DescentBB

Descent 2's door sounds are pretty bland and similar to each other, so for Descent 1,5 I'm planning to do some changes, namely to restore some door sounds from D1. This will only be viable if playing with the 11khz setting (22 badly distorts some), but it's not the issue right now.

Descent 2 has four pairs of door sounds, let us call them doors 1,2,3,4.

Door 1: Governs doors like those on level 1 and the ice doors. Also applies to Descent 1 doors like those from levels 1 and 10.
Door 2: Governs puuma sphere doors and all secret doors.
Door 3: Governs the level 5 doors, the fire doors and doors like level 8 has (borrowed from D1 level 12), also D1 level 6 doors.
Door 4: Governs the level 3 doors and grated doors. Also D1 doors like those from level 2.

And Descent 1 has five door sound pairs.

Door A: Like the level 2 doors.
Door B: Like the level 6 doors and the level 12 doors.
Door C: The secret doors.
Door D: The hatch-like doors of level 10.
Door E: The doors from level 1 or 8.

Due to the structure of the data, I can only replace stuff with stuff, and I need to make choices. So here's the initial plan.

Door 1: I'll leave it alone, so the basic gray doors and ice doors will have their sound unchanged, and additionally the "Mars Processing Center" and "Mars Military Base" doors will use it, and it fits them quite well (while any of their own sounds wouldn't really fit the rest of the doors).

Door 2: Replace it with Door C. This will give all the secret doors the sound of Descent 1 secret doors (one of the best door sounds there). The side effect is that Puuma Sphere doors will also use that sound, but even though we weren't used to the secret door sound used on regular doors, it fits the animation absolutely perfectly. I need your opinion on this one, though.

Door 3: Replace it with Door B. This restores the sound of the door D2 borrowed from D1 to its rightful glory. Along with it, the D1 door found in levels like 6,7 or 13 will also use this sound as it did. The affected D2 doors is the red "fire" door and the "water" door, used in level 5 for example. Both sound good.

Door 4: Replace it with Door A. This will restore the D1 doors of the level 2 variety to its original sound, and it also works on D2 doors of similar structure (two halves that open upward and downward), that is doors like D2 level 3 and the grated doors. Not sure about this one either.

So what I'm asking you, what would be your optimal choice for these sounds? You can choose from both D1 and D2 sounds (having 9 pairs in all), and allocate them to door sounds 1,2,3 and 4. Or should I just leave the door sounds as they originally were altogether?

EDIT: Naturally, this problem could be solved entirely by adding the D1 sound content to the s22 file and to the HAM file, but I can't do either using DTX2 or HAXMED32. Even if I did somehow insert the sound files, I still don't know how to allocate proper sounds to proper doors in haxmed. Please help!

I'm not helping you replace the Door 3 sound...
I'm taking a stand because that's the best door sound in the entire series.

I think you've missed my point entirely in our PMs though.
It's not about the "door sound fitting the frames". It's about what people are used to in D2 missions.
And I'm the one majoring in psychology .

Well, for the record, I've never heard a person say "I'm soo attached to the door sounds of Descent 2" or anything. But you may be right, we grow fond of stuff based on circumstances. My circumstances have made me fond of Descent 1, and all D2 content seems comparatively inferior, you think the opposite. If it was possible to remaster the 11khz sounds so that audionazis such as yourself are happy, I'd happily do it, but for now I think I'll let that go and not care about this detail. It's just not significant enough to bother with so much I guess.

I love the D2 sounds -- for robots, doors, everything -- because they're so much more percussive than D1's. You could seriously make a song with the D2 door sounds (especially door 4) sliced up for drums. I've built percussion loops (with drum samples, not door samples) -- but based on that sound.

It's not like I don't agree that D1 door sounds are way more creepy than D2's... I think it's hilarious. In this solar system the doors for their mines sound like metal scraping against metal, creaking, complaining... but all the way over in Zeta Aquilae their doors sound like they're supposed to sound when they're working properly -- well oiled and all that stuff. It makes you wonder -- how the hell do PTMC maintain their mines better when they're light-years away, compared to when they're on our own moon.

Actually looks like we don't have to make choices, we just need to appoint those door sounds in the HAM. Too bad there's limited room for replacements, I can only replace two door sounds so that no essential in-game sounds are compromised. I think I'll go for the memorable D1 secret door sound and the sound for the doors from level 6 and level 12.

It's too bad the code couldn't be expanded more freely like in Doom, otherwise you could just assign D1 door sounds specifically to only the D1 doors and leave the D2 doors alone. I'd totally support this if that were the case.

NaphthaTurisas wrote:It's too bad the code couldn't be expanded more freely like in Doom, otherwise you could just assign D1 door sounds specifically to only the D1 doors and leave the D2 doors alone. I'd totally support this if that were the case.

Right now that is the case, although I don't have room for more changes than are already made, or else I would have to sacrifice different game sounds. Too bad the sound library cannot simply be expanded, even being able to add files to the .S22 via DTX2 would practically eliminate all our troubles, as there are plenty of redundant and unused sound slots in the HAM file which could be appropriated for D1 door sounds. Does anyone know if there's a way to do that?

As things stand now, with the updated sound files the game will now play the original D1 sounds for door12, door14 and all the secret doors that got carried over from D1 - so practically all there were in D1 except for the green cobblestone one. Right now it is replacing one of the D2 secret doors in my custom POG because of the same frame count, so it will play the D2 sound when opened. However, I have seen that HAXMED32 lets you edit frame counts for doors, so maybe I'll see whether it's possible to assign exactly 7 frames to a different door coming from D1 and then replace the textures frame by frame. Actually, I haven't checked frame counts for the D1 doors, so it's possible we could do it even without such changes.