Need Sound FX - incoming artillery.

[Evil_Echo 11]

I know it's been an issue for a long time. But I really miss the sound of shells flying through the air.

BI aircraft and missiles have an in-flight sound that doppler shifts properly. So it should be technically possible. I've even looked at this a bit, but locating a good source has proven beyond my limited skills. Note - I know about plenty of sites with sound effects of artillery, but all the ones I have found are samples that are doppler-shifting, have explosions in them, etc. Never could manage to cut a short sample from one of those and not get a horrible "beat" effect.

Opinions, thoughts, suggestions??

[Daniel 0]

I'd very much like to see this too.

Have you tested using a single high pitched note and observed how it sounds in game?

[roberthammer 582]

Look at GL4 arty or maybe ACE2 got too dunno

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[Daniel 0]

Great sounds, but the way they follow the shells and play repeatedly is an immersion killer. Plus as EvilEcho pointed out, you still get a double Doppler effect.

I wonder how a constant high pitched whistle would sound.

[Evil_Echo 11]

Basically the in-flight sound would be some kind of whistle/screech/roar at contant pitch. The sound engine does the rest for doppler-shift and localizing the origin.

If you dig into the BI .pbo files you can find the sound effect for missiles to get an idea of what I'm thinking about.

It would add a lot to the reality to hear that sky-getting-torn sound of incoming, it motivates you to hug dirt very quickly. A good set of samples and minor config changes would be all it takes.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

The ingame doppler effect is supposed to increase immersion. In some cases, for slow moving things, it does. But for shells and rockets and the like, it completely ruins everything. What we need is a control that allows us to define the maximum doppler effect applied for any given sound.

I'm very much "into sounds" myself. I've tried "de-dopplerizing" ;) sounds that are impossible to get without doppler already built in, and tune them way below normal. But it was futile, it sounded nothing like what I was hoping for. For rocket burns (Grad21s in my case), I have to use a 20 second sample in order to get like a 2 second sound. It's detuned, but I still only get a whosh rather than the roar it has originally. Also, sometimes the engine messes things up completely, and parts of the sound in the beginning are played at extreme pitches - but not consistently. Which is why I need a 20 second sample. In game, you will notice the sound engine throwing up on something, and you'll notice the sample is much shorter than it usually is.

I've completely given up the idea of sounds attached to shells, and rather put HeliHEmpty on expected drop point and let them play the sound.

But, I hope you succeed :)

[Defunkt 431]

Never could manage to cut a short sample from one of those and not get a horrible "beat" effect.

Opinions, thoughts, suggestions??

Have you tried a tone generator? IIRC there's one built into Audacity. I think I used this to create the beeping for Mando's manpad locking.

[Evil_Echo 11]

Did try the tone generator in Audicity. And some simple filters there also. Very unsatisfactory results for this, but that might just be my limited skills in sound editing.

Have scoped some existing samples and they are rough waveforms with odd harmonics in them - definitely not pure tones nor white or pink noise. You'd need a serious fourier synthesis tool to create such a sample from scratch.

I'd hope BIS or someone with access to a pro sound library just might have an un-dopplered sound sample. Would be far easier.

CarlGustaffa - understand your comments and solution. But I do think this would work with the correct sample and the correct config keyword/value. The advantage would be that troups on the ground could hear outgoing fire arcing overhead much further away than your helipad technique can allow.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

All (vanilla) fires are high angle. Means the projectile will almost always be extremely far away. To make it audible you need rather extreme db values in the config. Just before the round impacts, it may not be that far away from the listener. But now those extreme db values will cause the round not to provide spatial information.

So, to me it is more important for the close up guy to be able to determine where the round is (he won't get far in that remaining second anyway, but the increased adrenaline is always welcome :)), than it is for the guys listening to the outbound round.

A possible workaround against the db values could be to track the shell, and setPos a sound player (i.e. a trigger) at the shells xy position, but at a fixed altitude above the terrain/sea. I use something similar for two "wind sound (cfgSFX based) trigger" (pseudo stereo), where these are constantly attachTo player, where z axis offset is based on wind force. Voila, instant ingame dynamic volume, something the engine doesn't support :p

Btw, I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm saying I have given up :)

[Defunkt 431]

Have scoped some existing samples and they are rough waveforms with odd harmonics in them - definitely not pure tones nor white or pink noise. You'd need a serious fourier synthesis tool to create such a sample from scratch.

Not really sure what sound you're looking for but THIS might be a decent base. The audio can be stripped using THIS.

[Evil_Echo 11]

Hmm - those sirens bring back memories. :-)

But what I meant by a synthesis tool was a more powerful version of this demo to build the waveform if I can't find a good sample otherwise. Fourier Synth

[CarlGustaffa 4]

There is a monotone and a triotone siren in VOPSound, provided by me (also provided them to ACE a while back). We made them for custom clan campaign in OFP ages ago, and CoolEdit (now Adobe Audition) was used to generate the sounds from scratch. Not made by me but by a friend of mine, but I was present when we made these things. Lots of fun :)

[Evil_Echo 11]

Well - not a siren. Although in some ways the waveform is somewhat similar. It's more the turbulent mixing of air following in the wake of the artillery round, depends on size and geometry. Fins add some extra tones as well, the infamous 'whistle'.

While not perfect source, a turbojet exhaust or rocket engine might be a good starting point. Short of some research project in profiling artillery for direction finding, don't think many places have a true sample they'd be willing to part with.