V-Bear system


(Mustang) #1

Pulling a DA and stealing content from “that other site”.


In future updates we’ll be introducing a new environmental audio system which will add some flavour to our guns, dialogue and other features’ audio. We called it V-Bear. To demonstrate this, here is a short clip showing what the system will sound like, along with a description below of what it does.

//youtu.be/_QhH6zhJ5G8

What does V-Bear do?

V-Bear manages the reverb that is applied to each sound in a specific area of a given map. It provides a more immersive experience by allowing sound to reflect the current environment’s look and offers smooth transitions between different areas.

As the system works at runtime for local as well as remote players, it makes it easier to identify the origin of a gunshot in the proximities of the listener. This is due to the sound carrying the source‘s environmental character.

V-Bear represents an improvement over how all ambient audio was managed as far as performance goes, requiring less and smarter checks for non-gameplay relevant audio management.

Lastly, V-Bear is also responsible for controlling Environment Driven Content playback.

Environment Driven Content

By approaching guns’ audio design in a modular way, we’re able to control individual, gun specific characteristics through V-Bear the same way we control reverb. This allows us to overcome the limitations that come with using reverb, granting us more freedom over designing the individual guns’ core character and preserving it in the different environments.

And that is V-Bear. Keep an eye open for more updates to come!


And a few more tidbits from Galavant:

  • V-Bear stands for Volume Based Environmental Audio Reverb (System).

  • All the calculation stuff is already present in the current live build so there won’t be any negative performance impact, if anything CPU usage should be lessened because older systems can be disabled.

  • This doesn’t include any changes to occlusion and obstruction, so things like being able to detect verticality and wall penetration, the game already has a basic system for this stuff, but it’s something they know still needs to be improved.


(alphabeta) #2

This is great and seems to really create much more realistic aural environments, but: I still hardly ever hear footsteps, breathing, or other obvious environmental clues as to player location. A character runs across the map, hides behind a door, and there is no “panting” or heavy breathing to let you know he is there. Am I alone in believing this would add greatly to the skill levels in the game?


(Glottis-3D) #3

my walking footsteps seem to be a bit too loud.


(ragnak) #4

From practical standpoint this whole audio rework just made things worse. I dont really understand why they add things like reverb when whole sound fundations are in a horrible state. Good luck finding a sniper now, when all you hear is whiping when he misses you, but you cant tell at all where the bullet came from.


(happypenguin) #5

Hi Ragnak, as far as loudness is concerned, these are effects applied on top of the existing source, they are not intended to subtract from what is there in the first place and generally should not affect sounds in any way different from the previous patch, particularly for outdoor triggered audio which was tested to ensure it sounded identical. If you notice anything particularly unusual, please report it my way. As far as priorities go, certain things are simpler to do than others, there’s several on our plate, we’re now proceeding to develop an improved obstruction and occlusion system, doing that before working on the reverb would have made the development of the reverb system harder. While not everyone might love what comes with environmental audio, DB was a bit of an exception to the standard in not having any kind of reverb, we really wanted to highlight how different our maps are as well as showcase our gun audio in different environments.
I understand seeing these polish passes might make you feel as if positional audio communication wasn’t the priority for us but trust me, it is literally on the top of the list and will be addressed, V-Bear had to happen before it as adding the feature aftewards would have been messier :slight_smile:


(ragnak) #6

I am just a believer that sound needs to be functional and it simply isnt in DB at the moment. I dont really care how awesome things sound when i cant localise the source of the sound by hearing it. There is simply so many sound issues right now that adding reverb just because others have it looks silly at best.

I still cant tell when MG is shooting at me because its so quiet, i still cant hear footsteps 99% of the time when there is something going around the map, i still cant tell where will air strike drop because sound for air support abilities is a mess and it change into a guess game, sound still tends to cut off so i cant even hear people shooting behind/next to me, explosives still muffles all the other sounds for no good reason, there is still no sound for people jumping/landing (whats the reason for not adding jumping/landing sounds ? i dont get it) and so on.

I honestly cant understand why an old game like enemy terriotry have a lot more functional audio, where i didnt had to guess whats going on. I was losing hope lately since most developers just doesnt care enough about funcionality of the audio (and i just love when they remove footsteps so headphones users doesnt have an edge, lol), but after hearing overwatch it was restored for quite a bit.

In overwatch not only can i hear everything, i can tell who is behind the wall, what he is doing and its simply clean (even when there is a lot of things going around), its blisful, thats how games are suppose to sound. Sound in db doesnt even give me half of that, even if it worked correctly. Sure, you dont have as much funds as blizzard but i honestly cant belive you couldnt do it better for such a long time.

Sorry for being a dick but sound is the weakest part of DB and it didnt improve in over a year and at this point i am honestly tired of it (on top of being salty as hell).

P.S

Thanks for leaving a reply, i might not look like it but i appreciate it.


(Glottis-3D) #7

in order to try to put it in some audio terms.

[ul]we must devide all sounds into ‘significent’ and ‘unsignificent’ ones.
significent being:
-enemy footsteps
-guns
-elevators, doors, EV
-ability sounds (airstrikes markers, laser marker etc)

unsignificent being:
-taunts
-my footsteps
-ambient sounds
-explosions
[/ul]

  • apart from being different in loudness (due to any reason - range or nature of sound or a barrier, that blocks direct sound)
    sounds should be equalized with priority
    i.e. all ‘unsignificent’ sounds (lets say explosion) should have several minima in their amplitude-frequency characteristics. each minimum(or sometimes several minima) corresponds to a specific sound, that is ‘signifinect’ (lets say gunshot) and that sound will have a corresponding maximum in its amplitude-frequency characteristics.

    that means whenever you hear a combination of sounds you will always hear ‘significent’ sounds though the mix of ‘unsignificent’ ones, sometimes even if unnesessary ones are pretty loud.

    these maxima in ‘significent’ sounds should be stricktly specific to the sound - i.e. heavy guy has a low-freq footstep, heavy gun has even lower-freq base sound (from big muzzle), plus some higher freq from a shock.

ON TOP OF THAT

  • there is such a thing, like a “trigger compressor”
    whenever the game starts a ‘significent sound’ it triggers a compressor on all ‘unsignificent sounds’ - several dBs.

(happypenguin) #8

I understand your point of view ragnak, hopefully you can see how some players might feel different about it and do not have such a competitive take on it. That said, there are some issues that have nothing to do with the stylistic direction of the game: you should be able to rely on audio 100% of the times, while at the moment it’s hard to rely on it when more than 5 or 6 players are in the same room spamming abilities along with weapon audio. This is something I keep banging my head against a wall to fix, I have plenty of ideas, one of which would be, for example, to pan damage audio (gore etc) according to the direction you’re being shot from. That’s just one of many examples along with the occlusion system rework. These solutions are weighted with others and prioritized accordingly depending on the team’s workload for a given sprint.
I respect the saltiness and am glad you care about it to this extent, players like you keep me focused on what the priorities should be. That said the DB team size is not OW’s, it took about 3 months to put V-Bear together and realistically it will more to improve the occlusion system.
What I would really appreciate is some video example where you believe audio lacked in providing you information on directionality etc, that way we can have a less abstract and more focused discussion on which I can actually act.


(happypenguin) #9

All good points Glottis and in line with what we want to achieve.


(Demolama) #10

I think the core problem with the loud echoing sounds is due to the very closed maps in DB. The game is set in an urban environment where sound bounces off a crap ton of walls. The same type of problem would not be happening if you had more open maps.

[QUOTE=happypenguin;549891] …such a competitive take on it.[/QUOTE] And that right there is the crux of the problem that many of us have with the direction of DB. I assume that it had become obvious that having a core of competitive players would not bring in enough revenue so now it is becoming a more pub-centric game, especially since SD now has actual paid gigs. And I get that. But I also think that notion is flawed. My concern is that this game is quickly losing whatever solid player base it had. The ones that cared more for the game than your average ftp player who often downloads a free game, plays for maybe 100 hours, and then quickly uninstalls it. Sure you might make money off some of those types of players but retaining a loyal core goes a lot farther for the longevity of the game.


(Nail) #11

[QUOTE=Demolama;549927]I think the core problem with the loud echoing sounds is due to the very closed maps in DB. The game is set in an urban environment where sound bounces off a crap ton of walls. The same type of problem would not be happening if you had more open maps.

And that right there is the crux of the problem that many of us have with the direction of DB. I assume that it had become obvious that having a core of competitive players would not bring in enough revenue so now it is becoming a more pub-centric game, especially since SD now has actual paid gigs. And I get that. But I also think that notion is flawed. My concern is that this game is quickly losing whatever solid player base it had. The ones that cared more for the game than your average ftp player who often downloads a free game, plays for maybe 100 hours, and then quickly uninstalls it. Sure you might make money off some of those types of players but retaining a loyal core goes a lot farther for the longevity of the game.[/QUOTE]

more people playing than last week by almost a thousand


(Kl3ppy) #12

Is this implemented on all maps? So far I just noticed a different sound on Underground.


(BioSnark) #13

I agree with what other people have said. Priorities are not in the right place.

Objective VO notifications aren’t even reliably played. I can sit outside underground obj1 and know with certainty that I can not rely on sound to tell me if someone is on the roof, or even planting. In Quake Wars, I could know with certainty if an enemy was running into a data brain bank (much bigger building than the underground ticket booth[?]), from where he was coming, and if he was above or below me. Really annoying that that technology is regressing.


(Glottis-3D) #14

About Underground reverb.
IMHO it is way too much. I think the amount of echo should be tuned down.


(light_sh4v0r) #15

I disagree, I think underground sounds amazing. Positional audio is all over the place as everyone said, but I love the sound of my gun in underground :slight_smile: