Sound in Planetside: Next

[Raymac]

I know we are scraping the bottom of the barrel here, but hey thats what we gotta do for now.

For me, I liked the sound effects in Planetside, but I never really loved them as a whole. With a few exceptions, I wish the weapons in this game were less "pew pew" and more "boom boom". I think I'd like to see, err, hear the weapons rumble a little bit more, have a more mechanical bass sound.

It just feels like most of the weapons are more on the higher pitched side of the spectrum and I'd like to see it shifted more to a lower pitch and just sound heavier. I know alot of the weapons are energy based, but you can still give them more of a boom than a pew.

I'm curious, am I on an island on this? Do you guys think the sound effects in Planetside fit just right? Or would you like them to me a little more rock'n'roll?

[Tikuto]

C e r y s h e n
http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/0c/cf/de/calpe-mountain-countryside.jpg

Look at this small clip of a huge area. The distance to the mountain is actually far away.
Imagine there's one Reaver. It speeds towards you from the other side of the mountain.

How should that Reaver sound before and after its passing from beyond the mountain?
And as it approaches or flies-by, how does that affect the trees?

[Miir]

I'd like to have them do it with 3D sound in mind. So you can get a feel for where people/vehicles/gunshots are in the game in relationship to your character.

Oh and more voice macros!

Music wise... probably easiest thing to do is allow you to play mp3's.

[Raymac]

I'd like to have them do it with 3D sound in mind. So you can get a feel for where people/vehicles/gunshots are in the game in relationship to your character.

Oh and more voice macros!

Music wise... probably easiest thing to do is allow you to play mp3's.

I thought the sound was already 3D. Granted it's not the best ever, but my headphones to a great job of letting me know where sounds are coming from. I think they can do an even better job with it, though and make the sounds more crisp.

Oh yeah, and definitely more voice macros and intigrate our own music. I had the PS music turned off for years because it gave me like a 5fps boost.

[Rbstr]

Music wise, don't disable my keyboards multimedia keys like some games do so I can have my own soundtrack.

As far as effects go I want a more guttural, less pew-pew-pew-y efffects.
That extends to things like doors even, I'm sure many of you have been around big heavy industrial automated garage doors or freight elevator doors. They don't go "whoosh" it's all kinds of "vrrrrtt" "clank" "chunk"
At the same time, don't pull a recent-hollywood-blockbuster and put that damn warbling bass behind everything sort of sci-fi,

[Traak]

Example of warbling bass? I'm trying to imagine it. You mean that "You are in a large starship, so the bass-heavy white noise omnipresent in the background" sound?

[Traak]

C e r y s h e n
http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/0c/cf/de/calpe-mountain-countryside.jpg

Look at this small clip of a huge area. The distance to the mountain is actually far away.
Imagine there's one Reaver. It speeds towards you from the other side of the mountain.

How should that Reaver sound before and after its passing from beyond the mountain?
And as it approaches or flies-by, how does that affect the trees?


A) Doppler effects, so you can tell how fast the sucker is approaching, if it is approaching, and when it is going away. Or a "This is the sound from the back of the jet, this is the sound from the front" difference. More roar from the rear, more turbine whistle from the front

B) Affecting the trees is not a bad idea. Makes the jets easier to locate for AA from afar. Wonder how much code that would require on our clients?

[Rbstr]

Example of warbling bass? I'm trying to imagine it. You mean that "You are in a large starship, so the bass-heavy white noise omnipresent in the background" sound?
Nah, that's not what I mean.

It's typically kind of intermittent.
I guess when I think about it may be part of the background music more than the effects.
Trying to come up with an example but it fails me when I watch the youtube clips, I might be something to only annoys me when it's in a powerfull movie theater system

[Raymac]

I thought you were talking about the Inception "bwwaahhhhmmm".

[Rbstr]

Yeah, that's kind of the thing.

[Bags]

Gun noises are fine... oh no futuristic guns sound futuristic.

[Rbstr]

Pew-pew doesn't sound futuristic to me, it sounds stupid.

Have you seen or heard one of the navy's railgun demonstrations? It does not go "pew".
YouTube - Electromagnetic Railgun World Record Shot on December 10, 2010
Lasers don't go pew-pew either. You might get that "eeet" noise with a continuous thing, Or this where the laser is actually up in an airplane YouTube - Boeing Advanced Tactical Laser In Action
The sound pulse lasers make is mostly clicking from switches at the source and the ablation when it hits the target.

[Bags]

I heard sci fi lasers are based on real lasers.

[Lonehunter]

I heard sci fi lasers are based on real lasers.
:rofl:

[Rbstr]

Well sorry, I'd rather my railgun sound like god cunt-punting someone than a 10 year old's toy.

[Canaris]

Well this is a very interesting topic, I always thought being able to identify the three different faction by the noise of their guns as something that would add a excellent aspect to the game and atmosphere of the setting.

Like the TR guns, all noise with plenty of piss and vinegar, kinda like the shoot out scene in Heat:
Skip to about 4:20
YouTube - Heat HD

The NC guns would be on a similar line but using a higher calibure of round it would have a bit more bang to it's buck.

I did like the idea Star Wars had for there energy weapons, they used a mix of "energy" noises mixed into the noise of a real weapon firing. Gave it a good effect without going all Star Trek on it :D

I always enjoy a good mix real sounds in a game, so you can just loose yourself in the moment of a fire fight.

[Hamma]

Nice play on the Heat video. One of my favorite movie gunfights of all time - used to play that full blast on the surround sound system.

[LordReaver]

PS was very "high class". Everything was clean, the music was soft, the guns were high pitched. It is clear that they are making PSN a little more gritty on the visuals, so I'm going to go ahead and assume this is reflected elsewhere.

I had always planned on filming a battle, then redo the sounds in it, but I never got around to it. Which reminds me of....

YouTube - Planetside Xecutioner

[Raymac]

Nice play on the Heat video. One of my favorite movie gunfights of all time - used to play that full blast on the surround sound system.

Thats so funny. Me and my roommates would do the same thing. That is still one of the greatest gunfights of all time.

One of the first times we blasted it was my freshman year in college in the dorms, and we had all kinds of people running to our room with their eyes as wide as the moon thinking it was a real gunfight. I liked those speakers. :)

[Koopak]

Ok i stopped reading, just anted to give my opinion. If you want realism, first off no weapon in planetside is a laser however lasers will never be "eeeert" as someone said, keep in mind that not only will a laser be impossible to see, the sound it makes is that of the air it passes through and the target it hits suddenly going for a nice 70+ degrease to several thousand in the space of a nanosecond. This produces an unbelievably loud "Boom" followed by a noise like that of a forge except a good bit louder.

Most Vanu tech is plasma in nature, which would be a higher pitched firing noise with a lower pitched contact noise. This one is mostly speculation, til we start shooting plasma at things of course. As far as a lasher, god knows, that things almost AT in its design.

The NC's love of Magnet based mass drivers would mostly be a loud "Thump" as the magnets and capacitors would make little noise, all you would hear is the bullet pushing air out of the way OR assuming the bullet is not suspended but touching the inside of the barrel it would be very high pitched (less so on larger guns) and be effectively a very fast short lived screech, very "shrew!" or "pew!"

Larger guns would mean thicker metals and ultimately a more base noise to this screech, so i don't know how to put it into text but use yer imagination.

As for the Terrans and good old fashioned ballistic mass drivers using good old fashioned explosives, well go to a shooting range, the sound entirely depends on the weapon but usually is somewhere between a "bang!" and a "pop!" and occasionally something all the way out of nowhere.

[LordReaver]

Snip.

Firstly, VS BFRs have lasers.

Secondly, unless one knows the general technology behind the weapons as depicted in the game (which nobody does, because they are made up), saying they will sound like X is utterly pointless.

That being said, bass sounds more powerful, and therefor funner in my book.

[Rbstr]

Ok i stopped reading, just anted to give my opinion. If you want realism, first off no weapon in planetside is a laser however lasers will never be "eeeert" as someone said, keep in mind that not only will a laser be impossible to see, the sound it makes is that of the air it passes through and the target it hits suddenly going for a nice 70+ degrease to several thousand in the space of a nanosecond. This produces an unbelievably loud "Boom" followed by a noise like that of a forge except a good bit louder.

The NC's love of Magnet based mass drivers would mostly be a loud "Thump" as the magnets and capacitors would make little noise, all you would hear is the bullet pushing air out of the way OR assuming the bullet is not suspended but touching the inside of the barrel it would be very high pitched (less so on larger guns) and be effectively a very fast short lived screech, very "shrew!" or "pew!"

That's neat an all...but as I posted earlier(that was this thread, yeah?) your idea of what things sound like is rather wrong. Effective lasers have to barely interact with the atmosphere at all or else they're simply wasting energy, that's why you pick a frequency that air is transparent to (which is most of the feasible emission frequencies). I'm around higher powered pulsed lasers all the time, they only make clicky switching noises at the emitter. Continuous ones have fans and things so they may hum...on contact they sound like the video I posted.
Coilguns and railguns will make sonic booms like any other faster-than-sound projectile. Plus high voltage switching noises, arcing ablation of the rails and...again did you even watch the Railgun video?

Those things, at least, exist and we know what they sound like.

Plasma...yeah whatever you think sounds neat...the idea of most plasma weapons is sort of silly to begin with. Mostly because it's just ionized gas...and just like gas doesn't stay in neat little balls unless you put it inside something.

[Raymac]

Yeah, a realistic laser sound isn't exiciting enough for a game IMHO. I'd like to see them more like the Hoth Ion Cannon from Empire Strikes Back. The sound effect is around the 0:23 mark.

YouTube - Adywans Empire Strikes Back Revisited - Hoth Ion Cannon Shot