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VRHOTWIRES
BASIC SOUND TOOLS

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version 2.0

Basic Sound
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Sound is key to extending vr.

With the ipod’s huge success, Apple in ‘05 is a main player in the music industry,
and every itunes installs quicktime. This means, almost by fluke, qtvr movies are sitting
on state-of-the-art sound playback tools and a massive installed base in quicktime.

When you think of a complex sound track like a radio play, you can see
that there is really no limit to the amount of complexity that can go into a good
sound space.

In vrhotwires you can get into some pretty complex soundscapes, but this tool is here for just getting the basics done fast.



With the simple sound tool open, and a single node qtvr movie in the movie window,
drag a sound track onto the movie.

When you hit ‘aooly’ you should hear it.

The sound is ambient, coming from all directions, and has no modifications made to it.

The MaxLoad script that’s added solved some problems with sounds not starting on the web. MaxLoad is a Macro. If you check the preference, you can see the script that it represents:
As quicktime changes your script might want to change too...


background: SOUND AND TIME

If you understand how time works in VR, you can understand a lot more about how to add media to a single qtvr movie. I often get people who don’t understand why they can’t
use ambient sounds and sound labels at the same time. It’s because sound labels use the movie’s time so the background track will rewind. The way to work around this is to use movie-in-a-movie, which allows the soundtrack to sit in its own timeline.

 






If you look at the duration of your tracks (in movie info->time) you'll notice that some of them change when you add the sound track. If we don't stretch some of the tracks, there will be no visuals to accompany the length of the sound track...

so vrhotwires automatically stretches your pano, and video tracks, and any sprite tracks
you might have in the movie. Now their duration is the same length as the sound tracks...

We don't stretch the qtvr track though... It needs to stay at it's orginal length or it can no longer be wired... (because of a bug in qt...still there?)

If you open the realtime data window(under the Views menu), you can play time. rewind and stop it too. 
Try this on your qtvr movie with a basic sound...

TUTORIAL 1

Steps to make the demo:

When we're done we should have made finished.mov

to start download: singlenode.mov which is the pano without any sound or wiring.
also get  soundtrack1.mov  which is the sound track we'll be using.

-open vrhotwires.
-drag the pano onto the window to open it. 
open the basic sound tool under tools->sounds
-drag the sound track movie onto the pano.
hit apply
you should hear your music.
-choose 'save as'


Now you can try it with a node of your own.
I’ve found that well recorded ambient sound sometimes fools me into believing its directional...

Basic sound: Object movies




If you open an object movie and open the realtime data window
you’ll notice that as you navigate around in the object, your location in the timeline leaps.

This is a problem. If the visuals need to jump around in time, how do we add a sound track that just plays through time normally?

The second tab of the basic sound tool allows you to add a miam sound track. 

It exists on its own timeline so you can move around in the object movie without changing the sound track playback. .

TUTORIAL 2:

When we're done we should have made finished2.mov

Steps to make the demo: (finished2.mov)

-open vrhotwires.
-drag the object.mov onto the window to open it.
Open the basic sound tool
choose the 'object' tab.
type in http://www.vrhotwires.com/glass.mov
press apply.
you should hear your music.
-choose 'save as'

 

THE BROWSE BUTTON

There are a couple of other ways to use the object movie sound tool
that you may be interested in.

If you're just playing with miam on your own computer, using local files,
you may want to use the browse button.

The browse button writes an absolute pathname, with your hard drive's name etc.
in it, into the movie. As such, the movie will only play back correctly on the machine where
you made it. Perhaps you can use this as a security feature to make sure your movie doesn't leave the machine...

to start download: object.mov which is the pano without any sound or wiring.
You will also need a sound movie, like soundtrack2

Steps to make the demo: 

download glass.mov above and put it in the same folder as your pano.

-open vrhotwires.
-drag the object movie onto the window to open it.
Open the basic sound tool
choose the 'object' tab.
cpress 'browse' 
choose a sound movie
press apply.
you should hear your music.
-choose 'save as' 

RELATIVE PATHNAMES

A 3rd way to make an object with sound would be to
use a relative url. Typically this would involve
add a one word url like
"mySound.mov" 

As long as the movie 'mySound.mov'
is in the same folder as your pano it will play.

This is a great way to make movies that will be burned onto cd's.
because the url is relative, the sound will be found as long as it's in the 
same folder on the cd.

It doesn't seem to work on the web, but I think it should. If I drop
a folder onto my web server, I can't hear the sound when I watch the visuals. 

Steps to make the demo: 

to start download: object.mov which is the pano without any sound or wiring.
You will also need a sound movie, like soundtrack2

-open vrhotwires.
-drag the pano onto the window to open it.
Open the basic sound tool
choose the 'object' tab.
type in  soundtrack2.mov
press apply.
you should hear your music. (if you have soundtrack2 in the same folder as your pano)
-choose 'save as'

BASIC SOUND MULTINODE MOVIES

 

TUTORIAL 3:

When we're done we should have made finished3.mov

Steps to make the demo: (finished3.mov)

-open vrhotwires.
-drag the pano onto the window to open it.
Open the basic sound tool
choose the 'multinode' tab.
type in http://www.vrhotwires.com/glass.mov
press apply.
you should hear your music.
-choose 'save as'

 

THE BROWSE BUTTON

 The browse button is handy and gives you fast feedback .Just
choose a movie and it works. But this kind of miam
relies on a hardcoded pathname that's written into the movie.
If you look at it in deliVRator, you can see this.

-open vrhotwires.
-drag the pano onto the window to open it.
Open the basic sound tool
choose the 'multinode' tab. 
press 'browse'
choose a sound movie
press apply.
you should hear your music.
-choose 'save as' 

RELATIVE PATHNAMES

A 3rd way to make a multinode with sound would be to
use a relative url. To make one of these, type a one word url like
"mySound.mov" 

As long as the movie 'mySound.mov'
is in the same folder as your pano it will play.

This is a great way to make movies that will be burned onto cd's.
because the url is relative, the sound will be found as long as it's in the 
same folder on the cd.On any computer.

It doesn't seem to work on the web, but I think it should. If I drop
a folder onto my web server, I can't hear the sound when I watch the visuals. 

Steps to make the demo: 

to start download: 2nodemultinode.mov which is the pano without any sound or wiring.
You will also need a sound movie, like soundtrack2

The pano and the sound must be in the same folder. (the desktop works) 

Steps to make the demo: 

-open vrhotwires.
-drag the pano onto the window to open it.
Open the basic sound tool
choose the 'multinode' tab.
type in soundtrack2.mov
press apply.
you should hear your music.
-choose 'save as'

Programming Notes:

If you look at the script created by the simple sound tool, you'll notice that
a) a sprite track has been added to the movie.
b) it has a frameloaded scipt.
On frameloaded means when the sprite track opens and this keyframe is loaded.
SetMovielooping flags is to turn looping on in the movie.
SetMovieRate 1 is like hitting 'play'.It starts the sound.
end

Why a sprite track?

Well I found that when I put the wired actions in the frameloaded script of the qtvr track, a
strange thing happened. the movie wouldn't start because the fast start 'holodeck' for web
delivery interfered with it. This might be fixed now, or the new 'Movieloaded' trigger could
possibly be used to mess with this... I find this script now works fine:

On Idle
If theMaxloadedTimeInMovie>2000

MovieSetRate 1
endif
end

(where 2000 is your movie’s duration,
if you want it to load in the browser