Cross-fading for BGM

[TheRPGNOOb]

What would be a good way to simulate 'cross-fading' for music (winamp style). I'd like to create just one script where the only arguments I'd have to change are 'music to fade out' 'music to fade in' 'fade out speed' 'fade in speed'. The hard part is the timeing, getting one song to smoothly start fading out while another smoothly starts fading in.

[IsmAvatar]

without a dll, I don't think GM can change stuff with midis (and I think mp3's as well)

[Flashback]

Ooh! pick me! pick me! I'm working on a script for this, hang on.

ok, I got the script ready, but there's one problem. it only works with waves. so, what you need to do is have the end of your song in wav, and have it play at the end of the midi. then this script will work.

IA: user, please do not double post. Use the edit button.

[TheRPGNOOb]

Yay. Well may I see your script then eh? Even it if only does work with waves (not all to keen on midis anyway, heh)

While I'm logged in, another Q came to mind. During one of the only times I read all the way through the GM manual I skimmed over something about a built in function for text using your own sprites as fonts. Does anyone know the syntax for that?

[Noadi]

If it works with wava I'm sure it would work with mp3s with only a little work. MP3s are basically just compressed wavs. I would never ever use wavs for BGM, they are simply to big.

[Flashback]

Noadi said:

If it works with wava I'm sure it would work with mp3s with only a little work. MP3s are basically just compressed wavs. I would never ever use wavs for BGM, they are simply to big.

No, I tried MP3, it didn't work.

[Antman]

Noadi said:

If it works with wava I'm sure it would work with mp3s with only a little work. MP3s are basically just compressed wavs. I would never ever use wavs for BGM, they are simply to big.

I think it's because Game Maker can play several wav's at a time (for souund effects), but it can only play one midi or mp3 for background music.

[TheRPGNOOb]

Well, if converted to 22/kb radio quality most 4 meg wavs will be reduced to about a 800 kb or less depending on the sample (which is fairly decent considaring that the quality doesn't change too drasticaly) It will be be reduced to about 400 kb or less if telephone quality, with a moderately low amount of noise (which, could probably be filtered out using other programs) The only thing that really deminishes alot is the volume.

Anyway, could you post your script Flashback?

Also, what is the syntax for making it so that text uses your own sprites?

[IsmAvatar]

As mentioned in the GM manual, you can make your own font for the game by making the sprite with subimages, and then calling it when you draw the text with the following (quoted from manual)

draw_text_sprite(x,y,string,sep,w,sprite,firstchar,scale)
Drawing text using the functions above is relatively costly. This function works exactly the same as the previous one but takes its character images from a sprite. This sprite must have a subimage for each character. The first character is indicate with the argument firstchar. From this character on the characters should follow the ASCI order. You can check the character map tool of windows to see the correct order of the characters. If you only need the first few (e.g. up to the numbers or the uppercase characters) you don’t need to provide the other characters. scale indicates the scale factor used (1 is the normal size). Be careful will scaling though, it can slow down the game considerably. Please realize that these sprites tend to be large. Also, you obviously don’t need precise collision checking for them.