KIND Enginesound

Revision as of 22:09, 15 August 2012

KIND Enginesound assets are locomotive enginesounds.

There are three types - Diesel, Electric, and Steam.

Diesel enginesounds are formed of a number of separate wave files. These are 'steady state' sounds (one for each runlevel from 1 up to 8) and 'transition' sounds (used when going between one runlevel and the next one up, or next one down).

Electric enginesounds play one wave file, but pitch shift it to produce a continuously variable sound linked to the speed of the train. (Note: If your electric needs it's enginesound linked to throttle position rather than train speed, it's better to use a 'diesel' style 'ramping' sound).

Steam enginesounds play a number of individual 'chuff' files at low speed, and switch to a series of pitch-shifted loop sounds at higher speeds.

Random note: How does Trainz know that a specific enginesound is a 'steam' enginesound? Because it's tagged for use on a steam loco...

KIND Hierarchy

Parent Classes

• none.

Child Classes

• none.

Supported Tags

kind "enginesound"
speedup 2.2
isramping 1
isfading 0
number-slow-sounds 4
number-cylinders 2
number-power-strokes 2

speedup

Type: Decimal

Desc: Controls the rate of pitch change for an electric type enginesound. A value of 1.0 would mean the top frequency used is as much again as the base frequency - in other words, the frequency of the sound played would double over the speed range of the vehicle.

isramping

Type: Boolean

Desc: 'Ramping' diesel enginesounds have transition sounds between each level state.

isfading

Type: Boolean

Desc: For diesel engine sounds, 'fading' sounds do not have transition sounds between each level state - instead, one sound is faded into the next to 'fake' a transition. For electric enginesounds, 'fading' sounds are quieter at low speed and louder at high speed - whereas 'non-fading' sounds are more constant across the speed range.

number-slow-sounds

Type: Integer

Desc: Number of 'chuff' sounds available in a steam enginesound.

number-cylinders

Type: Integer

Desc: Number of cylinders in the locomotive the steam sound was recorded from.

number-power-strokes

Type: Integer

Desc: Number of power strokes in the locomotive the steam enginesound was recorded from (should generally be left at the default, 2).

engine-sound-ramp-up-durations

New tag for trainz-build 3.6

Type: List of 8 Decimal values. Default values: 1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5. Units: seconds to 3 decimal places

Desc: Sets the duration of play of each of the 8 soundfiles, "start.wav" and "up 1 - 2.wav" to "up 7 - 8.wav" files. Value must not be greater than the duration of the corresponding sound file.

If there is no "start.wav" then enter 0 as the first number in the set.

engine-sound-ramp-down-durations

New tag for trainz-build 3.6

Type: List of 8 Decimal values. Default values: 1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5. Units: seconds to 3 decimal places

Desc: Sets the duration of play of each of the 8 soundfiles, "stop.wav" and "down 2 - 1.wav" to "down 8 - 7.wav" files. Value must not be greater than the duration of the corresponding sound file.

If there is no "stop.wav" then enter 0 as the first number in the set.

Refer to TS12 Doppler for usage examples.

engine-sound-ramp-duration

New tag for trainz-build 3.6

Type: Decimal. Default value: 1.5

Desc: Sets the duration of play of all up and down ramp sounds. All ramp sound files should be the same duration to use this tag.

Example Config.txt

Diesel

Sample config.txt file for a diesel type 'enginesound' asset, with the Standard Tags excluded for brevity:

kind "enginesound"
isramping 1
isfading 0

Electric

Sample config.txt file for an electric type 'enginesound' asset, with the Standard Tags excluded for brevity:

kind "enginesound"
isramping 0
isfading 0
speedup 4.0

Steam

Sample config.txt file for a steam type 'enginesound' asset, with the Standard Tags excluded for brevity:

kind "enginesound"
number-slow-sounds 4
number-cylinders 2
number-power-strokes 2

Wave file naming

Diesel

In a 'fading' diesel enginesound, the following sound files are used:

In a 'ramping' diesel enginesound, the following additional sound files are also used:

Electric

The one sound file for an electric engine is named engine_loop.wav.

Steam

These are background sounds for when the loco is stationary. The fast will be played when the loco has just stopped, and if it is left for a while, the sound will progress down to 'med' and then eventually 'slow'.

... and on up to the number specified in the 'number-slow-sounds' tag. These sounds are the low speed 'chuff' sounds.

This is a background hiss noise that appears to be played continually.

These loops are played as the loco picks up speed. They are individually stretched or squashed in length (also incurring pitch shifting in the process) to match the wheel rotation speed so the audible 'chuffs' within the loop maintain synchronisation with the drive bogie animation.

It should be noted that unlike the earlier steam loop, which was based on track speed, rather than wheel rotation speed, this system enables sound files to be shared between locomotives with different wheel sizes. 60RPM (which is one revolution per second) on a 2 cylinder loco will produce four chuffs per second irrespective of the wheel size - the only difference this makes is what speed the train will be doing when the drive wheels are rotating at 60RPM.

Any individual file can be omitted from this set - the system will use what files are available and use adjacent files to cover for any missing files.

It is anticipated that a sound creator will pick and choose which wave files are used based on what recordings are available, and that a released enginespec will not have all sound files present - particularly the higher speed ones, which are likely to be irrelevant for most locos, but are provided just in case...

Downloads

Attach sample files here?

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