[JAVA][Beginning Java 8 Games Development]

Chapter 15
Implementing Game Audio Assets:
Using the JavaFX AudioClip Class
Audio Sequencing Engine
Now that we have created both motion sprite and fixed sprite classes using our abstract Actor (fixed sprites) and
Hero (motion sprites) superclasses, we need to put the code into place that will play our game audio assets. Although
generally not thought of as being as important as the digital image (visual) assets, digital audio (aural) assets can be
quite important to the quality of your game play. In fact, you would be surprised how much that great audio assets can
add to the perceived value of your Java 8 game products. We will be learning how to optimize and implement digital
audio assets for your Java 8 game development during this chapter, using open source tools such as Audacity 2.0.6.
Fortunately for us, the JavaFX AudioClip engine (actually, it is a class in the javafx.scene.media package) can
bring a lot of power to our games development. This is because this class has essentially been designed to be an
audio sequencing engine, able to control every aspect of the audio asset performance, as well as to create new audio
assets using 6 octave (three up, and three down) pitch shifting capabilities. We’ll be learning about this class in
detail, during the beginning of this chapter, and then implementing it in our primary InvinciBagel.java class, as well
as using it in our Bagel.java class in a new .playAudioClip() method, which we’ll code and call in that class’s primary
.update() method.
After we look at the JavaFX AudioClip class is detail, we will get into using the popular Audacity 2.0.6 digital
audio editing (and audio effects) software, which we installed in Chapter 1, when we installed all of your open source
game development software tools. We’ll go through an audio asset creation and optimization process using Audacity.
We will use the concepts that we learned in Chapter 5 covering new media content creation concepts, and optimize
digital audio files to achieve an 800% data footprint savings. We will do this so that our digital audio assets do not use
more than 64KB of our system memory; in fact, we will get six 16-bit digital audio assets to use less than 62KB of data.
Once we have created the six audio assets, which will match up with the six different keys that we are using to
control our InvinciBagel character, we will create the .loadAudioAssets() method in the InvinciBagel class and learn
how to declare AudioClip and URL objects. Inside of the .loadAudioAssets() method we will then use these two
classes (objects) together in order to create our digital audio assets for the game and install them into the player’s
computer system (or consumer electronics device) memory.
Once these six AudioClip objects are in place, we will then have NetBeans create six Setter methods for the
AudioClip objects and then “morph” these .setiSound() methods into the .playiSound() methods that we require.
After this is done, we will go into our Bagel.java class, and add a .playAudioClip() method. Inside of this method, we
will call the six .playiSound() methods, based upon which keys the player is pressing.
We have a lot of ground to cover during this chapter, so let’s get started by taking an in-depth look at the JavaFX
AudioClip class and its various properties and methods that we can invoke impressive audio sequencing with! After
we get that out of the way we can get into the fun stuff and start using Audacity 2.0.6 and NetBeans 8 to create!
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