hardsiesta

Yeah, if there are unenterable buildings, it should be somewhat obvious visually. But I do find it quite a problem if an object serves only as a prop although it could have crucial gameplay value in a game like Arma. And picking props over gameplay is worse imo. I was mostly refering to SA apartment blocks tho. Somewhat like MDCCLXXVI said, perhaps having at least 1 usable windowed floor with ground floor (+possible roof) in most buildings, regardless of the actual number of storeys in the building, is the sweet spot that requires least work while still retaining most of the tactical aspects in having buildings at all. Mixed with variable storey buildings, it might work pretty well even if the buildings got bigger than 2 storey. There would still be plenty of peepholes on the horizontal plane, but also different vertical levels to keep in mind or take advantage of. The real problem with the "emptiness" in A3 buildings is that the majority of the buildings are the orange roof plaster house type-clones, and all the rooms in those buildings have the same flat grey textures. The rarer buildings, like the stone houses don't really suffer from this as much imo. There's also that the (lack of) lighting complexity doesn't do any favors to interiors. All non-linear shooter games generally keep furnitures and unnecessary props to minimum anyway. Just a little more color and variation in textures would go a long way on Altis too, so I hope they don't go all A2 just so they can get nice but completely irrelevant aestethics in order. But they really shouldn't underestimate the importance of having buildings bring authentic complexity to the combat environment, especially now that they have already achieved it.

It feels weird only when you're indoors yourself and have time to wonder about it. And then it's easy to understand when you go outside and realize you don't know any other game that offers similar combat or the environment for it. This is probably why none of the noobs I've recruited have complained about it either. They're in to play the tactical sandbox for the tactical possibilities it offers, not aestethics. Big buildings being partial is fine and entirely reasonable, like how it is in A3 or DayZ SA. It really helps that more often than not, you're still surrounded by many other buildings with many other real peepholes to worry about. In the end nothing feels as weird as the mostly unenterable A2 houses. And really, it's not like the interiors have generally been any focus or exactly credible in pretty much any other (primarily multiplayer) shooters either, although their platforms and overall gameplay design are far better built to do it, without exception. That occasional hookah and a carpet was pretty much right in the league in terms of object count. Other than that, the interior immersion is much more about much higher variation in lighting and texturing in those primarily mp games. It's going to be really weird if Arma will have the most furniture and least enterability, compared to much more casual shooters. Also, if there will be significant amount of furniture, will it be destroyable or movable? Will they have their own penetrabilities and such? Whether they do, I expect this to bring in some weirdness for its part as well.

Never cared about furniture. But to me, enterable buildings was the selling point in A3, and the thing I've loved the most. Nothing quite like moving through a town in A3, with potential contacts in any window or door you pass. Usable doors and windows essentially are the urban combat. Unusable buildings are just going to be in the way if there's no urban gameplay, and a waste of resources, just like furniture. Unusable "cubes" feel awkward and distracting, particularly if they have more faked peepholes. I was actually impressed with how shamelessly practical no-nonsense, no bs approach A3 had, and how much it gained with it. Quite disappointed to see something like furniture even plays a part in this step back. Not to mention it's expressed as the first and foremost reason, even before "also performance". Really made me quite worried, over all of my huge respect for the series. "We all know that Altis had a great many enterable buildings, but they were void of furniture and felt suspiciously empty. We don't have the resources to solve this by producing top-notch varied interiors for all buildings." leading to "more solid buildings" just sounds damn terrible. That's the most crucial gameplay aspect being weighed against aestethics there. Jesus. I'd rather have no buildings over useless ones. Just shift the focus on non-urban combat, but keep it as no-nonsense as you did in A3 so far, please.

Glad to see waiting 2years for this post was worth it. And more. Very much looking forward to this.

Not sure if I missed this before my last post or if it got changed since then, but the " pop" echo now seems to play and pretty good in open spaces, and it seems pretty much centered. Seems like it's in some urban spots that the echo is panned and becomes slightly disturbing if you turn around and still keep hearing it from same direction. It's starting to sound pretty nice. My biggest concern still is the sonic crack at close range. Sound great further away from the bullet, but nearby ones still sound pretty weird (wildly flailing pitch from ricochets, for example) and weak for a near boom. Yes yes... I have seen the same marketing and presentations you're repeating. I was trying to hint at it with the "basically..." part. Remember the part "It's not a compressor, but it kinda is. For your ears and neighbors" or something? That's what I'm talking about. Everything that happens inside and outside that "window" is technically very nice, but to me the resulting impression is exactly what I said, and that "window" has really burned itself into my brain in the (plenty of) hours I've listened to it. Yes I can make any game and its audio image loud, and no, and I'm not completely ignorant about what ears are. Not really sure what I should get from this, but it seems irrelevant so I'll leave it at that.On the other hand, while it's slightly inconvenient, I find it actually pretty damn cool that riding an open heli, standing next to a loud engine, firefight or any other loud things actually makes communication harder, in all its simplicity. No nonsense, no bullshit, just surprising authenticity with simple methods. But your popularity, convenience and pleasantness argument could be made generally for selling any compressor, or against other aspects in Arma that doesn't follow the usual marketing friendly action game features, but offers alternatives instead. I can see what Arma audio team went for with the loudness, and can appreciate it. I can understand your preference as well, but I just don't hear it as the best and final answer for everything. Edit: Oh and TS is 3rd party. What if you set it up like the game's own communication channels? Would probably "work as intended" with how the loudness is done in Arma. I think this discussion belongs in some other thread anyway. As long as my additional note to the confusing use of "dynamic range" came clear, that's my 2 cents about it for now. +1 what bouben said.

That's not what I meant. I was trying to repeat what I wrote a page or two back, where I said perhaps more clearly that there's preference to the old samples most likely because they may have been closer to what a near pass would sound like. But the new samples sound much more like it would sound like, listened from further away. I think the cracks sound way better than before, if you listen a firefight from a "safe distance". The pitch variance seems milder and much better like that as well. But the same sound doesn't work just as well when you're getting shot at yourself, and I can see if someone liked the old better because of that. So I hope that with the attenuation and everything they're trying to get the distant sounds worked out first, and then make the close sounds as good as possible. The sounds in BF are great, but I always perceived it as the example of wall of sound in games. Their "dynamic range" means their special technique which is basically an advanced audio culling and compression method AFAIK. That's why it's pleasing. But it's also even as hell, I never shat my pants when something suddenly blew me up, like in ArmA. I just hope they don't make ArmA sound like that. A budged and sounds as polished (for their respective purposes) would be great, but not the pleasing movie experience. Those pleasant and even sound images are great for easy listening, but don't give shit of an impression of authenticity, or a real firefight which obviously sounds both dynamic and unpleasant as hell. That's an interesting video. The beginning part is a good example of at least the illusion of loudness, the longer sample makes. The second part demonstrates what I've thought since A3 came out: The mechanical sounds of the shot seem very overemphasized. It seems like a fashionable thing to do in games these days. Glad they made the mechanical parts as loud as the shot instead of making the shot as quiet as the mechanical parts, tho. The mechanical sounds are very nice, but they should be closer to footsteps than the discharge imo. I hope they take that into consideration. Yes for balance in your usual movie or the studio recording of your favorite band. No way for Arma. You're way off with your laptop example; That's exactly why they mix and master for balance in modern recordings, so that it sounds as pleasant as possible in as wide variety of playback devices as possible, especially the bad ones. On the other hand, ArmA would sound worse than anything else on it, because it has different and better priorities. This has been exactly the highlight of Arma's audio: Loud is loud. And it's reasonably so. I can clearly hear the wind and footsteps, and all that, while the louds aren't too loud or annoying, but intimidating and credible. Can't say the same for typical "mastering" on pretty much anything. Definitely not BF (even if the sounds are the most crisp and detailed). Oh yeah and what I actually came to post about... Isn't the delayed "pop" sounds in firefights supposed to be the gunshot being reflected from distant surrounding terrain? I was just wondering why it seems to kick in when I get into urban areas instead. Also, if the reflection isn't going to have actual "reflection" for the time being, it would probably be good if the echo was dead center instead of panned to the other side that doesn't change with directions. Thanks.

Clipping is obviously too much, but other than that, doesn't "leave volume to listeners" mean exactly leaving/designing the audio "uneven" or "uncompressed"? I always liked ArmA's audio because it's relatively dynamic compared to the "compressed" or even audio in pretty much every other shooter. The audio image always felt more "alive" than even the "best" you can find in game audio, because of that, despite arguably worse samples and stuff. Although comparing to "hollywood" samples is kinda wrong anyway. IMO Arma always had it quite right; You could keep the volume up to hear footsteps but wouldn't lose hearing when something blew right next to you... But you still ought to have clean trousers to change into :) Anyway, I trust they keep it right like they have. They shouldn't compress or make anything much louder. An indoor shot doesn't need to be louder to listeners in same room or building, in my opinion. It should have the appropriate environmental effects though, and occlusion and filtering to outsiders. Ear protection is an interesting question too. I hope so, but what they did was change the old "always near" crack to the new "always far" crack. So I wouldn't call them a "joke", albeit the varied pitch sounds seem a bit off. Not every crack you hear are supposed to be flying right beside you, and whether that crack is deafening or not depends on how close to your ear or mic it's flying. And its direction. The old crack was alright for a dry crack at close range, but only to some extent. The game never had a "proper" close range sonic boom anyway, probably mostly due to lack of environmental effects. I hope they do that right after proper long range cracks, and figure some way to cross these two by distance.

I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing. I am aware of the dopper effect and sound barrier, but interesting to see something specific to both. I might be a bit skeptical, but I wouldn't bet the game does it for every irrelevant sound, like the sonic cracks. And it probably shouldn't either. I'm pretty sure it didn't do it before this update, at least. But that's not what I meant anyways. My bet would be that they indeed made the cracks pitch play according to the projectile speed in this update. I mean that when you're getting shot at, the pitch variance can be almost disturbingly wide. Supercereal4's last video demonstrates it pretty well in my opinion. Generally, some of the shots sound very good, at just the right pitch. Probably the sample's natural pitch. But when that gets modified too much it becomes obvious, although the pitch itself might be scientifically correct to the bullet speed. But that's just my impression and guess. I just think in the low pitched cracks this "strangeness", that some others have posted about too, is most obvious compared to higher pitches, although it does get similarly audible in "elevated" pitch as well. I would bet they're indeed ricochets because of such dramatic difference in shots fired from fixed range and situation. Maybe the pitch itself is correct, but I haven't personally heard that low "cracks". Reminds me more of dropping an empty beer can on the floor. Perhaps the volume should go down with the pitch (and speed) as well, or the cracks sound form should reflect the change in some other ways, or something? I'm not a scientist or own a firing range, but I would be very surprised if particularly the lowest cracks were spot on lifelike. Nevertheless, I really like the new mechanics, and the sound isn't *that* bad for first iteration either. Pretty damn good at right distance from the flight path, actually. I just think it needs some more work, and obviously the close range boom effects are still missing, which is top 2 on my fix and feature wishlist. Maybe there's preference to old cracks if they were closer to close range cracks in some characteristics.

That is a good point. I think the sounds on dev are well off to becoming great for distant cracks, but like I mentioned in a previous post, there should also be a relatively loud sonic boom like it is at the shooter's position. This is the only essential sound I always missed in Arma, but it didn't really matter if you used a gun that was louder. Good example of this sound is a supersonic round fired from a suppressed gun. You hear only the loud but not deafening boom(reflecting off the environment). The closer the bullet flies by, the more the crack could cross into this kind of sound, perhaps. This would fix the James Bond suppressors present in the game too. I presume you're talking about the old sounds. Yes, there was like one very dry snap, perhaps some slight variants of it, but basically just one. Thinking about it, the pitch variance that was added now is probably the most important varying characteristic in the cracking. If they added some environmental effects like reverberation/muffling on top of it, it would probably go a long ways already. So that's definitely a good place to start. That's why I really like the new sounds, although the sound itself, the lowest and highest variants at least, could use some more work. What I've been saying too. Although it's nothing compared to a gunshot. I don't think people usually use ear protection when they shoot supersonic with suppressors.

Hmm. I see what you mean, I think they were snappier before. But some of the cracks are snappy now too, although not all. Not sure if they all even should though, hard to say now that they seem to vary so much. Unless my memory completely fails me, I think the problem with the old vanilla cracks was that it seemed as if it was one type of a very dry crack in any situation. If I had to throw in some wild guesses, I'd say it's something like an AK shot from far away, at some very barren environment or high up in the air or something. Anyway, one improvement that the cracks have now is varying pitch, which is quite correct afaik. But there's a problem, the pitch variance seems a bit too obvious and strong imo (the lowest and the highest). It may well be what takes the snappiness out from some cracks, too. Other than that, I think it's definitely going in the right direction. Not that I have much authority, haven't been around the receiving end that much, but the new cracks seem to have more "environment" (or less cutoff by mic) in them and there seems to be more variance so they seem way more organic than before. Preserving the snappiness and going a bit easier on the pitch would probably be good ideas. Other than that I hope to see the cracks take advantage of any environmental effects they may add, and perhaps one day even weapon/ammo or their attribute specific cracks and booms. Man can dream. Speaking of sonic boom, I'd really like to see suppressors have it. They shoot super sonic yet they sound like subsonic to the shooter. I never use them because they make me feel like James Bond. Making an actual boom that utilizes environmental effects would probably be asking too much for now, but I'd try a workaround by including a sonic boom on the suppressed gunshot instead of just the mechanical sounds it makes. Or something.

Very nice! This is starting to sound like what I've been waiting to hear. Always liked how dynamic the audio was, and I don't think I've been as close to crapping my pants as with the latest bangs and cracks. I hope they take a good look at the ability to tell indoor/outdoor shot apart and closed spaces muffling shots too. That's what I've waited as the most important improvement yet, since enterable buildings. But while I was a bit gloomy about the seemingly slow development on the audio side, now I can anticipate this with full optimism. :) One problem I noticed is that the distant echoes seem to always play (louder) from either side of the character. Could be my audio setup, but it seems that MX echoes are on the right and Zafir's on the left. But anyways, glad to see the most important aspect coming up nicely. Great work.

The range along the barrel really is too liberal at the moment, and stance adjustments should probably reset the resting. Might be entirely situational, and with aiming angle in mind, up-down seems to forgive about 2 adjustments. 1 would probably be close enough, but 2 seems too much. Sideways seems alright, as it seems to have been made to fit the character's right side almost touching (collide, not visually) a parallel wall, but I'd try making it tighter even if it meant having to lean the right side to the parallel wall, to get some of the padding off when behind an object. Although every centimeter "exploited" there also means unnecessary exposure in that case. I'm saying this based on testing only, not sure these ideas wouldn't make it too impractical in actual game or something.

Awesome addition, love it. Might be just me, but in some situations it feels like the distance could be a little bit tighter. Now that everyone's encouraged to hug the walls, it would be appropriate to make a priority of fixing the ridiculously easy ability to look through walls and objects, though. It was mostly fixed in DayZ SA last summer already.

Very nice, keep up the good work. This and these mods really show how important more advanced audio is for authenticity, and overall "image" of the game as well. Credible audio really complements the whole, visuals and everything, and vice versa. I'm sure there are good reasons why this aspect of the game seems somewhat neglected in vanilla, now with so many other aspects eclipsing it, and while it has improved, I think it's time BI really took example and put audio higher in their priority list. Much higher, the mechanics particularly.

Awesome project, very good work so far. Very much looking forward to this, can't think of any more important addition to A3 as it is, than this. I hope you can achieve the sound you are looking for, but I think the sounds are already far more dynamic than anything I know of. It's been a positive aspect in vanilla sounds too, but especially on this one. Few other games that implement any more complicated modeling have a very compressed overall audio "image", in my opinion, while this thing doesn't. Which is awesome. I wonder, would it be possible to set minimum volume thresholds, to selectively play simultaneous sounds to the listener? Just some ignorant, random thought on the large battle blowing the computer up -thing...