AUDIO! Make it right this time!

[Tom1 10]

RWS + JSRS combonation is the best sound mod ever, but with 3D sound and environmental sound effects (echos, distant shots effected by hiills interiors, forests etc) it would be a whole lot better and allow modders to further improve their sounds.

[toxim 0]

I wish ArmA 3 get's more epic/better music, in same orchestral style like this one

or

Nothing gets my heart beat faster than those :)

Eagle Wing campaign had the best piece of music i've heard in the OFP/ArmA series and really helped in creating the atmosphere.

Something in the drum beat in Manhattan and some other ArmA 2 songs sounded really bad in my ear and killed an otherwise good song (too much echo or something? Bad recording studio without proper soundproofing? I'm no expert in this matter)

But this is just my opinion, which doesn't weight much :)

I also hope that in the new game AI/player doesn't jibba jabba(I'M INJURED, UNDER FIRE, ENEMY BLABLA) on top of the missions/campaign story dialog, both audio and text-wise...

Edited May 22, 2011 by Toxim
added the wish about dialog / radio chatter mess

[Tom1 10]

I don't actually care for the weapon sounds because they can be modded, but the sound engine needs a big overhaul.

Get rid of the synthesized vehicle "speeding sounds" at least. Copy & Paste Battlefield BC2 sound engine if you lack imagination^^

Agreed, RWS and JSRS had great sounds but the game lacks 3D and environmental sounds

[jw custom 56]

Just your opinion agrees with you.

Count me in too!

[the_antipop 10]

I believe it does need a new sound engine.

Something similar to Battlefield BC2 and BF3. Needs to be full HD, and full surround sound. Needs to be directional and have really crisp and realistic sounds.

[2nd ranger 282]

I wish ArmA 3 get's more epic/better music [...]

Eagle Wing campaign had the best piece of music i've heard in the OFP/ArmA series and really helped in creating the atmosphere.

Something in the drum beat in Manhattan and some other ArmA 2 songs sounded really bad in my ear and killed an otherwise good song (too much echo or something? Bad recording studio without proper soundproofing? I'm no expert in this matter)

Agreed, the EW soundtrack is great, and PMC had some cool tracks too. Actually before I played EW, a friend showed me a video of someone playing it, and said "hey the music is cool huh?" and I was like "No WAY that music is in-game. The guy who made the video must have put that on it." I hope they at least keep up the standard set by EW and PMC. The music is different to anything else out there.

And this series definitely needs a new sound engine. Sound is very important to me in games. It's almost level with graphics in terms of immersion. Even a 7 year old game like Half-Life 2 has a great sound engine.

Edited May 22, 2011 by 2nd Ranger

[mrcash2009 0]

And this series definitely needs a new sound engine. Sound is very important to me in games. It's almost level with graphics in terms of immersion. Even a 7 year old game like Half-Life 2 has a great sound engine.

Same here, they should be treated as equals. I have said this too many times but the engine and audio that immersed me the most was Raven Shield, good example of filtering, room positioning and general spacial awareness via audio.

[ahmedjbh 0]

and you believe that? where did you read it ?

what i found are speculations of 80 sounds total, probably EAX etc., so these bombastic values are imo just wishful thinking

or it ends like the BC2 where 16 simultaneous 3D sounds overlaps and not even play correctly (some being completely muted) and fake reverbs/echos :) ?

just note that with with A2:OA engine You can

already achieve 128 simultaneous sounds in 3D (see your audio options ingame)

and plus N simultaneous sounds in 2D (in worst case 255 soft limit (not sure atm.)

Dwarden,

What I mean is that if an explosion is heard from 10m away, it is a different sound to that heard 1km away, it is not just simply quieter, the actual sound is different. I feel Arma series hasnt quite cracked this.

The battlefield series do this quite well IMO.

[dmarkwick 261]

Dwarden,

What I mean is that if an explosion is heard from 10m away, it is a different sound to that heard 1km away, it is not just simply quieter, the actual sound is different. I feel Arma series hasnt quite cracked this.

The battlefield series do this quite well IMO.

Maybe a little research would produce an in-house solution. In much the same way that the atmosphere filters out some colour frequencies first, followed by others (hence distant objects look blue, as blue is the last colour to be filtered) then distant sounds will have some frequencies filtered out before others, and maybe even some frequencies travel slower than others. So a filtering and general blending across time will produce realistic effects from the same source effect noise.

[LordJarhead 1721]

As long as it works OK enough for *someone* to make great sound mods, it's good.

Well, we modder extend our selfs too! And new opportunities, such as working distance effects without larger scripting would also open new doors for us. Arma clearly builds on the community again, and I am very happy about this! Mod support and so on. But it would be better not to work again on the Arma2 sound engine! In comparing with a new BF3 or other military games like OP: RR I would not be averse if they build on something new...

but hey, if they don't, we do! ;) Thats why I love bis, they support the modders and make it accessible to modding their games! Not like freaky Codemasters shit. Thats just game you play ONCE and than its getting boring every day. But here you are able to discover new things like mods every day! ^^

Jarhead

[dysta 10]

Oh, and now JarHead is joined this topic too. Glad you're here.

You're right on the audio modding opportunity part. Only 2 concerns I still have in my mind, which is firstly the limited sound channels. 128 still doesn't sounds enough for large battlefield since everything like explosion, vehicles, shouting, weather env sounds are playing together. EAX 5.0 can support 256 channels would be rather works nicely (actually a lot of FPS games with EAX support haven't able to use all the channels since they aren't play too much sounds details than ARMA 2 does.)

Another concern is the sound post-processing. I'm not tend to say anything from BFBC2 or BF3, but actually a lot of sounds in games are literally sound effects or microphone recorded sound. I'm still looking for the "raw sound source" like what exactly the real core of sounds would be, and then it getting manipulated by environment, volume and distortions. That'd be able to achieve much more dynamic, and realistic sounds.

[LordJarhead 1721]

As regards the number of channels:

Dice has a great solution. There are a lot of sounds that are played simultaneously.

These are then sorted according to volume and distance to the player. If a tank runs close by you, this channel is located at the top. Its the loudest at the moment (apart from explosions). So this channel is at the top! And the channel on the bottom of the list, the slightest, quietest sound is turned off. If the tank is gone, and leaves the list of channels, the lower Sounds is back on and the next fair channel rises to the top. If we did so 20 sounds, is the loudest at the top and the quietest on the bottom. If something happens louder, this channel is getting to the top. And the channel on the bottom is flying out of the list and is off (until the top sound or some sounds in the list if going off).

So, this means, the player would always hear alot of sounds. And things, like the environment you never would hear in a hell of a battle if turned off anyways. So we would save this channels and are able to use it for other effetcs. So at least you wouldn't even need to play over 200 chanels at once! Just the right system and idea makes it happen.

And your post-processing concern is a big discussed engine thing. The engine is playing around with effects like this muffled distance stuff and such things. This is a good idea, but I would say it makes more sense while reworking the engine and get better ideas than this. Because these muffled sound sounds a bit artificially, synthetic and destroying the source sound. Just adding the ability to add distance effects and all would be fine. (on weapons and explosions).

I would also advise BIS to just take the weapons in Real (if you can, like in tennessee^^) and take a few shots. For even YouTube videos and that recordings are more effective in the game as artificially created effects in the editor! And it is not more difficult to record sounds and let them certainly seem to be natural than editing stuff which sounds synthetic. In modern times, where we get CHEAP HD cams and get quite ingenious microphone technology, this plan is probably much more effective. But as so often this is a question of money! And if you want to put your money into your game, graphical and gameplay, well, theres not much money for the sound (Which unfortunately has still reached no great importance!)

Jarhead

Edited May 22, 2011 by LordJarhead

[purepassion 22]

BIS are actually recording the most weapons in RL with high-end equipment

http://prazak.vrtule.info/photography/shooting-range-recording

and also offer audio recording for other companies

http://pro.bistudio.com/index.php/services/audio-recording-studio.html

[maturin 12]

But really, what's the point when the majority of sounds are still from stock sources purchased online (I have heard some of them in movies), and a Lada sounds the same as a Vodnik, etc?

Plus you've got that AK-74 which was probably the recording of someone breaking a dowel rod in half next to a microphone.

[dysta 10]

BIS are actually recording the most weapons in RL with high-end equipment

http://prazak.vrtule.info/photography/shooting-range-recording

and also offer audio recording for other companies

http://pro.bistudio.com/index.php/services/audio-recording-studio.html

I trust BIS, and I hope the game audio can able to be dynamic without changing/adding effects on the raw sounds.

[purepassion 22]

i also wonder why they dont use them, could be several reasons.

just look up some ausio samples from here

but i think with Arma 3 a lot of things, also concerning vanilla audio quality will change

[dysta 10]

But really, what's the point when the majority of sounds are still from stock sources purchased online (I have heard some of them in movies), and a Lada sounds the same as a Vodnik, etc?

Plus you've got that AK-74 which was probably the recording of someone breaking a dowel rod in half next to a microphone.

That's why it's still necessary of the sound modding, but that doesn't mean these sounds from BIS are totally useless at all. I know it may sounds off of what the exactly sound should be, but that's a serious limitation of the recording device that require several tests to find out the best recorded one.

If dynamic sounds are in ARMA 3, the realism issue can be a lot more solvable since we will no longer using soundFX, and will changes in different area and environments.

[purepassion 22]

I think the best solution for BIS would be working on the soundengine itself.

• Field recording is very expensive and requires two times work: 1. The actual recording itself 2. Reworking the sounds at the studio, which takes a lot of time
  
• We have a lot of very passionate soundmodders that already achieved stunning results with the current limitations
  
• By knowing that we have a lot of people that are willing to put enormous effort in soundmodding, it is just necessary to give them something to work with and remove current limitations as much as possible and introduce new features.
  
• BIS gives us the plants and earth, the modders give them water and light, and everybody eats the fruits.
  

Edited May 22, 2011 by PurePassion

[Joshua the Grizzly 10]

You could also just outsource the Audio aspect to DICE.

just saying...

:P

[dysta 10]

I think the best solution for BIS would be working on the soundengine itself.

• Field recording is very expensive and requires two times work: 1. The actual recording itself 2. Reworking the sounds at the studio, which takes a lot of time
  
• We have a lot of very passionate soundmodders that already achieved stunning results with the current limitations
  
• By knowing that we have a lot of people that are willing to put enourmus effort in soundmodding, it is just necessary to give them something to work with and remove current limitations as much as possible and introduce new features.
  
• BIS gives us the plants and earth, the modders give them water and light, and everybody eats the fruits.
  

That... well... hmm... I hope BIS developer can reply for your suggestions.

[Sky999 10]

I've often wondered why it is that BIS seems to fail when it comes to sounds. The majority of user made sound mods just blow away the default ARMA2 sounds for example, where the AK sounds incredibly weak.

[LordJarhead 1721]

• Field recording is very expensive and requires two times work: 1. The actual recording itself 2. Reworking the sounds at the studio, which takes a lot of time
  

No problem! Just give me a call and I would do the studio part for free! (Well, I don't want to say, that I'm professional, BIS got probely better employes^^)

My greatest wish would be to have even the freedom to work with real recordings of such qualitative equipment! And the studio part wouldn't be a problem at all!

But just listen to this: Click!

When the game sounds like that, we should be able to get what we want. Corze I can hear distance effective soundings....

Jarhead

EDIT: I just saw this: "up to 24bit and 192kHz recording" Oh my f***ing god! Arma 2 was supposed to play with 8bit and 28Khz :D This encourages me greatly! Hell, I'm not even able to get this high quality :O

Edited May 22, 2011 by LordJarhead

[Flash Thunder 10]

BIS recordings are awesome on their website, maybe we will finally see that level of sound effects in Arma 3.

The immersion would be 50 fold if we had those kind of effects going on the battlefield.

oh it makes me cream my khakis just thinking about it. :eek:

[5LEvEN 11]

The sounds do need improvements... They are realistic recordings, but lack the effects like in real life. For example the echos of a weapon you fire. They should keep the current recordings but add effects to the sound based on where the person hearing it is and where the sound is coming from along with the environment around that sound.

Edited May 22, 2011 by 5LEvEN
forgot some stuff

[Splintert 10]

As long as I can tell an AK from an M16 I'm ok with sound.