[all versions up to 2.1.7] No volume curve for stereo sounds

[wildweasel]

See thread title - when a stereo OGG sound is played from a source other than the player (i.e. a monster or another player), there is no volume curve or panning for that sound - it plays at full volume regardless of distance.

Could this possibly be solved? Could ZDoom generate a mono version of the sound for purposes of allowing volume and positional effects?

[Kate]

Just for reference, it doesn't have to be just an OGG sound. Any multi-channel sound gets played as-is without volume checks.

I do know that some wads take advantage of this by making looping ambience stereo and placing it close to a location to cover an area, so fixing this may actually break this form of use of these sounds. I know for a fact that HTC2, among a host of other wads, does this. =X

If it does get fixed, it will require a compatibility option to restore this behavior so ambient sounds work properly in these wads.

[Graf Zahl]

This appears to be an FMOD problem. ZDoom doesn't do anything special for these sounds.

That said, stereo sounds can by definition not be used as positional sounds in a 3D world so I'd say it's up to the mod maker to use proper sounds.

Other opinions?

[Kate]

Well, if it's possible to let FMOD know that a sound should be downmixed before being played, then that should be done if: The sound is being played by an actor (versus as an ambient sound by a script), the sound was meant to be played positionally (versus +FULLVOLSOUNDS or the SURROUND parameter of $ambient, so that you can use a multi-channel sound in position of, oh say, the Icon of Sin's sounds or a boss's sight sound, and have it play back as intended), and the sound is not being played by the same actor as the viewsource. This would allow the same sound to be used dynamically as both stereo for the player and positional for other actors, like a weapon sound also used by monsters, or other players in deathmatch.

Of course if this is done there should be a "Stereo sounds are played unconditionally" compatflag to restore the old behavior for maps that use it to cover areas with a sound.

This is of course assuming ZDoom knows if a sound is multi-channel to begin with. If it's too complicated and would be impossible to rewrite it to work that way, then it should just be [Not ZDoom]'d I guess.

[Risen]

stereo sounds can by definition not be used as positional sounds in a 3D world so I'd say it's up to the mod maker to use proper sounds.

Other opinions?

I agree.

[HotWax]

While it would be a nice feature for ZDoom to optionally be able to downmix sounds on commands, I agree this is something that the mapper can easily fix and as such this doesn't need to be addressed if it'd be too much hassle.

[wildweasel]

The purpose of this bug report is because there are a number of times that I've used stereo sounds as player weapon sounds, a la Half-Life 2. However, this doesn't play well with co-op or deathmatch modes, and what by all rights should be a distant, slightly muffled gunshot would still be played at full volume regardless of how far the player is from that sound.

Telling me to downmix it to mono won't do it. While that works for monsters, it won't solve anything for players (and greatly lessens the effect of the sound).

[randi]

How is this now? FMOD Ex is supposed to support positioning stereo sounds in 3D space, unlike the old FMOD 3, which downmixed them to mono.

[wildweasel]

As of r841 (from RazTK's repository), the stereo sounds in WWHC-Diaz that I'm using for player weapons are currently playing in mono from the player's perspective. It's a little hard to tell without headphones at the moment, so I can test it further with a specially designed sound if needed. I haven't tested positional sounds yet but can do so in about an hour.

[MDenham]

As of r841 (from RazTK's repository), the stereo sounds in WWHC-Diaz that I'm using for player weapons are currently playing in mono from the player's perspective. It's a little hard to tell without headphones at the moment, so I can test it further with a specially designed sound if needed. I haven't tested positional sounds yet but can do so in about an hour.

The fix postdates r841, so you'll need to cadge a later one off someone (I'd put one up myself, but I don't have any web space to put it to yet - waiting on my domain name right now).

[wildweasel]

Hmm, well unfortunately I'm not equipped to compile an SVN build, and don't know anybody that could compile one for me, so I'll have to wait on this one.

[Graf Zahl]

Try this one:

http://www.rowand.myzen.co.uk/r858.zip

[Slasher]

What ever happened to RazTK? Does anyone know where he went and why he's not updating his repository?

[MDenham]

What ever happened to RazTK? Does anyone know where he went and why he's not updating his repository?

As he's only been gone a week, I suspect it's just Spring Break and he's on vacation with his family.

[Slasher]

As he's only been gone a week, I suspect it's just Spring Break and he's on vacation with his family.

I'm not freaking out or anything. I was just wondering. If that's the case, he would've known about it ahead of time and he could have given us a heads up since we'd be wondering why all of a sudden his repository has stopped updating.

You're probably right. He's probably just somewhere having fun.