Sound In Code

Emit sound from entity

Use EmitSound to emit a sound from an entity's origin:

EmitSound( "soundscript.file" );

The sound will follow whichever entity it is assigned to, based on the entity index provided to EmitSound. If an entity index is provided, the position overload argument will not affect the position of the sound; to override this behaviour and have the sound play at the desired point in space, pass in -1 as the entity index:

EmitSound( filter, -1, "Weapon_ProxyBomb.LeadIn", &soundPosition );

See the CSoundEmitterSystem class in SoundEmitterSystem.cpp for overloads and implementation details.

Be sure to precache the sounds you use using PrecacheScriptSound in your entity's Precache method before use:

void MyEntity::Precache( void )
{
	BaseClass::Precache();

	PrecacheScriptSound( "soundscript.entry" );
}

Play sounds anywhere

To play a sound on the client and without spatialisation (i.e. as an "ambient" sound), use the following code:

enginesound->EmitAmbientSound( "link/to/soundfile", 1.0f );

You may need to include #include "engine/ienginesound.h" in order to get access to the interface.

Play sounds via VGUI interface

#include "vgui/ISurface.h"
#include "vgui_controls/Controls.h"

using namespace vgui;

surface()->PlaySound( "common/talk.wav" ); // Starts from the 'sound' folder

AI sounds

AI sounds are not audible to the player, but can be heard and reacted to by NPCs.

#include "soundent.h"
CSoundEnt::InsertSound( SOUND_COMBAT, GetAbsOrigin(), SOUNDENT_VOLUME_PISTOL, 0.2, GetOwner() );

InsertSound(TYPE OF SOUND, Origin of noise, Volume Level, Duration, owner)

Type of Sound is used to control how sounds are heard in the world. ex: SOUND_COMBAT allows AI/NPCs to react to sounds.

• ai_sound
• soundent

See Also

• Sound and Music
• Single-Player Mapping Tips
• Adding More Detail to a map