Collision Sound Alerts

[Fidcal]

Yes, guess I'll never know exactly what my thinking was at the time but now I've committed both the readable mobiles and the moveable readables.

[Ishtvan]

Btw, about repeated sounds when pushing things: This does happen and it's a bug, but it happens only as long as you're continually sliding something against something else, and it happens maybe once every 0.5 seconds or so. Just wanted to clarify that bug in case that helps separate out that behavior from normal sounds. Hopefully that bug will be fixed as soon as I can move from melee coding back to the grabber.

[SneaksieDave]

@Ishtvan: does that have a tracker entry, and if not, want one? I'm not finding one so far...

[Ishtvan]

I believe it has a tracker entity assigned to me. If not, don't worry about it, I'm not likely to forget, it is forever etched in my nightmares.

[SneaksieDave]

Is the original task (collision sounds, not scraping) considered finished at this point? I've got a situation in the stealth section where just dropping a wooden mug about 2 inches onto a wooden shelf stand is sending an AI a few feet away to alert value 10. In context, this seems way overboard on volume/alert.

[Fidcal]

It was all finished subject to any further observations such as this.

 

The mug is in the group medium hard and the surface hard. The alert should be modified by the distance of the drop so ought not to be too great. I'd expect him to alert though. By 'a few feet' do you mean 3 to 6 feet? That's only 2 paces. I'd expect him to medium alert, turn around, start searching or see you. I'll try a wood mug in the test map tomorrow to see how it looks. I don't know if the drop distance code can be tweaked to reduce drastically in the last few inches?

[SneaksieDave]

I'd agree there should be some alert, and if sufficently loud, even a turn-around. But this is barely a tap, considering gameplay allowances. Testing in propagation3 for this was mostly done at floor level, but this is trying to set a cup down at waist level (closer to AI ear). Chalk it up to hindsight I guess.

 

It seems to me any drop of a couple of inches should be a 'gimme' for the player, even if just for the sake of play difficulties of dark setting, using the limited grabber to manipulate, crappy D3 physics, no depth perception, etc. Players wanting to investigate this interactive world will be left with a sour taste when they set a cup down from one inch too high, only to be sent to the Mission Failed screen.

[Fidcal]

I see what you mean - it's more like RL than good gameplay. But it opens a can of worms of retesting. I would prefer to test what it would be like if the code reduced drastically the amount propagated if dropped from less than say 1 foot. Though even that might open the worm can too for all I know. It would presumably affect dropping a metal cauldron from 5 inches immediately behind an AI.

 

Anyhow, if you want to do some tweaks of the values, this is what to do. But note you need to test further away too to make sure it is not too soft.

 

Open tdm_propagated_sounds.def

Scroll to the bottom where below the ===Moveable Sounds=== header there is a bounce default followed by 12 group defs. I don't think the bounce default is used anymore. I think now the default uses the medium hard on hard group. (@greebo or angua: can you confirm? why is that def needed?)

 

The mug is in the medium_hard_on_hard so scroll to the last but one.

The current value for vol is 49. From what has been said, my understanding is leave the other values alone.

If you reduce the 49 to say 45, save, reloadDecls in the console, then you can test. I tested on a big crate, origin about 6 feet behind the AI in test/propagation3.map.

 

But note that the smaller group above small_hard_on_hard includes things like cutlery. This is currently 41 so reducing the mug closer to that makes no overall sense and we'd have to reduce that as well. No point in having both groups at 41.

 

Note also everything is in groups so it's a compromise. A metal chalice dropped on tile is the same group as a wooden mug dropped on wood. They are about the two extreme limits of the window: medium hard on hard.

[angua]

I also noticed that the propagated collision sounds might be a bit too loud at the moment. In the Outpost kitchen, I could walk around as much as I liked, but as soon as I picked up a bottle on a shelf and put it back, the AI got alerted...

A volume of 45 is louder than running on wood, which might be a little bit much. 49 is even louder than running on tile...

 

Open tdm_propagated_sounds.def

Scroll to the bottom where below the ===Moveable Sounds=== header there is a bounce default followed by 12 group defs. I don't think the bounce default is used anymore. I think now the default uses the medium hard on hard group. (@greebo or angua: can you confirm? why is that def needed?)

Yes, that default isn't used anywhere else and can be removed. It was probably just the first test version before you started putting them into groups.

[Fidcal]

But do you think all levels generally want reducing or is the problem peculiar to a short drop distance? If we reduce them all generally then it might mean that dropping a goblet from 5 feet high to a stone floor 6 feet behind an AI (which ought to make him jump out of his skin) is unnoticed. Why I'm concerned is that we tested and approved these values. for various drops to the floor so they would all change if we adjust for a short drop to a table height surface.

 

We need more testing.

[Fidcal]

OK, sprGS_bounce_default def now removed.

[angua]

Hm, yep, it's mostly a problem at short drop distances. If I throw a bottle all through the room I shouldn't be surprised when a guard comes looking, but just picking it up and setting it down again should be a little bit more forgiving.

 

Maybe the min and max velocities could use some tweaking. They are cvars, tdm_bounce_sound_min_vel and tdm_bounce_sound_max_vel, which are currently at 80 and 400 (doom units per second?). Below the min velocity, the moveable doesn't produce a sound at all when colliding. Between the min and max value the volume increases, and above the max velocity the volume is clamped at the value from the def.

 

The collision velocities are shown when the cvar "tdm_show_moveable_collision" is on.

 

The volume decrease between min and max is given by the spawnarg min_velocity_volume_decrease, which is currently 20 db (that should be enough IMO).

 

Edit: ok, found the problem. The volume modifier wasn't applied at all any more, so the propagated sound was always at full volume. This should work better as soon as a new pk4 is up.

[Fidcal]

That's better than I could have hoped for. I'll check it out later or tomorrow. Thanks Angua.

[SneaksieDave]

This (same condition I was using before) seems much more reasonable now. Dropping the mug about 4 inches or so, onto the second shelf of the rack, about 3-5 feet from the guard, gets him to approx alert 3 or 4. He remarks, "Did I hear...?" and if you're still, he'll go back to idle. By contrast, dropping the mug to the floor at his feet will take you to alert 8, and he'll turn around and maybe take a step or two. Stay still and hidden, and you might get away with it.

 

There are some grabber issues (unrelated to this) of course, where the player will have to work around them unless they can be fixed: if you're beneath the shelf, and pick up something on it, you get a rude awakening as the item jumps to your hand and slams into the shelf, taking him to full alert. Players will come to grumble about that I'm sure.

 

Anyway nice speedy turnaround on this!

[Fidcal]

Seems OK. Only did a quick test but seems reasonable to me. Dropped it on the crate and got minor grumbles. Drop it at the side of the crate on the floor and he turned round.

[Ishtvan]

There are some grabber issues (unrelated to this) of course, where the player will have to work around them unless they can be fixed: if you're beneath the shelf, and pick up something on it, you get a rude awakening as the item jumps to your hand and slams into the shelf, taking him to full alert. Players will come to grumble about that I'm sure.

Yeah, I'm thinking more and more that we have to enforce "sliding mode" when you've first grabbed something and before it gets to the desired point at the center of your screen. That is, it will try to slide around things rather than smack into them. The only issue is, what if you want to grab it and slam it against something quickly? I guess in that case you can move the center of your screen over the object to cancel out the initial sliding mode, then slam it?

[Springheel]

The only issue is, what if you want to grab it and slam it against something quickly? I guess in that case you can move the center of your screen over the object to cancel out the initial sliding mode, then slam it?

 

I think that's a pretty minor issue. How often are you going to want to pick something up and slam it into something immediately, compared to the number of times you're going to want to pick something up without making noise?

 

Players will come to grumble about that I'm sure.

 

I agree that there will be complaints about this, but I've actually found that you can learn to avoid this most of the time by picking things up at certain angles. If we can fix it in the code that's great, but it actually gets a lot less annoying after some practice.

[SneaksieDave]

I guess in that case you can move the center of your screen over the object to cancel out the initial sliding mode, then slam it?

That'd work for me. As SH said, it's probably a very rare occurrence and the benefit outweighs the drawback.

[Springheel]

I did some tests in propagation3, and I did get the sense that the alerts were a little on the low side. I dropped a clay bowl about three feet behind a guard and he just said, "No rat makes a sound like that." but kept going. I would think he should at least turn and search around a bit.

 

(On another note, I happen to know builders have at least a dozen lines to choose from for audio alerts, yet I heard that same "no rat" line at least four times in a short test).

[Fidcal]

As I recall I think the small objects and the drop on soft were OK. But I'll try to look at this today and raise the values of medium and large hard on hard. Then we need to test moving objects about on a kitchen table without alerting the cook. We have to get the balance right.

[Fidcal]

I've now raised the alert levels for hard objects on test.

 

test/propagation3.map now has a small table full of moveables to simulate eg, a kitchen with an AI across the room. Try moving them around. If you knock off say a bowl onto the stone floor it is borderline. He is likely to at least mutter but often may turn, sometimes come to investigate. It makes it more difficult in such situations but there is not much difference to say throwing down a bowl or bottle at that range to divert a guard. I think we have to accept this.

 

In the trainer I tried the bowl and it is not quite enough to divert the AI every time into the other room although it can be done. This seems realistic. At least he's not ignoring the bowl. So I think later I'll restore that bowl to SVN so players can experiment with it. The big cookpot will remain as well as noise arrows as the main diversions.

[Fidcal]

I've adjusted player footstep sound alerts for metal (not committed yet) for the trainer and think I have some decent value for submission. But changing the tile values has no effect. The material I am testing on is textures/darkmod/stone/flat/smooth/marble_black_squares. This has...

 

surftype15

description "tile"

 

...whereas the metal material just had 'metal'. So do we know for certain that using the 'description' value is actually being picked up by the code?

[SneaksieDave]

Didn't we go through a whole phase a short while ago where we agreed it was too loud, and that it was better to err on the side of favoring the player? I think it was about setting items down, or short distance drops or bumps. Hoping this isn't undoing exactly that effort...

[Fidcal]

Last chance to test and decide. Do have a situation where the player can throw pots and pans around and the AI on the other side of the room takes no notice but we are free to fumble around with stuff on a table? Or do we try to find a reasonable balance? I think before perhaps we were too cautious. But this is still for everyone to decide.

 

Everyone must test the different situations.

[SneaksieDave]

Therein lies the problem.

 

To me, I think it's less important that an AI reach one level of alert rather than another (as long as there's some alert; even muttering moves the player toward danger) from tossing a pot across a room, than to have players constantly annoyed, quickloading, and deleting TDM in a hail of rage and fury because they've been attacked for the nth time after trying to pick up a (as yet unknown) junk item from a table and having it bump the table ever so slightly.