Im assuming it will be possible to record our own radio comms for use in the program? Not that i have anything against your voice :hide:

They will be .wav files but there will be lots of them. Duration will need to be born in mind to prevent overlap, and you'll have to export them at the right frequency and a suiteable volume. But I wont stop you , i'll even include some static samples for you to mix with

amazing! now you have virtually the potential to implement "anything"...i beileve Scawen will find this mod a precious reference as a "proof of concept" of what some underestimated things can bring to lfs...

Sound is too readily overlooked, that's something I learned making my own games - as soon as I add sound to a game i'm working on I stop working and start playing it too much ... it's the immersion factor.

Quote from sil3ntwar :

Im assuming it will be possible to record our own radio comms for use in the program? Not that i have anything against your voice :hide:

some poll showed that Becky's voice will be much appreciated by most of lfs'ers ...honestly i will appreciate it too because it will add a feminine touch and a bit of variation from other race games dominated by men's voices...
...maybe it can be configurable to have a male voice or a female voice (or a choice from voice1, voice2, voice3, etc.)...so to match every taste

Finally got this yoke working.
Nice job Becky.

I'm still having problems with the backfire.exe running on my machine. It still insists on briefly appearing and then quitting - am I missing something here or have I fallen to noob status!!

I've added the exe to Windows Firewall and allowed it as an Exception - anything else anyone can suggest? I'm not running LFS or any other Insim apps. Really wanna try this baby out...

All the major possible failure points now have runtime error reporting so should report onscreen with any failures and the reason why. If you're getting a message please let me know, if you aren't then it's a compatability issue with my compiler.

Here's the bit where i'm grasping at straws:

Firstly make sure it is extracted with the folder structure intact, v2 should have the sound files inside a folder called "bfire".

If that fails, the Backfire mod is using DirectX to play the sounds, specifically it is using version7, in order to do this it must make a DX instance and it could be your graphics or sound card driver doesnt like DX7 games. LFS is DX8.

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Im assuming it will be possible to record our own radio comms for use in the program?

I've just reworked the radio system so that the static and radio tones are independant of the actual vocala samples, this system reads the length of the sample directly so you can use any length .wav file you like and the radio will stay keyed until it finishes playing. It'll also play two messages in sequence without re-keying, and does all the interference cuts and volume masks on the fly.

The one thing you must do is make sure you wait a moment for the radio to finish keying up before you start speaking (ie: have a moment of blank audio before the actual speach) - which is true to life with real pit radio's too ! ... I've decided not to vary the playback frequency, there seems little point in that, so making alternative radio sets should be easy.

Attached is a sample sound file where i've strung two messages together ... not actually messages you are likely to hear - but the point is these start out as clean samples. For good measure there's some backfires in there too ...

Radio Communications Sample

To me this is quite realistic, sure it does make hearing the pit crew difficult - but that's true to life from my own experience and why everything over radio's is repeated.

Although on listening a few times it was easier to understand when it was live than when listening to that recording.

@ becky

i appreciate your work and i like it, since it's a "work" in progress like lfs itself, i can only drop my hat for that.
now for criticism, !NOT! as insult, but i think you're not that experienced at audio engenieering.
You vid was a short term work i know, and i guess that it wasn't intended to sound that heavily oversteered.
if it was on purpose, well you're loosing much of the signal-quality itself, concerning the whole freq-band but most the low end frequencies.

I've to admit i've NEVER had the pleasure of traveling at 190mph (not while in a plane) but in a race car (enys you for that) but i don't think that your demonstration of audio distortion caused by the "wind" is that massive.
Besides if it all was on purpose (still hopes not) then you don't need to put post-static in your "radio" cause noone would be able to understand them anyway...

yes i've just put on my flamesuit go right ahead...
no seriously use it as criticism.

regards

Quote from Honey :

some poll showed that Becky's voice will be much appreciated by most of lfs'ers ...honestly i will appreciate it too because it will add a feminine touch and a bit of variation from other race games dominated by men's voices...

But then theres always the females who will want a deep Arnold "The Governator" Schwarzenegger voice...

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you're loosing much of the signal-quality itself

The problem with the video is that I was limited to the quality that fraps would code at, I could of run stuff onto DVD and then recoded that to AVI, but it'd have been a hell of a job - the video shows what it's all about, sure it isn't great quality but you do get an idea of what the mod does.

The sound recording is a quality issue of the recording, i'm not experienced here but I think my built in sound card isn't doing the job - however the radio is much easier to hear when it is live ... but i'm just not ready to show you that yet. Think of it as a teaser, but the sound quality will be better when the program is in your hands.

ok, thx for what you've done so far...

i really want to try this i need to learn more about outgage!

doesnt work i followed instuctions, running u16 and vista

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doesnt work

Your error message is invalid.

Quote from e2blade :

doesnt work i followed instuctions, running u16 and vista

Vista is most probably the problem, it is known to have problems with LFS without ridiculous amounts of sound lag set.

Quote from Becky Rose :

If that fails, the Backfire mod is using DirectX to play the sounds, specifically it is using version7, in order to do this it must make a DX instance and it could be your graphics or sound card driver doesnt like DX7 games. LFS is DX8.

Thanks Becky for trying to help...

I've tried the mod on another machine of mine and it's working flawlessly so it must be something to do with the sound drivers on my comp (HP laptop with ADI SoundMAX builtin soundcard). This is the first time I've had sound problems on the laptop, so I think you're right with regard to DX version and drivers. Nevermind, I'll still be able to enjoy the mod on my other machine.

While you're looking for sound samples (don't know if you've got enough), have you tried the GPLSO mod for GPL? http://forum.rscnet.org/showthread.php?t=82311. I'd imagine you'd need permission to use the backfire samples in there, but it's just a thought.

Wow! i must say this is a very good start. Sounds impressive =)

I don't know if someone said it already but would be good idea that the backfire do not sound exactly in center of both speakers. In order to give a little more depth they should be (depending on the car) 75% in the left and a 25% in the right. Like in musical recording where we have a guitar in the left and the other in the right, the bass in the middle, etc.

Anyway, I hope my feedback helps to improve even more your work =)

Sorry for my english

I quite agree Desorden, one of the enhancements I will be making later is adding surround sound support for the backfires, this will also allow me to put the backfires onto other cars. I cant do this yet however because i'm still workingon the packet data from LFS and it is a lot to learn.

Very good work, thanks. What your planning on creating eventually sounds even more impressive, I had no idea until recently this was even possible. Works flawlessly on my machine.

I've tried it last night and it is way better than v.1.1 (that normal ) Anyway, im looking foward to the next update, as i can see some little things that makes it a little unreal...yeah im still on idle about the sound quality...ill try to find some sound samples for backfire so i could ship them here... because from inside the car, the sound shouldn't feel so direct, but more like blurred, if i can say it like that.(im french so please excuse my writing).

Im very happy someone came up with that prog. Good job Becky rose

Quick question, this looks really interesting, just wondering if its possible to have this running along with the momo leds app?

Because i'm not sure i can live without my flashing lights!!

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Quick question, this looks really interesting, just wondering if its possible to have this running along with the momo leds app?

This is the last version of the Outguage version of the backfire mod.

The next program will be an insim app that has the backfire (outguage) mod built in, this will be a more comprehensive program and I plan to include a relay in order to allow other insim and outguage applications to work (they communicate to my program and my program passes things onto LFS). The only problem here is some things in LFS are mutually exclusive [NLP and MCI packets] and so there still might be compatability issues, also it wont be compatable with other mads that also use *both* insim and outguage.

However I hope the relay will solve most compatability issues with other mods, and it's something that I think all mod authors should consider putting in to their applications.

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yeah im still on idle about the sound quality

The sounds in v2 are stolen from GTR2, a commercial game. If that's not enough for you - nothing is ! But still I will go further and add surround sound support in due course, and add backfires to other cars also, as well as circuit ambients.

nice little prog becky!

a very good start, although it needs a bit of tinkering..

some of the sounds just doesn't sound like backfiring ingame.. and some of them are too long.. could just be me, though! hehe!