So what *is* the worst sound in Zero-K?

Actually, I'm probably gonna use a bunch of WWII cannons and layer/edit it so it sounds modern and dangerous. Materials I'm using is either CC license or mah own.

if you edit sound files, also see
http://springrts.com/wiki/Sounds.lua
there are parameters to set pitch, randomize sound, etc

have a look at
http://www.freesound.org/

[[Freesound is a collaborative database of Creative Commons Licensed sounds. Browse, download and share sounds.]]

Superintendent: You are basically right, but it's not something with perfect legal protection nor presumption of innocence (at least with US companies due to the way the DMCA is worded). The music and all assets for the game are usually owned by one entity, which simplifies permissions. Also, in the case of StarCraft, Blizzard explicitly licenses all of their games for video cast/review production with advertising revenue provided the ad revenue comes from a partnership program and the video can be viewed for free. In most cases with games, you basically just need one statement, or just to ask one person if it is okay, and you are solid.

With ZK, since the devs don't claim ownership over all of the game's content but rather license most of it from CC sources, things get more complicated, as there isn't just one person to ask. Thankfully this is only really something that gets checked with music and pre-rendered video, rather than game art or sound effects, but that may be simply a limitation of current data analysis tech. Also thankfully, most people are cool with videos made from games being transformative and thus fine for the commercial use of the creator, so the issue is unlikely to come up anytime soon.

If the sounds are all over the place then perhaps many of them just need some cleaning up and standardizing. Many of the sounds are supposed to be 'cartoony' in that the Glaive is not aiming to sound like a real gun. The same goes for most weapons.

The sources for most of the sounds are here if that is helpful:
http://code.google.com/p/zero-k/source/browse/trunk#trunk%2FArtwork%2FSounds
The directory can be checked out with SVN in the same way as ZK.sdd. It's also a useful place to put your own sources.

As for general clean up, I can clean up the sounds... I just hate the fact that every unit name is messed up and has never been updated since their creation in 1999 or whatever. This makes going through, editing, and previewing things a nightmare.

Personally I don't like the pew-pew sounds. I also don't really like the cartoony graphical effects. While ZK is about as far from realistic as it gets, I think realistic sounds and graphical effects would really add to the game.

Superintendent Great work, keep it up!

quote: I just hate the fact that every unit name is messed up and has never been updated since their creation in 1999 or whatever. This makes going through, editing, and previewing things a nightmare.

Devs are afraid that "something" may break when doing cleanup changes, so nothing is ever cleaned up or refactored. The cost of stale code is mostly ignored and the priority is to add new features. ZK is an open source project suffering from the typical commercial/closed-source projects diseases...

Danger! Derailgun Engaged. Clear the area for your own safety.

...Half of such an unit-test framework already exists (zk benchmarks export their data in quite easy to process format, even draw graphs).

It's not uncoinceivable that it could be extended to run regression tests on a special machine (though such tests would probably take a while, so maybe wouldn't be worth running them for every commit).

And changes to areas outside game itself - such as site infra - are in .NET, which i think is bound to have an UT framework readily available.

Now writing tests for all that... yeah, that's easier said.

I would mainly like more diversity in sounds. This is mostly in unit replies. Some of the replies are a bit poor and there are very few of them so they can be a bit annoying. There is plenty of room to add similar things to break up some bunches. For example Brawler, Blackdawn and Krow all sound the same, Krow could sound heavier.

I like how Rector, Freaker, Convict and Weaver sound distinct from their combat units. This is not done for the other constructors because I lack the sounds.

It would be nice to have some more explosion sounds for further differentiation purposes. These would be similar to the current sounds and fairly unintrusive.
In particular I would like a better sound for Blastwings, they used to have a good one but it was the sound that melee weapons make so had to be replaced. I don't want people thinking that they are under attack by Scythes when it is just Blastwings exploding.

We are lacking lightning weapon sounds. Currently the Zeus, Panther and Scorpion share their main gun sound with Ticks. Tick is rather different so should have a distinct sound. Also the emp missile impact is just a beefed up tick.

I am currently happy with almost all of the orange plasma cannon type sounds. These include Thug, Ravager, Leveler, Wolverine, Kodachi, Hammer, Hermit, Crabe, Firewalker, Reaper, Goliath, Pillager, Tremor, Crusader, Doomsday Machine and Big Bertha. The dirt on the explosion sound for the Behemoth and Warlord is a bit over the top.

I am happy with all of the EMG sounds. Glaive, Warrior, Stardust, Typhoon and Brawler.

It would be nice if either the Halberd or Buoy had a different firing sound because currently they are the same. The impact sound could change to match.

I like the gauss sound.

I like the Star Wars laser sound. These are on Bandit, Welder, Krow, Razor's Kiss, Shredder and Welder. Welder shares the same sound as Razor's Kiss so an extra pew-pew sound for Welder would be nice. Also, Dart shoots a yellow laser but sounds like Flea, perhaps it could have a really weak sounding pew pew laser which fits for something with long reload time.

I like most of the Laser sounds. Dominatrix uses the Moderator sound which does not work because it has a much higher fire rate. I don't know what hacking sounds like. The Felon sound does not make much sense but I don't know what would replace it.

The Rocket sounds are good in that almost every unit has a distinct one. Some of them could be improved. Their impact sounds can often be taken directly from a selection of generic explosions. The Rogue impact sound does not make much sense and can be a bit grating. I am quite happy with the vertically launched missile sounds of all types. Catapult shares the Blackdawn firing sound, this is not good because the Catapult fires so many missiles that too many sounds are played simultaneously. A single sound for the entire salvo could be created and then played via the unit script when it fires.

The distinctness of Missile sounds is also good. I like the Banisher/Enforcer sound. We have a lot of rockets/missiles and I would like them to be distinct, when we added some more recent units (Trident, Crasher) we were really scrapping the bottom of the barrel in terms of unique missile sounds. I prefer the Slasher/Vandal/Tarantula/Rapier/Avenger style for generic homing missile sounds. The Chainsaw sounds are a bit strange, especially the impact. A good approach for missile sounds could be to make a batch of them with no particular unit in mind and then match them up later as appropriate.

A sound could be added for each jumping unit. Sounds can be played arbitrarily for all units and I think some sounds for jumping would work well. Other abilities could gain sounds, such as Boost and Eject Cargo. Plopping a factory could be associated with a sound.

I am not saying that the sounds don't have technical problems. They may have problems which could be fixed and I would barely notice.

We would like a whooping 'commander under attack' alarm, maybe even two of them for different damage levels. Also the marker placement ping could be replaced.

This list was not exhaustive.


Also, anyone can figure out how to rename the unitdefs. There is even a standard which is ChassisRole. Whoever does it just has to make sure that everything will work afterwards. This includes modstats and missions.