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[Rainseeker]

And it still has all my rambling?  WOW!

[zwei]

And it still has all my rambling?  WOW!

Yes, part of compression algorithm is providing your cell number and instructions on how to blackmail you to talking dwarfish. 

Nah, It is in soundpack which is still 140 meg beast, just app itself is now tiny.

By the way, what about commenting partying?

[Rainseeker]

I'd love to!  Just mark the sounds and I'll take a look!

[Thundercraft]

It's been almost a week for my effort in adding "has given birth to" and "animal has grown to become" sounds for various new pets. I'm making progress, but it's proving to be much more challenging than I had anticipated. For one thing, good quality sounds even for animal species that I had assumed would be commonplace (such as tigers, rats and alligators) proved to be extremely difficult to find. And a lot of websites have missing pages or are just... gone now. (For instance, batcalls.org was an entire site dedicated to sharing bat echolocation sounds... now gone.) But by far my biggest challenge was finding sounds for baby or newly hatched creatures! Those are incredibly hard to come by!

[Side note: Do you know how many sources (copyrighted or not) of adult Musk Ox sounds there are on the entire World Wide Web - including YouTube videos? Exactly ONE! But, strangely, they sound a lot like the growl of a lion...]

When possible, I've considered audio editing of certain sounds to simulate certain animals. But I'd like to be accurate, when possible. As I ran out of public domain, creative commons, and even GPL sound sources for many animals, I was left to ask for permission from owners to use copyright material. I've sent out about a dozen emails and 9 messages to YouTube members, carefully worded, to ask for permission to use certain sounds. So far, I've only gotten replies (and permission) from 3 emails and 2 YouTube members. At least I should take heart that every reply so far has been positive. But it's been a while for some replies and I'm starting to worry that no reply = no.

Anyway, I need opinions on what sounds to use for the "giant rat".

I've not obtained permission from this source yet, but this is probably what most folks think mice and rats sound like:

Ultrasonic vocalizations as a tool for research on emotion and motivation in rodents

In particular, these two sounds:

http://www.avisoft.com/usg/rats/rat_60_6.wav
http://www.avisoft.com/usg/rats/rat_60_7.wav

Ironically, these are from recordings of ultrasonic noises that have been downsampled to become audible.

Vanilla DF also has the much smaller "rat" tamable as a pet, but I would assume a 'mutant' rat that's big enough for a dwarf to ride on would have a different voice. That, and I want players to be able to tell the difference. I've thought about merely lowering the pitch. But considering it's 100 kg or the size of a calf, a horse foal, or a full-sized warthog, it should not be so squeaky or high pitched.

So, I'd like to substitute with sounds of much larger rodents, such as:

* Prarie Dog - National Park Service
* Ground Hog - BBC Natural History Sound Library
* Gunnison's Prairie Dog - Naturesongs.com
* Rock Squirrel - Naturesongs.com
* Chickaree Squirrel - Naturesongs.com
* Gray or Altai marmot - marmotburrow.ucla.edu
* Golden or Red marmot - marmotburrow.ucla.edu
* Olympic marmot - marmotburrow.ucla.edu

Note that DF already has the Grey Squirrel, but they sound much different. (And they're not tamable as a pet without modding.) Also, I have to be careful that what I choose does not sound too similar to the Hoary Marmot (which is already in DF and is [PET_EXOTIC]):

* Hoary marmot ascending - marmotburrow.ucla.edu
* Hoary marmot flat - marmotburrow.ucla.edu

BTW: I would have considered substituting the sound of a Porcupine, but it is listed on the Animal Sponsorship Drive as a sponsored animal and is thus something that will be added sooner or later. I should probably assume it will be [PET_EXOTIC] until I learn otherwise. (Although... what's the point of dwarves raising porcupines? Ah, perhaps they could be thrown or modded to be used for catapult ammo? )

Edit: I've since received a couple more replies. One said they would have to think about permission and stated their would be usage and editing fees. That's out of the question, so I've declined and counted that as a no. The other response sounds promising. But he seemed to misunderstand how the sound was going to be used, so I had to reply with clarification.

[zwei]

I'd love to!  Just mark the sounds and I'll take a look!

Great!

It should be theese two: http://df.zweistein.cz/soundsense/mantis/view.php?id=78 and http://df.zweistein.cz/soundsense/mantis/view.php?id=83

...

Yeah, this IS hard, and kudos for hard work you are putting into this!

For substitutions, do not be afraid to use what just "feels" good, we can always fix it later if we have documentation of what was substituted. Fantasy creatures are tougher, but edited out sounds of their real counterpart seems to work well, so you are on good track there. Giant rat ... I would mix slower squeak with some kind of roar, maybe pig-like?

I am kind of suprised wikipedia does not have any sounds on animal pages - Elephant article i am looking at right now has dozens of photos but no sound sample and it is similar in most other articles. I'd say it is worth talking to wiki admin to see if they can get project "cow goes moo" started and then just keep eye on rarer stuff - there ought to be editors with access to zoos and recording equipment. People might also have more success asking for "CC" license for sounds if they can state it is going to be used on wikipedia as it is quite reputable institution.

(Dilbertesque "crowdsourcing!" at work, eh)

[tyrspawn]

I intend to re-do all the combat sounds before my new semester starts. Just need to stop procrastinating.

Sorry I haven't been doing much lately zwei, been busy with other projects and hobbies. Catch me on gtalk soon and we'll talk about revamping some stuff.

[Thundercraft]

There also lies my only gripe, though. When I load a game, Soundsense randomly picks a track from one of the seasons (e.g. spring tracks playing in winter). Only when the seasons change does it revert to the right track set. Is this a bug?

That is a feature .

Since there is no way to know what season it is when game is loaded without peeking into memory, a random seasonal track is being chosen.

I think the biggest issue with the random seasonal music thing is that the music which is randomly chosen is seasonal. If one gets used to a seasonal track and starts to mentally associate it with a certain season, hearing it used randomly may seem out of place. Would it be possible to have SoundSense choose some other random music in this instance, instead of one of the seasons? (Or a way to let users customize how it is handled?)

Would it be possible to either:

• have a default playlist that is used for music when an in-progress fortress is loaded, or
• scan backwards in gamelog.txt to look for the last season change and default to that?

It seems like either of those would be less awkward than having no music until the next season change.

We use "default playlist" which contains one song from each season and there should be some music when loading game in progress (unless there is a bug)

Scanning gamelog.txt for past events is not really working out well:

1) User might delete it or bring save to a newly unpacked df which has empty gamelog. Meaning we will have no clue at all.

2) There are various weird save/reload scenarios - i.e. save fort during autumn, load another which is set in spring: you end up with autumn soundtrack for spring season.

I do not see how point 2 is significantly more awkward that the current system of randomly choosing a season soundtrack. (In your example of "save fort during autumn, load another which is set in spring", the current SoundSense might have randomly chosen the Autumn soundtrack for Spring anyway.)

And I can think of a few uses of conditionals to resolve problems with point 1. Specifically, have SoundSense attempt to scan backwards through gamelog.txt and...

a) ...if gamelog.txt does not exist (due to user deleting it), SoundSense could just choose a random soundtrack like normal.

b) ...if it finds gamelog.txt but it is empty or does not find a season change, it could still choose a random soundtrack like normal.

Anyway, I would think situations involving point 1 are quite rare. And situations like point 2, while not so rare, are inevitable. Most save/load situations probably involve continuing the same game from where it was left off.

[zwei]

I intend to re-do all the combat sounds before my new semester starts. Just need to stop procrastinating.

Sorry I haven't been doing much lately zwei, been busy with other projects and hobbies. Catch me on gtalk soon and we'll talk about revamping some stuff.

No hurry, just take your time and im me later on... I have not done much lately either, so ...

There also lies my only gripe, though. When I load a game, Soundsense randomly picks a track from one of the seasons (e.g. spring tracks playing in winter). Only when the seasons change does it revert to the right track set. Is this a bug?

That is a feature .

Since there is no way to know what season it is when game is loaded without peeking into memory, a random seasonal track is being chosen.

I think the biggest issue with the random seasonal music thing is that the music which is randomly chosen is seasonal. If one gets used to a seasonal track and starts to mentally associate it with a certain season, hearing it used randomly may seem out of place. Would it be possible to have SoundSense choose some other random music in this instance, instead of one of the seasons? (Or a way to let users customize how it is handled?)

Would it be possible to either:

• have a default playlist that is used for music when an in-progress fortress is loaded, or
• scan backwards in gamelog.txt to look for the last season change and default to that?

It seems like either of those would be less awkward than having no music until the next season change.

We use "default playlist" which contains one song from each season and there should be some music when loading game in progress (unless there is a bug)

Scanning gamelog.txt for past events is not really working out well:

1) User might delete it or bring save to a newly unpacked df which has empty gamelog. Meaning we will have no clue at all.

2) There are various weird save/reload scenarios - i.e. save fort during autumn, load another which is set in spring: you end up with autumn soundtrack for spring season.

I do not see how point 2 is significantly more awkward that the current system of randomly choosing a season soundtrack. (In your example of "save fort during autumn, load another which is set in spring", the current SoundSense might have randomly chosen the Autumn soundtrack for Spring anyway.)

And I can think of a few uses of conditionals to resolve problems with point 1. Specifically, have SoundSense attempt to scan backwards through gamelog.txt and...

a) ...if gamelog.txt does not exist (due to user deleting it), SoundSense could just choose a random soundtrack like normal.

b) ...if it finds gamelog.txt but it is empty or does not find a season change, it could still choose a random soundtrack like normal.

Anyway, I would think situations involving point 1 are quite rare. And situations like point 2, while not so rare, are inevitable. Most save/load situations probably involve continuing the same game from where it was left off.

You can customize what is played on load, just take a look at system pack that handles it so you can put there season-neutral music.

As for backwards scanning to help out, I'd rather not do it. If you really want to have fine control over what is played, you can just start apropriate seasonal loop manually.

[Flaede]

I love the Urist quotes! My favourite though is the possession message. "It's all Soooo cleeeeeeeeearrrrr". Followed up by the succumbing to melancholy one. (poor, poor diplomat)
My least favourite soundbite is definitely the whole fall/stand nonsense. It works for adventure mode, but in fort mode when your dwarves are tripping all over each other on the way to the depot or something, it is SO annoying.

Also annoying - the canceled task sound. I use the broken broken task manager to keep always-canceled tasks up, so it's happening constantly and I find it is way too loud and long (I know it's short, but when it happens constantly it could stand to be even shorter. and quieter. and maybe not so metallic like attack noises). I ended up removing them, I think that's all I removed.

I have a forgotten beast/ithillid toxin problem and my dwarves are falling asleep. It took me a while to notice the alert telling me this, and I was surprised there was no noise associated, was that one a part of the "stand up, lie down" section of noises I removed?

[zwei]

I love the Urist quotes! My favourite though is the possession message. "It's all Soooo cleeeeeeeeearrrrr". Followed up by the succumbing to melancholy one. (poor, poor diplomat)
My least favourite soundbite is definitely the whole fall/stand nonsense. It works for adventure mode, but in fort mode when your dwarves are tripping all over each other on the way to the depot or something, it is SO annoying.

Also annoying - the canceled task sound. I use the broken broken task manager to keep always-canceled tasks up, so it's happening constantly and I find it is way too loud and long (I know it's short, but when it happens constantly it could stand to be even shorter. and quieter. and maybe not so metallic like attack noises). I ended up removing them, I think that's all I removed.

I have a forgotten beast/ithillid toxin problem and my dwarves are falling asleep. It took me a while to notice the alert telling me this, and I was surprised there was no noise associated, was that one a part of the "stand up, lie down" section of noises I removed?

Yeah, cancelation sounds are pain.

On one hand, you want to know that task you set up failed and that you have to requeue it or to procure raw materials.

On the other, its just annoying. I chose to leave it in per above, but guess it can use some tuning still (longer timeout, less concurency)

As for missing toxin message, can you send me gamelog.txt with messages relating to them/post relevant lines here? I did not encounter such thing yet, so it still need adding. In fact, anyone that has extensive logs is encouraged to share them with me to help me find rare messages and add then to ss.

[Rex_Nex]

Perhaps just a soft "clicking" sound for a cancel message? I too find them annoying.

As for my gamelog, here is mine. I don't know if there are any rarities, and 2.1 megs of gamelog isn't that huge of an amount, but here it is regardless. Lots of combat reporting, unfortunately though.

Megaupload Link

[ExdeathV]

I don't know if anyone has asked this questoin, but I need help with this. I really want to use it, but I don't understand this at all.

[Rex_Nex]

Download soundsense, java runtime, and the soundpack. Put the soundpack into the soundsense folder, run Soundsense.exe, play DF. If it cant find your gamelog.txt, the config file has a spot to set it at, or there could be a gui for that, I cant really remember.

[Rainseeker]

I love the Urist quotes! My favourite though is the possession message. "It's all Soooo cleeeeeeeeearrrrr". Followed up by the succumbing to melancholy one. (poor, poor diplomat)

   I'm glad you enjoyed it!  I'm recording some new sounds to add today! 

[Flaede]

As for missing toxin message, can you send me gamelog.txt with messages relating to them/post relevant lines here? I did not encounter such thing yet, so it still need adding. In fact, anyone that has extensive logs is encouraged to share them with me to help me find rare messages and add then to ss.

I'm not near that computer right now, but when I get home I can send you a copy if you want (what method?). It will be filled with Cancel Task spam, however. The sleep message is actually a cancel task message*, it starts out like all of them, but gives the reason: Unconscious. All the old timers are susceptible because no shoes + puddles of frikkin' ithillid toxin = ZZZZZ.

Every time something related to a cat happens and I hear the meow - perfect. I have a desperate need to wipe out those critters, so it makes me very happy to hear when I am being infiltrated by the fuzzy menace.

*EDIT: "soandso cancels foomaking: Unconscious"

**EDIT: any chance of getting an "ENRAGED" sound?
note: lots of things other than dwarves get enraged. Which is very unfortunate, because a Urist Is Enraged bit would be hilarious.
"You're making me angry, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry!"