Will NS2 do anything special with 3d sound?
moultano
Creator of ns_shiva. Join Date: 2002-12-14 Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
Creator of ns_shiva. Join Date: 2002-12-14 Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
<div class="IPBDescription">HRTF, onset delays, etc.</div>Given how important sound is in NS, I'm curious if the Evolution Engine will have any special 3d sound code. There are a lot of well studied algorithms for simulating it, everything from delaying the sound slightly in the ear furthest from the sound to applying a "head related transfer function" to color the sound in a way that simulates it flowing around your head.
Here's an example of how good 3d sound can be: <a href="http://www.sajithmr.com/downloads/Barbershop.mp3" target="_blank">http://www.sajithmr.com/downloads/Barbershop.mp3</a> (put on your headphones)
Now that's an actual recording with a fake head and microphones where the ears would be, and not simulated the way you would have to do it for a game, but still speaks I think to how much this could add to a game. Imagine if you could detect skulk clicks with as much precision as you can hear the location of the barbers in that video. Much <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/asrifle.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::asrifle::" border="0" alt="asrifle.gif" /> <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/skulk.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::skulk::" border="0" alt="skulk.gif" /> would ensue.
Here's an example of how good 3d sound can be: <a href="http://www.sajithmr.com/downloads/Barbershop.mp3" target="_blank">http://www.sajithmr.com/downloads/Barbershop.mp3</a> (put on your headphones)
Now that's an actual recording with a fake head and microphones where the ears would be, and not simulated the way you would have to do it for a game, but still speaks I think to how much this could add to a game. Imagine if you could detect skulk clicks with as much precision as you can hear the location of the barbers in that video. Much <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/asrifle.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::asrifle::" border="0" alt="asrifle.gif" /> <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/skulk.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::skulk::" border="0" alt="skulk.gif" /> would ensue.
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To put it in perspective, the game takes place over multiple fictional approximations of the continents of the globe, and the BGM reflects this: it is made up of live recordings from professional session musicians and even orchestras that range across a number of musical genres and subgenres. There are a few tracks I would even pay full cost for on iTunes or the like; tracks that, after hearing them solidly for 3 months week in-week out, I never got tired of. But nobody seems to have given it due credit it in their reviews, they're too focused on being <i>sensationalist</i> (spending inordinate ratios on the bad bits of a game as if games by default are 'unmitigated fun for everyone' and any weaker elements draw away from this ubiquitous condition), <i>edgy</i> (coming up with novel ways to present the introductory exposition paragraph instead of telling us what the game's like)... all instead of giving balanced, objective reviews that give credit where credit's due and demerits where it's not.
What I'm getting at (in a rather roundabout way) is that sound is the unsung hero of many great games, most notably when used as a stealth mechanic or as an accompanying music track, but aside from this many sound effects often iconify games. How many times have you heard 'that shotgun' or 'that explosion' from 'that game' in a film or on a commercial?
In general, sound can affect mood, give locational awareness, give situational/conditional awareness, and can be used to communicate to other players. There are probably a couple of other uses, especially if you look at the lesser-used techniques of absence or excess of sound, which can be used to deny information and abilities to the user temporarily or permanantly in order to enrich gameplay.
So I hope audio doesn't get overlooked in NS2. It works very well in NS, so hopefully that tradition will be continued.
Should sound be given such importance? I'm all for a good soundtrack (FF VII) but I'm never going to say "well the gameplay looks mediocre but the music is good so I'll buy it".
For competitive multiplayer games it is really important but really shouldn't make much of a difference for a game like Sonic. About the only single player game I can think of where I'd raise its review score for the sound is the Call of Duty series- and that's for SFX not music.
I think sound is important, ever played Alien vs Predator ... it has really nice sound effects that scare the hell out of my marine (most of the time I loose because I have no ammo left <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /> )
So far the directionality of sound hasn't been a major issue in most games. There's some really easy algorithms that are used very frequently to localize sounds and deal with how the player hears them. These also work really well at medium to far range sound sources.
As far as more robust stuff like simulating around the person's head at close range, I don't know. As cool at a more powerful immersion could be, the algorithms required may have a few problems. 1) the simulation and convolution integrals required can get computationally intensive. 2) will we really hear that much of a difference?
1) isn't too bad of a problem due to more powerful CPUs available, but could be a concern due to other reasons and taxed resources. 2) is my concern. Will we hear enough of a difference to care? Granted, if NS2 sticks with NS1 and the close combat, we just might hear the difference between a skulk chomp near our head as it whizzes by. Also, not everyone uses headphones, so the simulations become much less effective due to idiosyncrasies in the speaker positions. Plus, converting to 5.1 would be a pain.
Overall, I'm not a fan. Would be a cool feature, but it's not high on my to-do list for NS2. I agree, however, that good sound effects and tracks would be useful, but focusing too much on the 3D aspect seems superfluous.
EDIT:
Something else people have already <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=104528&st=0&p=1683213&#entry1683213" target="_blank">suggested</a> that deals with cool sound alterations
So far the directionality of sound hasn't been a major issue in most games. There's some really easy algorithms that are used very frequently to localize sounds and deal with how the player hears them. These also work really well at medium to far range sound sources.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Do most games do anything more than attenuating sounds differently for each ear?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->As far as more robust stuff like simulating around the person's head at close range, I don't know. As cool at a more powerful immersion could be, the algorithms required may have a few problems. 1) the simulation and convolution integrals required can get computationally intensive. 2) will we really hear that much of a difference?
1) isn't too bad of a problem due to more powerful CPUs available, but could be a concern due to other reasons and taxed resources. 2) is my concern. Will we hear enough of a difference to care? Granted, if NS2 sticks with NS1 and the close combat, we just might hear the difference between a skulk chomp near our head as it whizzes by. Also, not everyone uses headphones, so the simulations become much less effective due to idiosyncrasies in the speaker positions. Plus, converting to 5.1 would be a pain.
Overall, I'm not a fan. Would be a cool feature, but it's not high on my to-do list for NS2. I agree, however, that good sound effects and tracks would be useful, but focusing too much on the 3D aspect seems superfluous.
EDIT:
Something else people have already <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=104528&st=0&p=1683213&#entry1683213" target="_blank">suggested</a> that deals with cool sound alterations<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think changing the onset time of the sound in each ear might be a tractable thing to add. The math is simple, and the effect can be achieved by just prepending different numbers of samples to the channels for each ear, which might have the biggest bang for the buck in terms of immersion vs complexity. Unfortunately I don't know enough about sound interfaces to know if any of this can be offloaded to the sound card. Do they let you specify arbitrary convolution kernels for reverb effects and such?
I agree that it's not one of the main things for most people to make them buy a game, but that's not really a reason to leave it out of a review. The review should not be primarily a sales tool to help you decide to buy a game or not, it should be an artistic/scientific critique. That's "review", not "worth-o-meter". This is one of the aspects of the games industry where it really shows its immaturity.
You look at something like <i>Sight and Sound</i> and they will cover every aspect that goes into a film. They will talk about the lighting, give key scenes that support their arguments, talk about the way the artist lit other films and draw comparisons, that sort of depth. But there is really no magazine or syndicate for the games industry that will go into depth about sound effects, or musical score and which games he penned for previous to this. Edge is perhaps the closest I've seen to it, but it still has some way to go. Gamasutra has articles in this vein but really they usually focus on something very specific, and they hardly come out on or around the time of release, they are usually retrospectives. Perhaps its because games are longer and more complex than film and harder to dissect in a few pages of article, perhaps its because we lack a standardised critical vocabulary for things like specific types of feedback loops and game mechanics.
I actually think the excellent sound effects played a large part in the success of Counterstrike. The weapons just felt like they had more oomph than anything else at the time.
I think changing the onset time of the sound in each ear might be a tractable thing to add. The math is simple, and the effect can be achieved by just prepending different numbers of samples to the channels for each ear, which might have the biggest bang for the buck in terms of immersion vs complexity. Unfortunately I don't know enough about sound interfaces to know if any of this can be offloaded to the sound card. Do they let you specify arbitrary convolution kernels for reverb effects and such?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's usually a combo of both attenuation and onset time, but mostly attenuation.
Right now, I believe most sound cards are more worried about the quality and don't have the same computation power as say your graphics card. However, there is probably a good deal of rendering done for stuff like 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound systems, I just don' know where it's rendered. Most likely in the sound card. However, I still don't know if it has the power to do good and fast impulse response algorithms.
Something my dad says is for forward and backward directionality, they use echoes.
Sorry, but I'm no 3D sound expert.
CSound has some cool algorithms you could poke around with.
<a href="http://www.csounds.com/manual/html/spat3d.html" target="_blank">http://www.csounds.com/manual/html/spat3d.html</a>
Entering a heavily infested area as a marine should not only look impressive but sound amazing too. Satisfyingly gooey footsteps... you begin to breathe heavily and hear your heart beat. Pockets of gas escape from the infestation. Sounds from the computers and objects underneath the goo make a muffled sound. Perhaps you've been parasited and begin to hear hallucinatory alien sounds.
There's a lot that can be done to build up tension.
For FPS's, however, SFX also play a more key role... players need to hear the enemy, and would just as soon turn music off to help them in the game. NS2 should consider providing a choice between hardware acceleration and software acceleration. The only feedback a player gets is sight and sound, so might as well make them both as sweet as possible!
Changing the sound environment based on infestation is a really cool idea.
The 5.1 speaker system I used to have was nice for NS, it helped me pick out where skulks were. Awesome. And I don't think it was even full 5.1, it was upmixed or something.