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Btw, guys, let me begin by clarifying that I in no way represent id. I was a contractor there, and am no longer. (Actually, I'm at Human Head now working on Prey, so I've still got my nose very much in the tech ) As to id doing something like Make Something Unreal, I couldn't even guess. Hmm, an open source audio engine.. that's a tough one. I'm not a coder, so I can't really comment on what's possible or not. I guess theoretically ANYTHING is possible, but it would seem like a TON of work to me, because I'm guessing that you'd have to gut the original engine completely and code a new one. You're just opening a bag of hell at that point. Think about how tightly integrated the sound engine is with the world geometry, the portaling system, the animation system, func_movables.. I think you'd be better off adding to what's already there than reinventing the wheel. And though I don't know what audio special effects you all want/need from the audio engine, perhaps you should wait to see what future engine revs might bring, particularly from third-party hardware vendors. On lip synching.. gosh, well if you're a team lead and you're deciding what engine to use based on which game shipped with better lip synch anims.. ugh, you've got bigger problems.. Heh, never mind that you can run d3 at 800x600 with all the effects and shaders on and still be totally blown away visually, lip synch or no lip synch.

LOL, just realised you're the sound designer lol. I had no idea hehe. Man, thief fans are everywhere. --Dram

Uploaded several placeholder sets. The following categories are now available under voices/test1male ai_states assistance battle_general battle_long_range death_states notice_torches The first file in each sub category names the state and gives a brief description of how the AI should be acting. This is meant to help the programmers achieve accurate results when designing the AI routines, boring as they may seem. Hope they help, as just using a regular AI reaction would have been rather difficult since many states can sound alike. The second file is performed as a character...in this case a goofy sounding guard. Don't expect an award winning performance. They were created quick and dirty for the benefit of the programmers. More to follow. Enjoy.

Welcome! You did a good job on the RemixB version - I especialy like how you handle distortion. Good mixing, too. Only the fuzzy sounds on center pan that start around 0:38 nag me a bit, because they contrast a bit offensive with the rest (they fit in nicely later, when there's going on more in the upper band). Maybe try a stereo split on those? Btw, I'm one of those who supports Thief-beats in TDM. Some nice ideas in undead.. although I'm a bit unsure about the Rhodes-like sound (0:12). The piano hit had me jumping though! Superbly placed. Keep them coming, good good stuff!

Alright then, what about a slightly more ambitious gamesys-style browser which also generates sound and model shaders?

Yeah I don't know how it would work, but I imagine there will be some way of setting the sound environment in a room. For soundprop only I was doing this by placing an optional func_entity in the portal area, so maybe they will choose the same solution for the real soundengine, but we really won't know until the patch comes out.

Also, does anyone know how it will work? Will it be like in dromed where you have to specify what each room should sound like? (Bathroom/cave etc)

@drewb50: That's just my personal opinion on the Thief series music, but you know best what works for your own pieces, so don't take what I say too seriously. In fact I like pretty much all the beat except the very intro in 0:36-0:56. Maybe if the sound of the kick were changed a little I would like that too, I dunno.

Actually, I changed my mind about the church track. You can use this version for the OST if you like, but it wouldn't work in the game, because it fades in/out. For my second track, I would provide either darkwood, children, or the twins once I made a proper track from that. I'll try to stick with the deadline. I think it would be ok to include some sfx, as this OST is actually more a score and gives people an idea of how the game will sound like. If we feel like it, we can always release a real "OST" when the mod comes out or later on, with worked over tracks made for listening as "stand-alones".

well yeah, it's a crude simulation. But it's closer than we could have come before using vanilla D3 sound.

You'll notice there is only one bounce in there. Our sound guys can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing this effect is more for a "direct echo" than reverb, because reverb is made up of literally thousands of reflections of the same wavefront.

Oh of course it's got to sound that way if its pre-recorded. I assumed since doppler was even being mentioned you must be talking about doing it for real.

Yep, Eax has been added to the next Doom patch. Heard about this awhile ago and was quite excited as it will truly make our work easier and sound that much better.

It might not have Doppler, but PHEAR NOT GUYZ: http://www.bluesnews.com/plans/476/ They've added EAX HD support! So it'll sound better and hopefully have proper reverb and environement settings and such!

The way T2 did it had to have been simple, and it worked there, so why would we need something complex like a real doppler effect? Just during the collision test, maybe if it hits the bounding box but not the player model, play the whooshing sound. Which should work because the bb is bigger than the player model, and testing for bb collisions is really fast. Or something like that.

All ecellent again, but I don't think the loot pickups have the right sound. I guess everyone is just too attached to the T1/2 pickup, which is so perfect I can't imagine a replacment. I think we already have one which is pretty similar to that.

I'm gonna wait for Pak and the other sound guys to finish the OST before I post it on D3W.

Dang, what a controversial subject. I'm against guns. That 15th century version looks like your basic everyday rifle with some minor twists to me. Then again, I'm not a rifle conoisseur -- and neither are 95% of the players out there. So to us, a rifle is a rifle; a gun is a gun. In the hands of a steampunked mechanist bot is one thing, but a city watch guard or other human is just different. It was nice juxtaposition to have mechanist bots, cameras and flash bombs. I rather liked that. It's just not the same to me to have gun-wielding humans. Thief for me was refreshing in that swords, bows & arrows and magic were used by humans. On the other hand, however, walking around a mansion or a courtyard and having a guard pick me off with a gun (like I'm all the sudden playing Call of Duty) doesn't sound fun and doesn't scream 'Thief' to me; which is, after all, our coalesced focus.

...and yet (continuing on from my last post) I'm still openminded to these things, and Fingernail made it sound fun. But once it gets used, everyone will use it, and it won't be a surprise anymore. We'd just have to trust FM authors to use it very sparingly. No doubt we'd develop another "I don't play X" missions group of players, where they won't touch a mission that has guns in it, much like some dont like undead missions.

Well, there are two problems with this: 1. It may give people the wrong impression. They might think all music ingame will sound like this. 2. Most of the people who made the music are no longer around. Not sure if I feel comfortable messing around with other people's work. Other than that it is of course a good idea, and I agree with you. It's more fun to listen to a more complete song than ingame music.

I always imagined Garrett's (and by association, the Keeper's) power more of an optical illusion than just hiding in shadows. In other words, Garrett could use the shadows to manipulate what others "see" in that darkness, so that, for example, if a Keeper is standing in a "perfect" shadow, even if there was a huge window behind him with the moonlight peircing through, whoever was peering into (or through) the shadow would just see the window. Maybe that seems farfetched, but I think it explains the theory behind Garrett's ability. If you look at it realistically (and I use that word VERY loosely), you need light to see anything....light has to bounce off of an object and back into your eye for it to register. Even if Garrett is standing in front of the window, if he's cloaked in the darkness, the AI would see only a form, because the light isn't "bouncing" off of him. So, now speaking purely theoretically, it would be much harder for Garrett to manipulate what is seen while standing in the light. But in pitch black (even if it's just a patch of shadow), the eye could be tricked into seeing anything Garrett wanted the eye to see, as long as light does not pierce through the shadow (which would, obviously, dissolve said shadow). I envision a "Predator-esque" kind of camoflague, only using darkness instead of light to create the optical illusion. Might sound stupid, but it eliminates the need for the player to worry about WHERE the shadow is. Hylix.

Yet you want to replace this with high pitched squeals? I don't get it. The voice recordings were quite important in Thief. After a while you realised that the voices weren't just on a pre recorded loop, but that the robots could actually choose from a selection of recordings and apply it to their situation. This showed that the robots had some kind of low level intellect, a chilling thought which fed into the whole T2 distopian steampunk setting. However, like the 'newspeak' in 1984, it was also very apparent that the robots range of words was so small it could only think a specific set of thoughts. It could react to a situation, but it couldn't think outside of what it had been programmed to do - which is find you and kill you. Once it saw you, there wasn't any question of thought. It was simply 'Intruder!', and that familiar yet horrifying sound of the cannon gearing itself up... quickly followed by Garrett's equally horrifying death scream. I think the voices was a fascinating look into the mind of the steampunk robot. We could of course choose a less annoying voice - it was really the Karras voice that grated, rather than the fact that the robots 'spoke'. It might be very chilling, and spookily unusual, if we gave the robots a female voice. It is exactly the kind of thing Morden Adringhton would do. Think of the juxtaposition between that giant stomping brute and a spooky soft female voice coldly informing you that it is time for you to die.

You wouldn't need to make any more models than needed for whatever story line you're going to make, either. As long as a few basic models are included, the FM writers will have the freedom to modify them any way they want. Eventually, the community will be populated with all the variety of AI that we want. We just need a starting point. Lack of female fighter voices in T:DS is limiting my creativity already! If I want a violent female, she has to sound like a thug. (I wasn't even making a fighter, just a female sevant with a broom with a serious attitude toward the cook!) Fifty? FIFTY character models?!? Cool! I mean.. Man! I really feel for you!

I've nothing to do with the sound department, but he's got my vote!

Interesting thought regarding the screams. I think it'd be freaky to be spotted by a bot and have it gape open its mouth and have a horrific change of expression in its face with glowing eyes -- like it's yelling and is very angry at the same time -- and have it let out a freakish sound that's layered, jumbled, high-pitched and chaotic yet is somewhat a robotic tonal scream mixed with some human-like elements; that is somewhat muted (not as loud as a deafening scream). Not incredibly loud because we could say it is emitting tones above human auditory capabilities. This nightmarish scream would serve as a waypoint beacon, a summoning, to alert all bots (or bots of a particular type; ones that maybe have a mini-transponder on them) within a certain radius (100 feet) to come at once. Hmm, regarding deafening: maybe have it also give a slight ring in the player's ears -- like in present day war games when a grenade goes off right next to you. I was playing a bit of FarCry the other day, and I think it is really cool when you an explosion goes off right next to you and it makes it somewhat dizzying and deafening at the same time.