Foundry VTT Basics Part 9 - Adding Sound to Your Game

[@Nitidus]

The depth you get from a 50€ software with no subscription fee is astonishing. Comparing what can be done here to the good old hand-drawn pencil maps shows, amongst other points, the strengths of a project with such a community focus. With the modules, possibilities are near endless

[@ThiefMaster]

Now imagine someone going super fancy and building a DIY playing table with a large screen in the center to combine the advantages of playing in person with the advantages of playing online!

[@Nitidus]

@@ThiefMaster Oh yeah, I've seen that! It's incredible, though cost becomes a concern here if you don't have a big TV lying around

[@ThiefMaster]

@@Nitidus Oh wow someone actually built that? Got a link? I don't have people to play with locally anyway (why can't real-life teleport circles be a thing) but I'm curious now!

[@Nitidus]

@@ThiefMaster Haha, sure! There are many versions out there. Just as an example, this is what Jacob from the D&D KZbin channel "XP to Level 3" built for himself: kzbin.info/www/bejne/m6nPXn2jodurb9E Search for that and you will get even more variants.

[@oilygarch]

Respect, my guy! You're doing great work with all these Foundry videos!

[@marcosmarti2]

What great video! Thanks so much. I just started DMing and fell in love with Foundry; EL's videos have been invaluable and my party is loving everything. In a world where there's a lack of good "How To's" these videos are filling a giant gap. Also, dude seems mad chill, would love to play a game with a DM like this. Thanks man!

[@EncounterLibrary]

I'm so glad that you're finding them useful! You're also far too kind, but thank you :D.

[@jakoblausen8932]

Hey, the Reddit user took the compressed stuff down, do you happen to know where I can get the compressed version still or would it be possible for you to mail me them? Also great video, still learning Foundry but so far it seems amazing

[@bekradan458]

Huge thanks for making these tutorials. I was about to give up on Foundry until I found your vids and once I had watched them it all made sense. I really appreciate the effort you have put in. I have my first FoundryVTT session tonight and I can't wait to see what my players make of the new functionality/modules. Can't wait to see your Macro vid as finding them has been a bit of a challenge.

[@EncounterLibrary]

I hope that your game went well and the players loved it!

[@bekradan458]

The interface was a little confusing for them, but once up and running they loved it. We did have a bit of lag with two players as it refused to connect to a sheet but that may have been bandwidth as my two kids were hammering mindcraft online at the same time. As soon as it got to around 9pm it all settled and worked fantastically.

[@EncounterLibrary]

@@bekradan458 That's awesome! The interface is definitely confusing at first so I can understand that. It's great that once things got rolling though it went smoothly (other than the lag of course). You'll have to schedule some screen off time that coincides with your game :D.

[@danielattridge4394]

Excellent videos. I started my foundry journey literally minutes after you uploaded your updated videos, and these have been extremely helpful.

[@EncounterLibrary]

Sometimes the timing is just perfect :D.

[@calmhorizons]

Brilliant videos - massively appreciated.

[@dannykike6469]

This... This feature is amazing! I was wondering why is some of the options it said vision and senses. Thanks to you I have a working building with lights, sounds, and all that jazz for my session tonight! I can't wait for my players to experience this system since we are coming over from Roll20, without a subscription. Your tutorials are the best ^.^

[@EncounterLibrary]

I hope that y'all had a great time in the game tonight!

[@dannykike6469]

@@EncounterLibrary They absolutely loved it! One of the people I play with is also a DM, we switch off each Sunday who's DMing their campaigns. The very next morning he bought Foundry VTT, that's how much of a hit it was!

[@EncounterLibrary]

That’s so great to hear! I’ve been shocked at how well transitioning to an online game has gone and one of my players who also DMs did the same thing after I ran my first game in Foundry haha. Hopefully your friend’s game this Sunday will go as well as yours!

[@bengrimshaw4337]

Thank you for this and all of your excellent videos! You've just convinced me to buy foundry, they should have you on commission!

[@tommasorizzi8702]

Awesome series, really helpful and instructive!

[@Mini3D]

Shenmue on Dreamcast was first game with Quick Time Events btw. Great video!

[@Cadaver327]

Informative and concise as always!

[@russell6011]

For sound setups of multiple locations, such as outside rainstorm sounds coming in through multiple open windows of a tavern, can you sync the multiple rain source locations of the windows so that the rain tracks all sync and play at the same time or give one sound track for multiple sound locations?

[@tinyspacegerbil]

Such an useful video series! Now if I could figure out how to port my already made Spotify playlists over somehow, this would be ideal.

[@EncounterLibrary]

That would be great functionality but unfortunately I can't point you in any useful direction to try and get that working haha. A module like playlist importer might make it easier for you to import big groups of songs if you download them first at least!

[@DireBadger]

You have developed a really great tool. Congrats.

[@EncounterLibrary]

I appreciate the kind words but I'm not actually the developer! I'm just a big fan who loves the software and wanted to make it easier for other people to use.

[@TerminalTinker2465]

I am loving this series. The maps you use are pretty neat, and I was wondering where you found them. I know that sometimes just using Google Image search can work well, but it seems like a lot of the maps you use are in a somewhat similar style. Are there any creators you would recommend?

[@GryphonDes]

you can always re-render them plus you can probably tie them into Moulnette and use thier cloud services for the re-rendered audio files to get them all headache free

[@Pecomica]

Interesting video. Every video you put out, makes me more and more interested in giving Foundry a try. A question about the sounds. In a previous video you showed how to bring a action to your hotbar, to speed up the use. I understand they are part of the core books or what it is called that is free to use within the program, but is it possible to add a sound to any of those things? So if the player uses fireball, you can add the sound to the button and have it play it as it is being cast?

[@EncounterLibrary]

There's no built-in support for that but with the Maestro module you can set a track to play when an item is used or a spell is cast. Once you've installed/activated the module in Foundry go to 'Configure Settings' -> 'Module Settings' (you can check my video on installing modules for where this is) and turn on 'Enable Item Track'. Then you can click on a spell or attack (you might need to click on the 'Edit' option if its an item or an attack like 'Dagger') and in the top bar of the newly opened window for the item there will be an option that says 'Item Track'. There you can set either a playlist or a single track to play when it's used!

[@Pecomica]

@@EncounterLibrary that sounds awesome. I have gotten the program and is int he process of setting up my own homebrew world.I come back to your videos to watch if I get stuck. I did notice that the available mods, monsters, items and such is quite limited for the pathfinder at this time, so it is slowing me down somewhat as I try and learn how to add my own stuff. Do you think you will do a video that shows how to add spells, items, attacks, conditions, traits, and feats on your own? The thing that slows me down, is not knowing exactly what the various options mean and how to for example get a burning skeleton's Fiery Aura to work (Deal 1d6 damage to anyone adjacent every turn), or how to add a trait that changes a actors bonus to certain skill and such.

[@woeskwee1067]

Sweet, thanks for another awesome vid. You answered all my questions on this topic, and only left me with one new one: What file format/quality would you recommend converting sound files to?

[@EncounterLibrary]

Great to hear! In terms of format mp3 is probably the most ubiquitous and easy to find converters for. For quality somewhere around 128 kbps should be more than enough for great sound at much more reasonable file sizes. It might be worth going a little lower though and seeing if you can even tell the difference. When most people are using the headphones that came with their phone there's less detail needed than if everyone was listening through LCD2s for example.

[@jackson.d2879]

How do you attach sounds to objects? For example, a sound playing when the door is opened.

[@scetchmonkey007]

Is there a way to connect a sound to a monster that moves with it, That would be great for a monster like the Giberring Mouther.

[@holmklimke7039]

Is the ambiance sound of let's say a player standing next to a fire shared for all players or just the ones within set distance ? Thanks for making those videos on that VTT, the demo version is kinda lacklustre to see the features as a GM

[@EncounterLibrary]

It is only the players within the set distance :). I'm happy to help as much as I can!

[@TaintedMarth]

Why does my interace look different? I got no option to choose between local or global sound.

[@DavidMartinDeMadrid]

Great video! As always 🙃

[@feloniousmonk5261]

Another excellent tutorial, thanks! Looking forward to macros and mods :-)

[@ZMaNFaRLee]

dammit. I try to watch parts of the videos but all 20 minutes ends up bring great lol.

[@danieljay-dixon3171]

Is there a way to anchor an ambient sound to a token? For instance, if the horse whinny you had was coming from a horse, and the horse moved, the sound source would move with it?

[@EncounterLibrary]

There's not a built in feature that does that but there *is* a module! It's called Token Audio and should do exactly what you're looking for.

[@ΣπύροςΓκιουζέπας]

So this question applies in music and sounds but in file resources in general. Do you have to save these in the world and do they function only for this world? Can I just grab music from my music files? I guess that the playlist is tied to the world though

[@EncounterLibrary]

You don't have to save any of the files in the specific world though for world items like scenes which are world specific (usually at least) I normally would just for organizational purposes. Everything does need to be in your Foundry user data though. In Windows you can access that by right clicking on the Foundry icon in your start bar and selecting 'Browse User Data'. I keep things like tokens and music outside of all my world folders because all my world's use the same set of tokens/music for example. If you have music and things like that outside of Foundry you can use symlinking to give Foundry access to them but unfortunately I can't help too much with that (it shouldn't be too difficult to accomplish though). Things like playlists are specific to the world though I believe.

Another very good video! I am definitely going to buy this! Edit: it would be nice to have direct access to sites with sound and musics.

[@EncounterLibrary]

I'm glad you like it! I added direct links to the sound files in the description. Another user posted them in the comments but for some reason their comment (and my reply) aren't showing up even though its not flagged as spam. Hopefully that will be helpful! A user on reddit.com/r/foundryvtt also posted compressed versions of the audio so check that out as well!

[@woeskwee1067]

@@EncounterLibrary Do you have a link to this post. My google-fu is failing.

[@EncounterLibrary]

I still had it in my browser history, here you go: www.reddit.com/r/FoundryVTT/comments/gcnzs9/huge_audiobundle_of_royaltyfree_music_from_gdc/ :D.

[@woeskwee1067]

@@EncounterLibrary \m/

@@EncounterLibrary thank you very much!

[@jorgeroblesreyes9254]

We need the sound board to be in the macro bar

[@amberly6559]

So if I'm understanding correctly adding the sounds in foundry is not sufficient, the players need to have all the sound files on their own machines? I don't understand why the art assets will show for players but sounds won't play for them unless they have the sound files?

[@EncounterLibrary]

No, there aren't any files that your players also have to have on their machine. Everything will be sent to them via Foundry. Is it the 'local sound' naming that made you think that? If so that refers (I guess somewhat confusingly) to sound that is only local to a certain part of the map whereas playlists etc. will be audible regardless of where you are on the map. I hope that helps! If not, please let me know and I'd be happy to clarify!

[@amberly6559]

@@EncounterLibrary No it's the part starting at 16:19 that made me think that.

[@EncounterLibrary]

@@amberly6559 Ah! I understand now. I'm sorry, what I meant by that line was that the files have to be streamed out to your players just like the art assets. As a result having them compressed (including the maps) makes it so you have to stream less data to your players.

[@amberly6559]

@@EncounterLibrary ooooh got it, thanks for the clarification!

[@termosX86]

I would actually love to see your campaign if you wanna record it or stream it!

[@EncounterLibrary]

I recorded my last session just for note taking and I'm going to see if my players mind if I upload some pieces of it! I've been thinking about streaming some map making, encounter design, and messing about in Foundry so if you're interested in that at all let me know :D

[@termosX86]

@@EncounterLibrary Would deffinitely be interested! You explain it very well and it would be fun to see you designing maps and chilling with chat

[@johnniemarsden3819]

@@EncounterLibrary +1

[@EncounterLibrary]

@@johnniemarsden3819 Since you posted this comment I did actually stream on Monday night some campaign prep and general Foundry/Dungeondraft work. It finally finished processing and is available here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gYK9ZHuggKqIgKM You can probably skip the first bit, I had some trouble getting the stream started and was making sure it was working properly. I'm gonna try to stream occasionally going forward either campaign prep or messing around with modules. Hopefully you'll stop by!

[@EncounterLibrary]

@@termosX86 Johnnie's comment brought this back to my feed and I just wanted to say I did actually stream on Monday night some campaign prep and general Foundry/Dungeondraft work. It finally finished processing and is available here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gYK9ZHuggKqIgKM You can probably skip the first bit, I had some trouble getting the stream started and was making sure it was working properly. I'm gonna try to stream occasionally going forward either campaign prep or messing around with modules. Hopefully you'll stop by!

[@vic5221]

Does anyone have a good tutorial for compressing or rendering sound to make it more streamlined for players? I am guessing EL isn't talking about compressing it in a 7zip

[@francescovespa]

let's say i have prepared a playlist: can i export it somehow and import it to another world campaign?

[@EncounterLibrary]

A playlist that you created in Foundry? Definitely! Go to your Worlds folder (If you're on Windows open File Explorer and type '%localappdata%' at the top, click into FoundryVTT then Data, then worlds) and find your world with the playlist in it. Once you're in there you can click into the 'data' folder and copy the 'playlists' file and paste it into the same place in your other world. If you already have playlists in the other world though this will overwrite them!

[@R.D.G.C.]

I am not quite sure what you mean by the file sizes. Do you mean that every player needs to have their own sound files? Not just the host?

[@EncounterLibrary]

Every player doesn't need to have their own sound files but the sound files that the host has will be streamed to the players. Think of it like how you and a friend can both watch a KZbin video at the same time because KZbin streams it out to you even though you don't have it already. Except in this circumstance you're KZbin :D.

[@drunemeton]

Another awesome video! One question: How do we refer to you? Over on discord you’re “guy” or “some guy…”. Edit: Maybe put something in your About area? Otherwise you may end up being The Librarian. 😁

[@EncounterLibrary]

The Librarian has a certain ring to it so I wouldn't be opposed to that :D. But really, my name is Matt. Over on Discord I'm mattexdee and I'm in Kakaroto's and Foundry's Discord servers (and Talespire, DnDBeyond, LegendKeeper and a handful of others). People can feel totally free to message me over there if they want to. I don't post an awful lot but I lurk constantly and take notes and try to help when I can hah. I'll add some details to my about section and ruin my mysterious aura but increase clarity :).

[@drunemeton]

Encounter Library You do you! 💪❤️👍

[@celiodapaz3471]

How do i change the order of tracks in a playlist? I made one and wanted my sound to be organized by name, but they appear in the order i uploaded then, is there any way to change it? I don't see to be able to move tracks either.

[@EncounterLibrary]

Unfortunately there's no built-in way to handle that. The next release of Foundry is focused on audio changes so I'm hopeful that features like this will become available however.

[@CelestianGC]

One note, you'll need mp3s, wont work with .wav files. Took me a while to figure that out ;(

[@EncounterLibrary]

There might have been another issue with your wav files. Mine are playing just fine and I see in the supported audio types as: flac, mp3, ogg, wav, and webm.

[@Ualaa]

Is it possible to integrate Syrinscape sounds into Foundry?

[@EncounterLibrary]

Out of the box there isn't but I believe there's a user working on a Syrinscape module. No clue on the timeline for its completion however.

how you add a sound to door when you click it?

[@EncounterLibrary]

This sound is handled automatically by Foundry so you don't need to do anything. Hope that helps!

[@R.D.G.C.]

Is there a way to save the playlists between games or worlds? Thanks.

[@EncounterLibrary]

There's a couple ways you could probably do this. There's a module called the 'Playlist Importer'. Basically if you put all of your music into folders based on what playlist they should be in you can use it to automate creating the actual playlists. This way you could have all the files stored in your root Foundry folder and import all of them into your different worlds easily. You could also make a music compendium pack and follow this guide to create a custom module that you can share between worlds that contains that compendium pack: www.reddit.com/r/FoundryVTT/comments/fvw3c7/how_to_create_a_tiny_module_for_shared_content/ Hopefully one of those two will help!

[@R.D.G.C.]

@@EncounterLibrary That was fantastic! Thank you very much!

[@codydumont7671]

Where do you download your sound effects?

[@codydumont7671]

NEVERMIND, just realized you mention it at the end of the video lol!