some things like Lux Aeterna from Requiem For A Dream, parts of the Gladiator soundtrack and now I've run out of ideas.

I am looking for music that fits in with the rest of the cool stuff in Soundsense - quite serene, preferably instrumental, etc.

[Berserkenstein]

Anyone have recommendations for music to add for the seasons? (just edited the xml file and added to the number, ie summer5.mp3)

I've added some things like Lux Aeterna from Requiem For A Dream, parts of the Gladiator soundtrack and now I've run out of ideas.

I am looking for music that fits in with the rest of the cool stuff in Soundsense - quite serene, preferably instrumental, etc.

I've always like the band "Ratatat" as almost all of their songs are instrumental, and they have a unique mellow sound. 

Here's an example of what I use:

Spring
"Shiller" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mmyg-SlePs
"Black Heroes" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trT7cpSZQnk

Summer
"Kennedy" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QETlofg23Jo
"Drugs" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhrteSZXFzM
"Mirando" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk8qcGOtBFw

Autumn
"Party with Children" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNY5Du8kswM
"Lex" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_TqqZ-aGd8

Winter
"We Can't Be Stopped" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKI0XA2UrY4
"Tacobel Canon" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oU53LPW21Q
"Everest" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABRTmtw4Ce8

If you want more dwarvenly music, I suggest works of Basil Poledouris. 

The following themes from, "Conan the Barbarian" for instance:

"Riddle of steel/Riders of Doom" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lKUYAnqxjU
"The Anvil of Crom" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j6nyEcIk98

"Don't tell the elves, but all of the fish are gone!"

[MrAnticce]

I just had to register so i could ask this question.

Have the soundsense default soundpack been vetted for potential copyright issues?
I recently made a youtube video where the soundsense pack is managing the music in the background and the third video i made has tripped over a copyright troll bot. I suspect that the bot is making a false claim but it's impossible to be certain without knowing exactly which one of the musical scores that is tripping it. (hard to tell in an hour long gameplay vid no?)


My channel if you want to check out the music for yourselves: http://www.youtube.com/user/MrAntice?feature=mhsn

[Greiger]

Actually yea, I'm pretty sure it is.  It's probably trying to be minimized but I know at least one song in it that would possibly trip it.  The music that plays during worldgen is by a band called Rhapsody (or Rhapsody of Fire, depends on who you ask it seems) so that may trip a youtube songbot.

I don't know of the others, Rhapsody is the only group in the attributeing file that I recognize.   I think it's pretty much counting on DF not being hugely known, the credit text file and mentions in the xmls, and the fact that this is a completely non-profit endeavor to avoid trouble.

[MrAnticce]

I've been looking over the video myself a couple of times, and the timing is only across spring/summer. so for some reason the bot missed the worldgen tune. it could be tripping over the inclusion of the Grieg piece tho. but i cant say i heard that one in the vid either. (since the music is really low it's hard to tell what melody is played in the background over all of my jabbering.)

I have not the slightest idea if any of the burzum tribute songs may cause issues. but considdering that the videos are made without any profit motive as well i guess i can claim fair use.
btw. youtube claimed that they might put adverts on the vid to compensate eventual copyright owners. if anyone saw any advertizements please tell me. I'd rather pull the music out rather than have that kind of vileness going on.