First of all, I don't want to sound arrogant cause I am quite naive in this, so take this more as from someone with a common sense. I have to say that I am no professional programmer and never met with the "real" matter, but I spent many years of my life modding, including rFactor, so I know how, at least some, things function. I also must warn that I have no idea if this has already been implemented in rf2, or any other game cause I was working on rf1. I must say I am really unimpressed by the sound in rf2.. Not only by it's quality, but in lack of improvement. While I was trying to record sounds for my mod, I realised that the external sound is completely different in the front than in the back, right in front of exhaust, or right in front of the engine, the sound also greatly varied with distance, few centimetres, just above the bonnet, a meter, 100 meters, kilometre.. So of course this is nothing new, you've seen this and heard so many times. But it presented a great challenge for me, what exactly to take as external sound.. Now if you think engine sound in games is unrealistic, You could say it's because of the sound recording, quality, threshold, bad positioning.. But lets take it's the absolute best quality and well refined for human ear, still, it's not good, I'd say, it's 99% because these factors I mentioned before are neglected. So, the idea is: I was always wondering, if rf1 engine allowed blending of .wav files according to rpm. Why doesn't it allow (in external cams) blending of .wav files according to orientation, and distance?? So having more samples, each according to orientation towards car and distance.. I know this is not my idea, cause it's too simple (but I love simple ideas), and in my opinion this would dramatically increase the quality of sound in rf together with existing effects like sound occlusion, Doppler and echo. Now of course there is another big factor, the greater the distance the more the surroundings affects it, the sound wave dissipation, absorption or reflection on nearby objects (completely different if it was a city, a forest, or a tunnel), occlusion.. But I guess this is something that is much harder to take into account, both coding heavy and performance heavy (but to be taken in account for future xD), unless bypassed by effects such as low/high passes and such, still I believe distance and orientation sampling is the best improving alternative for now. I hope someone from ISI will consider this.. In the mean time take a good look... Or should I say, a good "hear" at the amazing upcoming WRC VW and take good care at when it turns and at what distance
I think I have had similar thoughts too http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.php/7301-My-opinion-what-is-wrong-with-exterior-sounds
Not really a double as that was not wishlist thread. I have put some sound stuff to this wishlist too, but perhaps bit different angle there: http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.php/7212-More-time-spent-for-ISI-car-sounds-improvement-ideas Anyway it is indeed very good that there are more that find sounds lacking, hopefully all that wish improvements on those areas are voicing out their opinions, so that ISI has more reason to focus on sounds.
nice post, nothke. Even if mentioned in other posts, it is worth to talk about it because seems sound is like a "bastard child"
I have found two really good and interesting articles about sound in racing games, the first one is a study of sounds in various arcade racing games (with examples), and the second one is an interview with a sound designer from Codemasters, he sums up the technology he is working on and the future of sound design in games: http://blog.lostchocolatelab.com/2012/05/racing-game-sound-study.html http://www.tracktimeaudio.com/?p=484
Very good and useful set of links to learn in deep the general sound perspective. Good job and thanks for sharing.
Hey, David from track time audio here! Glad to see people are reading that article. To the OP, the problem lies in the fact that sound has to tie into the game's physics somehow. In the film industry, for example, they can just record something that sounds cool, like a car whipping by, they can just slap that over the video and say "WHOA COOL!" Video games, on the other hand, have to have something in the game to tie every sonic change to, and then also have some way to make that change happen. Some times it can be sound sample changes, sometimes i can be changes in DSP. I'm not familiar with RF2's sound system but I suspect the audio-to-physics tie-ins aren't strong enough to fully simulate what's going on with pass-bys like posted in the OP.