.map file relation to EoC geography?

I agree, GT. This thread holds some very interesting discussion for locale design. I sent you the creepy distress signal for a test "graveyard" in space. Did anything ever come of that? Did you ever assemble anything from the other themes proposed that were to test the emotional shorthand for seedy, creepy, or otherwise dangerous places? If so, could you provide a review/summary of what you learned from those tests? How far off were we?

--
Hot4Darmat

Sigh. I have been searching my drive for the little ghost setup I built ever since I reread this thread, but I cannot find it. The supporting sound features made it into the station environment package and Shane even created this little spaceman corpse for it. I can't even find the screenshots. I can only find a few shots of a cruiser floating in a nebula, but not the freighter I thought I used. It must have been moved to one of the 100+ backup disks of Epic.


My reason for reviving this thread is to think up ways the tie the "meta game" in Epic back into the player sensory world. Every ship in Epic has a purpose. All the sound is there to signal some information to the player. Every item has a purpose, a meaning, and its destruction has a consequence. I am thinking that if each could get a unique signature – sound, or chatter, then they can support the mood without being window dressing.

All stations are surrounded by habitat modules. Some of those modules have been commandeered by the Mafia for vice dens, or smuggling operations. Some have become rebel recruiting centers. There are now fleet command ships orbiting some stations, organizing offensive and defensive operations.

It would be really cool if these operations had some kind of unique signature. Maybe sound effects when you get close. Some have dedicated ships, so perhaps those could radio chatter back and forth. Or solicit customers.

Perhaps that idea could be extended to the station itself. Each type of station could get some kind of sound, or traffic (with chatter) near it that would signal what it is. There are a bunch of stored pieces of data that this traffic or sound could cue on:

Owning faction type (navy, mafia, corporation, government, independent)
The Fleet Style of a faction (Empire, Sultanate, wasteland)
The type of station. (Habitat, Industrial, Military, Mercenary)
The type of attached module (fleet operation, vice den, pirate support, smuggler operation, rebel recruiter)
The system law level (high, med, low, anarchy)


-Gtrout

Grandpa Trout asked me a loooong time ago to write something up about what I am doing on sound. So perhaps I should do that here. This seems like a relevant topic and area...

My approach, which I originally came to Grandpa Trout with on a sudden moment of inspirational motivation, has been to create a 'soundscape' in Epic. By this I mean to forgo any mood music or action music per se and to move completely to an environment in which sounds are positioned 3-Dimensionally, attached to objects and areas. The players’ actual movement through regions and zones will change the sounds that they are hearing, the number, volume, and emphasis etc.
Now, I know there are no 'sounds' in space. However, my original inspiration for working on the sound effects for Epic came when I stumbled across a website filled with NASA and other organizations recordings of space 'sounds' (Coincidentally, Grandpa Trout independently came across this site as well). The 'sounds' on this website were recordings of Atmospheric hiss, solar wave fronts, the sounds of Jupiter, background radiation and many others. These 'sounds' were all electromagnetic in nature and had been modulated in a manner to make them audible to human ears. I thought to myself 'perhaps the spacecraft of Epic could do something similar'...So that started me on a mission to create a semi-realistic set of sound effects.
So, relating back to what is being discussed concerning creation of mood (hmm..haven’t read over this thread for awhile…), I guess my method would rely on the association of sounds with what happens to the player. The sounds them selves are generally mood neutral. However, a mood, or environment of familiarity, or threat, can be created by having similar ‘threads’ of sounds running through the overall soundscape. For example, I am trying to create Empire specific ‘technology sounds’ that can become recognizable to the player after a time. A specific example would be the pulsing of a stations LDS inhibitor field. I have created several different sounds, similar in design, but with recognizable signatures nonetheless. These sounds will heard long before a player comes within visual range of a station. Thus, after a time the familiar sound of a LDS inhibitor field pulse will ease the player, whereas conversely, the sound of an enemy faction’s LDS inhibitor field will do exactly the opposite, creating a mood of threat and danger (specifically and particularly after the player has already ‘tangled’ with said faction and recognizes their ‘signature’)
An even better example would be a faction specific engine or generator ‘thrum’ that would let the player know very quickly, just who is in the immediate vicinity. Depending on the player’s relation to certain factions or empires, different moods will be created.
I have also created sounds specific to nebula, nebular regions, and ‘deep’ space. At the moment these sounds are generally mood neutral (Generally meaning that although I may have ‘tried’ to create some ‘feeling’ or ‘message’ in the sounds I have created, I am far from an accomplished composer, and the results are questionable. Lets just say I created neutral sounds). However, with time, the player might come to associate the crackling and thundering of a particularly dangerous nebula with the danger itself.
I hope that eventually, the sound effects will be the first cue a player responds to while playing.
Okay, enough rambling. I think that is the gist of what I am doing. Soundscape. 3-Dimensional sound environment. ‘Realistic’ sounds. No music. Mood is derived from onscreen action, and from long-term sound/event associations.

A final note. I am about 95% done this sound mod. I have close to 500 megs of sound effects composed, though the bulk of that will not be used. I am just waiting for Grandpa Trout to catch up on the coding that will let us attach these sounds how and where we want! Heh. (Credit to GrandpaTrout: He has already written a lot for the sound mod, enough to make it quite functional already, though likely not up to his very exacting and high standards)
However, I am not doing radio chatter. I do have lots of fuzzy, indistinguishable clips. But I do not have any event specific voice or radio sound effects. Is anyone working on that? Would anyone like to?

I did some work on the SFX environmental sounds and radio chatter a while back. It's in the "cool pog tricks" thread (at the bottom of the page):

www.i-war2.com/forum/topic.asp?T ... hichpage=2

I even sent a demonstration mod to the members of the Epic team at the time. Cambragol, I think you were temporarily out of the loop then.

Using a sound channel you would only achieve a monotonous, single toned, constant volume sound that would abruptly start and stop when you called the Stream function per pog.

Using the following method, you will have a background sound effect that fades out with distance, changes pitch depending on the direction and speed you are flying, and is even more audible, depending on whether you point your ship at it or fly a tangent.

I still have that demo mod, so if you want it, let me know.

Rereading the whole post, I just realized, that the max audible distance (around 200 km) of the sfx effects may well have been due to the engine culling the "sound sim". IIRC I didn't set that sound sim to be non cullable as it was created.

Anyhow that mod would allow you to test your 3D sound effects and especially radio chatter, rather easily.








Iwar2 Multiplayer Fan Site

Hi MajorTom,

Actually GrandpaTrout and I are a lot farther along than I made out. We have most of the sounds working. GrandpaTrout wrote some clever script to overcome the 200km cull. So we have sounds of planets and planetoids etc, that are ranging out thousands of kilometers (as far as the player is concerned) I have planet sounds, gas giant sounds, atmospheric sounds, Multiple types of stations sounds, ships sounds, regions sounds and others. Within all of those I also have subcategories of sounds, as well as sounds created specifically to create 'cues' for the player.

I was likely out of the loop as you said, and have just recently returned from being out of the loop again. I will check out the mod you created, but I think GrandpaTrout may have already overcome most obstacles and created script for me which does all we need. I think the only thing the sound mod is waiting on is the final form that stations and ships will take, so that appropriate script can be written for attachment of sounds (according to faction). GrandpaTrout, I guess this is your area. Are we going to be able to associate sounds by faction or empire? Remember where we last stood, being limited to associating sound effects by region only. That was a legacy of your original sound mod I believe. Until we work out how we will attach sounds to ships and stations, I can't move much further forward with the sound mod. Planets, Moons, Gas Giants, and regions are all done and working nicely.

Hey Cambragol,
Glad you showed up! We have a few different choices for sound attachment, and it depends on how you want the effects to work:

Many factions share ship designs. So everyone who gets ships from the Leung Empire will have the "Leung" fleet style. Items like a changed thruster noise, can be attached to these ships specifically, replacing the current sound.

Or, if the sound effect is more like radio chatter, then I can attach a sound object at the time the ship is created. The sound object could be selected on the same fleet style, or on the specific faction, or it could be selected on the type of faction: Military, Pirate, Company, Independent.

I like your idea of adjusting sound based on faction feeling toward player. That kind of sound I would have to attach from POG. How would IFF spoofers be handled? Would the player get happy sound while pretending to be a good guy, and then would we need to change the sound when he went evil? Or should he just get evil sound all the time - keeping the stress level higher? (I suppose the second option would be easier to code).

However, I am not doing radio chatter. I do have lots of fuzzy, indistinguishable clips. But I do not have any event specific voice or radio sound effects. Is anyone working on that? Would anyone like to?

Shane had some excellent radio chatter suggestions at the top of this thread. We don't really have an Income level item we can trigger sound attachment on. It would need to be based on faction type, or station type.

There are several events we know will be in the game for sure:

Station attacked
Ship attacked
Ship destroyed
Ship powering up
Ship detects target and attacks

Freighter moves in range of station
Freighter chooses to leave station

There are some events based on ships that will be near a station:
Mercenary or Corporate defense command ship
Rebel recruiter ship
Vice den mafia ship
Pirate protection racket ship
Smuggler sales ship

These could either have some kind of chatter at the player, or tend to have some kind of passive chatter that just signals who they are. The passive chatter could be short ranged, you hear it when close to the ship, but not at distance.

Hmmm. Seems like I need to catch up the sound coding, so you can test the environment sounds. Then demo and tweeks. If someone wants to work on chatter, that would be great! We would take a conservative approach, and just do the pieces we know will be put into the game.

-Gtrout