Audio Tweaking (dev branch)

[-Coulum- 35]

Here you go. It sounds mostly the same, albeit a bit better, but the sound is a bit more drawn out this time. This is from around 300 meters

That is a kinda "weird" sound. Its not bad - I have heard something like that before in the combat vids, but usually it seems to only be from really distant fire/sonic cracks. I guess this somewhat resembles it...

But even that is more poppy and less clicky. And I don't think those bullets are coming anywhere near the camera. Their distant. For close by sonic cracks I would have expected more like these:

Anyhow I trust it is being tweaked. Thing is, bullet cracks in real life never seem to sound the same. Probably because there is alot of variables effecting the sound. In arma on the other hand they are very repetitive, making them boring. It would be awesome if they could be more varied depending on things like the calibre or speed of the bullet (at least I don't think that is modeled currently). Sonic pops are loud like gunshots too, so ideally they would be effected by environment like the gunshots are.

I am not knowledgeable about sound though, so these are just ramblings of the uneducated. Not sure how much sense it makes.

Edited March 4, 2015 by -Coulum-

[DancZer 65]

The sonic crack pitch should go down depending on the speed.

Here is a good example(try to ignore the forest echo):

P.s. Maybe i'm wrond, but does the sonic crack in this video do an echo? :O

[supercereal4 29]

That is a kinda "weird" sound. Its not bad - I have heard something like that before in the combat vids, but usually it seems to only be from really distant fire/sonic cracks. I guess this somewhat resembles it...

But even that is more poppy and less clicky. And I don't think those bullets are coming anywhere near the camera. Their distant.

Yeah I agree. I would describe them as a "crackling" sound. Kinda like popcorn. I think this is what BIS tried to implement, but their samples need some tweaking. Also I agree that these sounds aren't really what you hear when bullets pass directly overhead, and the other videos you shared were more representative of that. I think the sounds before the most recent updates were more realistic when it comes to bullets passing close by.

The sonic crack pitch should go down depending on the speed.

P.s. Maybe i'm wrond, but does the sonic crack in this video do an echo? :O

If i'm not mistaken, that's the sound of the weapon firing and we hear it after we hear the crack because of the distance of the shooter.

[Bouben 3]

The sonic crack pitch should go down depending on the speed.

Here is a good example(try to ignore the forest echo):

P.s. Maybe i'm wrond, but does the sonic crack in this video do an echo? :O

Every single sound in the world creates echoes in echoic environments. It just a matter of how loud the echoes are but they are always there.

[Brisse 78]

P.s. Maybe i'm wrond, but does the sonic crack in this video do an echo? :O

You can definitely hear the re-verb from the surroundings (trees and stuff), but if you meant the more bassy sound coming right after, then that would be the gunshot.

[hardsiesta 1]

have heard something like that before in the combat vids, but usually it seems to only be from really distant fire/sonic cracks.

That is a good point. I think the sounds on dev are well off to becoming great for distant cracks, but like I mentioned in a previous post, there should also be a relatively loud sonic boom like it is at the shooter's position. This is the only essential sound I always missed in Arma, but it didn't really matter if you used a gun that was louder.

Good example of this sound is a supersonic round fired from a suppressed gun. You hear only the loud but not deafening boom(reflecting off the environment). The closer the bullet flies by, the more the crack could cross into this kind of sound, perhaps. This would fix the James Bond suppressors present in the game too.

Thing is, bullet cracks in real life never seem to sound the same. Probably because there is alot of variables effecting the sound. In arma on the other hand they are very repetitive, making them boring.

I presume you're talking about the old sounds. Yes, there was like one very dry snap, perhaps some slight variants of it, but basically just one. Thinking about it, the pitch variance that was added now is probably the most important varying characteristic in the cracking. If they added some environmental effects like reverberation/muffling on top of it, it would probably go a long ways already. So that's definitely a good place to start.

That's why I really like the new sounds, although the sound itself, the lowest and highest variants at least, could use some more work.

Sonic pops are loud like gunshots too, so ideally they would be effected by environment like the gunshots are.

What I've been saying too. Although it's nothing compared to a gunshot. I don't think people usually use ear protection when they shoot supersonic with suppressors.

The sonic crack pitch should go down depending on the speed. [/Quote]

Hmm. That made me wonder, since the cracks are generally consistent, but sometimes you hear this almost ridiculously low variant of the "crack", I wonder if it was a ricochet...

Telling how it should sound in any particular scenario is generally quite difficult because the mics people bring to shooting ranges and firefights usually aren't made for recording quality audio. A helmet cam for example, even speech often sounds like it's coming through a phone. So there's some serious cutoff. But I guess many different videos can give a good idea. :)

One thing I'm sure though, the game needs that sonic boom as it's at the muzzle (if only to make the suppressors credible).

Edited March 4, 2015 by HardSiesta

[mr.g-c 6]

There are thousands of good quality fighting Videos from recent conflict out there, with EXCELLENT Bulletcracks and near bullet hisses, in various environments. Hint: Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, Georgia, etc.

It should be not hard to capture them, variate them a bit and add them to the game. Modders done it since ArmA1 with much lower quality samples. Go for it BIS :-)

[PTV-Jobo 820]

The new cracks remind me of this heavy firefight video: http://www.apacheclips.com/boards/media/4327-Heavy-fire-fight-Syria Not totally there yet, but if they keep tweaking, I'm sure we'll get something pretty damn near. :)

[DancZer 65]

Hmm. That made me wonder, since the cracks are generally consistent, but sometimes you hear this almost ridiculously low variant of the "crack", I wonder if it was a ricochet...

I think it is normal physics behavior. As the bullet slows down the sonic crack frequency goes down(Doppler effect), until it completely disappear when the bullet goes under sonic barrier. Check this out: http://www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/Demos/doppler/doppler.html

Sure that the bullet fly by is very short period of time, and you can't compare it to moving jet. But the doppler effect is there.

Btw. i'm not sure that the engine support it. Because when there was a bug with 9mm projectile, i heard sound of the bullet, when it was bouncing on the ground(slow).

Summary: If the bullet speed is above sonic barrier, then the bullet sound crack pitch should depend on the speed(Doppler effect). It it is under that it would enough to lower the speed of the bullet until it is completely stop.

Edit: Maybe that's why in some videos high pitch sonic cracks(they are close to enemy).

[Gutsnav 13]

The supersonic cracks sound terrible now. They're really short and don't even sound like the real thing. I don't mean to be rude but they are pretty bad.

[tpM 478]

While it's nice to see improvements in this field, the new occlusion modeling can break soundmods (it broke mine) or some missions where there are scripted sounds you wish to leave as-is. So please bring on the command to disable / modify the way how/where from the occlusion kicks in ASAP.

[Brisse 78]

tpM: Occlusion has not been implemented yet. You actually meant distance attenuation, right?

[tpM 478]

Oh yes, that one, sorry. :o

[Bouben 3]

While it's nice to see improvements in this field, the new occlusion modeling can break soundmods (it broke mine) or some missions where there are scripted sounds you wish to leave as-is. So please bring on the command to disable / modify the way how/where from the occlusion kicks in ASAP.

Sorry, but I personally could not care less about mods being broken by a new, relevant feature.

[Wolfenswan 1]

A thing to keep in mind is that mods are always modifications of a game in it's current state. Neither can modders foresee the in-engine changes in future developments, nor can engine developers consider all requirements or hack-jobs mods implement. The legacy version of 1.38 exists for precisely this reason.

Yes it's annoying if something you've gotten used to does not work for a while (or won't ever again) but such is the world of software development.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Should the Sting sound so.. loud when it's suppressed? Louder than every other 9mm weapon.

[hardsiesta 1]

I think it is normal physics behavior. As the bullet slows down the sonic crack frequency goes down(Doppler effect), until it completely disappear when the bullet goes under sonic barrier. Check this out: http://www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/Demos/doppler/doppler.html

Sure that the bullet fly by is very short period of time, and you can't compare it to moving jet. But the doppler effect is there.

Btw. i'm not sure that the engine support it. Because when there was a bug with 9mm projectile, i heard sound of the bullet, when it was bouncing on the ground(slow).

Summary: If the bullet speed is above sonic barrier, then the bullet sound crack pitch should depend on the speed(Doppler effect). It it is under that it would enough to lower the speed of the bullet until it is completely stop.

Edit: Maybe that's why in some videos high pitch sonic cracks(they are close to enemy).

I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing. I am aware of the dopper effect and sound barrier, but interesting to see something specific to both. I might be a bit skeptical, but I wouldn't bet the game does it for every irrelevant sound, like the sonic cracks. And it probably shouldn't either. I'm pretty sure it didn't do it before this update, at least.

But that's not what I meant anyways. My bet would be that they indeed made the cracks pitch play according to the projectile speed in this update. I mean that when you're getting shot at, the pitch variance can be almost disturbingly wide. Supercereal4's last video demonstrates it pretty well in my opinion. Generally, some of the shots sound very good, at just the right pitch. Probably the sample's natural pitch. But when that gets modified too much it becomes obvious, although the pitch itself might be scientifically correct to the bullet speed. But that's just my impression and guess.

I just think in the low pitched cracks this "strangeness", that some others have posted about too, is most obvious compared to higher pitches, although it does get similarly audible in "elevated" pitch as well. I would bet they're indeed ricochets because of such dramatic difference in shots fired from fixed range and situation. Maybe the pitch itself is correct, but I haven't personally heard that low "cracks". Reminds me more of dropping an empty beer can on the floor. Perhaps the volume should go down with the pitch (and speed) as well, or the cracks sound form should reflect the change in some other ways, or something? I'm not a scientist or own a firing range, but I would be very surprised if particularly the lowest cracks were spot on lifelike.

Nevertheless, I really like the new mechanics, and the sound isn't *that* bad for first iteration either. Pretty damn good at right distance from the flight path, actually. I just think it needs some more work, and obviously the close range boom effects are still missing, which is top 2 on my fix and feature wishlist. Maybe there's preference to old cracks if they were closer to close range cracks in some characteristics.

Edited March 5, 2015 by HardSiesta

[Brisse 78]

Ah. Finally the environmental effects are there for most weapons, not only MX. Have not tried it much yet, but I think it might still be slightly too subtle (gunshot too loud in comparison to tail).

[supercereal4 29]

Ah. Finally the environmental effects are there for most weapons, not only MX. Have not tried it much yet, but I think it might still be slightly too subtle (gunshot too loud in comparison to tail).

I agree with this. Should be louder.

[Bouben 3]

I agree with this. Should be louder.

It should be based on the surrounding environment and nothing else.

[royaltyinexile 175]

tpM: Occlusion has not been implemented yet. You actually meant distance attenuation, right?

Occlusion is in game, because it's always been there-ish (it just hasn't necessarily functioned so splendidly; it does 'something' to the volume based on the terrain. ish.). To be clear, though, we would like to improve this area and, yes, some of the work relating to dynamic attenuation takes us a step closer; however, there are still a number of roadblocks in the way (i.e., detection, performance); for these reasons, we would not want to 'promise' improvement in this area in the short term.

For Marksmen DLC, the features we're currently focusing on are: distance-based attenuation; weapon tails; supersonic cracks; weapon sound overhaul (scope: infantry primary weapon). This is in addition to the support Audio offers other features (i.e. weapon deployment, #bipods, etc). That's quite a burden for a small (but splendid) team, if I may say so.

Yes, there are a couple more experiments buried deep in the darkest recesses of the infinitesimal space between the symbiotic minds of our Audio Lead and our Audio Programmer but - whether or not another feature or two can escape this dark void -

.

Ah. Finally the environmental effects are there for most weapons, not only MX. Have not tried it much yet, but I think it might still be slightly too subtle (gunshot too loud in comparison to tail).

Yes, sorry, I meant to update you guys sooner. The tails are there, but many of them are still considered placeholder. In short: there is some inconsistency in their quality/effect. This should be addressed ASAP in some Dev updates next week. If it persists, I'll nudge our friend Dusa about providing some further description of intention / current state!

Best,

RiE

Edited March 6, 2015 by RoyaltyinExile

[megagoth1702 252]

I was on vacation the last week and did not have the chance to check out the sounds but I followed this thread.

Oh man, when will people stop using crappy GoPro Camera YOUTUBE VIDEOS as reference for sound and then argue pages of text full of crap based on these videos.

The microphones on most of the youtube cameras are not even CLOSE to what's needed to capture proper sound!

If you want to hear properly recorded bullet cracks, check out PROFESSIONAL RECORDINGS!

http://therecordist.com/supersonic-subsonic-bullets

All bullets sound the same really. Tiny pitch & volume changes. The rest comes from the environment echo.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Well i would suggest that if a feature is too much for time and performance, just work on it after the DLC, and if it's not time, but rather performance, make it an Audio option.

[Brisse 78]

It should be based on the surrounding environment and nothing else.

And it is. Read about the sound map technology they implemented. I forgot where to find it, but it's here on the forums somewhere. It's not as dynamic as L_ES of course, but much more performance friendly.

megagoth1702: Awesome recording there mate :)

[St. Jimmy 272]

BIS please don't forget to fix the thunder sound.

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=13481

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=15184

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=15911

The volume is waaaaaaaaaaaaay too low. The samples changed or more were added at some point but that doesn't help when you can't hear the thunder...

Spawn yourself as Zeus and start to spawn some lightning in different distances and you'll hear what's wrong.

Edited March 7, 2015 by St. Jimmy