Links Corner Forum

I've been wrestling furiously with a sound issue in APCD design that I just cant seem to fix for the past few days... Its all the more frustrating since its very inconsistent (sometimes it works fine) and time consuming to properly test out since it always works fine if testing in isolation on just that hole/spot without a full round being played. I've reached the point where I think Im prepared to give up. My last hope is that someone here may know something about this.

Here is the issue: I want the course in question to have several different local sounds that play continuously for their separate local areas. Apparently APCD doesnt like this? I know youre supposed to only have one global sound, but these arent global, they are local sounds with 0 wait duration. Is it simply impossible to have different such sounds on a course without issues? The course has no global sound and instead about 12 different local sounds. One of the 0 wait sounds is a fountain sound that is found on 3 separate locations. The other 0 wait sound is a distant river noise planted on 3 separate locations, each of the 3 with unique .wav file (for different volumes since I've not found the in-APCD volume setting to work at all). Ideally I wanted even more than 3 locations for the river sound but in decreasing it to 3 spots it seemed to solve some issues (both some different and some similar).

So what exactly happens that isnt working? One of the local river sounds with 0 wait setting covers the whole par 5 18th hole. On the teeshot the sound always works fine. For the 2nd shot the sound just completely vanishes sometimes, then is usually back as normal on the green. If opening the course in practice round for only hole 18 it always works 100% as intended. It only seems to happen when playing a full round or else a practice round where time is first spent around other sounds of the course and I believe in particular when having multiple renderings within a certain fountain sound. The more normally I play a full round, the more common the issue seems, but Im not too sure, it is extremely time consuming to get any clarity when needing to play a full round to be sure, and even then its slightly inconsistent...

I have tried lots of things: Spacing out sounds so that no area has 2 different local sounds (which seemed to solve a different sound issue), all sorts of variations of replanting the particular sound thats showing issues, with different tolerable settings. I tried deleting all planted sounds and replanting, making sure to plant the 0 wait sounds first (since Lez says its important for global sounds to be planted first, and just in case something similar applies to 0 wait local sounds). However, for unrelated and irrelevant reasons I am unable to completely delete and remake the sound files (listed within APCD as "sound objects") so that is something I havent and will not try because it wouldnt help in this case anyway.

Im suspecting it has something to do with APCD/Links not liking there being several different local sounds with 0 wait but I dont know for sure. Does anyone know of any courses that have multiple different continuous local sounds, or otherwise know what might be causing my issue?

Adelade wrote: ↑April 23rd, 2020, 5:55 pm Im suspecting it has something to do with APCD/Links not liking there being several different local sounds with 0 wait but I dont know for sure. Does anyone know of any courses that have multiple different continuous local sounds, or otherwise know what might be causing my issue?

Hi Adelade.
I had a little problem taking in everything you just described here, and I'm not 100% sure if this is what you are asking, but The National GC of Kansas City has several continuous sounds that play when you get within their assigned areas.
1: A continuous global bird loop... (the only global sound)
2: The sounds of water lapping up against the lake shores... (can be heard only when you are certain distances from the lakes)
3: The sound of rippling water in the drainage ditches that run alongside some of the fairways... (can be heard only when you are certain distances from the ditches)
4: The sounds of children screaming and playing in the swimming pool. (can be heard only when you are certain distances from the pool)
5: Traffic noises (can be heard only when you are certain distances from the road)
6: The LOCAL sound of a dog barking. (can only be heard when you are near houses in 2 or 3 particular places on the course) This sound is set to play every so many minutes. Seems like I set it for 7 minutes, but my memory may be off on that.

All of these sounds other than the dog are continuous and can only he heard when you get inside the assigned circles.

Hope that helped.

Dan

That indeed helps I had played this course of yours around 3-4 times before this, and I had never noticed any sounds other than the global. I normally play with sounds set quite low so that may be why, or otherwise simply that I never consciously thought about them which is only a testament to them being subtle and natural in an imo good way

I opened it up in APCD first to note where and which sounds I ought to be hearing, and then went to play a normal "New Round" with sound cranked up to max. On the end of 18th I started experimenting, otherwise I played it just like I normally would except paying extra attention to sounds. Everything seemed normal, but I wondered if that might be because there are few or no places in your course where one same planted continuous sound plays for 2 shots in a row, and most of them are towards the early part of the round, such as the traffic one on 3rd, lake on 4th green and possibly 9th green. The kids sound on 18th green being the one exception. Annoyingly the pin I had on 18th green was on the extreme front end of the green where the sound border is, so I pretended to play to a pin on the back green instead to be safe. Just like on my own course, I found the kids sound to play as intended on the first rendering in the area, but then seems to randomly go away and come back from separate shot-to-shot. I experimentally shot from 18th green to the last lake sound near 9th green to accurately test there too and the same thing happened. Only new unique shot renders seem to change anything, rotating the view does not make the sounds pop in or out.

I can only conclude that the same probably goes for all courses, and perhaps it only happens towards the end of rounds, as if Links gets more and more exhausted the more sounds it has played. In most cases, such as your Kansas, no one would realistically notice. With my course its a bit different since the river is a big and loud one, so if a river with a loud and homogeneous sound suddenly becomes dead quiet its a lot more noticeable :/ I cannot say if this only happens to me or others as well but I have no reason to suspect its only me. I dont wish this kind of testing upon anyone so I certainly dont ask anyone to verify, but Im sure we will find out soon anyway once I have people beta test my course or when I release it. Unless I find some solution/workaround that is. Taking a look at your Kansas has given me some ideas I think I for example will test out your method of having lots of different planted sounds of the same sound file. The difference in apparent volume from spot to spot may be too sharp in my case, but I will try it out. Thanks Dan

Adelade wrote: ↑April 24th, 2020, 5:27 pm Taking a look at your Kansas has given me some ideas I think I for example will test out your method of having lots of different planted sounds of the same sound file. The difference in apparent volume from spot to spot may be too sharp in my case, but I will try it out. Thanks Dan

You're welcome Adelade. Glad it helped...