Multimedia Manager

This dialog can be used to include media clips in the project and to assign these media clips to background music for maps and sound effects for special functions.

To add a new clip:

• Under "Clip name" assign it a name by which it can be referred to within the project.
• Locate the file containing the media in "Media file" (path relative to the GDP file).
• Check "Keep loaded" if the clip should be kept in memory, for instance, to continue playing it where playback was left off while halting the clip to play another clip, or to make this clip play faster.
• Check "Play looping" to make this clip start over when its done playing (good for background music).
• Check "Modal" if you want the game to freeze while the media clip is played (required for video clips)
• Check "Suspend other media to play" if you want all other sound to fade out before starting this clip, and then re-start when this clip is done (good for clips that are too complicated for some sound cards to handle simultaneously).
• Check "Allow interrupt/restart" if you want this clip to start from the beginning every time it is triggered to play instead resuming where it left off or simply continuing to play. This option is introduced in version 1.4 because it was troublesome to not be able to trigger the sound from the beginning many times in sequence -- it would sound like certain events were being skipped when it didn't start over.
• Adjust the volume. As of version 1.4, this volume scale now sounds more linear. (In older versions, the volume was logarithmic with only the top few pixels being audible.) The only change is in the slider display; the same numbers are still stored in the project, so any old projects you load will have the same volumes, though those volumes may look different on the new slider.
• Assign an X and Y if this is a video clip. The clip will play in its native size, so make sure that there's enough room on a 640x480 display (or whatever size display you are using, now that you can customize the screen reoslution) for the whole rectangle to appear on screen given the X and Y for top and left.
• Click the "Add Clip" button.

The "Assign Media" tab allows you to associate media clips with certain aspects of the game. To set the background music for a particular map, select the map from the "Maps" dropdown list, then select the clip that should play as background music for that map. The path is relative to the path of the GDP file.

The other aspect to which a multimedia clip can be assigned is a special function. A special function can cause a media clip to start playing or stop playing, or it can change the media associated with the background music clip. To assign a media clip to a special function, select the function from the list. Then select "Play clip" or "Stop clip" and pick a media clip from the "Function media clip" dropdown list. Changes take effect immediately and do not need to be applied.

When a clip is stopped, if its "Keep loaded" attribute is set, it will remember it's current position and resume playing from the same position when the clip is played again. If "Keep loaded" is not set, the clip will be completely unloaded from memory and, if played again, will be reloaded and started from the beginning.

Changing the background music is a bit different. The background music does not change from one clip to another clip, but instead changes the media associated with the clip set as the "Background music" clip. So when a function is set to change the background music it requires a filename rather than a clip name. When the function is activated the current background music will fade out, the new media file will be loaded, and the new background music will start. This all happens without changing the clip associated with the map's "Background music" attribute.

All media clip information (except the clip itself, which is its own media file) is stored in the project file. A special function's reference to a media clip, however is stored in the map with the special function itself. This is one of the many reasons the GDP file and the MAP files need to be in sync.

As of version 1.2 there are a couple other events with which media clips can be associated. A collision definition can trigger a media clip to play, as can a player map interaction. These associations are stored in the MAP file. Rather than defining these in the media clips dialog, they are defined in their respective dialogs.