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Major Overhaul of Impact sounds (phew!)


Springheel

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If I'd known how much work this was going to be before I started, I might not have gone ahead. :wacko: But this turned into my holiday project. Over the last two weeks I've gone through and tested every one of our 460+ movable entities, checking whether it has an appropriate impact sound. For each entity I did the following:

 

1. Give it a good default impact sound (I've added nearly 200 sound files, made from recordings by Mortem, Noisycricket, Amita, as well as using Freesound.org and resampling/layering Doom3 sounds).

 

2. Test it on carpet, dirt, and wood surfaces, and if necessary create alternate sounds for those surfaces.

 

3. Double-check the mass, bounciness and friction values to make sure there is some consistency across our movables.

 

While I was at it:

 

I found about a dozen entities that crashed maps because there was no cm, so I either created a new cm or deleted the entity.

 

Some entities were in unusual places (like a large diamond in the misc folder), so I tried to place them in the appropriate folder.

 

I fixed about a dozen models that had various problems, (gaps, z-fighting, or needed shadowmeshes). I also took some of the lowest poly models (like the really old goblet) and updated them to make them rounder.

 

I created a few default shaders for impacts on grass, snow and water.

 

Created a few new movable entities for newer models.

 

I've removed virtually all the D3 sounds we were using for impacts.

 

I've still got a collection of about six or seven models that I'm not sure what sound to give them (what does a blackjack or a hourglass actually sound like?) but I'll be able to upload this within the next couple days. With over 400 entities, there's a good chance that I've missed a few things here or there, so please let me know if you notice anything unusual. But I think this should go a long way towards making our movable objects sound more believable and immersive.

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No, I only deleted a couple that didn't have cms and would have crashed any maps they were added to anyway.

 

The files weren't actually moved, just the folder they were displayed in, so that has no impact on maps either.

 

Will be able to get some feedback tomoz, first thing I'll be hitting is candle holders

 

Ha, glad you mentioned that...I didn't actually notice those ones, as they aren't in the movable subfolder structure. I'll do them before uploading.

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That's awesome :) Good to hear (no pun :D

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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Looks like a lot of work, but better sounds is gonna be a great service to the mod.

Especially the candle holder moveable sounds were previously particularily bad.

 

Now how am I supposed to hold my breath until v 1.08 comes out?

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Once I finish the movables, I'm going to look at our bow and combat impact sounds. I've got two whole sets of bow/arrow sounds to choose from, and have found a bunch of great sword on metal sounds as well.

 

While I'm at it, I'll be able to solve the "I miss hearing the arrow swish by me" request I've heard in the past few weeks...our arrow flight sound doesn't loop, so you only hear the swish as it leaves the bow. I'll replace it with a continual looping one after which you'll hear arrows zip by just like T2.

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Hmm, sounds like that one might be tricky - I wouldn't want to hear the swoosh twice, for instance, or the second half first then the first half, or something like that.

 

I wonder how it was done in T2, maybe some sort of stim thing, where once the arrow is within a certain distance of the player the sound started?

shadowdark50.gif keep50.gif
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Hmm, sounds like that one might be tricky - I wouldn't want to hear the swoosh twice, for instance, or the second half first then the first half, or something like that.

 

The loop would have to be a continuous sound, not a looped "whoosh...whoosh...whoosh" sample. If attached to a very small speaker on the arrow, the volume envelope would be provided by the arrow approaching and then receding from the player, although there would be no Doppler pitch shift.

 

I wonder how it was done in T2, maybe some sort of stim thing, where once the arrow is within a certain distance of the player the sound started?

 

I don't remember any effect in the original games other than the sound of releasing the arrow from the bow. Then again, I didn't do a lot of combat so perhaps I just never noticed AI arrows going past me.

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There's a testmap in SVN - maps/test/moveables.map. Just about every moveable and every material floor to drop it on.

 

I've also just committed some tweaks to some wood impact OGG sounds. They sounded quite thin, so I overdubbed a little more "thump" and "punch". It better matches the good work Dram did some years ago.

 

Edit: Oh dang, I nearly forgot! Thank you thank you, Springheel! :) Things no longer go "CLONK" on carpet! :D

yay seuss crease touss dome in ouss nose tair

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I've also just committed some tweaks to some wood impact OGG sounds. They sounded quite thin, so I overdubbed a little more "thump" and "punch". It better matches the good work Dram did some years ago.
Which ones did you alter? I've made several alternate versions using your originals, as well as using the thin set for some thin-sounding objects, so if the sounds have changed I'm going to have to go back and check that they still fit.
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3. Double-check the mass, bounciness and friction values to make sure there is some consistency across our movables.

 

If you made any major mass changes, I'd like to know where. I did a fair amount of work a while back on AIs kicking moveables, which is highly dependent on mass. So I probably tweaked a few errant masses so that an AI's ability to kick or not kick them aside was more realistic.

 

Thanks.

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If you made any major mass changes, I'd like to know where.

 

I'll have to get back to you on that. The only places where I remember making changes more than +/- 5 was with the weapons...builder hammers were the same weight as small crates, previously, and longbows were heavier than chairs. A spear had a mass of 4.5, but a halberd that was only a few feet longer had a mass of 20 (heavier than a large metal cauldron).

 

In other places I made smaller adjustments to make things that would weigh about the same amount have similar values...wooden stools had a mass of 4, which was the same weight as a dinner plate (?), but less than a padlock. The citywatch helmet had a mass of 8, while the elite citywatch helmet, which is exactly the same but with extra metal parts, had a mass of 6. Things like that.

 

I'll put together a complete list of any changes and go over them with you. There may be places where it's more important for AI to kick something out of the way properly than the player being able to throw it a realistic distance.

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I'm sure the dinner plate had a mass of 4 because a fork has a mass of one

 

I didn't change any of them, but there are plenty of movables that are less than 1 (a fork is 0.2).

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I didn't change any of them, but there are plenty of movables that are less than 1 (a fork is 0.2).

 

I'm pretty sure any mass < 1 is treated as 1. Many times the code will ignore the spawnarg mass and calculate a mass dependent on volume and density. I could never figure out why, if the mass was supplied.

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Which ones did you alter? I've made several alternate versions using your originals, as well as using the thin set for some thin-sounding objects, so if the sounds have changed I'm going to have to go back and check that they still fit.

Aha. My apologies. -_-

 

The only difference from the 1.07 sounds is some overlayed book-slam-on-table "thump" on sound\sfx\movement\impacts\wooden_chair_XY.ogg and heavy_wood_XY.ogg (using the post-EQ WAVs floating around my HD).

 

Go ahead and SVN "revert changes from this revision" #12537 if you wish. Or maybe I can just butt out of your fantastic work. :laugh: I eagerly await a massive SVN update in the future.

yay seuss crease touss dome in ouss nose tair

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Ok, finally got this uploaded. There are still a few things I'd like to change here and there (I haven't found a blackjack sound I like yet) and there are very likely a few console errors to sort through, but things should be noticably better than they used to be.

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Ok, finally got this uploaded. There are still a few things I'd like to change here and there (I haven't found a blackjack sound I like yet) and there are very likely a few console errors to sort through, but things should be noticably better than they used to be.

 

Wow! I just updated. That's a Whole Bunch of sound work.

 

Nice.

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Are you sure you're fully updated? When I add the movable loot goblet to my map it doesn't cause a problem. I don't see any files I've missed uploading, but I'll look again.

 

edit: Ok, I get the same error on St. Albans...it looks like there is a goblet_old entity somewhere that I missed. I'll track it down.

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