shared sound 1 gig ?

[segobi]

Hi!
Does any1 know which sound format they are using ? The preload file itself is again 1 gig...(base source shared sounds)

 

[Chris D]

For sounds?

Mainly .wav and .mp3 as far as I know.

 

[poseyjmac]

wav + mp3 format

 

[ShinRa]

think about all the extra things every npc/main character/people u meet have to say. besides regular dialog, there has to be things they say depending if u do certain things in certain areas. so im not surprised theres thousands of files.

 

[scatr99]

im still downloading the preload but i was wondering if you extracted the gcf if you would be able to listen to the sounds, or if they use a new codec. anyone tried this?

 

[poseyjmac]

they are encrypted, so you can't listen to them unless you can break the encryption.

 

[DigiQ8]

they are encrypted, so you can't listen to them unless you can break the encryption.

damn
i thought i can listen to some HL2 music

 

[Asuka]

they are encrypted, so you can't listen to them unless you can break the encryption.

Very nice, was worried people would go spoiling more things.

 

[Ragnarokk]

I'm really looking forward to hearing the soundtrack. The first one had some pretty good tracks, hopefuly they put forth the same effort into hl2.

 

[segobi]

For sounds?

Mainly .wav and .mp3 as far as I know.

k thx. Still using wav? For high-quality ?
ogg would have also been good. let' see if theres some new test..

 

[ShadowFox]

damn
i thought i can listen to some HL2 music

Yeah, they could of left the music unencrypted. I don't see the harm in that.

 

[-smash-]

Hmmm, I had the Shared Sounds Cache one minute, then the next it was gone...

And now it won't start preload, just sits at 0%.... :x

 

[ShinRa]

think about all the extra things every npc/main character/people u meet have to say. besides regular dialog, there has to be things they say depending if u do certain things in certain areas. so im not surprised theres thousands of files.

quoting myself for emphasis.

 

[blahblahblah]

1 GB seems a bit on the large side to me. Assuming a typical mp3 encoding scheme (if they are using wave, shame on VALVe) that means the audio preload file has around 16 hours of various NPC chatter, music and other audio files. That is assuming one minute of sound equals one megabyte.

 

[Tiddalick]

What is wrong with using Wav format....your actually getting the sampled sound then, not just a mathematical construct of the sound (compressed formats).
The greater the quality in sounds (especially music and sfx) the better in my books.

 

[Interl@ce]

i don't know if the actual audio is 1 gig, the source shared materials file was also 1gig but only 500mb got actually downloaded.
Is steam really downloading 1 gig of audio or is it less?

 

[Ragnarokk]

Because wav file are enourmous. I think wave files are 10x larger on average, at least that's what I recall. Morever, the audio loss in high bitrate mp3s is undetectable by most people.

And 16 hours of dialog is easily do-able. If anyone could get the numbers for doom 3 it would be a good comparison, though I would imagine hl2 would have a lot more audio than doom 3.

 

[marko33]

hey smash! did you delte your .blob file.. if you do steam will redownload the files.

 

[Tiddalick]

I would hope that the Main files, such as gun shots, are in wav format. Music I could understand it being a high quality compressed format.

A high quality mp3 is approximatly a 6th the size of its wav counterpart
But of course this depends on the rate of sampling, the quality of sampling etc etc

 

[Teddy]

i don't know if the actual audio is 1 gig, the source shared materials file was also 1gig but only 500mb got actually downloaded.
Is steam really downloading 1 gig of audio or is it less?

The file is 1 gig, tho steam compresses it when it sends it (hence only a 500 mb download)

 

[blahblahblah]

I finished the preload. Took a quick peek, they are WAV files. :O

 

[Wraith]

they said a long time ago they are making special wav files that have the text typed out within the file, and the models would mouth to the text and play the sound so that it syncs up correctly, or something like this system. basically stfu, valve know what they doing

 

[Teddy]

they said a long time ago they are making special wav files that have the text typed out within the file...etc

That's the right idea, but not how they said they'd do it. The .wav files are just normal sound files (i'm 99% sure), to do the lip synching they have a program that lets you load the character and wav and then type in what they're saying.. the program then extracts the phonemes and applies that to the model.

eg. the lip movement is stored as an animation, not a .wav file

 

[blahblahblah]

they said a long time ago they are making special wav files that have the text typed out within the file, and the models would mouth to the text and play the sound so that it syncs up correctly, or something like this system. basically stfu, valve know what they doing

Okay. And the STFU was needed why?

If I wanted your opinion, I would beat it out of you.

 

[dkelly]

That's the right idea, but not how they said they'd do it. The .wav files are just normal sound files (i'm 99% sure), to do the lip synching they have a program that lets you load the character and wav and then type in what they're saying.. the program then extracts the phonemes and applies that to the model.

eg. the lip movement is stored as an animation, not a .wav file

Yeah you're right I think.
Which is pretty clever, this way they don't have to do any facial animations really.. just let the AI do it all.. crazyness.

 

[CombineHarvester]

At the risk of being flamed, does anyone know the score RE: CD soundtrack when downloading from STEAM? Is is simply a case of burning it to CD so it can be played like those who buy the regular boxed editions?

 

[poseyjmac]

Okay. And the STFU was needed why?

was confused here as well. i think hes not right in the head

 

[Maxi]

It would be cool if Valve released one song from the game. I'd like to hear some of teh muuusic.

 

[wonkers]

...I am impatient. Why is this taking so long? I think putting out the game in small sections it just a way to buy more time. It's kind of infuriating. At least to me. It's dribling out in small chunks and we gotta sit here and go "ooohh nice, wait a minute what the hell do I care about a pack of audio files!"

I am going to train a one handed monkey infultrater to just take the game.

 

[-TaNaKa-]

Im sure hackers are working on these HL2 files right now. O__o

 

[Alec_85]

Weren't the files in the last preload encrypted as well? They got cracked right? I doubt Valve came up with a new & revolutionary encryption matrix since then.

 

[tokin]

If HL2 is 3 something gigs uncompressed, how much have they put out once the second phase of the preload is done?

 

[Darth Valium]

nope, they werent encrypted. its only a matter of the approbiate tool to open/convert/view those textures, format-specifig yes, encrypte, no.

these soundfiles are different, not sure if these are in a valve-defined format(using wav as a container, like avi for xvid), and you only need a plugin/codec for them, or if they are really encrypted.

 

[Alec_85]

If HL2 is 3 something gigs uncompressed, how much have they put out once the second phase of the preload is done?

The first preload was 1 gig uncompressed. I think this one is the same approximately.

Edit: Darth Valium: Alright.

 

[Jimlad]

What is wrong with using Wav format....your actually getting the sampled sound then, not just a mathematical construct of the sound (compressed formats).
The greater the quality in sounds (especially music and sfx) the better in my books.

...unless you're talking about lossless compression, you mean. In any case, most people won't be able to hear any difference between a good quality mp3 and corresponding wav, particularly at bit rates of less than 256 kbps. Perhaps a better reason for using wav files would be to minimise processing time.