Audio files

Audio and Graphics
#1

Hi all,

I am finally adding music to my game and have some basic comments questions…any info is appreciated. I should add I plan on an iPad / iPhone release first followed by android flavors depending on how things go. This is my first venture into game programming.

  1. From what I understand using 22k sampled files are preferred because 44k is overkill for the mobile device? Is this what most folks do? Can anyone recommend a tool to down-sample my 44k sampled files if so?

  2. What is an acceptable size for background music and other sound assets? This is kind of an open-ended question but is it simply smaller is better?

  3. Do folks ship wavs? mp3? ogg? or mixed depending on platform? In other words is there a file that is friendly on all platforms and if so is this the preferred approach.

  4. I have my audio assets in a directory under the resource root. This works fine in the simulator however I read they must be in the resource root. Where is te correct location? I’d rather keep my files in separate directories for organization.

Thanks!

-Rick

#2

Hi Rick.  All good questions.

  1. I personally use 11khz sample rate and mono sounds over stereo.  11k is the slowest supported by Corona.  44khz is overkill as is stereo in most cases.

2.  it is an open ended question.  You pay the price for quality.  Higher quality higher app size, more resources to process it. Only you can determine what balance your app needs.  But seriouslly, a 44khz stereo “beep”?  Your background music? might be more important.   Got an image that is basically a solid square?  no need for an @4x version because the image will resize up nicely. 

  1. I personally tend to use mp3’s because it runs on both Apple and Android.  But .mp3 has the potential to have license issues at some point and to be safe, people prefer the less patent encumbered formats like AAC and ogg.  They however are not as cross-device compatible.  Only you can decide how important that is to you.

  2. That was true like 3 years ago back when the builds where in the 200 range.  This has not been the case since I’ve been using the product.  I either use a audio/ folder (if I want to keep my audio separate from my images) or an assets/ folder (if I don’t mind mixing my audio and graphics)

#3

Thanks Rob, all very good insight…I appreciate it.

#4

Hi Rick.  All good questions.

  1. I personally use 11khz sample rate and mono sounds over stereo.  11k is the slowest supported by Corona.  44khz is overkill as is stereo in most cases.

2.  it is an open ended question.  You pay the price for quality.  Higher quality higher app size, more resources to process it. Only you can determine what balance your app needs.  But seriouslly, a 44khz stereo “beep”?  Your background music? might be more important.   Got an image that is basically a solid square?  no need for an @4x version because the image will resize up nicely. 

  1. I personally tend to use mp3’s because it runs on both Apple and Android.  But .mp3 has the potential to have license issues at some point and to be safe, people prefer the less patent encumbered formats like AAC and ogg.  They however are not as cross-device compatible.  Only you can decide how important that is to you.

  2. That was true like 3 years ago back when the builds where in the 200 range.  This has not been the case since I’ve been using the product.  I either use a audio/ folder (if I want to keep my audio separate from my images) or an assets/ folder (if I don’t mind mixing my audio and graphics)

#5

Thanks Rob, all very good insight…I appreciate it.