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


RockinHarry

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One thing I thought would be cool is if troops of different experience levels had different sound files. So hard-boiled veterans would sound different from green recruits. And crack troops would sound determined and professional.

But ok, it's not like this game is lacking ideas for "what would be cool"...

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11 hours ago, Erwin said:

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. 

Just like to remark beeing musician for a couple decades and working with digital audio since 98 I know bits of the bizness. :) With regard to the games voice audio, anybody with a headset and some freeware audio editor application can achieve reasonably good results for adding new voice audio to the game. Some simple guideline for recording and foremost is proper record leveling. Clipped digital audio sounds much more harsher than it was in analog times so needs to be avoided at all cost. Then in order to achieve a recording (more or less) free of surrounding noise, particularly your rooms reverberation properties you pull a blanket over your head, while maybe sitting on your lounge (or bed) to avoid sonic reflections from your floor (if it´s a tiled one). Have the microphones windscreen or pop filter on and move the micro from directly in front of the mouth. This yields a recording that does not have that TV/radio morderator in your face sonic property if done right. Speech intelligibility will somewhat suffer, but that´s a desired side effect from making the voice recording sound less in your face and free of unwanted sonic reverberation.

These sound files then serve as base for any further edits in the audio app. Currently you can hear the games voice delivering folks room ambience quite distinctively. This is what makes the games overall audio experience when it comes to voice audio sound that unrealistic (beside some clipping and noise issues). To achieve roughly similar results with the stock games voice audio (in fact just Dietrich´s German Voice file mod which contains the games originals), I applied bits of filtering, noise removing, leveling and cutting. Final result is that mentioned voice audio sounds now more distant, less direct and overally more consistent. Complete removal of existent reverberation is close to be impossible, so there´s just a minor improvement. Thus my pointing to the recording technique above, which leaves any options open to the audio editor. Dry audio is also most useful if i.e you have your soundcards FX section in use. But that´s just for the voice audio files where I´m currently focused on.

Edited by RockinHarry
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45 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

One thing I thought would be cool is if troops of different experience levels had different sound files. So hard-boiled veterans would sound different from green recruits. And crack troops would sound determined and professional.

But ok, it's not like this game is lacking ideas for "what would be cool"...

+1

actually wouldn´t be hard to pull off code wise. We already have a file tagging system implemented and the game makes use of it for various hard coded things already. "If experience level veteran = use tag x" and so on.

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2 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

One thing I thought would be cool is if troops of different experience levels had different sound files. So hard-boiled veterans would sound different from green recruits. And crack troops would sound determined and professional.

So for a Limey green we could have Private Pike's voice. "Oh, mum won't let me do that Uncle Arthur, it's dangerous." Whist the veteran Capt repeatedly says "Stupid Boy".

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1 hour ago, Warts 'n' all said:

So for a Limey green we could have Private Pike's voice. "Oh, mum won't let me do that Uncle Arthur, it's dangerous." Whist the veteran Capt repeatedly says "Stupid Boy".

The British Army would be especially ripe for modding opportunities. Monty Python and plenty of tea break references for the greens, then "blimey" moving up to "bloody" for the regulars and veterans. Not sure what the Paras would say - maybe they could mutter something about king and country once in a while.

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32 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

The British Army would be especially ripe for modding opportunities. Monty Python and plenty of tea break references for the greens, then "blimey" moving up to "bloody" for the regulars and veterans. Not sure what the Paras would say - maybe they could mutter something about king and country once in a while.

tag this H for Humor. Or green/veteran humor? Reminds me some of the "Sturmtruppen"  comics from the 1990ies if anybody knows these. :D

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Just uploaded the impact sound files to DP. Thus far it´s just the ground/building impact sounds concerned. Somewhat cut down in bass and penetrating round sounds pronounced. Nothing big. There´s also a handful new sounds added, so there is greater variation as well. Glass shattering is at 1:6 limited ratio. Metal impact sounds likely come somewhat later. Feedback welcome! B)

Bullet impact test files

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57 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

The British Army would be especially ripe for modding opportunities. Monty Python and plenty of tea break references for the greens, then "blimey" moving up to "bloody" for the regulars and veterans. Not sure what the Paras would say - maybe they could mutter something about king and country once in a while.

Don't forget the influence of the Brit class system.  Need the voices of occifer "chinless wonders":  "I say chaps, how about we jolly well attack over there?"  "Oh ruddy hell!  I believe I've been shot"  "Give the Hun the bayonet!" etc.

Edited by Erwin
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4 hours ago, RockinHarry said:
4 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

One thing I thought would be cool is if troops of different experience levels had different sound files. So hard-boiled veterans would sound different from green recruits. And crack troops would sound determined and professional.

But ok, it's not like this game is lacking ideas for "what would be cool"...

+1

actually wouldn´t be hard to pull off code wise. We already have a file tagging system implemented and the game makes use of it for various hard coded things already. "If experience level veteran = use tag x" and so on.

True this would be cool, true this would not be a particularly heavy lift to code. The big thing stopping them is going to be that sound resources are a resource drain bigger than graphics with this current engine. So, while I cannot speak to Steve's feelings or priorities, I would predict something like this would not be a likely candidate to rise to near the top of the cool things we should actually do list. :(

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On 2/28/2019 at 4:25 PM, IanL said:

True this would be cool, true this would not be a particularly heavy lift to code. The big thing stopping them is going to be that sound resources are a resource drain bigger than graphics with this current engine. So, while I cannot speak to Steve's feelings or priorities, I would predict something like this would not be a likely candidate to rise to near the top of the cool things we should actually do list. :(

I more figured that graphic performance (or lack of) impose some serious limits on my audio streaming, so I always test sound performance with 3D model quality = balanced. But I still run on rather crappy  hardware and OS.

Otherwise the audio streaming engine IMO would not be more taxed than now, as it just draws it sound file shots from different sources (tagged, folders), while general sound trigger amount remains the same. This requires reasonable sound file lengths off course.

And I agree, we´ll not likely see any such stuff added to the game that soon.

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On ‎2‎/‎28‎/‎2019 at 10:34 AM, Bulletpoint said:

One thing I thought would be cool is if troops of different experience levels had different sound files. So hard-boiled veterans would sound different from green recruits. And crack troops would sound determined and professional.

That's a great idea if it could be done.  B)

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Did some more (area fire) testing with bullet impacts on certain terrain objects and ground. The "penetration" sound FX files give a good impression of cover effects from buildings and you´ll hear almost exclusively, when hitting barn type buildings, far less for other stone/modular buildings and rather rarely for churches. Sound played for barns though is same as stone type buildings, suggesting building material is more something like thin stone layers, plastered wood or frame work. Thus "Wood" sound is triggered when hitting trees, not barns. Interesting to see hit locations (the tiny explosions) for bullets hitting trees, suggesting the so called "hit box" around a tree is quite large and them probably offering more cover than presumed.

Graphical FX from bullet impacts appear more to be of random nature. Oftentimes you´ll see no particle or dust FX, but hear the sound FX. At other times you hear/see both and sometimes you see graphic FX without an impact sound played. Maybe at certain ranges, the fireing units actually can´t see the impact graphics FX and are thus not shown, even if the camera is moved close to the target.

Tested with dry ground/clear weather setting, area fire and Iron mode. Targeting ranges were between 100-300m. Other settings and modes might provide different results, due to ground conditions (wet = no dust), FOW(?), or targeting ranges.

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For more specific testing I replaced the bullet penetrate sound with an FX one. Sounds a bit like an angry mosquito, but does the purpose well. :D Also using my no tracers mod for this one. So what I figured finally is bullet penetration ability on building (walls) and associated sound/graphicFX is not that much determined by the walls alone, but rather on window configuration and the immediate surrounding area (invisibly enlarged window footprint). Penetrations occur mostly in this area, either straight through the window or near the edges. It´s those hits that can also be observed on the buildings back walls, once penetration occurs. What I´ll try a bit next is whether the abstracted buildings interior does some noticable absorption of penetrating rounds, more so if it´s large buildings (bigger than 8x8m). Anybody likes to do the same test can download the file package below (4x building penetrate FX sound and no tracers mod). CMBN/CMFB only.

Also interesting to notice is CM sound game engine applies some slight pitch variation to the sounds, each time they are triggered. Haven´t noticed that before. :wacko: Shooting at barns is now bit of a musical experience with the mod applied. :D

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vc8kfjjak25dcyt/Bullet Penetrate building Test Package.rar?dl=0 

Edited by RockinHarry
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Ok, RH...You may like this HQS 2.6 Sound Mod that I already adjusted to my liking (these are all the separate Folders that were in the download). I ended up deleting 5-10% of the Sound Waves that I didn't like (some of the casualty moans that were too long/sounded strange, some of the building strikes with too many window/furnishing hits, etc).

However (and I'm not sure how this works), by me deleing some of those Sound Files will the Stock Game Files takes it place, or will other HQS Sound Files takes its place ? 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/r0kgbmoxgugk7hb/HQS%20Sounds.zip?dl=0

-OR- If you want to download the Full Stock HQS 3.0 Sound Mod here at CMMODSIII (there are separate links) and again do your own deleting/modifying

http://cmmodsiii.greenasjade.net/?p=7497

Joe

 

 

Edited by JoMc67
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6 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Thus "Wood" sound is triggered when hitting trees, not barns. Interesting to see hit locations (the tiny explosions) for bullets hitting trees, suggesting the so called "hit box" around a tree is quite large and them probably offering more cover than presumed.

@Kaunitz did some testing of trees and found out some surprising things, did you read that post?

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2 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

@Kaunitz did some testing of trees and found out some surprising things, did you read that post?

just partly from the whole longish thread and I´ll reread again to find what you´re refering to. But I seem to remember you mentioned this one time before refering to individual trees beeing more abstracted in combo with underlying ground tile? (I put link to thread here, to remind myself http://community.battlefront.com/topic/123157-improvement-suggestions/ )

However, I remain with focus on sound related stuff, but post any other findings here as well. :)

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4 hours ago, JoMc67 said:

Ok, RH...You may like this HQS 2.6 Sound Mod that I already adjusted to my liking (these are all the separate Folders that were in the download). I ended up deleting 5-10% of the Sound Waves that I didn't like (some of the casualty moans that were too long/sounded strange, some of the building strikes with too many window/furnishing hits, etc).

However (and I'm not sure how this works), by me deleing some of those Sound Files will the Stock Game Files takes it place, or will other HQS Sound Files takes its place ? 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/r0kgbmoxgugk7hb/HQS%20Sounds.zip?dl=0

-OR- If you want to download the Full Stock HQS 3.0 Sound Mod here at CMMODSIII (there are separate links) and again do your own deleting/modifying

http://cmmodsiii.greenasjade.net/?p=7497

Joe

 

 

thanks for the link! :) I seem to have receded from downloading since the very large (original) file was broken up and some folks reported some issues with that. Just downloading now for further reference. Anyway, I just need parts of the package for specific comparisons, but otherwise get well along with the stock game files. BFC folks surely knows best concerning details like sound lengths, frequency ranges, RMS power and the like. So I´d prefer these as basic reference instead.

Fairly sure removed mod sounds will automatically be replaced with the stock ones buried in original BRZ archives, unless you have other files in the data/z folder that come thereafter and take precedence (again). That what you mean?

I keep not using other folks mod stuff, since I found tons of new and fresh sounds all over the net and which are not from other games. It´s that basic experimentations and learning experience that keeps me interested. B)

Edit: I keep the glass shattering and debris stuff at 1:6 or even smaller and FX added are rather low volume, yet still discernable. Overall intention remains getting a certain balance across all sounds used (thus far just the impacts and voices), making them sound somewhat more distant, while using economically short file/sound lengths the same time.

Edited by RockinHarry
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33 minutes ago, JoMc67 said:

Sounds Good, and hope you, at least, enjoy some of those Sound Mods :-)

Many are relatively Loud, even at distance, and need toning down, and some others in need of altering or just delete.  

Yeah thanks again, there´s some really good ones partially and I might reuse them  if I get permissions. 

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7 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

@Kaunitz did some testing of trees and found out some surprising things, did you read that post?

found them by keyword search "tree" in the thread, though I somewhat rushed over it. Lots of interesting stuff in there for sure and I wished i´d more time and patience ATM to read and grasp it all. However most of the basic principles coincide with my own observations and understanding of the game features concerned and last but not least, only BFC could clear those stuff up yet unanswered. What exactly is behind each feature and abstraction they´ll surely remain at keeping that as company secrets. While it wasn´t my focus nor intention, my "no tracer" and impact sound mod could surely help on making these sorts of test and viewing it from yet another perspective. B)

Yet bits more brain farting on the hitbox/tree matter. It may well be the pixeltroopers positioning behind single trees is just faked to make them look like intelligently looking for cover, which likely not is. All game objects need to snap to the 8x8m grid, incl. trees and every single soldier. If something like a hit box exists, it is surely bigger than the visible tree trunks (or any geometry) suggests and it makes a difference (code wise) if a soldier is placed within a hit box or outside. Spotting/shooting from within likely is differently handled, than when beeing outside, thus maybe the confusing observations come from concerning LOS/LOF in and out. A soldier positioned at a tree can be considered "within" and enemy ones looking/shooting at him do that at the outside.

But at last we need to live with certain abstractions and then comes the most interesting part, how to exploit them (or use intelligently) in our games. Trees/Woods are not WYSIWYG, as neither is buildings, but that shouldn´t hinder applying real world tactics differently than if if the game would simulate everything up to micro detail IMO. Maybe in CMX4 or 5, if we´d live that long.

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