Using File2ByteSlice for WAV files

[bjazmoore]

I found the article regarding some of the tools that were developed along with Ebiten. Very interesting in File2byteslice. I downloaded the source and was able to build an executable. It works great! I am encoding image files (PNG's) to byte slices. I understand how to convert these to an image for using in Ebiten from reading some of the example code. I am curious - if I encode a WAV file to a byte slice will I be able to use it in the game engine? How?

Thanks in advance. P.S. - if I should be taking my basic questions somewhere else - please let me know.

[hajimehoshi]

Now I recommend to use Go 1.16's new feature: embed instead of file2byteslice. This is the standard way to embed resources and much easier to use. Ebiten will keep using file2byteslice for a while for old Go compilers, but will migrate this into embed in near future.

if I encode a WAV file to a byte slice will I be able to use it in the game engine? How?

Wav file format can be decoded with Ebiten's wav package. See examples/wav.

Thanks in advance. P.S. - if I should be taking my basic questions somewhere else - please let me know.

I welcome any questions related to Ebiten here :-)

[AWachtendorf]

I tried encoding a 3 - minute WAV file once. As WAV is one of the complexer audio formats, my byte slice was a friggin 80mb large! The IDE (working with intellij Goland) prompty told me I was crazy for usign this large code files. The only way I could do it was by using an low bit mp3 and making the soundfile 2 minutes shorter. Still this didn't achieve anything regarding usability.
So to answer the question by my experience:
Can you convert sound to a byte slice? YES.
Should you? Most likely NO.
:)

[hajimehoshi]

As WAV is one of the complexer audio formats

The reason why a wav file tends to be big is not because the format is complex, but because the format doesn't compress the data :-) The format itself is pretty simple.

I agree with the conclusion: we should use MP3 or Ogg/Vorbis instead of Wav unless the audio is short enough.

[AWachtendorf]

The reason why a wav file tends to be big is not because the format is complex, but because the format doesn't compress the data :-) The format itself is pretty simple.

Oh, absolutely right! Thank you for correcting me :) I guess that's the reason why sound engineers prefer wav, as its a good format to work with and compress and scale down afterwards, am I correct with that?

[hajimehoshi]

I'm not a sound engineer, but I think that's correct, as compressing data loses the original data and results in less quality sound.

[bjazmoore]

Thank you for the excellent reply. I will look at embed. I also appreciate the pointer. Also appreciate the discussion on compressed file formats for audio.

These comments answer my question. Thank you.