GP4 Sound [RELEASED!!!] + Tutorial [WIP] PART 2 ADDED

GP4 Sound [RELEASED!!!] + Tutorial [WIP] PART 2 ADDED
Date: July 05, 2010 12:11AM
Posted by: Mitsuro Sano

Registered: 17 years ago

.
I've posted some videos in the GP4 videos thread to show you some internal sounds I'm making. But I think it's better to create a new thread to show these sounds.

So here are the sounds already posted ( the name of the cars shows where I take samples, but it doesn't mean that it sounds like those cars - for example the 2010 Mclaren ):

Ferrari 1997:

Generic 2003:

McLaren-Mercedes 2010:

Williams-Renault 1991-1992:

McLaren-Honda 1991-1992:

McLaren-Mercedes 1998:

External sounds:

Jordan-Mugen-Honda 1999:

Renault 2005:

I will update this post each time a new engine sound will be made :-)

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

GP4 is very limited when it's about engine sounds; rFactor for example has without a doubt better sounds, using the same samples than with GP4.
A lot of people tried to make engine sounds in GP4, they all sounds really good but all have the same weakest point: the downshifting. I was very lucky to figure out how to make downshifting sounds as I was playing with the engine.txt file just for fun ( making the car reving higher etc... ).

I will try to explain how I make engine sound ( I didn't say it's the best way to do it, but this include how to make downshifting sounds using different samples ), and I'm sure that after reading this, the great GP4 soundmakers like Lee, TeamBPR or TTM or anyone else will make even better sounds ( if they want to of course

).

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Tutorial: making internal sounds in GP4

Tools needed :
SampleEditor - you can find it at www.realgpx.com (Lo2k and Duffer website).
Audacity - you can find it searching "audacity" in Google.
SoundForge (TrialVersion ) - from sonycreativesoftware website ( limited to 30days )
WordPad ^^.
GP4 to test sound of course!

PART 1 - Understanding the engine.txt file.

Before all, launch SampleEditor and open the bank sounds game_snd.bnk at the /Samples directory

In the main GP4 directory, Samples\EngineData\, you will find 5 directories :

Cockpit and T-Cam are using the same samples. The other onboard cameras, the chase and lead cams are using other samples. And the TSC another again.

I'll just talking about internal sounds, so forget the Preset5.

Each directory contains a file named engine.txt. Here is how it looks like :

[Engine]
RPMAccel=300
RPMDecel=200
VolumeFade=20

[Sample1A]
High=4000
Low=300
HighFade=5000
LowFade=2000
FreqOffset=6260
VolOffset=0
Mute=0

[Sample2A]
High=7800
Low=0
HighFade=2000
LowFade=2000
FreqOffset=6000
VolOffset=3
Mute=0

[Sample3A]
High=12000
Low=8000
HighFade=3000
LowFade=3000
FreqOffset=10010
VolOffset=0
Mute=0

[Sample4A]
High=18000
Low=0
HighFade=15000
LowFade=3000
FreqOffset=14000
VolOffset=0
Mute=0

[Sample1D]
High=6000
Low=300
HighFade=8000
LowFade=2000
FreqOffset=6300
VolOffset=20
Mute=1

[Sample2D]
High=3000
Low=0
HighFade=3000
LowFade=4000
FreqOffset=8200
VolOffset=0
Mute=0

[Sample3D]
High=18001
Low=12000
HighFade=2000
LowFade=1000
FreqOffset=14130
VolOffset=8
Mute=0

[Sample4D]
High=12000
Low=2700
HighFade=6000
LowFade=2000
FreqOffset=13200
VolOffset=50
Mute=1

[Engine2]
Acc_MasterVolOffSet=0
Acc_AccVolOffSet=0
Acc_DecVolOffSet=4
Acc_Max=14000
Acc_Min=7000
Acc_Att=12
Dec_MasterVolOffSet=0
Dec_AccVolOffSet=0
Dec_DecVolOffSet=4
Dec_Max=14000
Dec_Min=7000
Dec_Att=6

I will just talk about the [sample**] and the [Engine2]. I don't know what the [Engine] do

.

[sample*A] refers to a sample from 100 to 103 (oncar sounds except tcam and cockpit) and from 110 to 113 (cockpit and Tcam sounds) in SampleEditor. Those sounds are used when the car is accelerating in GP4
[sample2D] and [sample3D] refers to the samples 105-106 and 115-116. [sample1D] and [sample4D] are useless ( except in TSC ). Those sounds are used when the car is deccelerating totally.

Now how does the data inside those tags work? This is how I understand:

[Sample4A]
High=18000 ----> Means the number of engine revolutions in GP4 where the sample 103/113 is ending ( or fade out)
Low=15000 ----> Means the revs where the sample is beginning.
HighFade=15000 ----> Means the revs needed to that sample to fade out completly. For this example, the engine in GP4 need to reach 33000 rpm to not hearing the sample 103/113 :-o

.
LowFade=3000 -----> Means the revs needed to that sample to go from mute to "full sound". For this example, this sample will begin at 12000 rpm and the volume will be optimal at 15000 rpm.
FreqOffset=14000 -----> Means the revs where the sample will have the original pitch and speed. You rev higher, the pitch will be higher and the speed faster. Same logic if you rev lower.
VolOffset=0 ------> Volume of the sample. 0 is the original volume of the sample. Positive values will decrease the volume. Negative values will increase it ( but be careful, lower than -7 and GP4 sometimes will cut the engine sounds )
Mute=0 ------> The sample is muted if the value here is 1.

[Engine2]
Acc_MasterVolOffSet=0 ------> Volume of the sampleS 100 to 103 ( 110 to 113 ). Same thing than with the tag [Sample4A]
Acc_AccVolOffSet=0 ------> Volume of the samples 100 to 103 ( 110 to 113 ) when the car is accelerating in GP4
Acc_DecVolOffSet=4 ------> Volume of the samples 100 to 103 ( 110 to 113 ) when the car is deccelerating totally in GP4
Acc_Max=14000 From what I understand, the engine sounds will fading in from 7000rpm to 14000rpm
Acc_Min=7000
Acc_Att=12
Dec_MasterVolOffSet=0 ------> Volume of the sampleS 105-106 ( 115-116 ). Same thing than with the tag [Sample4A]
Dec_AccVolOffSet=0 ------> Volume of the samples 105-106 ( 115-116 ) when the car is accelerating in GP4
Dec_DecVolOffSet=4 ------> Volume of the samples 105-106 ( 115-116 ) when the car is deccelerating totally in GP4
Dec_Max=14000 The engine sounds will fading out from 14000rpm to 7000rpm
Dec_Min=7000
Dec_Att=6

--------------------- how to make deccelerating sounds working ? -----------------------------------

If you have the original game_snd.bnk, then open it with SampleEditor and listen the samples 105-106. You've never heared that sounds when you've driven in GP4 right?
Now open the engine.txt from the Preset2 directory. And change the values of these lines:

Acc_AccVolOffSet=0
Acc_DecVolOffSet=3000

Dec_AccVolOffSet=3000
Dec_DecVolOffSet=0

This will have the effect to make the deccelerating sounds "disabled" when accelerating and the accelerating sounds "disabled" when deccelerating ( in fact, you will not hear it but those sounds are still working ).

Now test it in GP4 in TCam view, you'll be surprised ^^.

WARNING : GP4 shows already its limit because the sound looks like on/off sounds, not like in Rfactor or other games when you can progressively go from downshifting sound to accelerating sound

PART 2 - How to record engine sounds?

You can find a lot of onboard videos of Formula One at Youtube which is in good quality, for example this ( thx Brière ^^ ):

For me, it's important to have an onboard camera showing a long straight, a long mid corner, and a hairpin. And if you can find a warm-up lap onboard, it's better! Why? Because you can record engine sounds from low rpm, mid rpm and max rpm without hearing the car revving a lot! Having only a high rev sample is not good because when you are in low rpm in GP4, the sample doesn't sound good at all.

Do you find you're onboard video? Okay, let's record it!

configure Windows and Audacity

First of all, you'll have to configure you're Windows in order to put the Audio output as the recording device ( not the microphone ^^ ). The procedure is different if you're using XP, Vista or 7. I won't explain how to configure you're windows but you can find good tutorials in Google

.

Then you'll have to configure Audacity. There is a good tutorial here to show how to configure and how to use Audacity: Audacity tutorial
The interesting parts are I.3 and I.4. However, there are some values you'll have to change. After some reading, you'll come to this:

Instead of 44100 Hz, put 22050 Hz as the default value because GP4 uses samples with 22050 hz of framerate.

Also, you're going to record a mono signal,so set the number of channels to record to 1 (Mono) on the Audio I/O preferences.

It's better to restart Audacity, then you'll be sure that the changes will be done!

Test Audacity by recording some random sounds from Youtube or anything you want, in order to have a good waveform like this ( this picture shows a stereo record, that's why there is 2 tracks ):

. it's important not to have a sample clipping a lot ( with the waveform having a peak way beyond 1 unit ).
If you're sample doesn't have enough volume, you can raise it by selecting all the sample, then amplify the sample ( click on the track -> CTRL+A -> Effect -> Amplify ).

Record!

Now the serious thing begins! Start you're video and then click on the red Record button

to begin recording.

After finishing the video, click on the yellow Stop button

to cease recording. The cursor will return to its previous position, before the recording was started.

Now you should have something like this:

You've got all the sound from the video. Now you want to take a part of it, for example, when the car is at maximum speed. Select this part ( it will be highlighted like in the picture above ) then copy it, open a new Audacity window and paste it.

To make it simple, do this combinaison: CTRL+C, CTRL+N, CTRL+V.

Now you should have this:

If you click on the button "play" holding the shift button, then you can loop-play the sample, to "see" how it will sound ingame. You can hear the difference between the beginning of the sample and the end while it's looping. In order to avoid that, select all the sample ( CTRL+A ), copy it ( CTRL+C ) then put the cursor to the end of the sample with this button

. Paste the sample ( CTRL+V ) and then revert it:

Alright, your first engine sample is done. Export it as a wav file and give the name you want. I advice you to put the slot number where the sample will have to be in GP4 Sample, for example 103_myEngineSound.wav. It will be sample for others to install the sounds afterwards.

what should I do if the sample I want is from a video when the car is accelerating or deccelerating ( the RPM doesn't stay still ) ?

This time, Sound Forge is coming.

Next will follow soon...

Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 08/08/2010 10:32PM by Mitsuro Sano.