Audio Tweaking (dev branch)

[pd3 25]

I think you guys have some audio settings messed up because I can always tell where things are via sound. Are you sure you don't have sound set as 7.1 in system sound settings and are using stereo headphones? This will really mess up your ability to perceive direction. Try Razer Surround app.

For me the audio directionality of Arma is world class.

I'm not talking about spatial stuff, I'm talking about the immersive quality of the sounds.

Software modulating an existing sound with a few filters and some spatial algorithms is a substandard practice, whether it happens in-engine or engineered and then incorporated into the game.

---------- Post added at 20:31 ---------- Previous post was at 20:14 ----------

Serious question: Why not? I don't know that much about sound editing, but are there not mathmatical principles behind the way sound behaves that can be utilized to make something sound not only good but also (more or less) correct for its environment?

Also, yeah it kinda just sounds like you don't like the sounds rather than the actual sound system, which is a much more subjective criticism.

Here's the thing.

Taking a sound that is recorded in one environment and then trying to simulate it's effects in another environment, let's say -MIGHT- be possible, but the technology simply isn't there for it to compete with separately recorded samples.

It's going to sound less "organic" more synthetic and engineered, and I can immediately tell, and it's like nails on a chalkboard to me.

There are number of reasons why I consider there to be no excuses on the matter which encompass the following.

- It's 2015, we know what works well and what doesn't

- Other more "pleb tier" arcadey games record their samples authentically, granted they may clean them up, but they're separately sourced samples. I think it's an insult to this series to have less authentic sounds than those games, that's my personal perspective on it

- An amateur developer has already demonstrated what is possible and, furthermore, that it sounds considerably better and more convincing.

Generally speaking there's very little wrong with the basic sound engine for Arma 3.

However if they're going to make efforts to emulate the effects of a work that seeks to expand the functionality of the game, simply put, they have to do it right. They can't half ass it, sounds are PURE aesthetics, there is no "close enough". If you can't supersede what an amateur developer has accomplished, as a professional developer, in my opinion something is wrong. There is nothing at all "extraneous" about what was developed in DF. In fact if anything it's ahead of the curve, and why wouldn't you want to capture that before other developers do? There shouldn't be a "good enough".

I'm not even talking about the sounds themselves, per se, so much as the framework that goes into putting those samples together.

Do you understand?

I really can't explain it any better than that, every aspect of Dragonfyre's playback architecture serves a very distinct and contributory purpose, ignoring one of those functions has a crippling effect that makes the final work far less than the sum of it's parts.

Yes, on a personal level, I really just find the new default sounds for A3 to be not that great, but even though I don't think much of them, if they existed within the same dynamic framework as that of Dragonfyre, they would be objectively better in of themselves. Do you catch my drift?

At this point, I have no idea to what extent they might've hamstrung their interpretation of it by comparison, and if that constitutes an overall downgrade in everyone's experience, that's an awful thing. It really is.

Granted I could be completely and utterly wrong, and yes, it is ultimately my personal opinion, which anyone is free to disagree with and/or dismiss.

@brightcandle

Absolutly, if you fully ray trace the sound to every possible point and recreate the environment perfectly with a very detailed multiple bounce ray tracing sound engine its possible. I just don't know if that even remotely exists.

It would still sound "off" simply because you're getting unique information in each instance of recording, and whether the technology exists or not, I still think it would sound worse than instance-specific recordings.

Running it through a filter is not the same as modelling a real world environment

I've dicked around quite a bit with Audition/cooledit pro for a very long time, granted there are probably far better editing suites out there, however generally you understand what I mean.

Perhaps at some point creating a software driven environment that can modulate a sound to have specific qualities might not sound as cheesy as most seem to, but we don't live in the future, and I would suspect most operations don't have that sort of technology at their disposal.

I'm just saying I can tell the difference between "organic" and "synthetic" sounding samples, and the latter bothers me.

Its more likely they added a bit of reverb and and other such basic tweaks to try and simulate the effect of that modelled world, which they obviously didn't do. The proof of how it was done is in the actual sound itself.

It absolutely seems as if the default version's "indoor" firing playback involved a marginal amount of engineering whether it took place in the engine itself or was done beforehand to the sample.

It has a very sterile feel to it.

Edited April 10, 2015 by Pd3

[roshnak 41]

Edit: I see you've edited your post with more info while I was typing this up, but I'm going to leave this post alone since I think its points are still valid, although I'm starting to wonder if we're talking about different things.

I'm not talking about spatial stuff, I'm talking about the immersive quality of the sounds.

Software modulating an existing sound is a substandard practice, whether it happens in-engine or engineered and then incorporated into the game.

Again, why?

For example:

For a good example of really good sound design, see Thief: The Dark Project (from 1998). That game does so much right when it comes to sound. One example is the hilariously loud footsteps. Garret is supposed to be a master thief but his steps are so loud that, In real life, every guard in the entire building would know he was there after his first few steps. But In the game it works perfectly and makes you as a player feel connected with the environment in a way that, for some reason, has not been topped since. You know that feeling when you are trying to walk silently over a wodden floor at night but every step you take makes massive wodden shrieks that makes your hearth jump in fear of waking up somebody? Thief replicaded that feeling so so well

Thief also used EAX to pretty good effect, and has been praised on these forums before.

(3 videos here). And a

.

But maybe these all sound really terrible and artificial to you, or maybe I'm completely misunderstanding what you're saying.

Edited April 10, 2015 by roshnak

[pd3 25]

Edit: I see you've edited your post with more info while I was typing this up, but I'm going to leave this post alone since I think its points are still valid.

Again, why?

For example:

Thief also used EAX to pretty good effect, and has been praised on these forums before.

(3 videos here). And a

.

But maybe these all sound really terrible and artificial to you, or maybe I'm completely misunderstanding what you're saying.

Again, all I can say is that it sounds artificial when it comes to firearm discharges and explosions.

There's something about the nature of the sound itself in the real world that loses something when you're trying to compensate for a lack of a physical environment with only software.

As long as you want little more than uncomplicated echoes and reverb, that's fine.

However the sounds you get from an explosion or a gun going off especially if it happens indoors, you get a very complex dynamic of sounds violently bouncing off of complex surfaces both in terms of material and geometry.

This seems to be virtually lost when you use only software modulation/compositing, at least most of the types I've heard.

The high frequency blast of sound waves reflecting off of varying surfaces just sounds very tinny and artificial, or it can simply lack the influence that an atmosphere has on the traveling of the sound which honestly doesn't seem to be simulated well at all.

This is why separate samples for various instances of that sound are necessary, which to BI's credit, they seem to have done. Only as I've stated, I personally believe that there is no such thing as "good enough" or "halfway" when trying to attain a standard previously established, especially if it's by somebody who has less means than a professional developer (scripting over hard coding).

So, ultimately, I'm actually going to apologize for my initially negative response, it was a combo of having the game I had set up perfectly to my liking, disrupted, and to add personal insult to injury, the speculation of having what I had before possibly not attainable in the future was quite aggravating.

I actually think that BI did a good job with most everything in this update, except the samples, which is fine I guess, so long as I'm not stuck with them.

The game actually seems to run better than 1.40, and 1.38 which I didn't think was possible, so I give them credit where credit is due.

I however won't be happy at all if DF is hamstrung in the future because of any lack of thoroughness on behalf of BI when implementing some of LJ's features, and if I'm screwed because of it, oh well I guess.

[pd3 25]

I will say one thing they did get right sound wise was the small arms bullet cracks.

They're not exceedingly loud and yet still have a satisfyingly menacing hiss/pop to them.

[mxstylie 11]

I just wanted to say something about the update without creating a completely new thread. I read through many of the posts and it seems that this thread is mostly about the sound. I just wanted to point out something else that has me confused about this update since this thread is about "sounds/system update". I have played about 15 hours since I purchased the new weapon pack and updated my Arma 3. I am noticing that the sway of the weapons is absolutely out of control. I have tried to narrow it down to stance/elevation/stamina etc. and I don't understand why now when kneeling or even prone firing and at full stamina, the rifles, (I am speaking about rifles not SMGs or pistols) the sway out of control and the recoil is very over-exaggerated. I understand that sway and recoil is a part of shooting a weapon but I don't see how one shot from a 7.62 Marksman rifle will leave my barrel pointed at the sky and a follow-up shot very shaky and then my breath is gone. I am able to get off one or two accurate shots at range before getting decimated by an lone AI with a Katiba and an ACO (I have been playing Pilgrimage). I love the new weapon resting and bi-pods but it seems that standard style shots have taken a major step backwards and are now very unrealistic. Especially in BR everyone is very frustrated with this. If there is an explanation or rule that applies to this new sway/recoil system please fill me in. I just want to say my opinion and I hope that BI is reading this thread as well. The only reason I am saying this is because I love Arma. Thanks for reading.

[dav 22]

The sounds are spot on. If you dont like the sounds you should consider playing cod.

[bullhorn 18]

We're having issues with the new sounds too. Your own gunshots sound loud as hell, everyone else sounds like BB guns, especially the further away they are.

We had a small operation with like 20 guys yesterday and more often than not the incoming gunshots were so quiet that we were like 'Contact!...west? I think? no wait, maybe it's East actually? uuuuuhhhhhhh wut?' I'm not even talking about more advanced things like reverb/etc.

[bigpickle 0]

Is the new info about sound tails going to be passed to Fired Event handler?

[Jona33 51]

We're having issues with the new sounds too. Your own gunshots sound loud as hell, everyone else sounds like BB guns, especially the further away they are.

We had a small operation with like 20 guys yesterday and more often than not the incoming gunshots were so quiet that we were like 'Contact!...west? I think? no wait, maybe it's East actually? uuuuuhhhhhhh wut?' I'm not even talking about more advanced things like reverb/etc.

The balance of sounds went wrong I think in the final build before release, just listen to the difference in volumes between first and third person. Hopefully it'll get fixed.

[tpw 2313]

Personally I think the sound engine developments are very positive and step in the right direction. The DLC weapons, particularly the MAR-10, have some of the best vanilla sounds of any Arma game (IMHO), very punchy indeed. The in room reverb and external sound attenuation is off to a good start, and the distance filtering of sounds is also promising. The sonic crack implementation is a great improvement over the old style weak vanilla pops. I enjoy hearing my own weapon louder than everyone elses, but that's just my preference.

The devs have said as much that this is a WIP and I believe it will only improve. I'd love for the distance attenuation/filtering to be tuned a bit so that distant gunfire sounds more like pops (a la DragonFyre) and has less percussion. Similarly less percussion from distant explosions.

Anyway, just a handful of largely positive opinions, which I don't mistake for facts.

[Jackal326 1158]

The devs have said as much that this is a WIP and I believe it will only improve. I'd love for the distance attenuation/filtering to be tuned a bit so that distant gunfire sounds more like pops (a la DragonFyre) and has less percussion. Similarly less percussion from distant explosions.

The distance attenuation needs a fair amount of work. I just tried out the Marksman Showcase,

and after having cleared the compound and gathered the intel, I decided to check out the ammo crate in the backyard.

It was only when the tree next to my started flaking and exhibiting (a lot) of impact puffs that I realised there was a small counter-attack force shooting at me. They were 30 feet away from me, firing a variety of weapons (one a PDW, another a TRG and another had one of the stock game MGs, the MK200 I think) and I just could not hear the shots. At all - the faint sounds of the impacts were drowning out the gunshots. Yet my returning fire (from the captured MK14 I was using) was very loud.

I do agree that it is very promising, however it still needs a fair amount of work.

[sniper pilot 36]

The distance attenuation needs a fair amount of work. I just tried out the Marksman Showcase,

and after having cleared the compound and gathered the intel, I decided to check out the ammo crate in the backyard.

It was only when the tree next to my started flaking and exhibiting (a lot) of impact puffs that I realised there was a small counter-attack force shooting at me. They were 30 feet away from me, firing a variety of weapons (one a PDW, another a TRG and another had one of the stock game MGs, the MK200 I think) and I just could not hear the shots. At all - the faint sounds of the impacts were drowning out the gunshots. Yet my returning fire (from the captured MK14 I was using) was very loud.

I do agree that it is very promising, however it still needs a fair amount of work.

That is very very unfortunate. :(

[brightcandle 114]

Our experience is its kind of a disaster. Its not just the pops, the terrible sound volumes its also the general sound stage and awareness with surround sound. Overall despite changing a bundle of things we seem to have taken a big step back from a few months ago with JSRS 2.2. The current sound situation is pretty bad and I am glad it will make JSRS 3 more efficient, but its also annoying it ends up delaying it so much as well. In the meantime I would just consider the sound "fundamentally broken".

[digitalgeo 21]

The new sounds are marvlous!

I hope BIS is getting enough praise for these changes

[Jackal326 1158]

The new sounds are marvlous!

I hope BIS is getting enough praise for these changes

[St. Jimmy 272]

Tech is a nice addition. Sound balance is off like it has pretty much always been. Hard to know some distances if it's 200m or 800m. Samples are maybe bit better than earlier but there's also a huge gap to improve. I'd say not a complete fail, pretty far from that. This was a nice tech improvement and I'd say sounds are bit better than before.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

After playing Altis life yesterday, I decided I wanted to see how the sound improved. So after doing had things we ended up surrounded by law enforcement. Now the most noticeable thing is sound balance. We were being engaged by a couple Lunx's, Mar-10's, Cyrus's, and ASP-1. The shot that stood out the most was the lynx. Couldn't tell where It was coming from, or what the distance was. All I know is it was loud. Other shots like the Cyrus, and Mar-10 were fairly ok on terms of distance, direction, but the Lynx was interestingly... Popping out from th le rest, but not exactly in a good way.

Another issue is tails in relation to wide and open environments. There are no tails, or at least that I can hear. This may be due to the fact that volumes on all guns were raised, but it doesn't feel like I'm shooting in an open environment. It's as if tails don't even exist. Just the plain shots.

[dayglow 2]

You also have to pay attention to your own sound levels in the settings. You can really mess up the sound environment with them

[digitalgeo 21]

https://i.imgflip.com/k1f1u.jpg

Just needed to show some appreciation a mist all the complaining ^^

[cholo 11]

@BIS

i don't want to be an asshole but i want to suggest something really real :)

this is how real battles sounds like :D

[roshnak 41]

@BIS

i don't want to be an asshole but i want to suggest something really real :)

this is how real battles sounds like :D

Somebody is going to show up to tell you not to use Youtube videos as reference.

[pd3 25]

The sounds are spot on. If you dont like the sounds you should consider playing cod.

You can't be serious, especially considering they're about as synthetic sounding as any COD-type game, possibly worse in some cases.

---------- Post added at 04:11 ---------- Previous post was at 04:08 ----------

The distance attenuation needs a fair amount of work. I just tried out the Marksman Showcase,

and after having cleared the compound and gathered the intel, I decided to check out the ammo crate in the backyard.

It was only when the tree next to my started flaking and exhibiting (a lot) of impact puffs that I realised there was a small counter-attack force shooting at me. They were 30 feet away from me, firing a variety of weapons (one a PDW, another a TRG and another had one of the stock game MGs, the MK200 I think) and I just could not hear the shots. At all - the faint sounds of the impacts were drowning out the gunshots. Yet my returning fire (from the captured MK14 I was using) was very loud.

I do agree that it is very promising, however it still needs a fair amount of work.

You know what?

If BI actually plans on tweaking/improving the existing system for tails, and includes hard coded functionality for DF's best core features, I'd be okay with that.

At this point I get that they needed to get the update out the door and all, but I think I'll hold off any outright condemnation if they are willing to consider points of improvement.

---------- Post added at 04:13 ---------- Previous post was at 04:11 ----------

Just needed to show some appreciation a mist all the complaining ^^

So, in other words you're baiting.

At least some of the people who are offering criticisms have a way of articulating very specifically what they see is wrong as opposed to trying to dredge up a reaction.

[Variable 322]

Custom radio messages are completely muffled when riding in a vehicle now.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

@BIS

i don't want to be an asshole but i want to suggest something really real :)

this is how real battles sounds like :D

Somebody is going to show up to tell you not to use Youtube videos as reference.

Sorry i'm late. I almost cried when i watched that video. But you know, i've learned a thing or two from Youtube and sound. :icon_evil:

[audiocustoms 375]

Sorry i'm late. I almost cried when i watched that video. But you know, i've learned a thing or two from Youtube and sound. :icon_evil:

HAhahahahaha... i just fell of my chair laughing so hard :D Chinese Michael Bay FTW!

And about Youtube as reference, HERE I AM

http://giphy.com/gifs/the-office-no-steve-carell-12XMGIWtrHBl5e

Here some samples of an AK 47. Those are both real recordings of that weapon, but one is at it was recorded and the other is after heavy post processing (but still the real AK as source).

THIS IS NOT ABOUT WHAT SOUNDS BETTER, just an example of what processing does. Changeing the sound radical... Like Youtube...

ONLY the guys who actually went to battle know how it sounds, anybody else just can imagine...

Sample 1: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/91672801/comparison/AK_47_Close_Single1.wav

Sample 2: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/91672801/comparison/AK_47_Close_Single2.wav