... Screwed, I just registered as a user Just kidding of course.

Initially I do have a couple of questions, but I will try to assist wherever I'm able to. I'm new to allegro itself, but I've been coding for ages so I guess I can help out in general programming questions

OK, Enough rant.. on to the questions.

1. What software do you recomend to make sound effects for games? Hate to 'borrow' other peoples stuff if it becomes too obvious

2. Is it faster and/or just more convenient to load samples and bitmaps from a package than just having files placed in somewhat structured directory tree?

3. Would you like to see yet another shootemup game? I'm Currently coding one

4. If a tree falls, does a kitten somewhere else die?

Cheers
/ixi

/dance

Anyway, why does your username look familiar ...

Probably, but it would be impossible very hard to determine if there was a cause and effect relationship between the two.

Well, that depends on what you're trying to prove. With enough flashy graphs and media coverage you can state there's a cause and effect relationship between any two simultaneous events.

Tonight at 11, logging in the Amazon linked to increased kitten mortality throughout North America.

Using something like the Allegro datafiles for storing BITMAPs has pros and cons. They are compressed, but since I'm assuming you would distribute the game in a compressed archive they won't help the compression of that, so it's only really a matter of reducing the space of the installed game. The speed difference for loading the bitmap is not a serious problem since datafiles would ideally be loaded at the start of a level when time isn't of great importance. Datafiles can be really good to clean up clutter (one file as opposed to dozens), hide the images from casual browsers and apply password protection.

As for the shootup game, make an easy-to-finish game that you would like to play. The key to learning something new and finishing projects is doing something you like; worry about other people later

Must be because ixilom read backwards spells molixi, which in turn greatly resembles molech, an alternate reading of the name Moloch. Guess we might be screwed after all. Ixilom also sounds like Ixion, one of the aeons of Final Fantasy X (the Roman numeral of which might explain the exotic final consonant of his transliteration of molek). Incidentally, my vocabulary has no entry for 'far-fetched'.

Disclaimer: Off-topicness is a key part of a healthy and balanced thread.

Yeah, these guys go off topic like no others, and you gave them direct provocation .

I think they're all discussing the kitten because it was the most interesting question.
All the other questions has already been answered a hundred times. (see search button)

Thank you Mark Oates for the names of sound tools, I'll definently look them up

Trezker, I wish I was as cool as you are, probably never made a misstake in your life... right?

Okay, so I fed the trolls with the kitten so to speak... And now I know if I go totally OT, I dont have to feel bad

Cheers
/ixi

load any sound into audacity and start garbling it. speed it up, slow it down, lower the sample resolution. save every new affected sound as a different file and you're generating sounds. i'm not trying to discourage you from learning synthesis, but you'll be surprised how easily you can warp a single sound into a library full of effects.

if you have extra time and energy, you might want to check out pd, which is available on windows and linux (mac too??? i dunno). you can learn a lot of good stuff about synthesis from the tutorials.

of course there are great VSTs and electronic music programs out there, (i like Reason for it's incredible synths), but they arent free. pd is totally free.

I think the name is familiar because it resembles (a little) axilmar's name. At least, that's what I thought when I saw his name.

I thought maybe it was a GameDev lounge lizard or something. Or maybe I saw a name like that in WoW. I dunno; it looked familiar.

- Some sort of expandable audio program. Useful ones are ProTools, Logic (though there won't be any PC versions or updates any more since Apple bought emagic), Nuendo, Cubase, Cakewalk Sonar. Each of these can do recording, editing and mixing. Unfortunately, all of them are rather expensive.
- You'll want a huge range of plug-ins, both soft-synths (a.k.a. "instrument plugins" or "vst instruments" or the like) and effects. There are dozens of free synths out there, and also a few useful effects. Also, each audio suite comes with a handful of useful plugins already.
- You can use your voice as raw material; this works amazingly well. Just make noises that are closest to what you have in mind, then edit them until they are exactly what you want. Kitchen utensils tend to work well, too. Good starting points for adjusting the sound to your needs are pitch change, stretching, EQ, distortion, compression, reverb.
- Vocoders are good. You want a vocoder plug-in.
- Finally, you can browse the net for free samples, there are quite a few of them. Most of them will need editing, though.