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Soldat Talk => Game Improvements / Suggestions => Topic started by: Gnoblar on January 14, 2009, 06:03:19 am

Title: Ambience.
Post by: Gnoblar on January 14, 2009, 06:03:19 am
Every map deserves it's own special "them" and it would be quite interesting and nice to add in some extra candy tot eh game, by allowing a map "ambience". It's simply a sound file that repeats during the game on each particular map, so some wind effects, a car  hinking it's horn, some rattling gunfire, faint screams/groans for zombie maps. It would be nice (Being a .wav you could easily edit them). With polyworks, you simply go to map settings and go to a drop down that say "Map Ambience" With "None" as it's first option.

If you wanted more realistic ambience, it would be cool if you could click on a polygon and make it have it's own sounds if you go near it (An engine, a moan, a bird chirping) but that's just me be enthusiastic, I'd liek to see the first option done.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: STM1993 on January 14, 2009, 06:13:52 am
It would be nice (though at the expense of a really large map size), but I wouldn't want to wait for a whole bunch of time for a really long ambience sound. And sound files are usually pretty large and take a long time to download.

I'd say F12 with an option.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: daphenomena on January 14, 2009, 08:42:25 am
It would be a nice but I bet that the map loading time would be extended and some people
would use very large files for ambient.
Good idea tho  ;)
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: Gotfryd on January 14, 2009, 09:33:22 am
Both ideas are good, F12.
I know that some players are using slow internet connections, but imo it's worth it.
And maybe some compressed format should be used? Soldat has mp3 player, so mp3 should be easy to implement...

PS can you add a poll, please?
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: ~Niko~ on January 14, 2009, 11:25:31 am
Easier for everyone: Make this suggestion with premade sound files that already come with soldat and can be chosen when making the map.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: STM1993 on January 14, 2009, 11:29:09 am
Easier for everyone: Make this suggestion with premade sound files that already come with soldat and can be chosen when making the map.

I'd agree with the idea of having pre-made sound files too.

Minor Problem: What if some mapmakers want to use their own sound files?
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: Gotfryd on January 14, 2009, 01:03:14 pm
Easier for everyone: Make this suggestion with premade sound files that already come with soldat and can be chosen when making the map.
Minor Problem: What if some mapmakers want to use their own sound files?

Imo this could work just like scenery does: there are some deafult scenery, but mapmaker can make his own and distribute it with map.
So, there would be "background-sfx" folder, it would contain some default files which can be used in a map, but it would also be possible to put your own sound files there and use them in maps.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: croat1gamer on January 14, 2009, 01:07:20 pm
i think i made this suggestion somewhere here, i am pretty much sure about that

cause im sure that is pretty much mine suggestion, ill f12
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: STM1993 on January 14, 2009, 01:31:15 pm
Well Gotfryd, the problem is if the mapmaker decides to use a large sound file for the ambience. Then we'd have to download. The solution is to have some default ones, but it won't work if the mapmaker decides to use those that aren't the default. I wouldn't be surprised to see idiotic uses of ambience like how the new animated scenery would be used.

Actually,there is already something LIKE an ambience. Look inside sfx and Modules, and you'd notice "sfx_rain.xm" and a few other similar files. They act as the sound when you are playing in a map with certain weather conditions. Perhaps this suggestion is an improvement on this.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: Gotfryd on January 14, 2009, 02:24:24 pm
Well Gotfryd, the problem is if the mapmaker decides to use a large sound file for the ambience. Then we'd have to download.

We can put a limit on size and number of sound files used in a map.

Actually,there is already something LIKE an ambience. Look inside sfx and Modules, and you'd notice "sfx_rain.xm" and a few other similar files. They act as the sound when you are playing in a map with certain weather conditions. Perhaps this suggestion is an improvement on this.

Good point. If it can be used for this idea, it'd be great - less coding.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: ZomgProniss on January 14, 2009, 02:46:13 pm
i like the idea so ill F12 but it would be hard to notice these sounds over the consent gunfire =\
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: Banksey on January 14, 2009, 02:47:55 pm
Well Gotfryd, the problem is if the mapmaker decides to use a large sound file for the ambience. Then we'd have to download. The solution is to have some default ones, but it won't work if the mapmaker decides to use those that aren't the default. I wouldn't be surprised to see idiotic uses of ambience like how the new animated scenery would be used.

Actually,there is already something LIKE an ambience. Look inside sfx and Modules, and you'd notice "sfx_rain.xm" and a few other similar files. They act as the sound when you are playing in a map with certain weather conditions. Perhaps this suggestion is an improvement on this.

Is it possible to edit these files for client side use?
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: LtKillroy on January 14, 2009, 04:57:38 pm
F12 if it is: disablable, not on default maps, and has a restriction to the size so it isn't like 20 minutes long.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: ~Niko~ on January 14, 2009, 05:47:34 pm
Minor Problem: What if some mapmakers want to use their own sound files?
This idea would be added to a soldat version, then after a week of its release MM should make a poll asking about if this likes us or not. If it likes us a lot and works nicely he could add custom sfx, too.

Also, don't be that extreme, not everybody would use this feature.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: a fool on January 14, 2009, 07:02:19 pm
How about being able to set specific point in the map that would play a sound, but the further the player is from that point, the softer the sound is.
This would add more realism and it would leave you with smaller file size with greater possibilities.
It would be pretty dumb to hear normally a car running when it's half a mile away...

F12 then
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: scarface09 on January 14, 2009, 10:41:05 pm
F12, yeah pre-sounds would make it sound cooler!
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: Gnoblar on January 14, 2009, 11:25:15 pm
Ok, how's this. The Sounds are saved in the maps folder, but then in a sub-folder named "ambience-sfx" or something of the sort, and in Polyworks, you can set the Map Ambience to a .WAV OR A .MP3 (For smaller files). The default setting for all maps should be "None" in a drop
With polyworks, you simply go to map settings and go to a drop down that say "Map Ambience" With "None" as it's first option.

It would be an excellent option for games like Trench wars and other such games with large maps and the combat is short and sweet.

When you download the map, it should have an option that says "Soldat has detected an ambience sound file on the current map, would you oike to download?" and you can say yes or no. The maps should be playable with or without the ambience, and still count as the same map (Not "Wrong Map Version Detected" or "Map scenery (or in this case, sound) missing")
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: STM1993 on January 15, 2009, 06:01:28 am
Is it possible to edit these files for client side use?

Almost all Soldat files are client-sided.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: homerofgods on January 15, 2009, 06:33:53 am
f12
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: poopdogg on January 15, 2009, 06:41:44 am
nice idea

f12
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: homerofgods on January 15, 2009, 11:42:40 am
I'm guessing most people would put on some type of music instead, so there should be a on/off ambient sound.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: Gotfryd on January 15, 2009, 04:35:51 pm
How about being able to set specific point in the map that would play a sound, but the further the player is from that point, the softer the sound is.

Yeah, that's similar to what Gnoblar wrote about sounds "attached" to polygons, but may work out even better.

there should be a on/off ambient sound.

Right.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: boer on January 16, 2009, 01:28:06 pm
yes it must be an option for the person downloading the map. Ambiance plays a huge role in any game..
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: KYnetiK on January 16, 2009, 01:53:10 pm
F12. We should all be smart enough here to be aware of how it would function (like scenery), that a size/length limit is needed, and to be an option. Nuff said.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: ZomgProniss on January 16, 2009, 01:58:00 pm
^agreed^
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: scarface09 on January 16, 2009, 08:16:56 pm
^^Agreed again^^
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: Gnoblar on January 16, 2009, 09:23:54 pm
If the person whose downloading had control whether to download the ambience file, then it would work, if not, then soldat will start losing it's "Low Bandwith" market.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: Mittsu on January 17, 2009, 09:13:23 am
F12 for optional
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: tendulker on January 20, 2009, 09:53:13 pm
When you download the map, it should have an option that says "Soldat has detected an ambience sound file on the current map, would you oike to download?" and you can say yes or no.

I like this, or maybe in the config.exe make a drop down box or something with options like; always download ambiance, never download ambiance, always ask . Or maybe even 'ask if file size is over ____' where youd fill in the blank.

Quote
I'm guessing most people would put on some type of music instead

I wouldn't mind this, good servers would choose maps with decent/appropriate music, right? Copyright issues would force only copyright-free music, though. But thats not really a bad thing, as it would probably also only be instrumental.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: chutem on January 21, 2009, 12:20:22 am
Only if you can choose to use them/download them.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: Gnoblar on April 19, 2009, 11:48:00 pm
I hope to see this implemented.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: Rabspat on April 21, 2009, 03:42:08 am
This is one of the only things I'd really like to see added, considering I find sound design to be a very important aspect in gaming.  Sometimes the pure, dull silence of the maps in Soldat is a turn off.  Maybe that's just me.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: Gnoblar on April 21, 2009, 05:46:06 am
This is one of the only things I'd really like to see added, considering I find sound design to be a very important aspect in gaming.  Sometimes the pure, dull silence of the maps in Soldat is a turn off.  Maybe that's just me.

Yeah, it's always nice to hear a dull thd and distant rattle of ambience, or birds chirping and rivers flowing.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: Platehead on April 21, 2009, 07:51:00 am
Yep F12, as said above with the restrictions mentioned.
In addition, we have the Music Volume and the Game Volume which we can change to our likings, maybe we could also have a separate Background Volume for this sfx.  This means that you'd be able to control how loud the background music is, as I read in some post that you wouldn't want it drowning the gameplay volume.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: scout on April 21, 2009, 08:04:21 am
F12,

heres a suggestion- there's actually is a way to add an ambience file, however, this only applies to infiltration mode. this particular sound file, triggers every 25 seconds- thats when blue team scores 5 points, ive replaced that file with a battle ambience sound(which was about 25 seconds long) and from what i heard, it actually worked out quite well.

but again, id say a great idea and addition to soldat.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: PaFel on April 21, 2009, 08:52:21 am
Best option would be .wav scenery. Easy to do. It could work like normal one. Back - heard everywhere, middle heard in this place, front, same as middle but smaler range.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: Gnoblar on April 21, 2009, 10:23:24 am
Best option would be .wav scenery. Easy to do. It could work like normal one. Back - heard everywhere, middle heard in this place, front, same as middle but smaler range.

Like "Sound Scenery" from Halo CE, like a river or a generator making a humming etc. Excellent idea.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: Toxic Avenger on April 21, 2009, 12:58:34 pm
Wav is out of the question... Perhaps .ogg or something with harder compression?
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: JFK on April 21, 2009, 01:51:02 pm
Giving sounds to scenery should be possible with scripting probably in 1.5.1

The new scriptcore should give the server the possibility to let a client play a certain sound and add the relative distance of that sound to the player. However once a sound starts playing it will probably be impossible to change the distance and direction of the sound and thus if you want sound-scenery to be dynamical enough one could only use very short sounds/loops.
Talking about loops, there is another problem. There are no options in the new scriptcore for advanced timing of sounds (which is needed for seemless looping). It would be nice if a server can give a player a queue of soundfiles and maybe timing information. The client would handle the timing of the sounds by itself. This also gives the possibility for musical timing and thus dynamic music and/or ambience (music/ambience that changes with the state of the game).
I've been walking around with these ideas for a while and might just open a whole topic about it one day, but it seems very relevant to this.

(tl;dr)
I suggest the following things for the next scriptcore:
- Ability to alter a sound's distance/direction while playing for map-placed "sound-scenery's"
- Ability to loop/queue soundfiles for a client-side player for dynamic music and ambience.
- And if this all could be multichannel i'd be the happiest sounddesigner in soldat universe
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: Splinter-Snake on April 21, 2009, 01:54:01 pm
Definitely F12. So much room for improvement regarding sound.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: croat1gamer on April 21, 2009, 03:17:14 pm
Once again f12-ing.

Also, it would make excellent if you want to change it, also it should be moddable.
Lets say, you play on an desert themed map, then you use a mod which changes a big part of the scenery and textures to a snowy background, he should be able to add arctic ambience, insead of dessert ambience that comes with the map.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: Gnoblar on April 22, 2009, 05:45:07 am
I like your way of thinking  JFK. I like it. My main idea is all I'd really like to see though, an ambient track that is optional for download, I wouldn't like it to have to be scripted in, as most people can't script, and I'd like to see it on offline maps.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: vehicledestroyer on October 19, 2010, 02:41:36 am
Giving sounds to scenery should be possible with scripting probably in 1.5.1

The new scriptcore should give the server the possibility to let a client play a certain sound and add the relative distance of that sound to the player. However once a sound starts playing it will probably be impossible to change the distance and direction of the sound and thus if you want sound-scenery to be dynamical enough one could only use very short sounds/loops.
Talking about loops, there is another problem. There are no options in the new scriptcore for advanced timing of sounds (which is needed for seemless looping). It would be nice if a server can give a player a queue of soundfiles and maybe timing information. The client would handle the timing of the sounds by itself. This also gives the possibility for musical timing and thus dynamic music and/or ambience (music/ambience that changes with the state of the game).
I've been walking around with these ideas for a while and might just open a whole topic about it one day, but it seems very relevant to this.

(tl;dr)
I suggest the following things for the next scriptcore:
- Ability to alter a sound's distance/direction while playing for map-placed "sound-scenery's"
- Ability to loop/queue soundfiles for a client-side player for dynamic music and ambience.
- And if this all could be multichannel i'd be the happiest sounddesigner in soldat universe

uhh? Bump! 1.5.1 (or 1.6...?) is coming out "soon" -MM. If it's as easy as scripting maybe they could slip it in before release. Read this thread; 100% community support! This is my favorite Game Improvements / Suggestions of all time. Out of ALL of them this one has the best Game improvement to Work needed... ratio...

Make it happen.

Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: Dr.DR4IG on October 19, 2010, 08:08:32 am
I too would like the ability to put 'ambient' sounds in-map. Perhaps along the same way colliders are used, But the 'size' of the object determining 'ambient range' or how loud the sound is at <x> distance from the emitter. This has been bugging me as there's areas in my maps where a bit of techno-noise or some water or steam sounds could be useful.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: darDar on October 19, 2010, 08:27:36 am
nice idea, but i guess many people would just edit their sounds that way that they will know where enemies are (you said go on polygon and sound appears)
but the idea is still nice as long as the RESULT will not end in a crappy half baken shit
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: Monsteri on October 19, 2010, 09:24:27 am
f12 too, harm that I didn't notice this topic before I posted my own.. But I agree.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: vehicledestroyer on October 20, 2010, 01:01:35 pm
nice idea, but i guess many people would just edit their sounds that way that they will know where enemies are (you said go on polygon and sound appears)
but the idea is still nice as long as the RESULT will not end in a crappy half baken s**t

If the sound is 'on' a polygon; which it won't be, it would have a radius too and wouldn't reach far.
Eh, but I mean that only those who are standing in circle, can hear sound.


----

The main thing I see happening is people remaking there favorite maps and the original maps, adding sounds AND animated scenery. Bigfalls with animated scenery and water fall sounds! Jungle WITH jungle sounds! It will be to greatest thing ever.

That is all.
(Also have an option NOT to have a radius (full map sound))
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: X-Rayz on October 26, 2010, 11:46:15 pm
None of the files would be big. As long as you only include subtle sounds, which is the whole point of ambience, nobody would notice that it was a 30 second or minute long loop.
Title: Re: Ambience.
Post by: scarface09 on October 27, 2010, 12:46:45 am
This does sound remotely useful...may make the game sound better. Or...enesce could make fkd up noises and make this game sound like s**t.

In this case he may use his voice...for example him taking a shit or is that just my imagination.