Strange sound issue

[zinc 0]

In achieving stereo sound for bullet cracking could the modding community do this or has BIS have to modify the sound engine.

The ArmA engine already has the routines for handling 3D sound for everything else in the game, it would just be a case of assigning it as directional.

[Kaune 0]

Was it due to time constrainment that is wasn't done in 3d or what? Could the community do it?

btw Thanks for reporting that bug!! Can you please provide me with the url there is a few other things i want to add.

[daikan 1]

Can you please provide me with the url there is a few other things i want to add.

http://bugs.armed-assault.net/view.php?id=2143

i mistakenly reported it as a 'bullet impact' sound bug.. unfortunately i can't change the title anymore..

[zinc 0]

Was it due to time constrainment that is wasn't done in 3d or what? Could the community do it?

btw Thanks for reporting that bug!! Can you please provide me with the url there is a few other things i want to add.

I couldn't answer your questions as I'm not privy to that information in relation to the development of ArmA. BIS should eventually fix those sound issues everyone has, I guess fixing major problems is the first priority.

The bug tracker - Information regarding this can be found in the "ArmA - ABOUT BUG TRACKING SYSTEM" forum.

Regards.

[zinc 0]

I mistakenly reported it as a 'bullet impact' sound bug.. unfortunately i can't change the title anymore..

I noticed yesterday , do you have the option to close it? If so, you could submit another one with the correct details.

[daikan 1]

do you have the option to close it? If so, you could submit another one with the correct details.

unfortunately i can't close it myself but i left a note describing the situation. maybe some admin can take care of it...

[walker 0]

We regularly get the airforce from RAF Valley on Anglesey breaking the sound barrier at sea, when I hear that boom I know exactly which direction it came from.

Hi Zinc

Yes you can hear an object breaking the sound barrier but it contains no useful information about direction of the source of the object.

To take your analogy where the aircraft is the bullet, the sonic boom arrives from a place the bullet/aircraft has long passed BUT more importantly the sonic boom from an aircraft does not tell what airfield it flew from, nor does the sonic crack of the bullet tell you the direction to the rifle that fired it.

The only significant pieces of information from a rifle crack are.

1)  A loud crack tells you the bullet is aimed at you

2)  A quieter crack tells you the bullet is aimed near you

3)  The time between the crack and then the thump gives you the distance to the source.

4)  The weapon fired at you is high velocity so not likely to be a pistol.

The thump is the only real indicator of direction to the weapon source.

As to:

Quote[/b] ]Sorry, but fixed 2D sounds have no place in a 3D game enviroment!

A simulation is inevitably a compromise. We are attempting to model reality of the universe and all its physics in processor with less connections than the brain of a slug. The mathematical calculations you are suggesting are extremely complex and processor intensive. The crack would have to be modeled at every point in its trajectory and sent separately to every entity in earshot.

And for what benefit?

I want you zinc to provide me with a living breathing golden elephant that is capable breeding other golden elephants and that craps golden ingots YOU MUST PROVIDE THIS TO ME NOW! I DEMAND IT!

While I am awaiting my Golden Elephant you must also form a mod team with Kaune and daikan and you must learn sound physics and simulation and produce a working 3D sound system capable of modeling 3000 variable bullet trajectories per second with sonic crack at 1cm intervals and differentially producing the sound to not less than 3000 entities including reflection and absorbency for all materials in 3D terrain of not less than 100km Sq. AND I EXPECT IT YESTERDAY.

PS and it still wont tell you where the bullet came from.

Kind Regards walker

[Kaune 0]

Hopefully they won't take forever like they do with OFP (I know they don't support it anymore).

Thank you for the link would've probably found it myself if I had my other glasses on

walker only if your leading from the front

[daikan 1]

Yes you can hear an object breaking the sound barrier but it contains no useful information about direction of the source of the object.

i partially agree. however, i'm not an expert in physics but my limited understanding tells me the following: the perceived direction of the sonic crack should give you a rough clue to where the object (bullet) has just passed your position.

Quote[/b] ]The mathmatical calculations you are suggesting are extremely complex and processor intensive. The crack would have to be modeled at every point in its trajectory and sent seperatly to every entity in earshot.

And for what benefit?

i'm not sure whether the calculations are really that complicated. i would say at the listener's position this is essentially a vector perpendicular to the object's flight path (but i may be wrong - it's an interesting physics question though ). in that case the information you get would be pretty useful as it would tell you the direction of the closest point of the bullet's trajectory in which case the benefit is clear. and as it was said previously these mono sounds just dont sound right in a 3d environment. for that matter (and as a really cheap solution) they could be even placed randomly into the stereo field...

[daikan 1]

just for the sake of it.. i discovered an old and rather lengthy discussion about supersonic bullet cracks inside the BF2 community (which i normally steer clear of )

http://www.digg.com/gaming_...._cracks

a fun and somewhat interesting read nonetheless

oh and this may be a more serious place to check:

http://www.firearmsid.com/Feature....ts2.htm

[zinc 0]

Yes you can hear an object breaking the sound barrier but it contains no useful information about direction of the source of the object.

To take your analogy where the aircraft is the bullet, the sonic boom arrives from a place the bullet/aircraft has long passed BUT more importantly the sonic boom from an aircraft does not tell what airfield it flew from, nor does the sonic crack of the bullet tell you the direction to the rifle that fired it.

The only significant pieces of information from a rifle crack are.

1)  A loud crack tells you the bullet is aimed at you

2)  A quieter crack tells you the bullet is aimed near you

3)  The time between the crack and then the thump gives you the distance to the source.

4)  The weapon fired at you is high velocity so not likely to be a pistol.

The thump is the only real indicator of direction to the weapon source.

As to:

Quote[/b] ]Sorry, but fixed 2D sounds have no place in a 3D game enviroment!

A simulation is inevitably a compromise. We are attempting to model reality of the universe and all its physics in processor with less connections than the brain of a slug. The mathematical calculations you are suggesting are extremely complex and processor intensive. The crack would have to be modeled at every point in its trajectory and sent separately to every entity in earshot.

And for what benefit?

I want you zinc to provide me with a living breathing golden elephant that is capable breeding other golden elephants and that craps golden ingots YOU MUST PROVIDE THIS TO ME NOW! I DEMAND IT!

While I am awaiting my Golden Elephant you must also form a mod team with Kaune and daikan and you must learn sound physics and simulation and produce a working 3D sound system capable of modeling 3000 variable bullet trajectories per second with sonic crack at 1cm intervals and differentially producing the sound to not less than 3000 entities including reflection and absorbency for all materials in 3D terrain of not less than 100km Sq. AND I EXPECT IT YESTERDAY.

PS and it still wont tell you where the bullet came from.

Kind Regards walker

With respect Walker, this thread isn't about tracing a bullets origin at all, and we're not even interested where it came from.

This is about the 'mono' sound issue from a bullet crack.

The golden elephant? It's already done in-game with missiles, except a bullet would require an extremely sharp leadup and fall off point for the sound. Call it 'Localised' if you like.

It's the equivelent to not hearing the missile until its within one metre of your character ingame, and the sound disappearing almost immediately as it passes you. The routines and calculations are already in the ArmA code for distance or 'earshot' for various sounds/explosions anyway, I'm sure the programmers have many variables which they could tweak to easily get this effect working in 3D.

As for the Ingots...

[ACF 0]

this thread isn't about tracing a bullets origin at all, and we're not even interested where it came from.

Quote[/b] ]Going back to the thread topic, it does seem a lot harder to pinpoint the direction of gunfire.

That's not meant as a cheap shot (excuse the pun), but that's how the thread's been interpreted.

Quote[/b] ]It's already done in-game with missiles, except a bllet would require an extremely sharp leadup and fall off point for the sound. Call it 'Localised' if you like.

But the lead-up and fall-off are not features of a missile's whoosh sound, they are the engine rendering the position and volume of a looped sound that's moving. I don't believe that example is analogous to the crack. All of the sound samples in game are mono (2D if you prefer), the engine creates the stereo effect based on where the sound event is placed relative to the player.

One of the 'reasons' I believe that bullets near the player trigger the crack at the player's position is that the same routine might be used by AI to detect incoming fire. Assuming that the position of the bullet can be captured when it is detected, there's no reason why the crack can't be played back there instead of at the player's position. This would give the crack stereo directionality. It can even be argued that if the game copes with 3D placement of every thump and every impact then it should be able to cope with the small proportion of cracks heard by the player? Perhaps the performance hit won't be much after all... but I stress I don't know that.

[zinc 0]

Quote[/b] ]Going back to the thread topic, it does seem a lot harder to pinpoint the direction of gunfire.

That's not meant as a cheap shot (excuse the pun), but that's how the thread's been interpreted.

Thanks for pointing out the error in my original post, I have now corrected it.

I completely agree with the last paragraph in your post, I'm sure it would be a relatively simple feature to implement into ArmA given the 3D sounds already produced ingame. Performance, well that's another issue.

[zinc 0]

Looks like this has been resolved on the Bugtracker with a firm NO, in otherwords - Supersonic crack sounds do not have any direction whatsoever.

If these guys can trace sniper fire through technology by the supersonic 'crack' then it must have direction otherwise the sensors wouldn't work at all.

The document below is in relation to 'discovering' a snipers position, I'm not interested in that at all. My argument is that a supersonic crack 'in reality' does have direction and should not be a 'mono' sound in game.

http://www.special-operations-technology.com/article.cfm?DocID=241

Quote from the Document:

The system centers around sensors placed on a vehicle. The HMMWV has 16 sensor arrays that cover the upper and lower four corners of the vehicle. This distributed array eliminates blind spots in the detection system. It is also a dynamic system that allows detection while on the move, with an automatic tracking option that allows shooter locations to be automatically updated on the screen.

The entire system is an acoustic passive system. It is omni directional, meaning it will detect a shot from any direction and determine the location relative to the vehicle. According to AAI program director Chris Yaniger, “If it’s a shot that’s relatively close to the vehicle, the system looks for what we call the ‘crack,’ which is the supersonic signature of the bullet. That gives you an instant answer. If the shot is farther away and the system cannot distinguish a good crack signature, then it will listen for the ‘bang,’ which is the muzzle blast. When you have both a crack and a bang, you can get the range very accurately.â€

I rest my case.

[daikan 1]

if i may quote myself over from the bugtracker:

Quote[/b] ]too bad this hasn't been addressed properly because it's simply not true that the sonic crack is non-directional. it's true though that it doesn't contain much accurate information about the source or origin. nonetheless it is always perceived as a distinctive directional sound. for the physical facts see the following discussion: http://forum.physorg.com/index.php?showtopic=13814

hence, it's a rather big simplification to model supersonic cracks as pure mono sounds. to me (and many others) these mono sounds just sound plain bad in an otherwise completely 3D audio environment. but i guess we'll have to live with it...

[Dwarden 1125]

well i think it's played mono because that sound is in 2D group

as ArmA defaults to 16 3D and 16 2D sounds they "may" want to save processing power to keep it in 2D group ...

i still hope in some future patch we get option to use more channels for both 3D and 2D to 32/32 and 48/48 or even better custom values via config (like 48/64)

cards like X-fi or Audigy 2/2ZS/4 should handle it ...

[walker 0]

When you have both a crack and a bang, you can get the range very accurately.â€

I rest my case.

Hi all

In reply to Zinc Range not Direction. Also Electronic not human ear.

As I pointed out

Quote[/b] ]The only significant pieces of information from a rifle crack are.

1) A loud crack tells you the bullet is aimed at you

2) A quieter crack tells you the bullet is aimed near you

3) The time between the crack and then the thump gives you the distance to the source.

4) The weapon fired at you is high velocity so not likely to be a pistol.

The thump is the only real indicator of direction to the weapon source.

Kind Regards walker