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Question about the new OpenAL-Soft support in 227j/227k

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EDA
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Question about the new OpenAL-Soft support in 227j/227k

Post by EDA »

Smirftsch,

does the new OpenAL-Soft in the 227j/227k engines provide any kind of vertical height information (based on the Audio engine itself) ?

I have to know before creating a new loudspeaker matrix (and buying new speakers).

If there's no support, are there any plans to implement this in the future ?

Cause if there's no chance to get the required height information on the vertical axis, it doesn't make any sense to use the new 7.1.4 and 3D7.1 presets for the AmbiSonics Renderer in OpenAl-Soft 1.23.0, and to buy any new Top-speakers for it.
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Smirftsch
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Re: Question about the new OpenAL-Soft support in 227j/227k

Post by Smirftsch »

Actually I missed that improvement yet tbh.

I really need to think that over (and check about how it is even implemented), in theory all required information is there since we already have a 3D coordinate system with XYZ- however I doubt we can create a useful W component for ambisonic.
Still this really catches my interest.

Either way, I can't make any promises currently, I have to much work, a family and the usual RL crap at this time and once done with everything I am often plain to tired yet for any in depth coding.
Sometimes you have to lose a fight to win the war.
EDA
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Re: Question about the new OpenAL-Soft support in 227j/227k

Post by EDA »

I fully understand your situation. Life goes on no matter what.

Nevertheless it's incredible what is reached so far: ten years for building 227j, ten years for DieHard with S3TC, five years (I think) for aheigh with 4K, most likely ten years for Krull0r with Unreal Redux and so on. And all that for a freeware community project. Pretty impressive to say the least!

It would be a pity, if there's no way to implement the height-axis, cause it really could shift the immersion of Unreal to a new level.

The reason why I always try to push Unreal's graphics and sound to the max is my Unreal "Arcade" project (basically a selfmade Hardware-Controller for all the functions and 227x, now Display & Speakers), and the higher the immersion the better.
I'am no coder, but I'am in the Music/Studio/SFX domain, and I always think about to improve the experience. Although as excellent the Unreal OST is, I think about making new orchestral versions of some of the tracks, for the most beautiful levels like Vandora or Nali Castle at the moment, maybe more later.
I already made the soundtrack for Impossible Mission (Arcade version for speedruns), unfortunatly program and graphics are stopped and one has to search for a new coder and GFX artist.
Both Unreal and IM are on my list of the best games ever and I believe that they deserve to draw much more attention again, especially for the younger generations.

I played around with 227i (have no AVX2 system yet), and I don't know wether the sound issues are already solved in 227j:

1. is the distance cueing real scalable (depending on the CPU load), means the way a sound fades out smoothly with longer distances ?
(I know that there's Attenuate, but it's only on/off, and there's grunt volume for pawns, but only generally)

2. I thought I read about some kind of surface occlusion effect included ? (the docs for 227j are very long)

You know that it's ridicolous that a Brute grunting at full volume like he is near you, where in fact he is five miles away, upstairs and behind three walls (Nali Castle).
Isn't there functionality in OpenAL for filtering (not only volume) these situations ?

It's all about the details, of course :)
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Re: Question about the new OpenAL-Soft support in 227j/227k

Post by Kajgue »

Sound an music are indeed crucial parts to an atmospheric experience :) Also i know that me and Smirf were doing some testing with sound occlusion before J was released, and that should indeed be working (not sure why if it isn't :( ), Smirf also fixed static meshes not occluding sounds, as that was previously a problem with my project that uses invisible static mesh collisions for the world geometry (for map stability purposes), and we did for certain make sure that was working (Not that code is my domain either, but i just helped by testing it from my end) :P

I think more people with interests like yours (sounds and music) are valuable contributors to the patch and community, Unreal could always do with more of those :P
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EDA
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Re: Question about the new OpenAL-Soft support in 227j/227k

Post by EDA »

Yeah.
Now as we have this progress with the 227j engine (which I never could have dreamed of), it slowly but surely deserves a contemporary soundtrack also.

Although Alex Brandon and a few others have already done a pretty good job with remixing the current orchestral ones, I will try all I can to do it better.
I have invested a quite comparable time to built up a whole Orchester Library only with freeware.

btw as we are talking, another annoying issue comes to my mind with sound testing on the 227i built:

Pawns create always the same footstep sounds, no matter on which underground they move. I wish I would see a Brute walking on grass in NyLeve.
I'am aware of the new footstep feature, and that Krull0r makes use of it, but I'm afraid that pawns are not affected in that way.
EDA
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Re: Question about the new OpenAL-Soft support in 227j/227k

Post by EDA »

ok, I can see that I made a mistake in my sekond post:

Actually the Attenuate Feature does already a part of Surface Occlusion Detection, but only volume.
It has nothing to do with distance cueing, same for grunt volume.

So let me sum it up just for the records what is need to max out the immersion sound-wise:

1.
For example, on some sounds like the Brute grunting/footsteps (tested in Nali Castle) the fade-out curve doesn't seem right.
As I fly away from the Brute, for most of the distance the volume stays the same, and at the end it fades out rapidly and then
immediately stops, although the sound is not near to silent.
I think, we need a much more smooth (linear) fade-curve here, but I don't know, if this is a engine or a mapping issue.
The sound should start to fade at def-volume (nearby) and should end to fade with zero (radius-max, or treshhold of hearing), and if the
CPU can handle it, even no matter how big the radius may be on the loudest sounds (Waterfall, Titan, bigger explosions).
I also don't know the variables for a specific sound (don't had a look in the editor yet), but aren't def-volume and radius sound-related
instead of enemy- or object-related? It wouldn't make sense if they are not sound-related, e.g. Nali has 4 kinds of radius: meditation,
whispering, talking, and screaming. Please correct me if I'am wrong here.

2.
As mentioned above the Attenuate Feature needs not only volume but also some kind of Low Pass Filtering.
This functionality is already supported by OpenAL-Soft.

3.
Pawns should have the same (or similar) new footsteps functionality as the player (at least those who are able to walk).

4.
The height-axis. If this is implemented, Unreal would be better than even most current games, because today most of the game engines
dont't care about their sound immersion, and even Dolby Atmos covers only the upper half of the height-axis with 7.1.x and Top-speakers, if I understand it correctly.
(except Codemasters who invented 3D7.1)


End of whining. For the moment ;)
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