Environmental sound effects
Racer1
Join Date: 2002-11-22 Member: 9615Members
Join Date: 2002-11-22 Member: 9615Members
What environmental sound effects, if any, is the NS2 engine going to support?
For instance:
- the ability for sounds to echo, or resonate through hallways
- for sounds to disperse in large open areas
- ability to specify surface type of floors, which would affect what footsteps sound like
- hearing muffled sounds through thin walls (of the appropriate type)
- full 3D sound (or just surround sound)
Are there any technologies, like EAX 5 or A3D, that will be optionally taken advantage of?
See <a href="http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/sound-technology/index.html" target="_blank">here</a> for a more in-depth/technical description of environmental sound effects.
Side note:
NS takes place (mostly) in space. So if I want to create a map that has rooms with lower, or ZERO, atmospheric pressure, will I be able to make sounds propagate differently at those locations? For example, I was thinking of an ns map where the aliens can attack one or more airlocks which the marines must protect (and weld shut if necessary). Once an airlock gets breached, it would start leaking air from the station (map), which would affect various things. I was hoping this could affect sound as well.
For instance:
- the ability for sounds to echo, or resonate through hallways
- for sounds to disperse in large open areas
- ability to specify surface type of floors, which would affect what footsteps sound like
- hearing muffled sounds through thin walls (of the appropriate type)
- full 3D sound (or just surround sound)
Are there any technologies, like EAX 5 or A3D, that will be optionally taken advantage of?
See <a href="http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/sound-technology/index.html" target="_blank">here</a> for a more in-depth/technical description of environmental sound effects.
Side note:
NS takes place (mostly) in space. So if I want to create a map that has rooms with lower, or ZERO, atmospheric pressure, will I be able to make sounds propagate differently at those locations? For example, I was thinking of an ns map where the aliens can attack one or more airlocks which the marines must protect (and weld shut if necessary). Once an airlock gets breached, it would start leaking air from the station (map), which would affect various things. I was hoping this could affect sound as well.
Comments
Enviroments are similar and it does a superb job. Screams and pipes rolling here and there adds to the atomsphere.
Sounds are different in vacuum and narrow hallways and so on and so on.
i cant say with 100% accuracy how the ambient sounds will manifest until the sound schedule is completely finalised ... i can tell u what im hoping to achieve in NS2 tho. and what the engine is capable of
what i would like to do is have multiple environment sounds per room.. a typical room would have a general room sound which is heard at the same volume regardless of where u are in that particular room and then several positional environment sounds which get louder and clearer the closer u get... eg. a generator in the middle and a fan on the wall and some buzzing lights.. also i plan to have randomly triggerd sounds to add variety and keep the soundscape from becoming too repetitive and static. so intermittent creaking pipes or air valve pressure release sounds computer terminal beeps ect.
the environment sounds are actually one of the things im particularly pschyked about so hopefully u will be hearing something wikid by the end.
we r using FMOD as the sound engine so it has the capability to make sounds reverberate differently in different rooms. this is not however an automatic room size calculation thing basically id manually make room reverb DSP pre-sets and they would be attached to the appropriate rooms with code and mapping sorcery .. same goes with surface types, these are all simulated in the reverb settings in FMOD. and not something that is calculated on the fly... this is probably more work but in the end gives more control and so can be made to sound nicer.
FMOD dose have an occlusion effect and 3d positioning and once these are set for a particualr sound the engine will change things like how much derect vs reflected sound u hear and how much high frequency rollof there is depending on the distance.
u can even draw in curves that represent how the sound reacts depending on the distance ect.
the good thing about FMOD is that it supports virtualy every sound format there is and has a nice 32 bit (i think, maby its 24) summing engine. so if u r planing on modding and making ur own NS2 maps with some killer sound get familiar with FMOD
nice article by the way...
@ jarp dead space had awesome sound design to be sure its one taht has inspierd my sound design. its sound scape is porbably too spooky/horror for NS2 but i hope i can have abit of that darkness to match some of the darker areas of the game.
id actually be interested in hearing what everyone would like NS2 to sound like, what to draw inspiration from ect.. of course the final decision comes down to the higher ups but if there is a particular suggestion that resonates with alot of ppl it might sway the development in certain directions. ill be noting it for sure.
Actualy there is no sound at all in vacuum since soundwaves require a substance to travel in, be it water, a solid or gas (air).
Thanks for the info.
I found some more detailed info on the <a href="http://www.fmod.org/index.php/products/fmodexdetailed" target="_blank">fmod website</a>.
Do you intend to directly expose the fmod api to modders, or do you intend to wrap it in the engine and/or LUA and make it available indirectly?
P.S. Are you on the ns2 dev team? I didn't see anything about you on the UW website.
thats probably something max or charlie can answer... im really just the sound pleb.
tho id imagine giving alot of access to the tools is somthing they would be keen on (pretty sure theyve said b4 they want to make NS2 very modable) , ill bring it up with the team , i think it would be a great idea to include all the tools with the game, tho there may be some licencing issuse with that , FMOD is a 3rd party app. ..
yeh
im off-site, doing SFX.. so, like a contractor.
Yeah now that you mention it. If I remember correctly only what you felt was what made sound.
Anyways, you know what I am trying to say. They really put thought into how the sound adds best to the pictures and because of the similar setting Dead Space was the first thing that came to my mind.
But since simon kamakazi pointed out that Dead Space somewhat inspired his sound design - I know I will be good. ;)
If we are being really technical, isn't there actually no real vacuums as space actually has particles throughout it.
And if we are being really really technical, when we say "vacuum" we don't actually mean perfect vacuums but rather the sort of thing you encounter in, say, space.
Hence me pointing out the technicality that there is something in a vacuum
I love it how forum children always love to correct people also :D
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dead space had awesome sound design to be sure its one taht has inspierd my sound design. its sound scape is porbably too spooky/horror for NS2 but i hope i can have abit of that darkness to match some of the darker areas of the game.
id actually be interested in hearing what everyone would like NS2 to sound like, what to draw inspiration from ect.. of course the final decision comes down to the higher ups but if there is a particular suggestion that resonates with alot of ppl it might sway the development in certain directions. ill be noting it for sure.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Forgive me if this sounds patronising (likely), but it is a big concern for me and many people. Please try to remember not to make this a portfolio piece and just wow us with awesome sound effects. Dead Space is a single-player game and the sound works very differently because the designer has much greater control over what events can occur simultaneously. 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.
Please use that one so arguments don't have to be double-posted in both threads...
I love it how forum children always love to correct people also :D<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I thought we were just taking the mickey