Celestia patch w/sound. Great, but no playing of .mp3?

jromer · Post #1by **jromer** » 11.03.2006, 16:46

Hi,

I really like the ability to add sound to scripts. I had made a script that played along with music a long time ago and always had to start the sound independently (No fun, and hard to share the results with others because synching the script to music was virtually impossible). But now the script works great with the sound patch!
However, when converting the 3 Mb mp3 file to .wav, the file expands to 54 Mb. Too big for downloading in order to share. (I use a phone line.) I tried playing the mp3 and it didn't seem to work. Am I correct that the sound patch does not play mp3s? Are there any plans to maybe expand the capabilities of the sound patch to play mp3s.

Thanks.

BTW, the soundtest2 file that comes with the new version is beautiful! Simple yet powerful for the senses. Great job! I really like these patches!!

Vincent · Post #2by **Vincent** » 11.03.2006, 18:15

Jromer,

Thanks for your feedback concerning Celestia_1.4.1_patch and the soundtest2.cel script file.

Celestia_patch uses the OpenAL library to play sound. Unfortunately, the OpenAL library doesn't support yet mp3 files. Many requests have been sent to the OpenAL developpers on the subject, so they might add the possibility to play mp3 file in a next version... I would then make an updated version of Celestia_patch...

As for your wav file, you can edit it to set the samplerate to 8 kHz, the bitrate to 8 bit and convert it to mono. You will loose in quality, but your file should be a lot shorter then. If you don't know how to do that, just send me the file and I will do it for you.

jromer · Post #3by **jromer** » 11.03.2006, 20:29

thanks for your response. And, with your hint I was able to compress the wave file to 2.4Mb.

Kolano · Post #4by **Kolano** » 13.03.2006, 20:57

My guess would be that the "Open" in OpenAL causes difficulty with the licensing of Fraunhaufer Instintute's technology (or whichever one it is that still holds some of the MP3 patents).

As for alternatives, I think OpenAl could support the OGG-Vorbis format which provides comparible compression to MP3. There is some documentation that indicates so at...
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articl ... le2031.asp
...at least