Strange and unreal sound in missions

[Gadavre]

In some missions, I hear this indistinct sound.  At the same time, it is repeated, approximately every 2 minutes... There is no sound source.  Maybe it's a bug that hasn't been fixed yet? What do you think about it? Can this sound be removed? But  to leave the music in the mission

  Listen, please 2:28 - 2:44

3:35 -  3:48

 

Edited April 18, 2021 by Gadavre

[kingsal]

If you're referring to the little bell ringing in the background, that's part of the ambient track and cannot be removed by players. The only option would be to turn the ambient volume down all the way, unfortunately. 

[OrbWeaver]

That does seem a little too intrusive for an ambient sound. Ambients should be audibly in the background, whereas that bell sounds very much like something in the room with you, or even some notification from the game UI itself.

[datiswous]

I thought it was from a clock nearby, but then the sound should become softer when moving away from the clock and the bell should only be heard sometimes (ones per half hour)

[OrbWeaver]

I suppose it could be from the clock, but it doesn't sound directional, and the volume actually gets quieter as he moves towards the clock. This might just be caused by a misconfigured sound shader, however.

[kingsal]

@OrbWeaver @datiswousThe bell is from this ambient track ,fyi :

mansion_tense02.ogg

[OrbWeaver]

That's the strangest "ambient" I've ever seen/heard. It's a 3.5-minute sequence of completely unrelated sounds (with too much dynamic range for a background ambient), interspersed with long periods of silence.

The sounds themselves are of decent quality, but they have not been combined into a coherent loop which actually makes sense as an ambient track. I wonder if the contributor made a mistake during the export, or had just never heard what Thief-style ambients sound like.

It looks like this is actually a companion sound: mansion_tense01a.ogg contains the same sequence of sounds, but ties them together with a continuous drone in the background. I'm not sure why there are two different versions; perhaps some mappers particularly like having "gappy" ambients, even if it sounds weird to me.

[roygato]

I love that bell ringing. Feels like it's used so often that it's one of these iconic TDM sounds.

[datiswous]

I knew it: the footsteps are also part of the ambient track. Knowing this does ruin the immersion somewhat.

It could be nice to cut it up in different files, one for the bells and one for the footsteps for example.

Edited April 21, 2021 by datiswous

[ate0ate]

Kinda related, kinda not, but one thing that I notice about TDM vs Thief is how quiet all of the sounds made by the AI are, especially compared to music and ambient sounds. I find myself listening for the sword unsheathe sound a lot since it is loudest and footsteps are so quiet compared to thief. The alert shouts of the guards are almost inaudible from any distance. Its like distance muffles more than it should? I don't know, just an observation really, but the ambient sounds are often easier to hear than the sounds of walking or AI alert at a distance.

[Bluehawk]

I also find "mansion_tense02" and '02a" to be annoying ambient tracks, because of their high dynamic range from quiet to loud. Not only can it obscure necessary sounds like guards' movements and the player's own foot steps on surfaces, but it also interrupts my train of thought if I'm talking out loud 

[OrbWeaver]

Sadly making minor tweaks to these ambients is not really practical because they were only submitted as compressed .oggs, without any accompanying WAV or FLAC sources, which means that any edit and recompression would necessarily introduce generation loss. The only real choice is whether to leave them in the list or deprecate them.

[freyk]

No, please keep this track in the list, because those "unrealistic" sounds going to be missed.
The starters above this post, can also ignore the sounds in the track.
(Or disable ambient track, during the mission)

Its like removing some of the "in-appropiate" zombie moaning sounds in the ambient soundtracks of Thief 1.
I hate them.
But removing them, kills the atmosphere and things i remember of these missions.
(Or it's like, removing music strings in T3 Cradle's soundtrack,...)

Edited April 23, 2021 by freyk

[ate0ate]

I mostly agree with @freykabout this. Also much like @roygatostated above, the sound is used frequently and has become one of those iconic TDM sounds, even if a bit quirky. Much like Thief had. I guess its grown on me is what I'm trying to say, and I'd miss it were it gone. Its definitely a personal/subjective thing so I respect whatever decision is made regarding changes, obviously. If something absolutely must be done about the sound and tweaking is out of the question, then my vote would be to leave that track as it is and ideally add a new version entirely.

[JackFarmer]

On 4/21/2021 at 10:09 PM, roygato said:

I love that bell ringing. Feels like it's used so often that it's one of these iconic TDM sounds.

Yeah, I love it, too. Used it in HHTLC in the library. I think it is the best ambient track in the entire mission.

Edited April 23, 2021 by JackFarmer

[JackFarmer]

double post

Edited April 23, 2021 by JackFarmer