Last Updated: October 29, 1998
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FAQ - soundsaVR Version 1.1 Last Updated: October 29, 1998 |
Q) How can I get the sound to only play back between x and y degrees like in the demo version?
A) This is a feature revision that is slated for the 2.0 release.
Please see the soundsaVR tips and tricks section of the ReadMe for more
information on how to accomplish a similar effect using sound volumes.
The demo version simply stops movie playback unless the pan angle is within
a certain range. This disabling effect is not viable for individual
sound control.
A) No. Object movies are basically linear movies with a special controller. They generally have longer durations than a panorama movie causing tile and sound misalignment. When soundsaVR lengthens the movie, object node interaction is no longer possible because individual frames are stretched out of range of their corresponding controller "angles". Due to the differences between the format of object movies and panoramic movies, there are no plans to support object nodes as QuickTime does not have support for asynchronous track playback
Troubleshooting
Q) What types of VR movies does soundsaVR support?
A) Many movie incompatibility and sound playback issues were caused by time scale problems that limited usable movies to those which contained equal, whole second node durations. In version 1.1 all movies should work, as long as all nodes in a multinode have equal durations. (greater than .01 seconds).
A) Each node in a multinode must be of equal duration. Node duration is determined by the number of tiles specified in QTVRAS. Ensure that the "Compression" section of the "Panorama Maker Settings" for each node have horizontal and vertical tiles set to the same value or to values that yield a common multiple . Check out the "QTVR Tile Calculator" that comes with soundsaVR 1.1 which can be located in the "Goodies" folder.
Different horizontal and vertical tile dimensions can be used as long
as each node still uses the same number of total tiles. The following
example is a compatible movie file because each node uses six tiles so
each node will be of equal duration:
Node 1: 1 horizontal tiles 6 vertical tiles
Node 2: 3 horizontal tiles 2 vertical tiles
Node 3: 2 horizontal tiles 3 vertical tiles
Q) Why does flattening a soundsaVR movie
in MoviePlayer, result in a much larger sized file?
Q) Why does the popup item 'Save As QuickTime Movie', from the Netscape
Plugin, cause my machine to freeze?
A) When QuickTime flattens a movie, it increases the data size of each looping sound ( #loops * sound size(k) ). soundsaVR has specially written flattening code that prevents normal file size increases, reducing file size dramatically using QT3 file format. When the "Save As QuickTime Movie..." menu item is the plugin forces the flattening option. As a result, the Netscape QT3 plugin also increases the movie's size while flattening. Only QT3 Pro registered users can choose this menu item. Since QuickTime gives no feedback while it resolves references in preparation for movie flattening, the computer appears to freeze while it does so.
When using a registered copy of QT3 Pro the "Save As Source..." menu
item must be selected as this method saves files normally and does not
force movie flattening.
Q) Are there any compatibility issues when playing movies that contain sounds compressed with QDesign?
A) After investigating several reports of this problem, it was isolated to an incorrect version of the Sound Manager extension being installed. See the QDesign Users Guide, Technical Support Page #16:
"Ensure that the correct version of the 'Sound Manager' extension, version 3.3, is installed in the 'Extensions' folder in the 'System' folder on the startup drive."
If problems are encountered with sounds, please check to make sure that the sounds correctly play in MoviePlayer before they are added to a VR node using soundsaVR.
A) The wired sprite that makes directional sound movies work dynamically changes the volume of sounds as the movie is panned. MoviePlayer "notices" these changes when the movie is closed. Either "Save" or "Don't Save" can be clicked with no ill effects as the movie is not flattened. Viewing the movie in SimpleText, or in a browser, will not trigger this dialog. We have found that this problem only occurs if the viewer is capable of editing QuickTime movies, like MoviePlayer when QT3 Pro is installed.
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