Sound Modding: Ghost Recon Sound Bug

[VeLocityChaos]

I've been doing some tinkering with the sound and i've come into a problem that i'd never noticed before.

On one part of my sound mod, I've created some 'gear rattle' sounds for while you're running and randomized light rattle while you're walking, by using the 'm' footstep & the breath_run_m sounds - i've came out with some very good results.

However, there's a bug in GR - i guess? - that will play the 'breath_run_m" sound instead of the "breath_wounded*" sound when you're hit. This bug only happens while you're using the character and he is wounded - in other words - if you switch to a wounded character in SP - it properly plays the wounded sound - or - if you soul-switch out of the affected character and then back in - the sound plays properly.

I never noticed this bug before in all my years of this game. Anyway, so the problem is anytime i'm wounded with my mod activated - it sounds like i'm running and rattling gear heavily.

Can anyone think of a way to get around this behavior? The only thing I can think of, but haven't tried is setting all my characters to female - changing the modded sound to breath_run_f and see if it would just play breath_run_m when i'm wounded per bug. But, it's likely just going to play the female breath sound (which would then be modded) over and over too...so it's probably not going to work.

I'd hate to have to scrap this idea as it sounds really cool and adds a lot to the game. When enemies are alerted and they're running towards your location - it sounds much more life-like to hear, but I can't think of any way aside from making the game a one-shot always kill to get around it.

Any ideas?

Edited April 29, 2013 by VeLocityChaos

[RileyFletcher_01]

Sounds like a great idea. Unfortunately I have no idea regarding the bug. My only question is did you reconcile the new rattle sound in IGOR? The game plays random sounds if you reconcile a file that's already in the original game. I doubt that's the issue but it's worth checking.

[VeLocityChaos]

Yeah, i've confirmed it's a bug. This problem happens in the base game even with base files. In fact, I even tried the GR demo and it's present there too. However, they fixed the problem in my SOAF retail.

It looks like they originally only had the plan to have the one sound for both events (Running) and (Wounded) - they likely realized "Hey this heavy panting sound is annoying, maybe we should tone it down abit for the wounded event seperately" or something and made the second effect. They called up the new file when wounded in all cases except for while you're the player controlled character.

Bug Attributes:

- One of your teammates is wounded and you soul-switch to him - Everything sounds normal (you hear the wounded sound)

- If you get wounded - you'll hear the running sound over and over instead of the wounded sound - you can make the engine call the wounded sound by soul-switching out of your character and then back in.

This happens in both SP and MP in every version of this game. (1.0 Demo thru 1.4)

I've tried everything at this point...I'm going to leave it as is - and when I want to play with my mod I`ll just play with 0 endurance and armor points on all my characters.

[RileyFletcher_01]

That's a shame. It was a cool idea.

[Zeealex]

just a little out of interest thing, got an Ike.log to show? i'm curious now...

[VeLocityChaos]

There's nothing on the log for this. It's just a small bug that's always been there.

Create yourself a heavily armored soldier with high endurance (easier to get wounded instead of dying) - go into a game and run (Listen to that sound) -- then purposely get yourself wounded (Same sound) -- Soul-switch out of the wounded character and then back in (Wounded Sound plays)

It occurs on GR-Demo thru GR-Retail 1.4

It does not occur on SOAF 1.1 (Same engine)

It occurs on Windows XP & Windows 7

It occurs with EAX On\Off - Hardware Sound\Software Sound & Alternate Sound cache

The code is calling the breath_run_m* sound on the player-controlled character at the wounded trigger event.

[Zeealex]

Aaah, fair enough.

SOAF uses an updated version of IKE (the engine I believe) which probably had this problem fixed.

what I've noticed with the way Ike handles sounds, is if it has a certain Keyword in it, it will call up different effects etc, it happens with the word "thunder" and "battle" (might be distant actually) if you add the thunder sound in game it will add lightning to the sky, with the battle, it will add distant explosions to the sky.

so it could be, as you said, calling up the wrong sound, based on a key word rather than the entire file-name.

[VeLocityChaos]

You know that's a very good point, and something I hadn't thought of. If I remember correctly, the IKE.RES file contains all the strings of entities and events for the engine.

And as you said, in many cases, it just calls for a part of a file-name or a keyword or the event label instead of an entire filepath and name. This is how this game was able to be modular.

It's worth a shot to try renaming a few things here and there to see if I can grab a keyword or something. I might try naming the file things like "breath_m" - "Wound_m" etc to see if it grabs it. It could have simply been a typo by the guy who coded that line and I might be able to trick it into playing the right file. I`ll have a look at that and the strings & IKE resource files and maybe?

Thanks.

[Zeealex]

glad that little statement of mine helped you spark up a couple of thoughts for now, try "br_wound_m" as the file-name for the wounded sound for now, then go into Igor, reconcile the sounds etc and try it.

If it gives you a crash, have a look at the .res file, but backup the file just in case.

[VeLocityChaos]

Well, I've made some headway with this. I've had to go in a different direction to get the results that I wanted. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about the bug. If you remove the "Wounded" file - the IKE log proves the bug as it doesn't say the wounded file is missing until AFTER you have soul-switched in and out of the character.

So, even though that's a much more efficient and better-sounding option, I thought I'd try it by doing it in pieces through the footstep sounds. I've got some 'ok' results - but I'd like to see what a couple of you think.

I've got four of the completed. Maps that have asphalt, grass, concrete, and carpet will use the new sounds. All other surfaces will sound normal. I've also made a few other minor equipment sounds to make it 'match' better.

Try it on the Embassy map, for example to get a good idea of the sounds of the concrete & asphalt with the equipment movements.

http://www.2shared.com/file/ome3f_9W/PLYR_Sound_Tweaks.html

Try it out and tell me what you think while keeping in mind that it's just a proof of concept.

Edit* Updated link to include a more updated copy. I made some minor adjustments to a couple of the footsteps.

Edited May 1, 2013 by VeLocityChaos

[wombat50]

Like the sounds. Feel like the volume could be increased a tad for the footsteps and breathing but maybe that would make it annoying. Don't know.

f_gocrouch_rustle.wav Maybe decrease the volume on this one? Seems very much like the stock sound to me.

Like the subtle sound when switching between stances and the reload sounds.

Had a little trouble unpacking with WinRAR but 7Zip worked fine.

Others mileage may vary.

Thanks for working on this.

[VeLocityChaos]

Like the sounds. Feel like the volume could be increased a tad for the footsteps and breathing but maybe that would make it annoying. Don't know.

f_gocrouch_rustle.wav Maybe decrease the volume on this one? Seems very much like the stock sound to me.

Like the subtle sound when switching between stances and the reload sounds.

Had a little trouble unpacking with WinRAR but 7Zip worked fine.

Others mileage may vary.

Thanks for working on this.

Hey thanks for checking it out. The volume of the footsteps is pretty much stock. I've tried increasing them but I found it just too much after awhile. That's kinda the thing I'm keeping in mind. In my opinion, they may sound better louder at first, but, overtime that same sound is going to get annoying\repetitive. So, at least, in my mind, I think it's better to keep things subtle and try to keep the volume of everything as close to the default as possible.

The prone sound is the stock, but I added some rifle butt movement just as you land on the ground & and a little feet off the ground sound at the beginning. However, i do think it's still a tad too loud as well and i`ll see about lowering the gain on it.

I reworked the breathing sound, again, and its volume is a tad bit louder now and the sound is much clearer too. I'm really impressed with how it turned out.

At this point, I've got all of the base of the material sounds now completed, and i've made several adjustments throughout to make it as unified and close to the original as possible in volume. I'll probably make a release thread shortly with a proper-beta and i`ll go from there. I`ll use WinRAR instead of 7-Zip to pack it.

Thanks again for checking it out.

Edited May 2, 2013 by VeLocityChaos

[pz3]

Ill have to try it out when i get a chance. Ive found gr sound modding to be tricky. Good luck I would love to hear an authentic experience in GR