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Playing with some sounds...


Jack Wachter

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Version 1.1: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1sqyl0eAu53cxWgfZOfn-cKR8xgEL83DL

 

ORIGINAL POST

Most bullets fired in Ghost Recon are supersonic. Not that they sound like it. Let's fix that by adding in some supersonic bullet crack.

Original sounds from here, the guy who makes them says "You are free to use my material as long as you give credit. I don't do it for money, I do it as a hobby." on his About page.

Initial test using current development build of Cloak-and-Dagger v1.3, looking at releasing sounds as separate sound pack.

 

Now I just need to play around with the effects.xml file, seems some of the sounds cut off a little too early. Also not sure if I want to edit bullet impact sounds to combine the impact sound with the bullet crack sound. Thoughts?

Edited by Jack Wachter
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My experience is that making new sounds that use original file names requires no new effects.xml. Only Sounds using custom file names require making a new effects.xml with the sound volume editor in Igor. I'm not 100% positive but I have never had trouble with sounds being cut short using original file names even if the length differs from what is stated in the effects.xml.

If this does occur I'd use a custom file name requiring a custom effects.xml. Then the .gun files could be adjusted using the new custom file names. I think the game can do funky things if two effects.xml contain the same entries or file names. Maybe something similar to troubles with .kil files.

New sounds are nice in the video. If possible I'd use a different or modify the crack for each weapon. I have made sounds that I tire of so a little variety would help. 

Edited by wombat50
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Yeah, playing around with the effects.xml would probably not change a lot. As is, the game engine seems to handle them pretty well.

The problem with changing the sounds for different guns is that I didn't change any of the gun sounds. All I changed was the 4 e_bullet_wiz#.wav files, so the sounds aren't tied to specific guns.

As for the impact sounds, I saw something in the HU thread about a mod for STALKER where some of the impact sounds were replaced with supersonic crack sounds. So if there's say, 4 different sounds per impact type, I could replace 2 of them with the supersonic crack sounds. Certainly simpler than combining the sounds.

As for variety in sounds, I can look at getting different bullet cracks. In the video, I'm using all 4 of the sounds from the source video. That guy has other videos with the supersonic crack, but they are still kind of similar and weren't quite as sharp as what I've used. And as for tiring of these sounds... hopefully that wouldn't happen? Hearing the crack usually means someone not friendly has your location down. If you know of more sounds that are free to use, let me know so I can see about implementing them.

EDIT: what are the different settings in the effects.xml supposed to adjust? Not sure if it's worth playing around with if all I'm doing is replacing existing sounds.

Edited by Jack Wachter
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Jack wrote: EDIT: what are the different settings in the effects.xml supposed to adjust? Not sure if it's worth playing around with if all I'm doing is replacing existing sounds.

WP33 wrote:
The real important part is in the effects .xml. The "rolloff" section dictates how far away a sound is audible(to players an AI). The "min" section dictates where you still hear the sound at full volume and the point where it starts to dissipate (or degrade in volume) with distance up until that "rolloff" mark. Oh, and I have tested various weapons with various settings in that effects .xml, and "properly" suppressed weapons make a helluva difference. Using an unsuppressed carbine with the proper "rolloff" setting,I had guys swarming all over me playing the same map that earlier, with a suppressed weapon (also with proper rolloff), I was able to sneak all over. Rolloff and "min" are the keys to any enemy hearing you shoot, and technically, you can use any sound you want. As long as you have the settings right, the enemy may not hear you at all, even 10 feet away. My buddies and I use suppressed weapons set up correctly and you literally can't hear them past 30 meters.

From the Origmiss effects.xml
Unsuppressed:     <Entry Filename = "w_ak47_ss.wav" Length = "1.030" Min = "12.000" Max = "2000" Rolloff = "400"/>
Suppressed:         <Entry Filename = "w_smp5_ss.wav" Length = "0.700" Min = "1.000" Max = "2000" Rolloff = "10"/>
Note the difference in the rolloff which is in meters. There is one notable mod that needs this corrected as the rolloff for suppressed weapons is 2000 meters.


Sounds add so much to the experience. A map with little or no ambient sounds is dead. Adding some makes all the difference. Allot of map sounds are to loud notably water or stream sounds. Some are played to frequently for example  some bird sounds. All these can be adjusted in Igor. 
Starting to ramble on.

Edited by wombat50
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Fascinating. I have actually contemplated making suppressed weapons a bit less effective in the sense that they could be heard from farther away. Looks like that would take a lot of time to edit though.

Perhaps I can edit the min and rolloff distances for the bullet whizzing by in a way that it can be heard from farther away. So the actual report of suppressed weapons would be the same (and very hard for far away enemies to hear) but the supersonic crack would be more likely to alert enemies. Basically, suppressors wouldn't be super magical or anything (conceal your exact position, but shooting could give away your presence more easily, so choosing when to shoot or not to shoot would matter more). Not sure how that would affect gameplay balance though. May be better to leave as is.

Oh, here's the bullet crack sounds I have now. Just the sounds, no changes to the effects.xml file. Feel free to play around with it and do what you want with it, even putting it in your own mods.

Supersonic Bullet Crack.zip

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It doesn't hurt to experiment. May stumble on something worthwhile.

You might get some bullet cracks off YouTube. Allot of vids from rifle ranges. Don't see any harm in using them. I usually search by a specific weapon.
What sounds I have recorded are great in stereo but converting to mono for GR they all sound the same or lack the punch they had in stereo.
So I was usually disappointed but once in awhile a good recording was had.

Thanks for the Bullet Crack file.

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When I was converting the sounds, it looked like the sound was the same for both left and right. Of course, the person who made these sounds used actual recordings and modified them to be more realistic since recording equipment isn't perfect. Also seems like the game engine does a decent job at adjusting the sounds based on where the bullet flies relative to you.

As for looking at new sounds, I can probably just pull sounds from the same guy since the work is free for use. The biggest thing I want to look at now is bullet impacts and ricochets. The bullet crack and other bullet sounds don't mesh the best as is. Bullets hitting the cover in front of me or the wall behind me? Meh. Bullets flying near me? HIT THE DECK. The disconnect is most apparent in missions without massive firefights (not the Defend XXL I used for the video). Of course, it's interesting engaging an enemy. At one moment, all you hear is the report of their weapon. Then SNAP as they fire another burst. Much more noticeable when they are firing directly at you.

Took a look at the min and rolloff values, actually seem relatively realistic from what I can find. Going to see what happens when I combine the supersonic crack with impact and ricochet sounds at some point.

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Anyone got information on if there is an audible super sonic crack in CQB environments? The research I've done indicates that the bullets typically don't travel far enough to create one.

I've gone and edited all of the sound files from Heroes Unleashed for bullet impacts and ricochets by adding the supersonic crack to the original sound. Works amazing in outdoor firefights (even short engagements with only one or a couple adversaries are much more tense), but CQB is where I'm not sure it's realistic. Assuming there is typically no supersonic crack in CQB, then I should be able to fix it by adding the supersonic crack to certain sounds only. Any information on this will be greatly appreciated.

Assuming there should be no supersonic crack in CQB environments, here is what I'm thinking will provide a realistic sound system in the confines of the game engine.

Supersonic Crack Only

  • Bullet whizzing by sounds

Original Sound + Supersonic Crack

  • All impact and ricochet sounds with the ground (dirt and sand basically, unlikely to find these in CQB most of the time)
  • All or some of the other ricochet sounds
  • Tree impact because for some reason, this is a separate sound from wood
  • Metal impacts, usually not in CQB

No Supersonic Crack

  • Wood (pretty much all buildings seem like they use wood in this game)
  • Impact sounds in general (bullet embeds itself in material instead of continuing flight)

Totally up for suggestions. Trying to find that balance of realism in all environments. While the video above sounds amazing using only the whiz sounds, that's mostly due it being a massive firefight. The disconnect between hearing those and just plain impact/ricochet sounds is much more apparent in smaller scale engagements. The above idea would increase the frequency of hearing the crack in longer-range engagements while decreasing the frequency of hearing the sounds in CQB (can't fully eliminate, but some is probably better than just about every shot). I think, need to test. Also, I figured out the 4th sound cuts off instead of fully fading. I simply got rid of it and am using the first sound for e_bullet_wiz1 and e_bullet_wiz4 since the other 3 fully fade.

Overall, I'm happy with how the sounds are coming. Makes engagements much more tense since near misses from the enemy are MUCH more noticeable.

Edited by Jack Wachter
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Looks like simply removing the wood sounds works alright. Will still hear the crack in CQB often, but not as frequently. See original post for link to updated version. I included the wood sounds in a zip file located in the "Sound" folder so you can play around with them. All the original impact and ricochet sounds are the ones from HU.

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  • 2 months later...

Love this mod Wachter - THANK   YOU  for your hard work and being awesome enough to share it freely with all of us.  It really does ratchet up the sense of terrible danger enormously, and is well worth using.

Please see my response to trying your sound effects mod out in the Heroes Unleashed thread.  I have a question that I ask you there.

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  • 5 weeks later...

I did this once before. I never had a good crack sound but ran into some of the same issues. Not real sure if there is a fix for clipping or the audio sounding a bit off. It does make the firefights more immersive though. 

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Part of me wants to just record gun sounds from ARMA 3 and slide them into GR. Not sure of permission technicalities with that since I mostly use JSRS. Do want more variations to work with, should make things even more immersive. As far as GR's inherent limitations go, at least this is better than before.

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I have tried allot of sound sources:
 YouTube, several games and modded soundpacks for other games.
No matter the source, the GR limitation of having mono weapon sounds diminishes good sounding stereo sounds.

On the other hand, there are several GR weapon sounds that are awful. Most notably the M24.
So attempts to replace existing weapon sounds and effects are worth the effort. 

The weapon sounds in Wildlands are to die for. I was able to extract them with some software but formatting them for use in GR deemed them quite average.
😞 Once in awhile I'll find a sound that maintains its punch and is quite satisfying but these are few and far between.

 

Edited by wombat50
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Thales Real Weapon Sounds work pretty well. Maybe we could make a sound library for people to use? Similar to Thales' mod, except with sounds already in the correct format and pulled from various sources. The sounds from Thales' RWS are nice, but sometimes don't have that punch. At least it leads to something that sounds very believable. Now, if we can get some actually good SD sounds to use... RWS barely has any.

 

Edited by Jack Wachter
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  • 1 year later...
  • 11 months later...

Finally got around to try your Supersonic Bullet Sound mod. Just a thought, but shouldn’t the supersonic crack be heard AFTER bullet impact? When I listened (and looked) at your sounds, impact and crack appear to be simultaneous.

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