Learning XNA 3.0

Adding Sound

Another thing your game really lacks is the atmosphere and pizzazz that only audio can give. In this section, you'll add some sound effects and soundtracks to your game.

In Visual Studio, use the Solution Explorer to add a new folder under the Content node called Audio (right-click the Content folder and select Add → New Folder).

Launch the Microsoft Cross-Platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT) by clicking on your Windows Start button and selecting All Programs → Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.0 → Tools → Microsoft Cross-Platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT).

In XACT, select File → New Project, navigate to your project's Content\Audio directory, and save the file as GameAudio.xap. Once your project is ready, create a new wave bank and a new sound bank by right-clicking on the Wave Banks and Sound Banks tree items on the left and selecting New Wave Bank and New Sound Bank, respectively. Accept the default names for the wave and sound banks. Once both are created, select Window → Tile Horizontally to organize your windows for easier use.

There are six .wav files located in the 3D Game\Content\Audio folder of the source code for this chapter. Copy those files to your project's Content\Audio folder in Windows Explorer. Here are the files:

• Explosion1.wav

• Explosion2.wav

• Explosion3.wav

• Shot.wav

• Track1.wav

• Track2.wav

Again, remember that when dealing with audio in XACT, you don't add the actual .wav files to your project in Visual Studio; you only copy the files to the project's Content\Audio ...