TGB audio positioning / panning

I wondered if it was possible to have audio positioning in TGB 1.7.4 and started searching the forums. I found two threads where people asked the same question and finally Simon Love's promising resource OpenAL and Torque 2D. It didn't work though :/

After further searching and reading, I found out that the key thing is the audio format. I read that audio files need to be mono to get positioning working with OpenAL - great, but still didn't work!

I want to keep it short and thus won't tell you how I started learning about OpenAL, hacked and debugged the engine and so on... :)

The solution is simple: The audio files need to be mono, 8 bit and 44KHz.

Here are some steps to position the firing sound of the player ship in the BehaviorShooter demo:

I've used the file zap1.wav and saved it as mono, 8 bitand 44KHz. You can get the modified version here. Place that file into the game/data/audio folder.
Then edit the file game/behaviors/game/shootsAdv.cs and add this code at the end of it:

$audioPanningFactor = 0.25;      // 1.0 = max, 0.0 = panning off

new AudioDescription(Audio3DNonLooping)
{
   volume   = 1.0;
   isLooping= false;
   [b]is3D     = true;[/b] // <-- important!
};

new AudioProfile(Shot)
{
   filename = "~/data/audio/zap1.wav";
   description = "Audio3DNonLooping";
   preload = true;
};

Now add these two lines on top of ShootsBehaviorAdv::onBehaviorAdd()

%width = sceneWindow2D.getCurrentCameraSize();
$cameraWidth = getWord(%width, 0) / 2;

and modify the bottom of ShootsBehaviorAdv::fire():

%projectile.setPosition(%this.owner.position);
   %projectile.setRotation(%this.owner.rotation + %this.rotationOffset);
   %projectile.setLinearVelocityPolar(%this.owner.rotation + %this.fireAngleOffset, %this.projectileSpeed);
[b]   
   %audioPosX = (1 / $cameraWidth * %shipX);
   alxPlay(Shot, %audioPosX * $audioPanningFactor, 0, 1.0);
[/b]   
   if (!isEventPending(%this.fireSchedule))
      %this.fireSchedule = %this.schedule(%this.fireRate * 1000, "fire", 1);

To keep it simple, I made all changes in the file shootsAdv.cs, this is not an optimal solution!

That's it. I hope this will be helpful for somebody else...

I don't have a MAC and would be glad if someone could tell me if it works on a MAC or not.

Stefan