Hmm... OK, oddly enough it worked for me... Go to http://builds.jmri.org/jenkins/job/Packager/ws/jmri/dist/release Download the current build release (right now it's JMRI.r18474.exe, but will soon change) Install and execute as usual... no special steps or anything. On my Windows XP box, it worked like normal right out of the box... Please let me know if you experience otherwise.
I will try it on a windows xp box. I forgot to mention I was using windows 7 64bit when I first tried it.
OK... It's not *supposed* to matter, but that doesn't mean it won't. Also, I just checked in a new master volume slider and mute button. Next up will probably be either a rudimentary steam sound or trying to make the notch changes on the Diesel engine better.
Well today I finally had a chance to install build JMRI.r18476.exe on an XP box at the club, and had success with the sound. I ran my F7AB and pulled an NP passenger train, using the Wi-Throttle server on my Thunderbolt phone. I was able to ring the bell and blow the horn fine. The engine rumble was good and ramped up with speed fine, but I had to run the train a bit too fast to get the rumble through it's notches. Overall it was a very pleasant experience, especially since we have a Creative A220 2.1 speaker setup with a nice little subwoofer at the club layout. The guys that were running their sound equipt steamers were running today, and were really proud of their sound until I fired up my my train, and gave a couple blasts of the horn, then slapped it into notch 1 and pulled out of the yard. Everyone started smiling then! I told them this is an early "Sneak Peek" of work that Twindad on Trainboard is doing with JMRI, and everyone is looking forward to the release now. Thanks for sharing your work on this project Twindad, I can't wait to see how it progresses!
thanks, RRay! I have a lot of work to do on the sounds... much of it centered around improving the sound modeling. I'm glad everyone was pleased. Did anyone notice that your F7 was running with GE engine sounds?
haha, nobody noticed the engine sound as being incorrect for an F7, but Jonesy noticed the horn was not the single chime Nathan that sounds like some stepped on a cow! This is going to be real popular for N and Z Scalers!
That's pretty funny. I am constantly looking for sounds to use, but have been devoting most of my focus on getting the function down. At some point I'll get the documentation for the VSD file published and the folks can star making their own files with historically accurate sounds... Or nonsense if they prefer... How about a bicycle horn for your favorite switcher.
JMRI 2.13.2 test release is available, if you're interested. This time I've added a crude method of having the sound follow the train. If you use the JMRI Operations feature, and define Locations, Routes and Trains to follow them... you can assign a physical location to your Location (Tools->Set Physical Location from either the Locations list or the Edit Location window). Then create Routes that use those locations and Trains that follow those Routes in the usual way (see the Operations documentation). When you launch a VSDecoder, on the Options tab there's a drop-down called Operations Train. It will have a list of the Trains you defined. If you choose one, then the sound should follow the Locations you defined above as the Train follows its Route. As with everything else, it's rough. The sound will "jump" from one Location to the Next when you click the "Move" button in either the Trains window or the Conductor View window. This will at least demonstrate the capability, while I work out the best architecture for allowing more advanced train following using things like Transponding, RPS, Block Occupancy and so on. As usual, thanks for your support, comments and help!
This sounds interesting. Do you need a 5.1 type surround system? How does it work? We ran JMRI test build 2.13.1 all weekend at the Craneway Pavillion GTE, this time using NCE with the BAZ BoyZ Z Scale Cooperative, and people were really impressed with the sound syncronized with the loco speed. That and running it from my Android phone was a real crowd pleaser this show. People loved it when I press the horn button on my phone and they hear a real train horn. We had a 2.1 speaker setup under the layout.
It will work with whatever audio system the hardware provides, from headphones all the way up to 7.1 surround. Obviously the position tracking (eventually) will work much better with a surround sound placement, but there's a lot of work to do on that anyway. Also "coming soon" will be streaming of the audio to your phone, so you can hear it through your headphones. Hopefully I'll be able to "tune" that so that it's an in-cab-like experience. Still working out the design for that. I'm glad to hear it was working with an NCE system. It appears you were using EngineDriver. Did anyone use it with the NCE hardware throttle? Were they able to do the sounds through the NCE hardware throttle?
Nobody tried using the VSD with a conventional throttle, but I will try it in 2 weeks at our next show, The Redwood Empire Train Show . We were using Engine driver on both phones and Archos music players, as well as Wi Throttle on iPad, and iPhones and a kid used his iTouch to run. A couple guys used their procabs but we did not think the VSD would work so nobody tried.
So, as I understand it, this is a sound coming out of the computer? Or does it come out of a phone throttle if you have one? (Which Idon't, nor do I plan to ever) Not so fond of those setups, but we'll see. Someday maybe I'll see a demo that convicnes me. My first thoughts, are this will be an awesome thing to have for video dubbing though.
Yes, the sound is played through the computer's sound system. You can, of course, place the speakers wherever you want, and the idea is that you can/will place them so that (with the appropriate train location input) VSD can use surround sound techniques to make the sound appear to come from the train. We don't yet stream the sound to smartphones, but that is "coming soon". Given that, with headphones, you can get a very good surround sound experience, but it probably makes more sense to make the smartphone headphone sound be "in cab" instead of following the layout. We'll probably provide both options. The reason I'm so anxious for someone to test this with an NCE throttle is that I've *heard* that the NCE throttles don't send the throttle and function button information back to JMRI, which is a necessity for it to work with VSD. Since I don't have an NCE system to test with...
Last weekend we ran 3 days at the Redwood Empire show, and were able to run with multiple instances of VSD opened, using both Android and Iphone at the same time. We were however not able to get the VSD to accept any loco being ran off an NCE Powercab, Procab, or Cab 06R. For some reason we cannot type in the loco address, as the box remains grayed out. So it's true that JMRI is not seeing the NCE throttle info. Maybe a workaround, using the packet sniffer utility to get NCE throttle data could be implemented?
Well, I must say I'm disappointed to have that bit of information confirmed. But at least I know it's something to be worked on. As for not being able to type in the address, you should have been able to do so after loading a profile. Though, without feedback from the throttle, it doesn't make much difference. I'll look into that as well. Thanks for the feedback! Was the general reaction (NCE issues excepted) positive or negative?
Everyone who was using Android and iPhone were happy to have sounds at their controls. Every time they could get away with it, they blew the horn! We let a kid run using his iPod Touch, and he went horn happy on us. After about an hour of that, people from the ajacent layout came over to complain that they could not take anymore, at which time we pointed to the kid with the iPod who just would not stop. It was fun!
Nothing in 8 years! Is anyone working on this still? Is the code part of JMRI now? Perhaps I could look at the source.
I actually still use the old version of JMRI that has this feature on my windows xp laptop plugged into a USB speaker. I don't know if anyone else even knows it exists. I haven't used any newer versions of JMRI so I'm not sure if it's still included. I am a Z Scaler so will never get to see any sound decoder equipt locos, this is all I get.
