EFX: Account for sound origin in reverb, not just where the player is hearing it

[MirceaKitsune]

I wanted to bring this up for a while and am sorry I took so long. As such this thread is based on an old observation, I didn't retest recently but from what I know this limitation still exists with the latest code. If others confirm it and the issue is considered solvable I may post it to the bug tracker as well.

EFX for spatial sounds are an amazing addition we had in recent years, however they suffer from a noticeable limitation: Reverb only accounts only for the location of the player and not that of sound. Sounds originating from a place with reverberation will not cause any echo if the player isn't standing in that room... oppositely sounds coming from outside will be heard with the full extent of the reverb effect in the room you're hearing them from, they should be echoing less due to not originating from the reverberating hallway.

Example: Let's say there's a Builder church with a large hallway containing a reverb definition, inside there's an ambient sound of chanting. If the player is standing in front of the church door, they will hear the chanting without any kind of echo: Only once they step through the door and walk inside the echo suddenly makes itself heard. In a realistic scenario you'll hear the reverberation of any sound coming from a room that causes it, even if you're standing far outside that room hearing this noise in the distance.

The simple solution would be a mixture between the location of the player's camera and that of the sound source: Each sound gets 75% the reverb defined in the room it's originating from, then on top of that all sounds being heard by the player anywhere have 25% the reverb of the room the player's standing in (current functionality). The more realistic but also more complicated option would be to use the portal tracing already implemented for sound attenuation and make each sound pick up reverb from each EFX room it passes through, accounting for the room of origin the room the player's standing in but also the rooms it's passing through; That way a noise emanating on one side of a building and passing through open windows in a corridor to reach the player on the other side would still echo, even if both that sound and the player are located outside in an area without reverb.

[JackFarmer]

Yes, this is still the case, especially noticeable when

1. the sound source has the s_global property and
2. the player moves through several defined info location during the sound file in question plays.

However, I don't think there is a simple solution to that.

 

Edited May 13, 2023 by JackFarmer

[MirceaKitsune]

4 hours ago, JackFarmer said:

Yes, this is still the case, especially noticeable when

1. the sound source has the s_global property and
2. the player moves through several defined info location during the sound file in question plays.

However, I don't think there is a simple solution to that.

Thanks for confirming. With s_global it might make sense, I think that means a sound is non-directional like music so reverb would be strange... for globals you may want the sound to absorb it from all areas on the map if anything, a separate spawnarg switch sounds ideal. Most obvious issue is sounds not accounting their trajectory through rooms at all just the position of the camera.

The real solution seems like using visportal tracing to absorb the effect from each room the sound passes through: The base calculation is already done to dampen audio based on doors, no idea how easy it would be to extract EFX info during the process then add a bit of each area's effect to a sound based on how many rooms it bounced through.

Edited May 13, 2023 by MirceaKitsune

[MirceaKitsune]

Submitted a tracker issue so hopefully the team can look for a solution when they have time for it:

https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6290