Infantry Movement Sounds

[Philippe]

One thing that I've always found weird in CMBO and CMBB is the ghostly silent advance of infantry.

From time to time you'll hear an NCO yell something, but no footsteps, no crunching twigs, no jackboots clanging on cobblestones.

Thinking about this I realize that this could be a huge potential computer resource hog, so 1:1 movement sounds are probably a really bad idea.

But it would be nice there was something, a few footsteps and jangling equipment noises, perhaps a bit louder when they're running, and quieter when they're in stealth mode (if such a thing exists in CMx2).

And by the way, I just heard a rumor that the call of the North American Robin sounds remarkably similar to the Central European Thrush...

[securityguard]

Really, footsteps do not make much noise. Not enough to hear them, even when you tab a unit. Hearing footsteps would be completely obnoxious.

However I'd love to hear snapping twigs and rustling bushes as tanks plow through light trees. That would be awesome.

[dalem]

Originally posted by securityguard:

Really, footsteps do not make much noise. Not enough to hear them, even when you tab a unit. Hearing footsteps would be completely obnoxious.

However I'd love to hear snapping twigs and rustling bushes as tanks plow through light trees. That would be awesome.

So you don't want a chance to hear the boot thumps of 10 guys advancing down a street even whe your POV is "right there" with them, but you think a tank's engine noise wouldn't drown out twigs snapping under the tracks?

Don't you have it a bit backward?

-dale

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Footsteps if they are running? Maybe. But definitely none when soldiers are walking. It would get so annoying. But the gentle rustle of equipment? Sure, why not. If BFC don't have anything better to do, ofcourse.

[Philippe]

A lot depends on where they're walking. Imagine a squad of German soldiers patroling a cobblestone street. If the camera is anywhere near them that's a lot of crunching and clacking going on, unless they've taken their boots off.

Now imagine the same squad in a wheatfield. Apart from the occasional munching sounds, I would imagine the main sound would be gas mask canisters banging into canteens as they walk.

Put them back on a dirt road. Muffled crunching.

Make them ford a stream. Lots of splashing sounds if they're running (will go nicely with that neat new water explosion BFC has planned), but swishing and gurgling if they're walking.

And the point, of course, to all these sounds, is that you can hear them when the camera is over the unit, but at level three or four they quickly fade to nothing.

Memory usage? Probably a gadzillion gigabytes of RAM...

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Philippe:

A lot depends on where they're walking. Imagine a squad of German soldiers patroling a cobblestone street. If the camera is anywhere near them that's a lot of crunching and clacking going on, unless they've taken their boots off.

Put them back on a dirt road. Muffled crunching.

Make them ford a stream. Lots of splashing sounds if they're running (will go nicely with that neat new water explosion BFC has planned), but swishing and gurgling if they're walking.

Would be identical for CW troops - they hobnailed too. So how would you tell them apart?

[SgtMuhammed]

I think it would get rather annoying very quickly, much more so than their current stealth mode. The noise would have to be canned and would end up like the looped sound you get in console games. I know that armor currently sounds alike but then armor really does sound alike, unless you are talking about M1's or sum such.