How to use external music files in a game?

[Gimbabwe]

I have a fairly large game, and im having a spot of trouble with it at this size. As such I was thinking of instead of building the game with all music and sound effect files included, I wanted to instead have it as a separate file to alleviate the headache of runnijg it a bit. Problem is, I know its possible, its simply just...I have absolutely no clue where to even begin doing that. Can anyone give me some guidance?

[Danny]

If I'm getting your post right then, Right Click > Play Sample from File (as opposed to Play Sample). You can then specify the external filename of the sample.

[Gimbabwe]

But how does that work whenever I build my game?

[Danny]

You could put the samples in a folder called 'sounds' then you would use the Play Sample from File (expression).

Ie:
Play Sample From File(Expression: AppPath$+"sounds\hit.wav")

When you build your game and run it, it will look for the sound in the sound folder in the same directory as the game itself.

[Gimbabwe]

What do you mean?

If I build the game, Id have to include this file with it, but depending on how a user would install it, said file can be anywhere on their computer. How am I to have it be in a consistent directory?

[lh37]

When you build the application, you can use the "Build" --> "Install Program" option which will build the application and give you the opportunity to pack any external files with the application. This produces an install program.

When the user installs your game using this package, for example, if it was installed to "C:\Program Files\MyGame\", the game and its sound files would be located here, in the same directory.

The expression AppPath$ tells MMF the directory where the game is located in, so it does not matter where the user installs the game, as long as MMF is able to look in the same directory for a folder called "Sounds".

Hope that clears up a few questions.

[Gimbabwe]

I believe Im starting t get it, but could you give me an example?

[Gimbabwe]

For instance, putting AppPath$/Sounds/XXXX the Xs being the music file, would that be correct?