VaM 1.x Dependencies of local sounds in vars

[Aipas]

I red atani's anatomy of a var to try and figure this one out, but I might be missing something.

While preping a scene var with 7 local sounds (located in custom/sounds/etc. etc.) I got an error for sound dependencies.
2 of these sounds are sent to empty atom audio sources (some sound effects). Those are fine.
The other 5 are sent to headaudio source of two person atoms (5 dialogue lines). These are the problem.
I include these 7 local sound files in the var building phase.
The package builder says there's broken dependencies on the 5 sound files pertaining to dialogue, and corrects it by putting in 5 extra paths (saves/scenes/HIM_line1 etc. etc.). Then says it can't find the files.
I put those files in the scene folder and it works and finalizes, but now I have duplicate files for no good reason and terrible tidiness.
Afterwards I remove the sounds from the scenes folder in the finished var, as well as the extra paths (saves/scenes/HIM_line1 etc. etc.) from the meta.json, tested it in a clean vam install and it worked.
Did I mess up somewhere on the var creation process, or is this an aceptable or even normal solution?

 

[atani]

Keep in mind that a dependency signifies a VAR that is called by another VAR:
e.g.: Your scene uses a sound that is present in:
(I) atani.mysounds.1.var
(II) your folder /Custom/Sounds/mysound.ogg

When packaging your scene to a VAR, if it's (I) then that atani VAR will be a dependency, if (II) Package Builder will ask to import the file into your new VAR - not called a dependency.

Did you put sounds in /saves/Scenes? You shouldn't put anything there besides scenes and their thumbnails. Try to use the default paths for keep your VAM neat, local sounds should be in /Custom/Sounds.
Perhaps you had the sounds in /saves/Scenes early on when making the scene, assigned triggers to that location somewhere, then changed them to /Custom/Sounds at some point, made new triggers to this folder and forgot to remove the older ones in the scene?
You can try open the scene JSON with Notepad or similar and search for the sounds in the /saves/Scene folder, and see if they're there? Not sure, it's not very clear in your writing what you did.

 

[Aipas]

My bad on dependencies. I meant included files.
As far as I remember the sound files were always in the same folder, shown in the image bellow. Triggers are spot on, and I'll die on that hill. I've lost count of how many passes I've done on timeline's triggers, verifying various things.

Step 1 - I add files for sound (custom/sounds/Aipas/etc. etc.) and other things. Hit prep package.

Step 2 - Get broken references regarding sound files in the saves/scenes/Aipas folder which are not there, and aren't supposed to be. I hit fix reference since I can't finalize package otherwise.

Step 3 - Now the file paths added by the fix (saves/scenes/Aipas/...) are there, but no files. If I add the files to the scenes/Aipas folder, I can finalize.

Step 4 - After the var is created I open it, remove the duplicated sound files from saves/scenes/Aipas and edit the meta.json to remove them there as well. It works, but I'm wondering what causes this and how can I avoid it in the future.

 

[atani]

Do not include the sounds in Contents. Add the scene, scan, and any sounds the scene calls for will be added on references as "Missing" or something like that.
For "Missing", just click "Fix..." and they'll be added to the Contents list as stated in the button.
For "Broken", something is not where the scene says there is, no way to resolve unless you ignore or fix the scene.

I do not know why it's expecting sounds in /Saves/Scenes. I advise you to open your scene in Notepad or equivalent, search for one of the sounds, and see on what atom it's called for.

 

[Aipas]

I've checked the meta.json.
The thing that strikes me as odd is that the builder only requests the weird file location (saves/scenes) for sound files that are used in headaudio source.
Both high_heels_walking and kiss2 are no issue.
This leads me to believe it may have something to do with the system I have in place to enable and disable voice audio, which is based on jayjaywon's action grouper.

1 - the meta.json after the scene was finalized. HIM_line1.ogg, for example, only had those 2 instances. Notice the builder "extra requests" didn't bother with high_heels_walking and kiss2

2 - what a timeline trigger does to send a line of dialogue in the scene

3 - the execution of said line of dialogue via action grouper. Maybe this forces the sound to be in the saves/scenes folder. Not sure.

Having said that, I feel I'm dragging you into something that's not your problem. You've helped enough, so don't worry. I'm gonna poke around a bit more to try and fix it.

 

[atani]

ActionGrouper is very old and will do weird things with audio. I tried it a long time ago and had many problems dealing with audio, so I think you got the source of the problem.
Instead of specifiying the audio in the AG plugin, I suggest you add a logicbrick relay as triggerer for the audio to HeadAudio, and then you only need to use AG to trigger the relay, that should resolve all packaging problems.
I'm on Discord if you need support in realtime.

 

[Aipas]

That's... disheartening.
I have a lot of old scenes that I've started to touch up with the purpose of releasing them, and the amount of vuml + action grouper combos they have isn't even funny. For audio and other things.
Please don't tell me vuml behaves weirdly as well. My plugins tab couldn't take it
On the up side my Monique look was approved.
All right, off to do some more digging.

Thanks for your availability.

 

[atani]

Don't worry, this problem could be an opportunity to reduce complexity and optimize your stuff.
AG works, just not so well with sounds. If you want, send me a scene to analyse and make suggestions.

 

[Aipas]

That would be a great help. I really wanted to stress test a scene in a pc other than mine before I try to release it.
I still have some corrections to do, but I will take you up on that offer.