# Quick Manual for the RPGA editor

## Introduction

The following will mostly cover the editor and how to use it to create modules for the actual player. Player and import/export tools should be self explanatory. There are however a few rules to consider. Placing files in the correct directory is one. All sounds must be placed within the sounds directory (you can use subdirectories). This is important for the import/export tools, else it couldn't recreate the original directory hierarchy inside the export folder. All modules (xml files) belong in the adventure folder with no subdirectories. Plugins (codecs and DSPs for FMOD) must be placed in the plugins folder to be found.

## Step by step to playing your first sound

- Start the editor and right click into the empty tree view on the left (inside the Scenes / Sound Events box. Select Add Scene. Scenes are mostly for grouping your events though of course you don't need to group them by scenes if you prefer a different structure. Delete nodes by selecting them and pressing delete.
- Right click on the newly created scene and select Add Sound. Select the sound and a lot of settings will be enabled on the right. Click the "..." button to select a sound file (remember they should be placed in the sounds folder). Test it by clicking the play button above the treeview.
- Save the file using the file menu and start the player (rpgambient.exe). Press shift+1 and select your file (which MUST be placed in the adventures directory). We didn't select a shortcut, so we have to use the one that was automatically assigned (0). Press the according key and your sound should play.

## Things you could have done differently

After adding the scene, you could have dragged a soundfile from your explorer on the scene to automatically create a sound node and assign the file. Also, you could have selected multiple files in the load dialogue. This will create additional sounds using the same settings as the originally selected sound. In the same way you could have dragged multiple files on the scene if you don't mind the default settings. Most importantly, you could have selected a different shortcut from the combo box or entered one yourself (accepted values are all ASCII characters).

## How not to get lost and what else to do

Names. Use them. Click on a node in the treeview when it's already selected and enter a meaningful name. Of course you only need them for scenes and nodes directly underneath a scene, as they are the only ones displayed in the player.

You don't need a tool to simply play a sound, so let's have a look at the other things we can add to the tree. Go back to the editor and create a scene. This time add a sequence (right click the scene, Add Sequence). Add two sounds to the sequence then select the sequence node and press the play button. This still isn't much better than using any player with a playlist, so right click the scene again and select Add Parallel.

Let's try something else. Drag one of the sounds in the sequence over the new parallel node using the left button. It's moved to the parallel element as a child. Now drag the other sound over the node using the right mouse button. Now it's moved to after the parallel node. You can select and drag multiple nodes using Shift and Ctrl. Move the second sound into the parallel node as well now, select the node and press play. Note that play always plays the selected node but stops other nodes with the same parent to avoid conflicts.

The last element to try is the Alternative. Add one wherever you like and fill it with a few sounds. Select it and press play. Then press play again a few times. Each time it will randomly play one of the selected sounds. To give your fingers a little rest, set the box saying Loop Count on the right to -1. Click play again and lean back. Alternatively you could have selected 4 to play 5 sounds. Of course this also works for all other elements but scenes.

Now create a sequence with a few longish sounds. Select all sounds using shift or ctrl and set all the Fade settings to 2000 (2 seconds) and Loop Count to -1. Select the sequence and play it, then select the first sound. It should cross fade into the next sound. In the player you would press space instead to do the same. This is a crudely implemented way to manually step through sequences. You can get the same result by making them seperate events and simultaneously stopping one and starting the other. Note that without the infinite loops the sounds would simply play x times and then should fade into the next one.

## Some of these obscure settings

Most of the delays are either obvious or figured out by trying them. The variances are random values between 0 and your settings that are added to the according delay. The one delay to be explained is the close delay. This is only needed if you apply effects or filters that keep producing sound after the actual sound already stopped. Usually they would be cut off, so this delay determines how long the "channel" should be kept open (actually how long until the DSPs are disconnected, but you don't want to know that).

This is leaving us with the mode. Inherit simply uses the same setting as the parent element. The default (Stream) will play a sound from disk, with requires the least memory, but has the drawback that a sound can only be played once at any time. You can work around this by selecting Own Stream for all but one sound elements that are supposed to be playing the same file simultaneously. Other options are compressed to load the whole file into memory and preload to load and decompress the file into memory. The last option will be the fasted but also requires the most memory.

## Filters and Effects

Not much to say about them. Add them by selecting a filter from the drop box, select it and experiment with the settings. Delete it by pressing delete. Typically you might want to play the sound in a loop while you change the filter parameters. If you have placed any custom filters in the plugins directory, they will only be available on machines which also have them installed.

## Getting it where the action is

So you created a nice module on your PC but need it on your notebook for the next session. You don't feel like copying GBs of sounds and hand picking the used sounds isn't much fun either? Start the export tool, select your module and it will create a folder under export containing the module and sound files. Copy this folder into the import folder on the target machine and run the import tool. To avoid conflicts with existing files it will see if a file with the same name already exists and if so, if it is identical. If the files are different, the new sound will be renamed and the imported xml module is updated. Do a quick test to make sure everything went fine, then you can delete the folder from the import directory.