Vehicle/Weapon Sounds: Still Unrealistic?

[derfalpha 0]

One of annoying things I found in OFP was the sounds of gunfire and vehicles. A gunshot sounded like it came from 10 metres away, when infact the soldier was 300 metres away. Similarly, a vehicle sounds very close, but infact you're surprised to see it just pop over the horizon.

The problem has not been looked at and therefore still exists in ArmA, which is dissappointing to say the least. Has anyone else experienced this difficulty in judging distance by sound?

[NeMeSiS 11]

Nope, IMO it was improved alot, you can now hear the difference between a tank that is right in front of you and a tank that is in front of you but has an object (wall, house, ..) between you and the tank.

The soundfile may be the same, but i definitely hear a difference.

[TheUser 0]

OFP used to have kinda muffled sounds for the far away events like grenades launched and stuff. Then after some patch that feature was gone and the sounds sounded the same no matter how far away it was.

The same is for ArmA, at least for me.

Using an Audigy2, btw.

[169th_Ice 0]

The Harrier now sounds like a clapped out tumble dryer. the 1.02 sound was much better.

[MamiyaOtaru 1]

Sound occlusion is nice.  Shots and vehicles behind buildings or hills sound different.  The thing ArmA misses is that shots that are far away sound different *even without being behind something*.  It's sort of the same thing happening.  The higher pitched parts of sounds don't travel through buildings, and they don't cover long distances as well as the lower tones.  Think of the Bass you hear through the wall when your neighbor has the stereo cranked (occlusion).  You can hear the same thing from a far off concert: just the bass (even without occlusion, the distance will do that).  A gun fired a long ways off - even in direct line of sight - will sound different, and ArmA doesn't do that.

I think it could though.  Whenever I preview a mission in the editor, my first shot sounds like an occluded shot.  As best I can tell, each shot is two different sounds, one lower pitched, and another for the higher portions, and the higher portion isn't loaded when I fire my first shot (no biggie).  I'm guessing, but I imagine occluded shots simply omit the higher sound.  

If I'm right, the effect of distance could be simulated.  The farther away a shot is fired, the quieter the high pitched sound is relative to the low pitched, fading eventually to nothing.

Even if only one sound is playe at once, and for whatever reason my first shot is the "occluded" sound, distance could still be done by blending occluded and near together based on distance, the occluded sound becoming more dominant as the distance increases.

[jasono 0]

When a sounds is behind a building the sound muffels. But it is the same no matter what object. If it is a wall the sound is the same as a hangar for example.

I havn't checked recently, but tree's also had the same effect as a building.

[Messiah 2]

As best I can tell, each shot is two different sounds, one lower pitched, and another for the higher portions, and the higher portion isn't loaded when I fire my first shot (no biggie). I'm guessing, but I imagine occluded shots simply omit the higher sound.

no, its just one sound file

[Gux 0]

If I'm right, the effect of distance could be simulated. The farther away a shot is fired, the quieter the high pitched sound is relative to the low pitched, fading eventually to nothing.

That's frequency you're thinking about. Pitch is the 'tone' caused by frequencies and it doesn't work like that. The game uses a lowpass filter to cut higher frequencies which produces a muffled sound.

I think the best way to achieve realistic gunfire would be to use different samples according to the distance they're emitted. So you could use reverberated(preferably real recordings from a distance) sounds for those far away shots.

[ebud 18]

You do know that the crack sound you hear "10 meters away" is not the sound of the weapon fire but the sound of the bullet going by your head right?

[mr reality 0]

I think the vehicle sounds (distance related) are much improved but the weapon sounds are not nice. I can't put my finger on it but there's just no ummf when you hear your squad in a firefight. Instead it just sounds like pathetic cracks (i'm not refering to the sonic sounds, but the weapons themselves).

I think it's always a good idea to beef-up any sounds when your making a game as it's no good just recording real weapons because they often tend to sound much weaker when played ingame. Fireing a weapon doesn't just produce a crack, what about the moving parts of the weapon itself and the ammo feeding into belt fed MGs, this all adds to create a more beefier sound than just the crack. . Sounds are distorted by atmosphere and such and there is none of this in the gaming world so the devs have to compensate for this.

I would like to know how the weapon sounds were created for ArmA because in a nutshell, there shit...

By the way i have no idea what i'm talking about. This is just my laymans opinion on this subject.

[Daniel 0]

Might be a hardware issue, but I totally agree with the first post. Hearing vehicles at the wrong distances is really messed up. And yes, the new harrier does sound like a clapped out tumble dryer.

[Pierrot 0]

I think the best way to achieve realistic gunfire would be to use different samples according to the distance they're emitted. So you could use reverberated(preferably real recordings from a distance) sounds for those far away shots.

I'm not familiar with OpenAL, but is it possible to simulate sounds muffled in accordance with distance? If so, you can simulate any far away gunfire sound with a gunfire sound which is recorded nearby rifle.