Project Human 1.2 - Making Death Come Alive!

[sic-disaster 311]

Hello everyone! Today marks the day I've been looking forward to for a long, long time: the full release of Project Human, a death scream mod for ArmA 3!

 

In it’s simplest form, Project Human is a deathscream mod. People that get killed within a certain distance of the player, Zeus or when controlling a UAV will no longer do so quietly.
The mod supports headshot detection, which will lead to either gurgling or outright silence, whereas regular kills through body shots will lead to screaming, crying and swearing.
As the name of the mod might indicate however, the goal here is not to be funny (no Wilhelm scream for us!) but rather to humanize the characters in ArmA 3, and the screams are very heavily inspired by those in Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad.
The mod was therefore also made to be faction-specific, so that when the right actors are found, CSAT could have death screams in Farsi or Chinese, the AAF in Greek, and so on. 
Currently however I am the only voice-actor in the project as it was decided not to use existing screams from other games like Red Orchestra 2 because of potential copyright issues.
We are looking for willing voice-actors with decent static-free microphones who think they have what it takes to deliver the right performance! I will be selective about what goes into the mod however, so please give it your very best shot if you’re interested.

This mod requires CBA.

 

I made a showcase trailer in which you can see the mod in action:

 

Current features:
- 70 different screams, gurgles etc.
- Headshot detection

- Hit sounds (single shout when wounded)

- Underwater detection
- Faction specific

- Supports RAVAGE
- Zeus support (Zeus can hear screams too, with the only exception being when Zeus is remote-controlling units due to technical limitations)
- Multiplayer support (the same scream will play for every player)
- Signed with bikeys

This project was made possible thanks to the following people:

- Scripting
Initial scripts by Laxxeman, which formed the framework for the mod
Further rework by Degmancro, aka D-Man
Final script by TheWaltsu

- Screams
SiC

 

Subscribe to the mod on the workshop page here:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?edit=true&id=1188797395


Update 1.1 showcase:

 

[redarmy 422]

great f**king job man!  This is such a nice feature. I felt back when hearing those guys crying out.

 

Sickening....in a good way

[Strike_NOR 898]

Hi!

 

I saw your video and here's my take on it:

 

The concept of lingering death sounds is very realistic and a grotesque touch may I add. It goes well along with the bloodlust mod in terms of shock and horror. To some people, this kind of effect may make the game more disturbing. There are, however, some technical limitations here that undersell the message you are trying to send.

 

Firstly, in ArmA 3, once your character dies, it goes complete ragdoll. There is no further movement than the laws of sir Isaac Newton dragging you down. This corresponds poorly to the audio of a screaming and cursing character. Your screams sound like someone twisting and turning in pain, rolling back and forth. In military medical training, we often learn that if you are approaching an area with casualties, you should prioritize the ones who don't scream. Screamers tend to have minor, but painful, injuries, while the silent ones are in shock or traumatized from their more serious injuries.

 

Secondly, the length of the audio files, while realistic, may be too long for gameplay reasons. The longer a character is screaming, the higher the probability there is that the game will randomly activate the same track and overlap (hearing the same audio clip over each other is bothering to listen to). I suggest they are shortened down somewhat. 

 

Thirdly, the quality of certain recordings (only listened to youtube, so can't be sure about compression etc) it seems the loudest noises generate some static in the mike, which was noticeable. Especially around the 1:50 mark in your video. This could easily be improved though with some adjustments :)

 

And last point. Gameplay reasons. Imagine you are doing a stealth mission at night. So you want to be stealthy. Silent kills? Not any more. At least for multiplayer, you will hear these victims from a much larger distance, and I imagine the AI does not "hear" these death screams, so they would awkwardly ignore their dead AI friends, who would be well within audible range.

 

My recommendations?

 

Keep experimenting with length, volume and variations of voices to get the right realism vs practical balance.

 

A HUGE improvement to your mod would be the addition of twitching ragdolls (random movement of limbs while they are in the dead state, for about 10-15 seconds). If you coupled the dying sound with twitching ragdolls, that fade out simultaneously, well then you have truly simulated dying. (I think the game "Squad" has this feature - as players die, they bleed out slowly on the ground and sometimes they move their arms and legs a little, while grunting).

 

If twitching ragdolls are not an option, I would save the "loud and angry screams" for non-lethal hits (when player takes damage, have him shout "@$@!"#¤, I'M HIT...... AAAAARGH..." +*intense breathing* (something short). And save the more gurgling, suffocating, moaning sounds for the dead ragdolls. That's my opinion anyways :) 

[EO 11275]

Really great job SiC!.....I know you've wanted this for the longest time, and a very nice feature set for a first release.  

[Rydygier 1309]

So you finally did it. Congrats. Making kills more authentic in this disturbing way is IMO a great option to have, especially, if one want to show, war isn't as funny, as some casual games tend to pretend/some players may tend to think. In a way - educational by shock. 

[haleks 8212]

Nice job on this .

 

Quick question though : it is linked to factions, so does that mean the mod won't work on custom factions?

If that's the case, I would suggest linking the function to the actor's identity, it would work with most mods out there - and civilians too. ;)

[TheWaltsu 0]

42 minutes ago, haleks said:

Quick question though : it is linked to factions, so does that mean the mod won't work on custom factions?

 

The sounds in this mod are linked to factions, yes, but we also have generic sounds for custom factions. Also, we are going to add support for different mods at some point.

[sic-disaster 311]

2 hours ago, Strike_NOR said:

Hi!

 

Hi, first off, thanks for commenting!

 

2 hours ago, Strike_NOR said:

 

I saw your video and here's my take on it:

 

The concept of lingering death sounds is very realistic and a grotesque touch may I add. It goes well along with the bloodlust mod in terms of shock and horror. To some people, this kind of effect may make the game more disturbing. There are, however, some technical limitations here that undersell the message you are trying to send.

 

Firstly, in ArmA 3, once your character dies, it goes complete ragdoll. There is no further movement than the laws of sir Isaac Newton dragging you down. This corresponds poorly to the audio of a screaming and cursing character. Your screams sound like someone twisting and turning in pain, rolling back and forth. In military medical training, we often learn that if you are approaching an area with casualties, you should prioritize the ones who don't scream. Screamers tend to have minor, but painful, injuries, while the silent ones are in shock or traumatized from their more serious injuries.

 

I'd love to have something more than just sounds, like animations or the twitching you describe. I'm not entirely sure how feasible it is at this point though.  Not sure if you can make people that the game considers dead still do stuff. ArmA 2 and ACE3 did have animations for wounded characters which rolled on the ground so it might be possible to do something along those lines, but we'll have to see. I'd love to have something like dying animations that transition into ragdolls but that'd be a pretty big project.

 

2 hours ago, Strike_NOR said:

Secondly, the length of the audio files, while realistic, may be too long for gameplay reasons. The longer a character is screaming, the higher the probability there is that the game will randomly activate the same track and overlap (hearing the same audio clip over each other is bothering to listen to). I suggest they are shortened down somewhat. 

 

There is already a contingency in the mod that should prevent the same sound from being picked again too quickly. We are also looking for more voice actors so that the script has more options to choose from, so repetition should be less of an issue in the future.

 

2 hours ago, Strike_NOR said:

 

Thirdly, the quality of certain recordings (only listened to youtube, so can't be sure about compression etc) it seems the loudest noises generate some static in the mike, which was noticeable. Especially around the 1:50 mark in your video. This could easily be improved though with some adjustments :)

 

I'll look into it :) 

 

2 hours ago, Strike_NOR said:

 

And last point. Gameplay reasons. Imagine you are doing a stealth mission at night. So you want to be stealthy. Silent kills? Not any more. At least for multiplayer, you will hear these victims from a much larger distance, and I imagine the AI does not "hear" these death screams, so they would awkwardly ignore their dead AI friends, who would be well within audible range.

 

The AI does not hear these screams, no. It's a good point. At the moment you'll have to suspend your disbelief a little bit. *maybe* screams could be made audible to AI, but that would break those stealth missions probably...  There's downsides to doing that and also to not doing that, if it's possible.

 

2 hours ago, Strike_NOR said:

My recommendations?

 

Keep experimenting with length, volume and variations of voices to get the right realism vs practical balance.

 

A HUGE improvement to your mod would be the addition of twitching ragdolls (random movement of limbs while they are in the dead state, for about 10-15 seconds). If you coupled the dying sound with twitching ragdolls, that fade out simultaneously, well they you have truly simulated dying. (I think the game "Squad" has this feature - as players die, they bleed out slowly on the ground and sometimes they move their arms and legs a little, while grunting).

 

If twitching ragdolls are not an option, I would save the "loud and angry screams" for non-lethal hits (when player takes damage, have him shout "@$@!"#¤, I'M HIT...... AAAAARGH..." +*intense breathing* (something short). And save the more gurgling, suffocating, moaning sounds for the dead ragdolls. That's my opinion anyways :) 

 

Having longer screams for wounded people could be an option but personally, the moaning when being wounded in ArmA 3 already annoys me. Doing it only once doesn't make sense because that kind of pain doesn't go away, so it becomes annoying quite quickly. When we get multiple actors contributing, it might even mean not hearing the same voice in your current life but different ones... which would be even worse for immersion, if that can't be changed. In co-op as well, when you want to be communicating with friends, you probably don't want to hear my moaning in between. That is already a risk with death screams, but one that is made more manageable by distance as well as the fact that once your dead it doesn't really matter anymore anyway.

[sic-disaster 311]

1 hour ago, Evil Organ said:

Really great job SiC!.....I know you've wanted this for the longest time, and a very nice feature set for a first release.  

 

1 hour ago, Rydygier said:

So you finally did it. Congrats. Making kills more authentic in this disturbing way is IMO a great option to have, especially, if one want to show, war isn't as funny, as some casual games tend to pretend/some players may tend to think. In a way - educational by shock. 

 

Thanks guys! It has been a long time since I've first had this idea, and thanks to TheWaltsu it's finally a reality :) 

What you describe Rydygier, educational by shock, is exactly what I want this mod to be. I remember vividly some of the kills I made in Red Orchestra 2 that made me feel good because of how unlikely it was that I would come out on top but did, yet were disturbing and unsettling because that feeling of joy was then met with a guy convincingly crying for his mother... It's one thing to know somewhere in the back of your head that you're playing at something very real and serious, and another to have that reality actually invade your game space. The reality is, people don't just fall over, bodies get mangled, and everyone has family and friends that are going to miss them... which seems easy enough to forget in real life sometimes, and in videogames even more so. I hope people playing with this mod will experience something similar to what I felt when I played Red Orchestra 2 :) 

[CPT J. Shaw 32]

How does this mod behave with ACE?

[Guest]

An Armaholic mirror is now available:

 

Project Human v1.0

[sic-disaster 311]

11 hours ago, CPT J. Shaw said:

How does this mod behave with ACE?

 

That's untested. What's your concern?

 

 

@Foxhound, thanks!

[TheWaltsu 0]

12 hours ago, CPT J. Shaw said:

How does this mod behave with ACE?

 

Just tested the mod with ACE, seems to work just fine. Remember to listen to the sounds, they can tell if enemy is dead or unconscious. This mod activates screams only when unit dies.

[corporal_lib[br] 396]

I had the old/beta version of this mod (L_deathscreams.pbo thought it was a mod by Laxeman cus of the L_ prefix), thought I was phasing it out, but for my surprise this is an update, or better, a proper release! =D

 

I use it everytime eversince (it´s been out for 2/3 years now?), cus as its name now states: it makes the enemy more human, so it´s not "fun" anymore... it is an necessary evil to shoot down another (virtual) human being... all FPS should have this (RO seems to be the only vanilla game with death screams, right? can´t recall) so kids don´t think it´s nice to shoot each other in the face (actions generate consequences... thou ppl tend to forget that)

 

Great to see this moving on, keep up this educational work!

 

Cheers

 

FUN FACT: the old/beta mod had this bug that animals would have death screams when shot down (when I kill live stock for eating on Ravage mod, rabits and sheep cry like humans dying...so bizarre.. is it fixed???)

[EO 11275]

39 minutes ago, corporal_lib[br] said:

FUN FACT: the old/beta mod had this bug that animals would have death screams when shot down (when I kill live stock for eating on Ravage mod, rabits and sheep cry like humans dying...so bizarre.. is it fixed???)

 

Didn't try the "old/beta" version, but the death screams don't extend to animals with this version. ......unfortunately the death screams do extend to Agents.....so Ravage zombies take on the screams, which is fine for the gargling samples, but the more human samples, not so good. 

[haleks 8212]

29 minutes ago, Evil Organ said:

 

Didn't try the "old/beta" version, but the death screams don't extend to animals with this version. ......unfortunately the death screams do extend to Agents.....so Ravage zombies take on the screams, which is fine for the gargling samples, but the more human samples, not so good. 

 

One suggestion to fix this : tweak the scream function so it detects if the killed unit has a "NoVoice" speaker. ;)

[Guest]

The Armaholic mirror has been updated with the new version:

 

Project Human v1.01

[sic-disaster 311]

There actually isn't a new version, sorry about that! I just wanted to update the thumbnail on the workshop so the logo is a bit bigger and more clearly readable. Wasn't sure if I had to select the modfolder again or not for the upload (figured maybe it'd replace it with nothing?) Doubtful but I didn't want to break things and since it's such a small mod, figured I might as well select the folder again. So nothing new for now, though some plans are forming!

[katipo66 94]

I finally had a chance to check this out and for the most part it works really well, awesome work!

but the blood curdling slow death gargling is unfortunately not really doing it  for me, it feels like a horror game/movie, or sounds like one of those zombie mods which i guess would work really well in those environments but i think personally i would tire of it quickly, but then thats just me, i hate the default injured heavy breathing from the players character, i think maybe if it were more subtle with focus on the unit being hit initially and gasping or screaming from the pain caused rather than the slow drawn out death throws... anyway ive only tested quickly running around killing NPCs, ill just leave it installed and see how it feels in a drawn out mission.

 

Anyway thats just my humble opinion and understand its just you doing the voice acting which i discovered isnt easy... i was sitting here in front of the PC practicing some death screams and my missus thinks ive finally lost it with this game haha.

[sic-disaster 311]

I can appreciate that, yeah. When I'm just testing things by shooting a bunch of people close together it can get old pretty fast. When more variety of screams and actors is added hopefully that will change. During regular gameplay however most of your kills will be at a distance, so teammates close to you will emit some screams every once in a while probably, but it won't be so close together to become annoying. I do agree with you on the heavy breathing when wounded, it's something that annoys me in the base game as well and also the reason I don't want to record stuff like that as well. 

 

However, we are working on hit sounds! So when a character gets shot somewhere, he'll emit a one-time "Ugh!" or "Agh!". We're keeping those short so that if the character dies to the next bullet, they won't overlap with the longer deathscream. We'll try to get a few shorter death screams in there as well for variety's sake, but I quite like having a prolonged firefight and hearing people not just do a quick "AAAH", but the more drawn-out screams. It makes the battlefield feel more alive and chaotic, just like the final engagement in the showcase trailer. YOu'll hear people drop over and scream, but it's more spaced out and thus also more impactful, hopefully.

 

We're also working on underwater detection, so that characters that are under water will only emit gurgles. We're also doing some zombie-specific groans, stuff like dry wheezes like the Lost do in XCOM 2 :) 

[sic-disaster 311]

Update 1.1 is live now!

We added three new features: a shout upon being wounded, which will occur only once, we added underwater detection with it's own set of gargles and hit sounds, and we added support for RAVAGE, so zombies now have their own distinct set of hit and death sounds.  The total of screams etc. is now up to 70.

 

 

[Guest]

The Armaholic mirror has been updated with the new version:

 

Project Human v1.1

[MisterOth 76]

Thank you for your Work and the Ravage support 

[Retch 15]

I really like the mod and the work you have put into it!

My suggestion would be that if you get hit another time either while being wounded, but not deadly or after being healed up you'd shout again. From what I tested you only shout 2 times per life, when you get wounded the first time and when you die, adding shouts for everytime you get wounded would make this mod much more usable for people that orientate on milsim and usage with mods/scripts that change the wounding/revive mechanics of the game and it could be a temporary solution for ACE.

[FireWalker 329]

I hate even linking shit like this, but since this seems to be a pretty serious addon, it reminded me of this video:

 

Youtube

 

Maybe it will help with the growth of the mod.