ArmA sounds effects.

[Baphomet 0]

Well, I'm really interested in how ArmA is developing so far, but seeing that one video that was released a while back has me thinking, while it still retains a lot of the old OFP features in an updated format, the sounds I found a bit irksome.

Specifically weapon sounds, I hope there's a good lineup of people ready to make sound mods for the game, I know I'm always making the occasional custom sound for rifles, pistols, etc.

But I really hope Goeth is up for the job, because bar none his weapon sound compilation for FDF basically stabbed every other community soundpack to death with a rusty spoon and urinated on their freshly-dug graves.

But that's just my opinion. I kind of wish BIS had invested a bit in updating their sounds. But I'm sure the community can fix that no problem.

[Correction 0]

On the contrary, I was impressed with the sounds. To be honest, I hate the sounds in Operation: Flashpoint. Two things that really caught my ... ear?... about the Armed Assault videos were the gun sounds (there's not just a bang, and a much better sounding bang at that, but I noticed even a metalic "chink!" of the action! cool!, and the voices (no more robotic answering machine "all, engage machine gun, 12:00," but instead "everybody, attack that machine gun at 12:00!")

edit 2 - I retract my statement about the gun sounds with the noise of the action and agree with the original poster. I was sure I remembered hearing that, but after watching the videos again I didn't notice it from the M4 the player was carrying. Perhaps I thought I heard it from one of the enemy weapons - I'm not sure. :x

(edit - these blasted "emoticons" are getting on my nerves!

[CameronMcDonald 146]

Does anyone feel like punching the monitor and/or sound card because of the crappy and annoying "BEEP BEEP" which both preludes and concludes each radio snippet? It sounds like someone's playing freaking Pong in the background.

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I hate Pong.

[dslyecxi 23]

I would be extremely surprised (in a pleasant way) if Armed Assault (or even Game2, for that matter) had the proper sound modelling of supersonic bullets. No more of the "whoooosh" "whooosh" you get from OFP, instead you'd have the "CRACK" of a small sonic boom each time a supersonic round passed nearby.

That's something I've wanted to hear in a game ever since I first heard that sound in reality... it'd put a whole new intensity into getting shot at.

Do I really expect to see it? No, but I can still dream, can't I?

[PartizanasLT 0]

Id like to hear a good made distant shot sounds. Now OFP distant shots are the same as they are close ones, only the volume is lower. Thats unrealistic. Distant shot sounds are made wery nice in Day of Defeat source. Then your away from the battle you only hear a sillent "bums"

[h - 169]

Quote[/b] ]Then your away from the battle you only hear a sillent "bums"

Haven't played OFP for a while but IIRC if you have SB with EAX the sounds behave that way..

So it kinda is there already..

[Average Joe 0]

HL2 also nailed it with distance sound buffering, you hear small cracks in the distance [much like RL] and closer the sound becomes more distinct.

Im sure arma must have it in there.

[simulacra 0]

I'd like to see proper reverberation of the sounds in real time, but that's prolly some years away...

[Dwarden 1124]

anyone know if ArmAs will be using EAX2 only or EAX3/4/5 too? Direct3D sound or OpenAL ?

i guess this are way too "technical" questions to appear answered in previews ... demo or retail will tell

[max power 21]

I would be extremely surprised (in a pleasant way) if Armed Assault (or even Game2, for that matter) had the proper sound modelling of supersonic bullets. No more of the "whoooosh" "whooosh" you get from OFP, instead you'd have the "CRACK" of a small sonic boom each time a supersonic round passed nearby.

That's something I've wanted to hear in a game ever since I first heard that sound in reality... it'd put a whole new intensity into getting shot at.

Do I really expect to see it? No, but I can still dream, can't I?

Very unlikely. For one, bullets do go whooosh and they are pretty loud. However, they are going faster than sound, so when they pass close to you, the forefront of the sonic shockwave sounds like a snap. Further away, they hiss. From the firer, they sounds like a reverberating whoosh. It would not be impossible to code this but it would take up a few cycles.

I was just playing GRAW, and for the most part, the sounds are also quite dissappointing. The only really great sound that I've heard is the sound for the SCAR-H. I think that if the BIS devs take a page from some of the really great mods, namely FDF or WGL, that the sound effects should be really great. If not, I'll simply replace them.

[Baphomet 0]

Does anyone feel like punching the monitor and/or sound card because of the crappy and annoying "BEEP BEEP" which both preludes and concludes each radio snippet? It sounds like someone's playing freaking Pong in the background.

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I hate Pong.

Um... That's supposed to simulate the sound of a two way radio ending transmission...

Yeah, there are radios out there that are buffered with that sound.

And from that video, the sounds were very artificial sounding, not very realistic.

Then again, I just really want a game that does a lot of sound modulation, ie (better) doppler, modulation based on distance, relative position, and landscape (closed in spaces, narrow streets).

I've heard more than my fair share of gunfire in an outdoor setting since I go out shooting fairly regularly with a 1911a1, an ar180b, and a vz858, I've also had a fair amount of experience with higher caliber rifles like weatherby .460, and last saturday there was an incident just up the street from involving a pistol at 2am, so... yeah. It just doesn't sound the same in AA, just a bit too sterile, not enough... something.

Quote[/b] ] would be extremely surprised (in a pleasant way) if Armed Assault (or even Game2, for that matter) had the proper sound modelling of supersonic bullets. No more of the "whoooosh" "whooosh" you get from OFP, instead you'd have the "CRACK" of a small sonic boom each time a supersonic round passed nearby.

That's something I've wanted to hear in a game ever since I first heard that sound in reality... it'd put a whole new intensity into getting shot at.

Do I really expect to see it? No, but I can still dream, can't I?

Now to be honest, it all depends, when I heard that pistol go off, because it was shot in an area walled in by houses, you could more or less tell without even looking where the shot was fired from and what direction it was going, and because of how the sound was obscured and bounced off the houses, it made a "KACHOO-FFF, KACHOO-FFF" sound, not a crack or a bang or a pop. Incidentally firing the Vz indoors sounds a lot different when fired outdoors, Especially in the narrow long range type lanes we have at our local indoor range, it makes less of a crack sound and more of a resonant "BA-BOOOOOOOOMMMM" sound.

The vz fired off in the distance on a cold day outside doesn't even sound like the sound you hear up close, it's more of a "Tuk, tuk tuk tuk" type sound.

[dslyecxi 23]

Quote[/b] ]Very unlikely.

Of course. Thus the me being surprised if it actually showed up.

Quote[/b] ]For one, bullets do go whooosh and they are pretty loud.

The sound of a round going downrange, from the shooter's perspective, isn't all that loud due to it being obscured by the muzzle blast. The only time I can recall clearly hearing the "whoosh" of rounds going downrange was when a lot of people were firing at the same general time in close proximity. It is a "whoosh", but as I was referring to the sound of *incoming* rounds, that's a moot point.

Quote[/b] ]However, they are going faster than sound, so when they pass close to you, the forefront of the sonic shockwave sounds like a snap.

I'm aware of this, I've heard it many times in person. This is what I want to be modelled the most.

As to weapon fire being heard from a distance, I'd like to see them get the same effect as Red Orchestra - it does a fantastic job of making the weapons sound distinctly different from a distance. I'm sure they did it as two seperate sound files for each weapon, so it'd be nice if BIS could implement something a bit more elegant than that, but even if they only did it in a basic way it'd be a nice thing.

[max power 21]

No, you can really hear the bullets from behind them. They are part of the reason that rifles sound like a protracted thunder clap, from my understanding of it. I wish I could find a video I had that illustrated this. It had someone shooting the same rifle bolt action rifle unsupressed, supressed and then supressed with subsonic ammunition. The difference between the latter two in sound was only an echoing hiss sound.

Perhaps I over explained in my last post a bit but I wanted everyone to know what I was talking about

[dslyecxi 23]

No, you can really hear the bullets from behind them. They are part of the reason that rifles sound like a protracted thunder clap, from my understanding of it. I wish I could find a video I had that illustrated this. It had someone shooting the same rifle bolt action rifle unsupressed, supressed and then supressed with subsonic ammunition. The difference between the latter two in sound was only an echoing hiss sound.

Perhaps I over explained in my last post a bit but I wanted everyone to know what I was talking about

I'll explain what I've heard from shooting AR-15's/M-16's/AK-47's.

When you're on a firing range (in this case, a USMC 200/300/500 qualification range), you can hear the BANG - BANG - BANG of the shots. Loud, satisfying, wonderful sounds. The "fwoosh" of bullets flying downrange isn't nearly so loud, and you don't really "catch" the noise if you aren't paying attention.

When you're on the receiving end of the fire (in this case, pulling the pits [targets]), you hear a very loud, very sharp, and very dry CRACK every time a round passes overhead (for your target, and the targets next to you). Rounds that pass overhead, but not directly overhead (like, say, four or five targets down), from what I recall, sound the same just a bit less pronounced. I've never heard the "hiss" that people talk about when receiving fire but not having it directed on them (but still close). Or maybe I have heard it, but I didn't think of it as a hiss.

Now, when it comes to suppressed/silenced, that's a different story. When there's no loud muzzle blast to contend with, you're going to hear the rounds going downrange much more clearly. I believe that's basically what I said in my last post. I didn't say you couldn't hear it, or that they didn't make any noise, just that it's hard to notice compared to the noise from the muzzle blast. I can't recall ever distinctly hearing that noise in any situation aside from on a Marine rifle range, where shooters are spread out laterally over a good hundred plus yards on either side of you and are firing at a fairly consistant rate.

Also, I could be wrong here, but if this "bullet flying" sound is what makes rifle shots sound like a "protracted thunder clap", then wouldn't a shot sound significantly different if the bullet stopped shortly after leaving the barrel? Like, for instance... if I take my AR out to the range, stand ten feet away from the berm, and fire, do you think it's somehow going to sound different than it would at 50, 100, or whatever yards? Barring the effects of standing close to the berm itself, which would obviously alter the sound a slight bit depending on the composition of it.

Do you mind if I ask how much personal experience you have with firearms?

[Baphomet 0]

I've personally only ever had a .22 fly near by me, and it made a kind of "Thhhp" sound.

I don't think I want to ever hear anything like that again.

[max power 21]

Do you mind if I ask how much personal experience you have with firearms?

I was on a cadet rifle range team when I was younger. Not much experience lately, though. I've personally fired rifles (and I was good at it), I've seen all manner of pistols and shotguns being shot. Recently, I've just been studying this sort of thing. Now, when I say loud, I don't mean like deafening. I mean noticible. And of course the sound of the report would sound different depending on where the bullet stops, but I've not had a chance to do a scientific study on it. The way the report sounds also depends quite heavily on the environment around the shooter and where you are in relation to the shooter.

The evidence I consider to be very strong is just listening to that video I mentioned above. In the first one you could hear the blast of the report and you could hear what sounded like the shot echoing off of the distant burm. In the second, you heard a thump followed by the same sound, and in the third you heard no such sound. No doubt the difference in loads between the super and subsonic rounds had a role to play in the differing amount of noise, but I don't know if that would fully account for all of it. It's the closest thing I can get to a scientific test regarding how much air a supersonic bullet disturbs. I think that the mic that they were using helped in that it compressed the sound quite a bit, but also you certainly don't get the range of frequency or volume on such a recording.

[dslyecxi 23]

Quote[/b] ]Now, when I say loud, I don't mean like deafening. I mean noticible.

I'm saying that, from a shooter's perspective, it's not at all noticeable due to being drowned out by the muzzle blast.

Quote[/b] ]And of course the sound of the report would sound different depending on where the bullet stops, but I've not had a chance to do a scientific study on it.

The sound of the round travelling downrange is completely seperate from the muzzle blast (aka "bang") of the weapon discharging. The round going downrange either makes a "fwoosh" noise or a sharp "CRACK", depending on if you're listening to it from the receiving or giving end, and whether or not it's supersonic.

Quote[/b] ]The way the report sounds also depends quite heavily on the environment around the shooter and where you are in relation to the shooter.

This goes without saying.

Anyhow, I'm going to drop my participation in this line of discussion at this point. I said what I wanted to say (at the start, when hoping that the supersonic crack is modelled), and further discussion of the aural characteristics of gunfire isn't a particularly interesting discussion topic. I've fired my fair share of rifles, I own an AR-15 and shoot it regularly, and I've been on both the receiving and sending end of them. I know what they sound like, and it's not theory, game- or video-based knowledge. I'd like to see the aural effects that I've personally experience implemented in ArmA, and if not that, then hopefully Game2... but, as I said at the start, I don't really expect it to happen. No games have done it thus far.

[Goeth 0]

But I really hope Goeth is up for the job

Seriously i would try to do it for free with small budget.

Back on topic, i´m excited to see(hear) what BIS has improved  in the sound department since sounds are as important as graphics or maybe more important.

[max power 21]

It's not noticible from the shooters perspective, of course. We're talking about receiving fire, though. I was never talking about what a rifle sounds like from the shooter's perspective. We all know they go bang from behind the rifle. I think that this is where the problem is at. I know what rifles sound like too.. I also know what they smell like. Of course, this doesn't make me an expert on supersonic wave behaviour.

From a distance, listening to shotguns and rifles being fired side by side, the rifle report is much longer, but not much louder than a shotgun. This I attribute to the sounds of the bullet. I could be wrong, but corroborated with the sound of a suppressed rifle firing a variety of ammunition, it seems that the bullets are actually fairly audible.

Now, what I really wanted to discuss was the problem of modelling these effects. In OFP you have the model of speed of sound in terms of when the computer plays a sound in time in relation to when an action event occurs, and where it occurs. You also have an engine that plays with the frequency of sounds depending on the relative speed of approach between the observer and the object that is emitting sounds. The thing with this is that I think both of these functions are mutually exclusive in OFP.. otherwise I think you'd have some severe sound artifacting as a repeating sound (like bullets flying by or an airplane's engine) from the distance caught up with the object as it was flying towards you. This is what I have observed from OFP, at least, as you hear bullets approach you from the distance well before you hear the gunshots- which shouldn't be because the bullets are faster than sound. You shouldn't be able to hear them at all until they pass you.

There is also a problem with sounds that are different for different observers. Behind the firer you wouldn't come into contact with a sonic shockwave. Beside the path of the bullet, you would hear the bullet streak past (albeit slightly delayed), and in front of the bullet you would hear the crack as the bullet past and nothing else. With the current OFP engine, you may select one of the above to loop until the bullet is destroyed. You can set how loud it is and in what radius you hear it, but there is no context for any frame of reference other than relative speed. I suppose they could hack together some kind of program that selects from a list of possible sounds based on the frame of reference of the player, and even blends a bunch of sounds together... and then even post processes those... but I think that that would be kind of a drain on your hardware, as you've just divided up your maximum number of simultaneous voices among only a few objects! I think this is the sort of thing you will see when games start to take advantage of the next generation of soundcard technology (the X-fi or whatever they are called, with their 11-times-more-transisters-than-audigy technology).

[simulacra 0]

Will the sound engine be able to handle automatic fire this time around? I really hate that the engine cuts and replays single shot samples, so it goes like "ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-bang!" I've tried those community sounds which sounds better but since the engine handles that feature even those sounds poorly...

[bravo 6 0]

plz change the sound of radio communication. I rader old sound.

[martinovic 0]

plz change the sound of radio communication. I rader old sound.

I don't want that broken english back, no thanks. 2.. attack ... SOLDIER, 100, twelve oclock. BLEH.

The newer radio sounds were a lot better (a lot better! )

edit:What is wrong with the smilies on this forum lately?

[Friedchiken 0]

plz change the sound of radio communication. I rader old sound.

I don't want that broken english back, no thanks. 2.. attack ... SOLDIER, 100, twelve oclock. BLEH.

The newer radio sounds were a lot better (a lot better! )

edit:What is wrong with the smilies on this forum lately?

Some will like the new voices, some won't. I like them, as we still maintain a lot of different male voice samples while improving the transitions a little bit.

[ebns72 0]

Will the sound engine be able to handle automatic fire this time around? I really hate that the engine cuts and replays single shot samples, so it goes like "ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-bang!" I've tried those community sounds which sounds better but since the engine handles that feature even those sounds poorly...

Good lord. I agree with you 100%. I hate this in ofp...lol. It takes away so much richness from otherwise very good sounds.

[Friedchiken 0]

Will the sound engine be able to handle automatic fire this time around? I really hate that the engine cuts and replays single shot samples, so it goes like "ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-bang!" I've tried those community sounds which sounds better but since the engine handles that feature even those sounds poorly...

Good lord. I agree with you 100%. I hate this in ofp...lol. It takes away so much richness from otherwise very good sounds.

I hate this too, but other games like R3:Raven Shield have this problem. There's just not an easy way to anticipate when the player will play off the trigger.