[MUA1] Sound Limits Documentation (or lack thereof...)

[SuperMaster10]

After some testing and information provided by ak2yny, I have discovered some of the limitations we thought that sounds had don't really exist at all..or at least, not as tightly as we thought. This likely came up in the first place as a result of speculation on the official assets (which never go over a certain limit in both filenames and line variants) and limitations of zsmeditor, many of which likely came from said speculation.
Let's go over some of these then.

This documentation assumes you have read the Sounds section of Outsider's modding tutorial, if not, you can check it here to get some basic information: https://marvelmods.com/forum/index.php?msg=198299

Variants of the same sound limitation:
Seemingly unlimited or a maximum of 100
This includes literally every piece of sound lines you can give a character, whether it's a voice line or a sound effect. Even those who always had only one variant, such as "DEATH" can have this. It likely applies to music as well since it's principles are the same.

Both ak2yny and I have used voice lines well over the count offered zsmeditor (which is around 8 per line) and it worked without problem, in my case, a lot of my mods boast about 15-19 variations per line.
In Zsound, the lines over 8 can easily be defined by adding the number if not automatically added already, while in ZSMeditor, you simply have to try the new number in the bracket as they won't be listed in the editor

Sound file name character limitation:
7 - (Not counting "_m" and "_v")
I previously thought 8 worked fine due to Morrigan but it seems to not work, so  the limit seems to be 7 as noted in Outsider's tutorial. How does Morrigan's work is beyond me...
It's also worth mentioning a "_m" file and a "_v" will work with 23 characters respectively, but emphasis on RESPECTIVELY, sadly they don't seem to be able to work together anymore if character limit exceeds 8. Also worth noting that "_v" itself can also work with 24 and possibly more.

Sound frequency rate (hz) limitation:
It is possible to go over and use 22050 hz when converting sounds, such as 44100 hz.
HOWEVER, it is NOT recommended to turn sounds that are naturally 22050 hz to 44100 hz and above. As that will not help the quality and can cause problems.
It's best to convert sounds in their original hz or values close to that (I recommend keeping 22050 and 44100 as standard for consistency).

Dropping 44100 hz sounds down to 22050 hz will go fine. Me personally I have turned down some lines which are 44100 down to 22050 to make them consistent with other 22050 lines but have kept the music that was 44100 as 44100.

ZSMeditor lets you select such option but it might require some tinkering, Zsound simply lets you type the hz value or use it in batch file

One last note and this time it's about Stereo sounds, to quote ak2yny himself on this:

Maybe you also want to mention that, while it is possible to use stereo sounds with Zsnd, it's not recommended to do so (except for menu callouts, possibly), because the game mixes the left and right channels, using the origin (location) on the screen. So stereo sounds and voices for mods are redundant and take more space.

That is all, thanks for reading! I think every variation of lines helps as you'll be playing with these characters for a whole game and to hear more lines before they repeat is better.
No sane soul is gonna have 100 variations but I personally like having my 20-ish variations.

[ak2yny]

Great documentation. Thank you.

Maybe you also want to mention that, while it is possible to use stereo sounds with Zsnd, it's not recommended to do so (except for menu callouts, possibly), because the game mixes the left and right channels, using the origin (location) on the screen. So stereo sounds and voices for mods are redundant and take more space.