Wake up call for sound engine :)

Discussion in 'Wish Lists' started by K Szczech, Apr 24, 2015.

  1. K Szczech

    K Szczech Registered

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    Yup, something I have been always unhappy with in games - sound attenuation.

    Just like you can't hear footsteps in games from distances larger than 10-20 meters, you can't hear car engine sounds in racing games from distances larger than 100-200 meters.
    This makes sound more like "necessary addon" rather than living, breathing part of the environment.

    Game developers seem to focus more on samples and effects, spending more money on recording, rather than focusing on sound propagation. And I'm not talking echo or doppler effects. I'm talking something so basic as sound attenuation.
    Yes, processing power may not have been enough in the past, but nowadays it definitely can be done. It should only be a matter of priorities set by given development studio, and Sector 3 studios says "wake up" :)

    They showed that their perception of reality transfers to what they do with their sound engine:



    I guess more studios are aware of the gap in their sound engines, but seems like this subject has been "left for later" for too many years, by too many developers, who tend to follow the same path for years assuming that "it's the standard everyone else is using and accepting".
    Perhaps even most developers have something like this in mind for later development.... But now Sector 3 studios say "wake up, time to do it right" :)

    The bar has raised and frankly, it's been too long :)

    Hopefully this will inspire and motivate to give sound some priority. Perhaps not this month or this year, but the longer you wait, the more love will Sector 3 studios win from simracing fans.
     
  2. dylbie

    dylbie Registered

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    Wow that's impressive. Sounds so real!

    I played this afterwards and there isn't much difference!

     
  3. woochoo

    woochoo Registered

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    I love sound, at all distances :)
     
  4. K Szczech

    K Szczech Registered

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    One of the aspects that I would also love having captured is how differently car sounds from front and back.

    I'm not talking about Doppler effect, I'm talking about different acoustics of the car itself. At the rear you are more exposed to exhaust pipes and sometimes even the engine. I remember how differently Maserati MC12 GT1 car sounded from front and back. When in front, sound had to go around the car to reach you, but when at the rear you were directly exposed to that raw firepower.



    The car sounds a bit like you used lowpass filter on approach and then removed that filter when car has passed you. Normally, Doppler effect would cause higher sound on approach. In this case, while the sound obviously gets lower frequency due do Doppler effect, it also gets more high frequency details due to different acoustics of the car from the rear.

    You only need to look at the rear end of the car to understand why it attacks you so fiercely when you are standing behind it :)

    [​IMG]
     
  5. Fabio Pittol

    Fabio Pittol Registered

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    Those Sector3 sounds, specially the ones on that new video are simply amazing.

    If you close your eyes and listen, you feel track-side.
     
  6. Minibull

    Minibull Member

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    I always think of an old escort or a 4 cylinder BMW touring car. Amazing induction sound pounding away from the front, then you get the rasp from the pipe when it passes
     
  7. MarcG

    MarcG Registered

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    Nail on the Head mate, not just ISI in this regard (other Sims too) are failing massively due to lack of attention to Sound. Even the Basic requirement of 5.1 is lost ( especially with ISI) since I don't know when and I really don't know why, games in the early 2000s started having this as Basic in their games. Time to step up.
     
  8. Emery

    Emery Registered

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    Y'all know that Sector3 is using Miles sound engine, same as rF, right?
     
  9. Minibull

    Minibull Member

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    Which is why I keep in mind the comments made by ISI saying there will be work on the sound engine at some point. It cannot be said enough, these things take time.
     
  10. Guimengo

    Guimengo Guest

    It doesn't matter the technology if it isn't used to its extent.
     
  11. stonec

    stonec Registered

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    The attenuation is supposedly more realistic with recent rF2 cars. What it actually does is cut the sound off quicker, exponentially. Before it was less realistic. Part of the problem is that the PC speakers output order of magnitude less dB than a racing engine, so what you hear in far distance from real racing car basically translates to 0 sound from PC speaker/headphone.
     
  12. DurgeDriven

    DurgeDriven Banned

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    Me too that RRE audio would be nice at Longford.

    But I got to ask then what they spend there time doing, watching static replays on long straights or driving. hehehe

    Audio falls more into the eye candy basket for me, it depends what you want from a sim.

    I agree with OP and matter of priorities for ISI were engine physics dynamics, I drove RRE too. ;)

    Can't see how sound or weather will be drastically changed in RF2 but it is definitely something they must take on board for rF3.

    Assuming we don't keep pulling rF2 apart and scare away potential customers, can't develop a DXxx sim with peanuts.
     
  13. K Szczech

    K Szczech Registered

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    This problem has been solved in graphics by introduction of HDR.

    Very similar concept can work for sound engine, although a few minor changes in approach would have to be made in order to optimize it and to prevent sudden "explosions" when you switch camera.

    Instead of measuring loudness of sound output and adjusting to it, sound engine could know in advance how loud output it will produce by knowing average loudness of each wav file used and working in this domain. It's more complex than that, but it's a starting point - you should be able to hear sounds from distance when nothing loud is near you.

    Actually what ISI did with HDR recently is something similar - instead of using autoexposure they adjust to lighting conditions if I understood it correctly.
     
  14. B1K3R

    B1K3R Registered

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    For me personally, if the engine sound is crap I do not enjoy a sim/car at all. RE3 have done a great job and love driving their cars and hear that sound. rF2 is not that bad but I'd definitely would love a step up for the current sounds....
     
  15. Nitrometh

    Nitrometh Registered

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    +1 every time I visit races I am totally impressed by the sounds of the cars. Better sounds would be awsome. Or for the beginning....proper backfire sounds when the ignition cutter does its job. Love the backfire sound of the Toyota celica mod. :rolleyes:
     
  16. Noel Hibbard

    Noel Hibbard Registered

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    Shouldn't this thread be renamed, "Wake up call for sound modders"? If RRE can create great sound with gMotor2/Miles then shouldn't anyone be able to do the same with rF2?
     
  17. rhamm

    rhamm Registered

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    I guess that's nice and all but how does this affect sound inside the cockpit while I'm driving? Seems like something that would mostly be useful for replays.
     
  18. Fabio Pittol

    Fabio Pittol Registered

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    Just by using the same sound engine doesn't mean that it works exactly the same. And I very much doubt all the Miles parameters are directly accessible/configurable by the .sfx file.

    Also, RRE doesn't actually use gMotor2 per say, as GSCE does, for example. Simbin/Sector3 licensed the source code a while ago, which really means that stuff aren't probably "just the same".
     
  19. Emery

    Emery Registered

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    R3E has good cockpit sounds, too.
     
  20. Emery

    Emery Registered

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    Irrelevant as we already knew that the Miles sound engine is quite capable of good sound as demonstrated by the DRM Revival mod for rF1.
     

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