Default UI Sounds

Turns out the UUID of the "rez a new prim" sound is f4a0660f-5446-dea2-80b7-6482a082803c. It is hardcoded inside of llcontroldef.cpp so you can't configure it without either altering the source, or (as my buddy Malevolent Garmes did) put on your Wonder Woman Underoos and take a hex editor to the executable. So, while you can't simply alter one of those nice config files included with your install to change the default sounds, they can be changed.

Interactive soundscape ideas

Well, I knew I wanted some movement (maybe size changing or particles?) and now I know what else I want to do with my mushrooms. Well, more than just them. Adaptive music. The only thing that stands out about Asheron's Call 2 to me years later (aside from the endless armidillos) is the music score - the music altered itself based on what creatures were around, their proximity, the key and melodic themes changed depending on the area, and the music avatars could play with instruments in-game changed key to work within each area. I wish I could locate the whitepaper I read years ago about it. "An Interactive Symphony: Music in AC2." It added an impossible-to-describe richness to the experience.

The hardest part about this might be the way SL handles sound. Clients have to load the sounds, so the first time they're played for an avatar may be several seconds after they've been triggered... which would make sounds which play well together due to rhythm rather tricky. I know there's llPreloadSound(), but I've never used it, and so don't know what quirks it may have, and whether playing the sound at zero volume would be more effective. And there's llSetSoundQueueing()...

This might work out well for me - I'll have a building and scripting project with lots of sensory delights, an information-gathering and teaching project (avatar toolbox), and a little vending on the side to keep it all funded.

Sound Prims - Get yours now!

Free on SLX.

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Do you want to add sound to your creations, but scripting makes you cringe?

Sound Prims are super easy. You drop the sounds you want to hear into the prim, and you're done. You can do whatever you want with the prims (you get full permissions) so go wild! Link them into your builds!

Want to use a sound? Put it in the prim. Changed your mind? Take it out of the prim. Sound Prims are that easy.

You get a collection of prims with different abilities.
- Loop a sound. This only makes noise if you have ONE sound in it. If you have two, it is silent.
- Intermittent prims play one of their sounds every couple minutes. Great for environmental background noise!
- Intermittent Day prims act as Intermittent during the daytime only.
- Intermittent Night prims act as Intermittent during the nighttime only.
- On Touch prims play one of their sounds once when touched.
- On Attach prims play one of their sounds once when attached.

These are scripted, so they will be silent if you are in a "no scripts" area.

For the daring: The scripts are open so you can view and change them. Loudness and time intervals are clearly marked at the top of the scripts so they're easy to modify. The scripts are included separately as well, so you can turn your existing prims into sound prims.

Official Stuff:

Any products that you make using Sound Prims and Sound Prims Scripts are yours to do with as you please. Sell them, give them away, wear them on your head, do whatever brings you joy.

This Sound Prims package is meant to be free to all. If you ended up paying more than 1L for it, let everyone and their brother know who the worthless scum-bucket was that sold it to you. Give copies of the Sound Prim package to your friends and neighbors. Pass it out to newbies. You're welcome to include it, whole and unmodified, with other packages of freebies.

Sound Prims Update

The Sound Prims work, they're simple, elegant and nifty. I'd love to give them to you right now.

Permissions, however, are totally f*cked tonight. I can't give something away with full permissions.

Sound Prims

I've been thinking about the lack of an easy way for people who don't script to add sound to prims since this. If I get a couple minutes in SL this weekend I think I'll have a solution that's simple enough I'll feel comfortable spreading it as a freebie. I keep wondering why I haven't seen something like this available already, and what kind of impact it'll have on the grid.

The Sound of SiLence

Torley got me thinking about how sound is used in SL. I often use sound in my builds. Doors creak, electrical effects hum, cannons boom, water splashes, I've got environmental birdsound/crickets tied to night and day... I think part of why it is so rarely used is because of the links to scripting. People in SL for the most part seem so convinced that they could never learn to script that they won't even try. A movie without sound isn't immersive, and for me the same is true of builds in SL.

One of the things in SL I really don't like is the lack of default sound associated with water. A silent ocean doesn't do much for me.

You can set a music stream for a land parcel, but that's not tailorable to any smaller area (like only inside a building.) Potentially one could break up a land plot into tiny parcels and set each one. Might be useful for buildings. Connecting parcels with the same music station sound seemless as you cross them, so walking around outside the building the sound shouldn't stutter or go out of sync. (I hadn't thought about using mini-parcels this way before, but I think I'll have to try it!) Since parcel music streams aren't tied to a height it'd sound odd when you fly over the building. Still would be classy for no-fly zones... Land Parcel music streams can be set via script too, so one could change music streams based on the time of day, etc... I wonder if there's free-to-connect streams dedicated to environmental sounds? The background hustle of a city, wind and animal sounds in a forest, surf and the occasional sea bird, underwater soundscapes...

Sounds tied to a prim are more complicated. They have to be scripted, and they come in a max of ten second soundbites. If you loop sound, you can remove the script and (if I remember correctly) the sound from the prim's inventory while the noise continues - looping sounds have to be turned off like particles. Wonder if there's a small builder market for noisy prims? ;)

The lack of a sound-prim interface in the edit tab is another area that screams "BETA!" to me. If you only have one sound inside a prim, why doesn't it loop it by default? Or let you set a couple properties like loop, play on touch, play at specified interval, etc. ?

Cannons and other scripted toys, and a whole day to play!

I logged on Sunday at four in the morning (insomnia again) and had the whole sim to myself.

Completed the cannons in their basic form - they shoot in whatever direction they're facing, there's a nice "boom" sound and some flaming particles, and whoever's in it flies. Uploading the boom was a pain; I learned that sound files become much quieter after loading. To get the angle of the push I'm now using the location difference between the hollow cylinder of the cannon and the curved prim that closes the back of the cannon. You can aim the cannon up or down and the force follows suit. If you know someone who wants one, or if you want to be shot thru the sim, IM me. I will probably add a circus texture option and maybe a flaming wick before I start selling them.

I added a switch and some link messages to my ship so that all the runway lights turn on and off as one. Did a cute timing trick so that the particles seem to turn the corner.

No exciting scripting, but I redid my anchor arrangement and raised the boat another 30M. Gets me away from the view of my neighbor's little mall with the giant glass wall, but low enough that other people's skyboxes don't feel too close. I added some boat pics to Snapzilla, but the camera doesn't love me.

One of my european friends was on, so after letting me shoot him from a cannon, I helped him troubleshoot a scripted toy he'd bought that was an incredible example of awkward user configuration. If you expect you users to configure a tool using notecards, design your project so they'll know how to do it right. I've had free AOs and holo-vendors that were far easier to configure. What about contacting the maker? My friend did. Telling your customers that they're stupid is not the path to a good reputation.

I took some free bird and insect sounds and made a script that randomly plays the daytime sounds during the day, and the others at night. A little ambience. I need to explore the distance the sounds travel; if I decide to give this away I don't want to aggravate neighbors.

Gorilla and his friends (a group of neighbors) decided to invest heavily in the sim. They've bought up all the remaining coastline that was for sale and plan to keep it open and available. I'm happy about that - some of the plots were large enough that they could have supported casinos.

Torley got back to me. Said that scripted prims were a big source of lag. Textures too - small, few, and repeated are good. Whether they are library or not doesn't matter. The built-in skirt doesn't add lag. I wasn't sure about that since it was added later. She also pointed out this article as a resource on the wellbeing of sims.

EDIT: This article explains why custom skins and no-prim clothes and the like don't add to lag. So clothes, tattoos, makeup, etc are merged together into the same number of temporary textures regardless of what you use.