StartSoundShader (script event)

Game class

This event operates on an instance of the game class type {{{gameclass}}}

Description

Plays a specific sound shader on the channel and returns the length of the sound in seconds.

Usage

float startSoundShader( string shaderName , float channel )

Parameters

• [sound] - The sound shader to play through this entity.
• [channel] - The channel to play this sound on.

Examples

// This plays some long speech from the game which eminates from speaker1
 
$speaker1.startSoundShader ("admin_betruger_its_not_out_of_control", SND_CHANNEL_ANY);

/* Some of the shadersounds will automatically loop (they typically mention this fact in the name).
This will play a looping crane sound from a mover, without needing a speaker binded to it. All
the Doom 3 single player machinery scripts I have looked at use startSoundShader upon non-speaker
entities like cranes and movers. */
 
$mover1.startSoundShader ("al3_crane_updown_loop", SND_CHANNEL_ANY);

/* This will play the speech as coming from the player, no matter where they move to. You can no
doubt do this with monsters too, voiding the need to bind speakers to them in many cases. */
 
$player1.startSoundShader ("alphalabs1_labcoat_primary", SND_CHANNEL_ANY);

Notes

This script event does not return any values.

This is not the prefered method of playing a sound since you must ensure that the sound is loaded.

-1st param (string shaderName)

The shadernames are defined within sound shader files (typically .sndshd files) which are placed within base/sound/ (the doom3 game ones are found in pak003.pk3/sound). No path is necessary for the shadernames located directly in the sound directory.

-2nd param (float channel) Choose one of the possible channels as defined by doom_defs.script:

#define SND_CHANNEL_ANY     0
#define SND_CHANNEL_VOICE   1
#define SND_CHANNEL_VOICE2  2
#define SND_CHANNEL_BODY    3
#define SND_CHANNEL_BODY2   4
#define SND_CHANNEL_BODY3   5
#define SND_CHANNEL_WEAPON  6
#define SND_CHANNEL_ITEM    7
#define SND_CHANNEL_HEART   8
#define SND_CHANNEL_PDA     9
#define SND_CHANNEL_DEMONIC 10

If there is already a sound clip playing from the entity on the channel you choose, it will be cut off and replaced by the new one you specified in the 1st parameter. A special case is with SND_CHANNEL_ANY. Use of this channel seems to cause the sound to be played on any free channel.

You should use the function cacheSoundShader (script command)sys.cacheSoundShader() to cache each sound shader you wish to use. It seems to play the sound regardless, but unless you precache it when the map loads, you could get some glitches.

It seems that this can be called from any entity - including moving ones. Of course with a speaker entity you can set options such as volume, looping and occlusion. I cannot find a way of scripting these things.

You can use [\(entity.stopSound()](StopSound_%28script_event%29 "StopSound (script event)") to stop a sound. Sounds started with StartSoundShader() don't set `netSync`, so pass `0` as second argument, like `\)speaker1.stopSound(SND_CHANNEL_ANY, 0);`