The OFFICIAL how should NS2 sound thread
simon kamakazi
Join Date: 2009-04-28 Member: 67296Members
Join Date: 2009-04-28 Member: 67296Members
<div class="IPBDescription">suggestions on anything audio</div>hey every one,
ill be doing the SFX for NS2 and id really like to get an idea of the kinds of things ppl would like to hear in NS2,
- how should NS2 sound?
- sounds u thought were great/not so great, in the first NS.
- games or films that sound the way u want NS2 to sound..
- sounds that affect gameplay/balance/immersion..
post those and similar things here
:)
ill be doing the SFX for NS2 and id really like to get an idea of the kinds of things ppl would like to hear in NS2,
- how should NS2 sound?
- sounds u thought were great/not so great, in the first NS.
- games or films that sound the way u want NS2 to sound..
- sounds that affect gameplay/balance/immersion..
post those and similar things here
:)
Comments
~~Sickle~~
Various types of motors and pumps, including turning on/off sounds
Industrial fans, including turning on/off sounds
Water movement sounds; water flowing through a pipe, down a stream
Lift (elevator)
Explosions
Geiger counter
Computer keyboard being typed (single clicks)
Cricket chirping
Bangs, like something getting hit (different materials, if possible)
Alarm sounds of different types
Richochet (of bullets)
Burning
Human voices (both male and female, if applicable):
Yells and screams (of both excitement and terror)
Gasp
Ouch sounds, like when getting hit
Common phrases, like "come here", "go!", "alien!", "onos!" -- the more the better
Numbers
Alien voices:
Don't know what to put here, but need lots more than just "chuckle"
Also, provide sound distortion when underwater.
The one that automatically springs to mind is the dripping water in Atmospheric Processing on Bast. I love the sound and liked it better when the particle effect for the water was there too. Overall, this sound makes Atmos much more dangerous for marines when standing in the center of it. It's a neat way of balancing a large room that would normally be marine dominated. However most competitive players have ambient sounds set really low, if not off which changes how the room functions.
I like having sound play a large part of gameplay. It gives map makers more options to play with when balancing a room and ties in immersion. I think it's a cool gameplay mechanic when trading sound in a closed area for sight in an open one. However, with the varying needs of sound cards, speakers, and headphones, <b>how would you make sure sound based gameplay isn't discarded for an advantage</b>? Because it will be if it can be, and you'll see the same removal of flavor from maps for the needs of balancing. Or will you declare it a lost cause from the start and focus on player activated sounds?
That's what mics are for.
Shadowy rooms that are absolutely quiet, except for maybe a leaky pipe slowly dripping
Occasional steam venting (loud hiss)
Crackle of electric wires shorting out somewhere
Human banter and dialog (automatic)
Alien breathing (if it could sound like it's just behind you, even better)
The turrets in NS sounded boring.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->- games or films that sound the way u want NS2 to sound..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The turrets in ALIENS sounded awesome though. ;)
Found a sample clip, but the sound quality is pretty bad.
<center><object width="450" height="356"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/9Ey4MVSpqhw"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/9Ey4MVSpqhw" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="450" height="356"></embed></object></center>
Players:
1) Hearing a big firefight in an adjacent room, yet muffled through the wall.
2) Hearing voices\weapons echo down larger hallways, and getting softer the further away they are (and louder as you get closer).
3) Hearing an onos "ROAR" a few rooms away and slamming people against walls.
4) You *MUST* have 'my shrink says I need an outlet for my aggression', and the alien 'chuckle' brought back even if they're updated somewhat. They're iconic and legendary.
Environment:
1) Fans blowing (I LOVE the big fan sounds in NS1), creaking, pipes hissing. If they're air vents, make sure you can actually hear some air blowing through them slightly, it would be a nice effect.
2) Rooms should sound 'stressed' when they're large explosions in them (like from a GL).
3) Don't forget some of those 'lonely' sounds for some of those less visited areas of the map. (Maybe a light flickering, a pipe dripping, machine humming etc..)
General:
1) Get a really cool sound for infestation on fire.
2) Make a nice 'squishy' sound when marines walk on infestation, and aliens too. If you really want to go nuts, have different classes sound different on it. Skulks would be a real light squish, heavy armor and onos would sound like they're leavin' their mark on it :).
Music:
I wouldn't include gameplay music at all unless its very subtle. One of the first things I hear from new NSplayers is "how do I turn off the music?". This is because it is so loud in NS1, especially when you need to hear skulk footsteps. A new dynamic system that adjusts the music to different situations might work, but again it shouldn't drown out more important gameplay sounds. Some good uses for gameplay music would be a tense siege, or shotgun rushes or something. If you're hiding someone alone for a period of time, you'll start to hear some very "lonely" sounding music that reflects the emptiness of space or something.
I would be very hesitant to add gameplay music at all, unless it can be added in a very subtle fashion that enhances atmosphere but won't hurt gameplay like it did in NS1. Also one of the things to avoid is making sounds so overpowering in areas players will just replace those files with silence so they can hear everything. This might be unavoidable, but maybe some kind of balance can be struck between keeping atmosphere and gameplay?
L4D has gameplay enhancing music where certain music is played to warn about impending changes in gameplay. If it is made useful to the player to keep the music on, then many people would be happy leaving it on.
Sorry long post :)
one this that is a must is to have the heavy armor sound menacing, robotic and well heavy.
hydraulics and heavy thuds
i think if you take inspiration from any of the sounds from aliens 1 and 2 movies (apart from being low quality), you're on the right track :) dirty smoggy and industrial ambiance-thick enough to suffocate on :) blade runner was excellent too - sound track wise as well
windy outdoors areas to eerily quiet indoors apart from drips and computer hums and blips here and there.
dunno about anyone else, but i can't stand modern sounds - like ipods, the wii's pretentious pings and bings, they all make me sick.
I hope that sound ns2 is somewhat volumetric - in that if you are in a loud room, then go into a quiet room and close a thick door inbetween the rooms, you can no longer here the sounds from the loud room. (in ns1 you could hear everything through walls! which is just silly) of course that means it would be good to have loud ambience sounds and soft sounds too - it would give each room a different play style - quiet rooms would be tense as the aliens play a sneaky stalking game, where loud rooms, you have to run in all guns blazing as you can't hear things sneaking around.
also the sounds have to mold together very well, a lot games have sounds which all sound like they have been recorded in recording studio, and when they are played they seem really out of place.
im not sure if there will be room in the game for automatic dialog - say if you are in a room with other soldiers, and you reload - then your character yells out "reloading" BUT if you are alone he does not yell anything.
No background music.
Use sounds from NS1.
<b>Gameplay sounds:</b>
-Metal hitting each other (something like you can hear in gym)
-Announcement like 'Evacuate immediatetly' or 'Alien lifeform spotted, T-5 to reinforcement'
-Portal radio would add funfactor ;)
I think there are two general ambient sound solutions. Either there are maps with a plenty of ambient sounds and maps without any or there's a 'remove ambient sounds' option in the options menu. The latter seems more reasonable as it doesn't separate the community into two different servers.
As for the gameplay itself...
The hit sounds are important. They can give the player some information whether his bullets/bites are regging and whether he is taking damage himself. Fade vs shotgun is a good example of how you can easily tell if the fade is taking damage through sounds only. Quake 3 and Quake Live have a simple system for all this. It doesn't directly fit the NS world, but the system itself is very effective and gives you great feedback from the hitreg and enemy health.
I hope the commander sound scouting still stays in the game in form or another. Right now it gives commander a plenty of things to do whenever he can free himself from the rest of his duties. Keeping the enemy RT count under surveillance, scouting for incoming skulks and lifeforms and detecting baserushes and gorges building chambers add a lot of optional challenge for the commanding.
Some games also direct players into the right direction by subtle sounds. In NS fades make random sounds that sometimes discourage ambushing and encourage more aggressive play. In Thief the footstep sounds on stone floor are particularly loud, telling you that the route you've picked might be a bad idea. NS probably could use similar systems to make the learning curve smoother. For example a fade could growl more if it's low on cara and takes most of it's damage to HP as new players might not realize how much of the 'real' hp is tied to the 150 carapace.
Maybe the speaker comes on automatically, and starts listing the daily lunch specials in the cafeteria, before skipping at the end of the tape, or ending in static
Someone's alarm clock is going off in the barracks
Audio that inadvertently tells a story ('...and in this tube we see the most common macroscopic form of the kharaa bacterium, the viscious Skulk, kept in cryo-suspension..." playing like a museum tour, as you pass by a shattered, empty, glass tube.
Sounds that react to player's positions (creaky warped metal, audio recordings being autoplayed, maybe even futuristic advertisements appearing)
No background music.
Use sounds from NS1.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
actually something i feel quite strongly about is that everyone should have the same experience.
I don't like the idea of in game music as everyone just switches it off to hear the enemy's better - so the only way to convey mood is to have ambience in the actually levels as part of machinery / computers etc
Like the hive should have kind of loud and deep a heart beat or pulse sound to really tell the players that it alive, and you can hear this as you get closer, it would set the mood very well in a hive room, as the pulse or heart beat of the hive would get the players heart racing as well.
I've always liked the idea of having complex sounds - e.g a lift in ns1 just makes a rumbling sound - where is in ns2 it should really make a series of sounds, first a clank, then the hydraulics, then slightly overlapped by an ongoing clucking / rail system sounds
<!--quoteo(post=1717735:date=Jul 17 2009, 05:05 PM:name=wiry)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (wiry @ Jul 17 2009, 05:05 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1717735"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->No ambience.
Yelling 'RELOADING' is giving too much information to the aliens. It is way too simple to tell who has no ammo on his weapon at the moment, and would be great adventage for aliens. In NS1 aliens need to see the reloading animation or hear right noices to tell this. (And I hate L4D RELOADING yells.)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
letting the aliens know who is reloading while they are in a group of marines, might not be a bad thing :)
I don't really like the l4d reloading either, but thats just bad voice acting. in ns2 the marines are ultra tough guys, so their voices would be more like the ghost units from starcraft or guys from the first predator movie with arnie
Different sounds for walking on different surfaces would be most welcome if it's possible.
Infestation (or at least infested areas) should muffle the sounds somewhat.
Bullets hitting boneshield should crack, like popcorn but higher pitched if possible. Bullets hitting kharaa "flesh" need some other sound.. I'm not sure what. Dropping a soaking wet washcloth onto a tiled floor, perhaps. Or if you want to go a little less visceral, a heavy steely into loose soil might work. In any event, I think a soft sound would be good for that.
I think skulks should only make noise through their actions. So walking, biting, that kind of thing, but when they're sitting still, they're silent. Larger lifeforms will make more noises when sitting still, with how much being determined by how big the life-form is. No marine is totally silent, and personally I think heavies should have some sort of noise coming from them at all times, whether some sort of servo whine or airpump type sound. This sound would obviously have to be quite quiet, however.
Ambient sounds are useful if they provide informatin that you wouldn't otherwise have. So ambient sounds for dripping water.. not terribly useful after you've memorized the map. Ambient sounds for encroaching infestation? Or ambient sounds becoming muted or louder as infestation spreads or is removed.. that could prove useful. That said, should they be eliminated? I don't think so, there is still atmosphere to think about, so many of the things already mentioned by folks.
I personally dislike the current skulk leap sound.. though it does need some sort of sound. I wonder if a lower pitched growl sound might be appropriate, such as when a rottweiler is getting ready to lunge.
If Xenocide is retained in the game, the sound needs to be much wetter.
Despite what one person said about mics, I think there's significant use for marines being able to issue certain things directly from their character in game, rather than through the omnipresent mic.
Most important, however, is that things which are heavy SOUND heavy.
I like the leap sound the way it is now.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF6hFsunbIQ" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF6hFsunbIQ</a>
Hitting Kharaa flesh could be same sounds as Terminator T-1000 getting hit.
How did they do that sound?
For the sound of the bullets hitting T-1000 Rydstrom slammed an inverted glass into a bucket of yoghurt, getting a hard edge to accompany the goop.
Here is some good examples how to do sound effects <a href="http://www.terminatorfiles.com/media/articles/t2_009.htm" target="_blank">link</a>
<b>Edit:</b>
I'm not telling you how to do your job. I'm just giving readers some information :P
first: no ingame-music like in NS1 - it's pain. You have to wait the first xx seconds for the music to stop. i really hate it.
second:
Ambient-sounds are important! Give a wide repertoire to the mappers to let the maps sound realistic. Ambient sound is a really powerfull tool to balance rooms.
Spaceships should make sounds!
Structure:
- The structure is squeaking
- metal is contracting and stretching
- metal parts are grinding
- walking over grates is stressing them
Machinery:
- Engines are roaring
- Steam is emerging
- pistons, cogs, gears, linkages, laces, servomotors,
- controls and computersystems are beeping
electrical:
- energy storage should sound powerfull and dangerous
- tranformers
- sparking, cracking voltages
Other parts:
- there is fluid in pipes, rushing through them, dripping in them
- lots of humming, buzzing, droning
- air flowing, ventilation
- air-circulating Fans
It would be really great if the game could get the feeling of the first few minutes of alien. There is spaceship - it's working, but it's deserted - noone is there, no humans. Then our marines and aliens come in.
third: make the ambient-sound nonoptional. Use it as part of the game-balance. Silent areas to make it easier as a marine to hear aliens, louder areas to give advantages to aliens.
If the ambientsounds are optional, they can't be used for balancing. That would be a real loss for immersion.
NS2 is a multiplayer game, and the most important thing is not the sounds of hissing pipes at random moments or the buzzing of a generator but the ability to track enemy and ally movements through sound. NS does this mostly well (except the intro music at the beginning of a round that supercedes vital audio information). I understand that you want to make the experience vivid and authentic, but I would please ask that you push hard for a set of sound toggles that players can use to turn off your sound effects (as much as it might pain you to hear).
As I and like-minded people play the game more and more, we will want to customise the game for our own goals. If the goal of hearing a Skulk's footsteps in the next room is more important than having this audio interrupted by a random event that is not crucial information, we will want to be able to turn off this sound. If the goal (as announced in the recent NSPlayer interview) is to make NS2 the premier competitive game, ideally this would be supported in the actual menu system as a volume bar and not as a console command or otherwise. The way I'd see it working in the menu system would be:
(">" = new branch of the menu system, "|???|" = menu subheading, toggle = switch on or off, min-capped volume bar = a volume bar that cannot be reduced below the default value but can be made louder, max-capped volume bar = a volume bar that cannot be increased above the default value but can be made quieter, volumebar = a volume bar that can be increased from zero to maximum)
> Main Menu
>> Options
>>> Sound
>>>> |Master| [volumebar]
>>>> |Sound Effects| Player [max-capped volumebar]
>>>> |Sound Effects| Ambient [min-capped volumebar]
>>>> |Sound Effects| Environmental events [toggle]
>>>> |Music| Menu music [toggle]
>>>> |Music| In-game music [toggle]
So for me I'd personally want to turn environmental events and in-game music off. I'd be able to keep the menu and loading music on but turn off any music that plays after a round has started. Then I might turn the Player sounds down slightly late at night because a Skulk barking repeatedly can tend to annoy the downstairs neighbours. (Well, tuneful improv band practises at 1AM do so I'm sure Skulks do too!)
P.S. Can you try to address the problem I have in current NS where I cannot tell beyond 2 simultaneous weapons firing exactly how many are shooting. E.g. if I get ambushed by a whole team of Marines once two shotguns are firing at once all other sound seems to get blocked out and I can't tell if the other weapons firing are more shotguns, HMGs or just LMGs. This sort of info is pretty important for calculating when to attack and how long to stay in a battle for. It often happens that a third, unparasited Marine is ripping into my Fade with a third Shotgun but I can only hear two of them firing and suddenly I die (I'm on an SB Audigy Audio [E880]).
Perhaps there should be two different sound modes then? If the dedicated server is running in competitive mode, then it has all that you have mentioned crispy, otherwise its as per normal.
I still quite like the idea of using sound to balance the map, so would be sad to see that there is a slider bar for ambiance and env sounds, as everyone that wants to play to win, would just turn the sounds down as far as possible and have an advantage of normal peeps.
Also your assuming that the sound physics in the game will allow you to hear through walls - that might not be the case in ns2
They have got to sound good because they're the most intently-listened-to sounds in the game.
Also, they should be very characteristic for each alien. Gorge should sound wet and squishy. Skulk must have a sharp, characteristic "tap click" of his toes. In addition, they should be "well-paced" such that you can easily tell the difference between 2-3 skulks and 7-8 skulks. Weapons need to sound powerful but not be overblown.
The volume of many sounds in NS1 seemed to always be on overdrive, including ambient sounds, and they all would just wash together. They should be kept in range.
SeaLab (tv show) has the most amazing sounds for ambient computer talking sounds, alarm sounds, beeping, and creaking submarine/underwater sounds xD
ill be doing the SFX for NS2 and id really like to get an idea of the kinds of things ppl would like to hear in NS2,
- how should NS2 sound?
- sounds u thought were great/not so great, in the first NS.
- games or films that sound the way u want NS2 to sound..
- sounds that affect gameplay/balance/immersion..
post those and similar things here
:)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
More ambient sounds please. Lights buzzing, doors creaking, tatter of alien hooves down a hallway from a distance. I'd even go so far to say that when you have say 30% of your health left heaving breathing would be a nice addition. Lets put it this way, anything that could make a sound, should make a sound. Water dripping in a corridor, alien and marine buildings putting off distinct sounds.
One thing I noticed about ns1 is there wasn't much by way of ambient sound and if it was there it was quiet and you had to be right next to the object emitting the noise. This made for a very visual experience. Realistically in games like this audio alerts are the first thing to be noticed. This brings a sense of urgency to the situation at hand as well as suspence/mystrery. Halls echo and thus so should my rifle when firing in a long hallway. I would take some queues from the Alien movies and similar films that revolve around similar settings.
Tracking sounds are nice, but sounds to help place us in the environment are needed too. Pardon my french, but we need sounds that make us exclaim "oh sheets" and scramble for the next move. So if that means hearing level 5 skulks speeding down an adjacent hallway or a group of marines hesitating entering a room because they hear an Onos flexing it's "scales" then "Let's Go!"
see my post in above thread, i say a lot about sound :)