PlanetSide 2 Audio & Music

[Captain1nsaneo]

Thank you for posting sir! Like most of the people here I've been enjoying the vehicle sounds quite a bit.

One thing has come into my mind though regarding sounds and I'm actually really glad this thread came into existence because otherwise I probably wouldn't have mentioned it. I'm thinking about the delay between the explosion and when we will hear it. Even just short distances there can be significant time delay between seeing the fireball and hearing it. I don't think I've ever seen it done in a game before and would love to hear thoughts on if it's feasible or not.

[Graywolves]

In the other thread you mentioned something about the voices. How many voices are going to be available this time around?


Also, your team and you are doing an amazing job, keep it up!

[sylphaen]

Welcome to PSU !

It's great to see people from the sound team around here. We never hear enough about them.


I look forward to see the result of your work and hope we will stop getting horror videos from the marketing department: Ride of the valkyries just does not give justive to PS2 like Don's work can. And it gets really old, really fast. Really...

Anyways, back on topic: I love what we've heard so far in the footage. Can't wait to hear what Don has for us either.

[InjectedSenses]

Originally Posted by Captain1nsaneo

Thank you for posting sir! Like most of the people here I've been enjoying the vehicle sounds quite a bit.

One thing has come into my mind though regarding sounds and I'm actually really glad this thread came into existence because otherwise I probably wouldn't have mentioned it. I'm thinking about the delay between the explosion and when we will hear it. Even just short distances there can be significant time delay between seeing the fireball and hearing it. I don't think I've ever seen it done in a game before and would love to hear thoughts on if it's feasible or not.

That can be a tricky thing. We do have a "pre-delay" built in so the ability is there. However, as Rodney mentioned, we are using x-fading to achieve a close/distant relationship. The initial test that we did ran into some audible issues in doing this (hearing a close explo and the delayed explo). As we tune up our system it is something I would definitely like to have in but only if it works correctly.

[InjectedSenses]

Originally Posted by Captain1nsaneo

Thank you for posting sir! Like most of the people here I've been enjoying the vehicle sounds quite a bit.

One thing has come into my mind though regarding sounds and I'm actually really glad this thread came into existence because otherwise I probably wouldn't have mentioned it. I'm thinking about the delay between the explosion and when we will hear it. Even just short distances there can be significant time delay between seeing the fireball and hearing it. I don't think I've ever seen it done in a game before and would love to hear thoughts on if it's feasible or not.

That can be a tricky thing. We do have a "pre-delay" built in so the ability is there. However, as Rodney mentioned, we are using x-fading to achieve a close/distant relationship. The initial test that we did ran into some audible issues in doing this (hearing a close explo and the delayed explo). As we tune up our system it is something I would definitely like to have in but only if it works correctly.

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by InjectedSenses

That can be a tricky thing. We do have a "pre-delay" built in so the ability is there. However, as Rodney mentioned, we are using x-fading to achieve a close/distant relationship. The initial test that we did ran into some audible issues in doing this (hearing a close explo and the delayed explo). As we tune up our system it is something I would definitely like to have in but only if it works correctly.

Very cool.

I hope there aren't too many complaints from people that the sound of distant explosions is all screwed up and out of sync, although hopefully they would get shouted down very quickly

[sylphaen]

Originally Posted by Xyntech

Very cool.

I hope there aren't too many complaints from people that the sound of distant explosions is all screwed up and out of sync, although hopefully they would get shouted down very quickly

Forumside can be a very dangerous place if one cannot read the environment.

[RNFB]

I'm really curious what type of music the Vanu will get, can you elaborate on any of that yet?

[2coolforu]

Originally Posted by Captain1nsaneo

Thank you for posting sir! Like most of the people here I've been enjoying the vehicle sounds quite a bit.

One thing has come into my mind though regarding sounds and I'm actually really glad this thread came into existence because otherwise I probably wouldn't have mentioned it. I'm thinking about the delay between the explosion and when we will hear it. Even just short distances there can be significant time delay between seeing the fireball and hearing it. I don't think I've ever seen it done in a game before and would love to hear thoughts on if it's feasible or not.

ARMA 2 has some of the best sound tech in the gaming world, if you get the real military grade (VBS 2) engine it has occlusion, diffraction, air heat capacity and all sorts of crazy stuff.

It's also pretty cool in little ways, when you fire a supersonic bullet you'll hear it go past you before you hear the gunshot itself. If a jet is going fast enough it'll pass by before the sound passes by. The game itself has poor sound design but the tech it uses is just pure, glorious quality, some better sound designers like Jarhead and Chammy made great use out of it by recording 3-4 gigs of true audio and modding it in.

Obviously Planetside isn't going to have Military training simulator level sound engines because it would be laggy as but I think speed of sound simulation would be a great touch.

[Saintlycow]

Looking forward to the Music, Rodney.

If you can, can you tell us what genres the different faction musics are?

[Rodney Gates]

Originally Posted by InjectedSenses

That can be a tricky thing. We do have a "pre-delay" built in so the ability is there. However, as Rodney mentioned, we are using x-fading to achieve a close/distant relationship. The initial test that we did ran into some audible issues in doing this (hearing a close explo and the delayed explo). As we tune up our system it is something I would definitely like to have in but only if it works correctly.

We plan on talking with our audio programmer about this - he can calculate the distance vs. delay issue in-game for us that could solve this problem and deliver a more realistic experience with distant sounds. We'll keep you posted on this.

- Rodney

[Rodney Gates]

P.S. - A typo on one of my first messages when I mentioned Dolby Surround - I meant Dolby Digital. Of course, if your hardware is set up for Dolby Surround ( I believe that's just ProLogic II) then I'm sure that would work fine too, though an older format.

- Rodney

[cryosin]

Originally Posted by Rodney Gates

Thank you all,

The big thing we are focusing on now is faction distinction - from the weaponry, bullet flybys, vehicles, etc. We want to you to know who is firing at you on the battlefield without having to even see them.

The game is in 5.1 surround and depending on your hardware, will also decode in Dolby Surround and DTS.

We've taken care to ensure that you as the player will be treated like any of the major shooters out there that we can be compared to. Your weapons are powerful 2D stereo with some subwoofer kick thrown in for good measure. Your first-person vehicle cockpits are in 4.0 quad that you can snap out to third-person exterior with the audio following suit. From the ground as a soldier on foot, the vehicles sound even more different still; more aggressive, with doppler and engine distance treatment.

We're just starting to make use of some DSP in game, such as low and high pass filtering, different reverb settings based on distance, etc.

There is a lot of crossfading of 3D audio files you'll hear in the world, with close and distant treatments that will differentiate how far the sounds play from you. I can tell you the play tests are starting to sound fantastic as we get things tuned up! :-)

A lot of this tech didn't exist in our game engine before PlanetSide 2, so we're excited to be bringing this level of attention and quality to SOE's players.

We will be planning an official announcement on the music for the game soon enough - but I can tell you this: You will be treated to three soundtracks in the game, depending on what faction you play, with very distinct music styles for each.

Exciting stuff - stay tuned!

- Rodney

5.1 surround is gonna rock thanks for keeping us posted

[Rodney Gates]

Originally Posted by Saintlycow

Looking forward to the Music, Rodney.

If you can, can you tell us what genres the different faction musics are?

Sure - this actually very cool, and discussed at length between the design team and myself.

The empirical Terran Republic will be treated to an epic orchestral score, which we are actually recording up in Seattle here within a couple weeks (yes, we are doing a bit of the behind-the-scenes footage capture for this).

The New Conglomerate, being the living-on-the-edge, anarchist scavengers they are will be more frontier-like, with a cool blues-rock approach featuring slide guitars and fiddle (little harder-edged than the Firefly TV series' music by Greg Edmonson). This music will all be recorded here in San Diego with local musicians specializing in this genre, following the orchestral session.

The technologically-advanced Vanu Sovereignty will be based around purist electronica, a bit in the vein of what you've heard recently from Daft Punk, but with more of an ethnic flare to ground them in their humanity.

But don't despair if you think this sounds like a departure from the first game - we employed full use of nostalgic thematic material across the board from PS1, and I think you will be delighted with these renewed treatments of classic themes that you know and love.

Hopefully this whets your appetite a bit until we do the full music announcement - good stuff!

Stay tuned! Things are about to get Bad Ass.

- Rodney

[Bags]

Yeah I'd be quite sad if some of the old stuff didn't return in some form, remastered, redone, etc idk.

I hope we can pay to use the old voice macro clips, that voice acting was hilarious.