soundsaVR requires a Macintosh PowerPC or compatible system with a base requirement of 5 MB of RAM and 5 MB of hard disk space for installation. The sounds and VR movies used will require additional hard disk space and memory. A recommended system configuration for adding sounds to VR movies is 16 MB RAM and 50 MB of hard disk space. soundsaVR requires QuickTime 3.0 to be installed, and requires System 8 or higher. Sound Manager 3.3 should also be installed as some compression codecs require it.
Adding sounds using soundsaVR should be the last step in the QTVR authoring process. This is due to a special flattening process that permits QuickTime to loop sounds without storing it multiple times. As QuickTime editing software calls the default QuickTime flattening function, when a soundsaVR movie is re-flattened it will grow in size. Only soundsaVR is capable of flattening soundsaVR movies.
Modifications using other editors such as Movie Player will work as long as the movie is not flattened. To flatten the movie, open it with soundsaVR and save the movie again.
soundsaVR preserves embedded media such as custom graphics or wired sprites. This is designed to provide further compatibility with custom authored panoramas. Note that object movies are not supported.
Developers who are using authoring packages with scripting capabilities such as Director or mTropolis, should take note that each node is set to a length of one hour so that sounds can independently loop. At the end of each hour the movie will transition to the next sequential node in the movie file.
There are three active menu bar items in soundsaVR: File, Edit and Options.
The File menu has four active items: "Open...", "Close", "Save A Copy As...", and "Quit"
The "Open..." menu item will open a dialog to select a movie file. Importing a file that has no panorama track or QTVR track will cancel the process and the user will be notified that the file was not a panorama. When a valid QTVR movie has been selected, a soundsaVR editing window will open, displaying the selected movie file.
The "Close" menu item will close the active editing window. If the movie has been edited, and the changes haven't been saved, a dialog will open prompting the user to save before closing the movie, to close without saving, or to cancel.
The "Save A Copy As..." menu item will open a standard put-file dialog allowing the user to save the current movie with edited sounds. It is recommended that users do not try to overwrite already existing files.
The "Quit" menu item will close all editing windows and Quit the application. As with the Close menu item, the user will be prompted to save any changes.
The Edit menu has one active item; the "Save Options..." menu item will open a dialog allowing the user to select from three checkboxes that determine output format. Selecting the "Fast Start Movie" check box will specify that when the movie is saved out it will support progressive video downloading. When this option is activated both the "Pre Load Audio" and "Fast Start Audio" check box will be enabled and selected. "Pre Load Audio" specifies that all audio tracks will be downloaded before any of the video. If the "Fast Start Audio" option is not selected audio will not auto start play until the movie has been completely downloaded. In some scenarios, if wired sprite pause/play controls are added to the movie, the end user can override the behavior you set by initiating audio fast start. See the section "Save Options In Detail" later in this document for more details.
The Options menu has nine active items: the first two, "Degrees" and "Cross Hairs", toggle the info displays on and off. The remaining six menu items set the color of the information displays. The info displays check the dimensions of the panorama track, not the entire movie, and are therefore always placed in their correct positions even if a panorama track has been rotated or if additional media elements have been added to the movie.
Multiple soundsaVR editing windows can be opened simultaneously, depending on available memory. Several copies of the same movie file can be opened simultaneously in order to save different versions of the movie, and to compare differences in settings. Clicking the windows "zoom box" will reset the window to its original size if it has been changed.
The soundsaVR Editing Panel
Each window contains an editing panel on the left side, that has a "Node List", and "Sound List", as well as buttons to add or delete sounds, and controls that set the volume(s), type (ambient or directional), and looping status of each imported sound.
Add Sound... Button
Clicking on this button will open a dialog box where an appropriate sound file can be selected in the get-file list box. Clicking on Open will import the selected sound into the current node and display it in the 'Sounds' list box. Previously grayed out items in the soundsaVR editing panel will become active. If a sound file (that is not in a QT movie) can be be played back in QT3.0, the Open button will change to Convert. Clicking on the button will convert the file to a QT movie, save the converted movie to a specified file/directory, and then import it into the current node.
Remove Sound Button
Clicking this button will remove the currently selected sound from the 'Sounds' list. This button will be grayed out if the currently selected node has no sounds.
Nodes List
There will be only one item in this list if a single node pano is open. If it is a multinode pano, the name of each node contained in the movie will be displayed. Clicking on a node list item will select it as the current editing node and the sounds list box will be updated accordingly to reflect any sounds that may have been embedded.
Sounds List
This list box will be grayed out until at least one sound file is imported into the current editing node. To import a sound file, use the 'Add Sound...' button. Clicking on a "Sounds" list item will select it as the current editing sound, and update the sound setting controls accordingly. If the currently selected sound is set to be directional, then the movie screen will be updated to display the corresponding view. More than one sound can be imported into each node, as long as there is enough available memory. However, keep in mind that too many sounds in a node can confuse the listener.
Auto Play Button
If this check box is selected, the audio for the current node will automatically start playing whenever the end user enters the node. If this option is not selected you will need to include an external mechanism to start the sound.
Ambient Sound
If the "Directional Sound" check box for a particular sound is not checked, the sound is considered to be ambient and its volume will not change based on the pan angle. This is the default state of imported sounds.
Setting Ambient Sound Volume
Ambient sound volumes are set using a single control slider in the "Volume" section of the editing panel. Drag the slider thumb to the desired sound level to set playback volume. The volume is represented as a percentage of the maximum volume, and its current value is displayed in the upper right of the Volume section.
Directional Sound
An imported sound is considered to be directional (that is, the sound volume changes based on the pan angle) if the "Directional Sound" check box is checked. The current pan angle is used when clicking on this check box. When this box is checked, the Volume section of the editing panel will display a second volume control slider and label the controls "Front" and "Rear" respectively.
Setting a Sounds Direction
The direction of a sound can be changed in two ways: by clicking the "Directional Sound" check box or by clicking the "SET ANGLE" button after panning to the desired view.
Setting Directional sound volumes
When the current sound to be edited is a directional sound, the "Volume" section of the editing panel displays two control sliders and corresponding labels "Front" and "Rear".
The slider labeled 'Front' indicates the volume that will be used when the pan angle matches the set direction of the sound source. The slider labeled 'Rear' indicates the volume that will be used when the pan angle is 180 degrees away from direction of the sound source.
Looping Style Pop Up Menu
Selecting an item will determine the loop state of the currently selected sound to indicate type of loop generated for playback.
None will play the sound only once.
Continuous will play the sound repeatedly for the entire duration of the current node.
Random Delay will play the sound repeatedly with random length silence between plays.
Object VR movies, and multinodes which contain object nodes, are not supported. This is due to the differences between the format of object movies, and panoramic movies. There are no plans to support object nodes, as QuickTime currently does not have support for asynchronous track playback. As a result, this issue will not be addressed by soundsaVR.
2) Each Node in a Multinode Movie MUST have equal durations
Movies containing nodes with different durations will NOT play properly.
When authoring a multinode movie you must use the same number of tiles for every node. If you are using source picts of different dimensions for any reason you can use the soundsaVR QTVR Tile Calculator (free HyperCard stack included with version 1.1) to
help find suitable valid tile values for a set of source pict dimensions. This stack also stores calculated values for later reference and allows set naming and searching.
Different horizontal and vertical tile dimensions can be used as long as each node still uses the same number of tiles. The following example is a compatible movie file because each node uses six tiles and 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
If you have problems with a particular movie file, then please send it (or one like it) to us for testing at "dev@smgVR.com". You should send the original movie before it is edited with soundsaVR.
1 Decide on a sound "location" in a given node (i.e.. telephone).
2 Select a node that is the farthest away from the sound "location", and where you would like the sound to still be heard.
3 Import a sound sample with a relatively short duration, set it to loop, and set the direction to point to the sounds "location".
4 Set the "Front" volume to 50% (for example) and the "Rear" volume to something less than the "Front" volume.
5 Repeat steps 3 & 4 for any node that is "closer" to the sound "location", adjusting the "Front" and "Rear" volumes up by 10 to
20%.
6 Save the movie.
During playback, the telephone sound will seem to get louder as you "move" towards it, and quieter as you "move" away from it.
Sound Range Trick
1 Create a sound sample and amplify the sample so that it is louder than usual.
2 Import the sample into soundsaVR and set it to be directional.
3 Adjust the "Front" volume slider down to 10 or 20% and make sure the "Rear" is set to zero.
4 Save the movie.
During playback, as the movie is panned, the sound will drop off much quicker than usual.
Audio Streaming Trick
In some cases you may wish to add a long silence to the beginning of your audio sample in order to give it more time to download and lower the risk of data underrun or start / stop controller behavior.
Lengthen Random Loop Delay Tip
Add a short bit of "random" silence to the end of short audio samples you plan to set to "Random Delay". Doing this will increase
the maximum length of the random delay. Sounds under three seconds have a max random delay of 5 to 6 seconds arbitrarily.
Offset Random Loop Delay Tip
Add a short bit of silence to the beginning of audio samples you plan to set to "Random Delay", using a different length for each. Doing this will prevent the samples from starting simultaneously.
Looping Midi Tip
Incorrectly authored Midi (no NOTE OFF resets) will not loop correctly in soundsaVR or in Movie Player.
Use MoviePlayer or SimpleText to preview sounds in output movies after you export them. Open output movies with another viewer after soundsaVR creates them, without closing the soundsaVR editing window.
Got a soundsaVR Tip or Trick that you'd like to share?
We'd love to post it. Send them to <dev@smgVR.com>
We recommended that you use "Pre Load Audio" unless you intend distribution to be limited to an intranet or similar environment, where download speeds are known and output can be tested accurately. If you don't use the "Pre Load Audio" option please test your results for playback quality using variable download speeds.
Items in the left column represent possible configurations for the "Save Options" dialog window.
Fast Start Movie
Pre Load Audio
Fast Start Audio
Pros:
•Optimum sound playback even if many sound tracks with un-cooperative codecs are used.
•External control sprites can not interfere with streaming.
•Sounds will play while the video is streaming, if the node is set to "Auto Play" when the movie is saved.
Cons:
•Sounds will download completely before any of the video is streamed, delay is lengthened by larger samples.
Fast Start Movie
Pre Load Audio
Fast Start Audio
Pros:
•Optimum sound playback quality and stability even if many sound tracks with un-cooperative codecs are used.
•The end user can not initiate "Fast Start Audio" too early if a pause/play control sprite is added to the movie.
•Sounds will not play until after the video is finished streaming.
Cons:
•Sounds will download completely before any of the video is streamed, delay is lengthened by larger samples.
Fast Start Movie
Pre Load Audio
Fast Start Audio
Pros:
•Optimum sound playback quality and stability (excluding cons) even if many sound tracks with un-cooperative codecs are used.
•Preview images (if present) and first tile of node will be streamed and displayed before the sounds download.
•Sounds will not play until after the rest of the video is finished streaming.
Cons:
•The end user can initiate "Fast Start Audio" too early if a pause/play control sprite is added to the movie, this could cause
underrun problems affecting playback quality, or if codecs that don't stream well are used, stability.
Fast Start Movie
Pre Load Audio
Fast Start Audio
Pros:
•Preview images (if present) and first tile of node will be streamed and displayed before the sound is downloaded.
•Sounds will play while the video is streaming and will play while the sounds are streaming.
Cons:
•If there is too much audio data for the connection speed, individual codecs may initiate "Fast Start Audio" too early .
•The end user can initiate "Fast Start Audio" too early if a pause/play control sprite is added to the movie, this could cause
underrun problems affecting playback quality, or if codecs that don't stream well are used, stability.
