Looping a Sound
A looped sound will repeat endlessly without any gap between its end and start. It is up to the sound artist to ensure that the end and start of the file match up however, or there will be a "pop" as the waveform jumps from one shape to another.
Source detects looped sounds ONLY through cue points embedded in the file. This is a WAV-only feature, so MP3s cannot be looped. MS-ADPCM compressed WAVs can be looped, but due to the compression there will be a pop when the sound restarts. (But that can theoretically be avoided for any compressed format, including MP3.)
Note:There is no need to mark a sound as looping when playing it, but if using ambient_generic you will find that the "Is NOT Looped" flag must be set correctly if you want to stop the sound after it starts!
Warning: 
During development: editing the contents of an existing sound file stored in your campaign's sound.cache will not show any change until the sound cache is rebuilt! See Creating a sound.cache files or L4D2 Custom Sound and Music Tutorial for further instructions.
Programs
These free programs can add cue points to a WAV:
GoldWave
Open Goldwave and open the sound you want to loop. Click the cues icon. (
)
Then in the new window click on the New button and add a cue point At Start. Then click New for another cue point and add a point At End. So it looks similar to this:
Cue location
Your cues do not have to be at the start and end of the file. If you place them in the middle Source will start playing the sound normally, then when it reaches the end cue will loop back to the start cue. From then on only what's between the cues will play.
This can be used to give a sound a "winding up" effect that only plays once (e.g. a motor starting).
See Also
External Links
- Looping Menu Music - An Interlopers.net Tutorial on Soundlooping
