Important : New Footsteps On Cvs

[Springheel]

I noticed a couple things playing bonehoard...don't know how many of them might be specific to the map but thought I'd mention them:

 

1. The footsteps seem to be uneven. The time between the first footstep and the second isn't the same as between the second and the third (at least on stone). It gives the faint impression that the player is skipping like a happy little girl.

 

2. When going down the ladder the ladder sounds played, but when going up, they didn't.

 

3. Also, the AI footstep sounds are definitely too quiet. In the animation map the AI is walking right next to me and I had to be quiet in order to tell whether they were making any footstep noise at all.

 

Also, I'll add my voice to the 'not concerned about reverb' side. I haven't heard anything bothersome.

[New Horizon]

1. The footsteps seem to be uneven. The time between the first footstep and the second isn't the same as between the second and the third (at least on stone). It gives the faint impression that the player is skipping like a happy little girl.

 

I notice this too. Has to do with the player model animations. If you watch in Third Person, you'll see what I mean. We just need to get the player model working properly, with smooth walking/ running/ creeping..etc.

 

2. When going down the ladder the ladder sounds played, but when going up, they didn't.

 

Odd, I'll look into this. They work fine on the ladders in Dram's map.

 

3. Also, the AI footstep sounds are definitely too quiet. In the animation map the AI is walking right next to me and I had to be quiet in order to tell whether they were making any footstep noise at all.

 

Currently, the AI share the same sound shader as the player...this will have to be changed. Essentially, we'll need to assign a separate sound shader for the AI and raise the footsteps accordingly.

 

Also, I'll add my voice to the 'not concerned about reverb' side. I haven't heard anything bothersome.

 

Yeah, it's really not enough to take issue with. It worked for all the previous games, should be alright here.

[Ishtvan]

It does bother me. The wood footsteps have pretty heavy reverb too. I was running around in an outdoor map, hit some wood and bam, immersion breaking sound. Why does it sound like I'm running around in a bathroom when in fact I'm outdoors? Try walking on the wooden 2nd floor balconies in city_area and tell me something doesn't feel off. I listened more carefully to the stone ones, and most of them are tolerable, but one in particular has a long reverby tail.

[Gildoran]

To be perfectly honest, they bother me too (in particular, the stone), but given that I can't do anything better, I'm trying to just ignore them.

[Ishtvan]

It's great that we have the T2X sounds, but we also have this whole reverb system to let the mapper define the sound environment for max immersion. T2 also had this setup, and I remember it being very good, so I find it hard to believe that their base footstep sounds had this much reverb. If we have sounds with heavy reverb already in them, we might as well throw out that entire mapper-defined reverb system, since it won't work without more anechoic sounds to start with.

 

I'm not saying all the sounds are bad, or even all of one material. There are just a few steps on a few materials that stick out as indicating an enclosed, highly reflective environment like a stone walled room.

 

I could just be crazy, I'd like to hear what more of our SFX artists and muscians think about it.

[SneaksieDave]

On that note, I've been holding back mentioning the related issue that; isn't EAX reverb only available for those with... uh, EAX 2.0 or 4.0 or whatever the hell current revision is? The most common gaming soundcard out there - Soundblaster Live! (first version) doesn't even support EAX in Doom3. So perhaps we can't rely on that so much, and having a little bit of both (adjustable and a tiny bit built in) isn't so bad.

 

Unless I'm wrong, in which case someone correct me (and if I'm right, someone inform me - I'm still unsure). But I certainly don't have EAX effects on my system. And it sucks, just like TDS.

[New Horizon]

You are correct Sneaksie. Until I upgraded last year, I couldn't use EAX in Doom 3 either.

 

We can't rip into the T2X footsteps too much, otherwise they might end up sounding like crapola...but if we can relieve a bit of the reverb from the stone and perhaps wood, then it should be alright. The T1 and 2 sounds did have quite a bit of reverb on the stone and tile. I'm guessing it was just to smooth out the sounds and give them a bit more oomf when EAX was applied.

[Ishtvan]

Yeah, unfortunately we're stuck with the politicks of Id "settling" with SB on the patent issue by forcing EAX to be required for their reverb. I think they used an open audio lib initially (you can see a cvar that is something like s_openAL with the pathname to a .dll right next to the pathname for EAX .dll), and probably could've done the added reverb stuff with that instead, but, nope, we're stuck with EAX only.

 

Still, I would have to argue that the majority of users probably have an SB card, so I don't think we should say "lets not support it" because a minority of users won't have the cards to use it. It sucks, but that's the reality of it.

[SneaksieDave]

To clarify, I do have a SB card, just not the "right" one (Audigy generation). So everyone with plain old SB Live!'s (which is still the majority I believe) are fucked.

 

Doesn't change anything, just clarifying. Thanks Creative! (we really need a middle finger emoticon).

[OrbWeaver]

If Doom 3 does have vestigial support for the OpenAl library, perhaps this can be re-enabled somehow so that EAX is not needed?

[Ishtvan]

The other day I was testing a map with no ambient music, and noticed that the tile footstep has a weird hiss after it that goes on about twice as long as the footstep itself. I didn't notice it in Dram's map because the ambient track covered it up, but in a map with tile and no ambient, like angua_test, it's pretty noticeable.

[New Horizon]

The other day I was testing a map with no ambient music, and noticed that the tile footstep has a weird hiss after it that goes on about twice as long as the footstep itself. I didn't notice it in Dram's map because the ambient track covered it up, but in a map with tile and no ambient, like angua_test, it's pretty noticeable.

 

Thanks Ish, I'll look at that.

 

Edit:

 

Strange, the file itself has nothing beyond the footstep sound. I'll test it out in the map you mentioned though.

[Ishtvan]

Hmm, maybe I excagerrated a bit about it being twice as long as the sound, but if you play the file human_tile03 for example, you can hear a distinct hiss following the footstep. It's almost like a really grainy reverb filter was applied.

 

1, 2 and 3 all have that after-hiss to some extent, 4 is fine and doesn't have it.

[Darkness_Falls]

I haven't heard them yet, but I see one of T2X's requirements is that nobody outside the mod know we're using them. I have a feeling anyone would be able to know they're from T2X just by hearing them, no? I mean if I heard T2 footstep sounds in a different game, I'd know they were T2. Just seems like an odd request, considering anyone would be able to easily figure out they sound just like T2X's footsteps ... ??

[sparhawk]

They just don't want to tells anybody before we release (NH is that correct). And the idea is that they are only placeholders anyway and we should try to get our own.

[New Horizon]

Yes, we're not to tell outsiders that we're using them until release. They weren't specifically given to us as placeholders, we are welcome to use them...unless we come up with our own of course.

 

I'll compare those files and fix them. Thanks Ish.

[sparhawk]

NH did you get my PM about that soundguy?

[New Horizon]

NH did you get my PM about that soundguy?

 

Yup. Looking into it.

[ascottk]

Holy cow! I may have found a way to get rid of the reverb In a multitrack editor like Audition,

• insert one of the footsteps into track 1 & 2,
  
• turn the waveform on track 2 a unique copy,
  
• double click the wave file to go to edit view, then invert it
  
• go back to the multitrack view
  
• at the start of the second track, drag the volume envelope to zero
  
• adjust the volume envelope so the 2nd track fades in where you want to cancel out the reverb
  
• adjust the main volume (if you want a touch of the original reverb)
  

Therefore inverting the waveform where the reverb starts, & mix that with the original.

 

EDIT: Duh, it's the same thing as fading out

[OrbWeaver]

 

x + (x * -1) = 0

[Nyarlathotep]

Shh! Don't tell him that!

[Ishtvan]

Said in another way,

| exp(j * k * x) + exp(j * k * x + Pi) | = 0

[OrbWeaver]

x + x.e^(i.Pi) = 0

[Crispy]

Maths is number (-e^(i*Pi))!

[greebo]

Is this a bizarre game? Can I play with you?