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any more Interest in CMBN (or any WW2) sound mods?


RockinHarry

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Just recently I came to do some optimizing of the stock games sounds to my personal liking, or tinkering with other modders files. ATM I´m at small arms hit impact sounds (ground, buildings ect.). To me personally most of them are bit too bassy, thus giving these a pronounced near effect, no matter the range to the camera. Cutting (high pass) the bass below 100Hz does the trick for me most the time and they´re sounding now more distant. There´s also one "penetrate building" sound file which I left as is (bassy), so this comes through somewhat better in case a buildings walls receive many hits the same time. This is to indicate that the (stone) building is shot at with something that can penetrate and thus dangerous to its occupants. Til now I wasn´t quite aware that there´s a "penetrating" sound file, since building hits do all sound the same to me. Same for ground/rock hits. Cut the bass even more, so there´s more distinction between ground and building hits. I also expanded some the building hit files with some shattering glass sound FX and numbered them up (offering the game more to draw from randomly). Always sounded strange to me when a building front having multiple windows receiving hits and no glass shattering to hear.

Did similar edits to voice sound files (cutting bass and highs) so they sound somewhat more smooth and distant now. Problem with voice files (germans in particular) is these weren´t recorded professionally, either having disturbing noises, pronounced near effect, or that unwanted spatial reverb FX to them that you can´t filter out without diminishing audio quality generally. There´s some simple tricks to record better game voice audio, even if you´ve nothing but a simple headset and sitting in your living room.

I´m aware we already have multiple sound mods released by folks over the years, but in case there´s further needs for sound files as mentioned above, I just ask. :blink: 

Edited by RockinHarry
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Thanks, RH, for bringing this up... I'm using HQ's 2.6 (will download 3.0 at some point to see the difference)...I know this is not directly related to your "Sound Bass Reduction Project".

So, In my case I just deleted some of the Sound Files to my liking; ex, there were just too many Window Crashes/Vase Breaking, etc, but keep many of the more common Building hits, etc (maybe a ratio of 3-4 Building hits to 1 Window Crash/Penetrating hit).

It should be interesting in what you end-up with in regards to your Project as it might be something to my liking (Bass reduction on many Sound Files).

Joe

 

Edited by JoMc67
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2 hours ago, JoMc67 said:

Thanks, RH, for bringing this up... I'm using HQ's 2.6 (will download 3.0 at some point to see the difference)...I know this is not directly related to your "Sound Bass Reduction Project".

So, In my case I just deleted some of the Sound Files to my liking; ex, there were just too many Window Crashes/Vase Breaking, etc, but keep many of the more common Building hits, etc (maybe a ratio of 3-4 Building hits to 1 Window Crash/Penetrating hit).

It should be interesting in what you end-up with in regards to your Project as it might be something to my liking (Bass reduction on many Sound Files).

Joe

 

Never tried HQ´s. Also couldn´t find anything related to it on YT. No matter what else I found, it sounds like a bassy distorted hell most the time. Maybe good for indoor and some urban environments, but otherwise.... Would be nice if BFC accounts for certain spatial sound environments in the future, also considering muffling effects from fog ect.

Yep, I also found a 4:1 ratio quite sufficient (using 8:2 files ATM). I´m currently just tweaking hit impact and assorted small guns/rifles, as well as german voices, all stuff disturbing me the most with the stock games file sets. If I´ll ever come to release this as a mod, it´ll be rather small then. Might upload a test version here shortly.

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@3j2m7 I just checked the MG42 from your mod set and found the overall tonality of it almost perfect. B) Hope you don´t mind I did some small edits with regard to RPM rate which I found was somewhere around ~1000 RPM and changed it to 1200 exactly. Also applied the x2-x3-x3 scheme (for single shot, 2 shots, 3 shot bursts) and cut them down accordingly. Falling cartridges part left untouched. Here´s the result of what works best for me:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbt4q1s1y6n3yhd/mg 42 cmbn edit.rar?dl=0

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Well RH is a pleasure that you found something acceptable and of course I really appreciated that you made some changes, and if you don't like the sound of falling cartridges you can cutting also, the mg42 rate  is sometime really difficult to pick up correctly, and only a German ear can detect it ;) !!

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51 minutes ago, 3j2m7 said:

Well RH is a pleasure that you found something acceptable and of course I really appreciated that you made some changes, and if you don't like the sound of falling cartridges you can cutting also, the mg42 rate  is sometime really difficult to pick up correctly, and only a German ear can detect it ;) !!

lol :D ...wished I had any such hearing abilities. In fact just measuring burst chunks in waveform editor and applying bits of math beforehand. When working with bursts and not single shots, there could be some overlap in the guns audio streaming sequence. So it´s required to figure out this particular timing and apply it to the burst audio file accordingly. Yet in the meantime I think I´d rather stick to single shot files for MG34/42 to avoid any such hassles and make them rather short, so the shot trail file would be triggered by the game. All a matter of taste at last. PS: I actually like the falling cartridges and had something in preparation as well, but that would make the file likely not triggering the shot trail file when too long. It´s somewhere between 300-500ms I think. :unsure:

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Will try in my poor English...

In my opinion, the modders make sounds that sound like what can be heard in hollywood-style war movies.

But in reality, sounds are usually much less loud. In fact, Battlefront has, in my opinion, almost achieved an almost realistic sound. I just regret that the sounds of rifles are not at all differentiated.


Especially since most often the player is not shoulder to shoulder with the shooter.

 

Edited by kendar
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6 minutes ago, kendar said:

Will try in my poor English...


In my opinion, the modders make sounds that sound like what can be heard in hollywood-style war movies.

But in reality, sounds are usually much less loud. In fact, Battlefront has, in my opinion, almost achieved an almost realistic sound. I just regret that the sounds of rifles are not at all differentiated.


Especially since most often the player is not shoulder to shoulder with the shooter.

 

Ah ok. Yes I´m actually not that much dissatisfied with the stock games sounds alike. Thus I´m not entirely changing, but just adapting this and that (to my very personal taste). What I generally have in mind is less in your face bassy sounds as said, as well as a certain balance with regard to different sound type groups (voices, gun shots and impacts ATM).  So in the case when many many sounds play simultaneously, I like things still to be distinguishable and not a heavily distorted mess. IMO it´s just a few things that improve things considerably (less bass/highs, file lengths, leaving a headroom in the files ect.) :)

With regard to differrentiated rifle shot files, I find it to be a somewhat difficult affair. It´s a matter of finding that valid reference audio for the guns and in case of YT, you´ll find many live fire videos and each one sounds different. :wacko: You have a particular example maybe?

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12 minutes ago, kendar said:

exemple

 

lol. you was reading my mind obviously. :D Going to check this out...

Edit: Ok you seem to refer to the general soundscape in there? One needs to consider there´s usually no professional sound recording equipment used in live fire and real battle scenes like this. Most the time I see mobiles used and similar gear. When things get really loud near the cam guy, sound recordings get mostly heavily compressed and limited, distorting the overall dynamics. Leaving that aside, this would be also the soundscape of my preference. I think one can at least approximate something like this in the game.

Edited by RockinHarry
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However, the sounds of videos is not the same as the one heard in reality. On the other hand, we can notice the importance of "tails" and echo.
In short, I think it's hard, I tried myself several times to make a sound mod  "realistic"
without ever succeeding ... especially since I have almost no knowledge with sound software

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32 minutes ago, kendar said:

However, the sounds of videos is not the same as the one heard in reality. On the other hand, we can notice the importance of "tails" and echo.
In short, I think it's hard, I tried myself several times to make a sound mod  "realistic"
without ever succeeding ... especially since I have almost no knowledge with sound software

Yes, that´s what I meant to say. I was never in the military nor did I shoot a real gun, so if some vets could give some hints that would be quite useful! Since you mention "echo" (or ambient sound) I tend to leave this out entirely, since one can´t have the soundscape of Berlin city fighting and rolling ukrainan steppe the same time, with same files. Dynamic ambient sound generation would be nice, but likely out of the scope of the game engine. So better then using rather "dry" sounding files and make use of the shot trail file trigger, which at least works this way for small arms sounds Got yet to check other audio.

Edit: Yes, there´s a "heavy shot trail" file in use for all the bigger guns. One more reason to keep bigger gun shot files short as well.

Edited by RockinHarry
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I never installed any sound mods, because from what I hear in youtube videos by players who do use those mods, the sounds are quite crass. Not sure if it's because of poor technical quality in the source material or what it is, but I need sounds that I am able to stand listening to many times over ♒

The sounds included with the game are actually  decent - maybe not completely historically accurate, but quite "listenable". Some of the voices get a bit repetitive though.

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I have tried a few too and uninstalled them. Don't get me wrong I think it's great that they exist and you guys enjoy them but I agree with @Bulletpoint on this. I'll also add that sometimes the volume levelling was inconsistent: one moment things sounded fine and then a new sound started that was significantly louder that other sounds. I am talking about louder such that made no in game sense. Kinda like listening to a play list where one song is quiet so you turn it up and the next one is way louder and you get surprised.

It's kinda like movie mode - some people like it but I just don't see the appeal.

Or the de-saturated terrain mods - I just think it makes CMBN look unrealistic.

Now I have never tried one from @RockinHarry so perhaps I'll try one more time. :)

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4 minutes ago, IanL said:

I have tried a few too and uninstalled them. Don't get me wrong I think it's great that they exist and you guys enjoy them but I agree with @Bulletpoint on this. I'll also add that sometimes the volume levelling was inconsistent: one moment things sounded fine and then a new sound started that was significantly louder that other sounds. I am talking about louder such that made no in game sense. Kinda like listening to a play list where one song is quiet so you turn it up and the next one is way louder and you get surprised.

It's kinda like movie mode - some people like it but I just don't see the appeal.

Or the de-saturated terrain mods - I just think it makes CMBN look unrealistic.

Now I have never tried one from @RockinHarry so perhaps I'll try one more time. :)

I can confirm that experience with inconsistent sound volume at times. Hard to tell if it´s a quirk of the games sound engine or related to particular sound files. It´s these things I´m currently investigating in and if possible making it all more consistent. BFC made quite a decent job generally I agree and as said I´m tweaking files more to my very personal taste, which I think is not that much different from what most people like. If I start modding, it´s foremost for my own pleasure and can´t find something made by other modding folks already. If it turns out to be of good enough quality and other players show interest, I´d possibly turn it into a real mod and share. I could also imagine some colaboration with equally interested modders and more so with my planned german voice file expansion. Thus far I´m generally interested in figuring out how it all works in detail, yet with some support from experienced sound file modders if they´d possibly chime in here. Also highly welcomed is vets and army people who usually know best about battlefield soundscape matters. B)

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33 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

I never installed any sound mods, because from what I hear in youtube videos by players who do use those mods, the sounds are quite crass. Not sure if it's because of poor technical quality in the source material or what it is, but I need sounds that I am able to stand listening to many times over ♒

The sounds included with the game are actually  decent - maybe not completely historically accurate, but quite "listenable". Some of the voices get a bit repetitive though.

yep, agree with the stock games sounds generally. With regard to YT videos it´s possibly both, bad source material and applying inapropiate recording levels at video capture time. I had some trouble with Fraps at a time, but it was just a matter of applying correct recording levels in mixer software to solve this quickly.

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There's also that sound mod that includes a guy screaming hysterically in pain and horror - ok, I get that war is hell and all, but unless you were in the foxhole with that guy, you probably wouldn't hear it over the noise of the rest of the battle.

And... this is a game after all. I prefer to be able to play it for hours without being traumatised. Again, I think the stock game sounds gets the balance pretty much right.

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37 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

There's also that sound mod that includes a guy screaming hysterically in pain and horror - ok, I get that war is hell and all, but unless you were in the foxhole with that guy, you probably wouldn't hear it over the noise of the rest of the battle.

And... this is a game after all. I prefer to be able to play it for hours without being traumatised. Again, I think the stock game sounds gets the balance pretty much right.

true, beside the game not differentiating a KIA from WIA, when the casualty sound is triggered. Dead men don´t scream. Usually.

I even disabled (replaced with silent audio) the random chatter files, since they were getting on my nerves. Less is more oftentimes. German voice files is a mixed bag. While some are fairly well done, some others sound like kids playing war on the playgound.

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Maybe someone already pointed this out, but you got to be very careful re thinking that a recording of a sound is the same as hearing it with your own ears.  The microphone itself as well as modes of recording can change the sound to something quite different to what it sounds like to one's own ears if one was standing next to the source. 

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11 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

While some are fairly well done, some others sound like kids playing war on the playgound.

Especially the ones when German tanks take out an enemy tank.. those are really goofy. Sounds like it was recorded at Oktoberfest🍺

11 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

true, beside the game not differentiating a KIA from WIA, when the casualty sound is triggered.

I actually thought it did.. I often check the casualty status when guys go down, and I thought I could see a pattern where KIAs had more of a "Ungh!" sound, not shouting "my leg" or anything.

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1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

Especially the ones when German tanks take out an enemy tank.. those are really goofy. Sounds like it was recorded at Oktoberfest🍺<span>

Hahaha... yes! :D Maybe in future times BFC adds the ability to simply allow adding your own recorded lines, while beeing in the editor with headset up so you can make your game a bit more personal. Audio quality wise it wouldn´t make that much of a difference when it comes to voice audio IMO.

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

I actually thought it did.. I often check the casualty status when guys go down, and I thought I could see a pattern where KIAs had more of a "Ungh!" sound, not shouting "my leg" or anything.

Hadn´t checked if there´s a pattern, so til now I leave it as a maybe.... Though I keep thinking these are random one time shots only. The audio files are normal sequentially numbered as all else and no special marker to be seen. Something like  german casualtyW 0.wav, for wounded, or german casualtyK 0.wav for killed. How should the game know which is what then.

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