0021337: Transition between no audible battle sounds and full-volume battle sounds when zooming in-out is too sharp - DEV Arcen

ID	Project	Category		Date Submitted	Last Update

0021337	AI War 2	Audio Work		Jun 27, 2019 3:13 pm	Aug 30, 2019 7:08 pm

Reporter	TechSY730	Assigned To	Chris_McElligottPark
Status	resolved	Resolution	fixed
Product Version	0.871 More Control, Part 1
Fixed in Version	0.885 The Audible Bodyguard

Summary	0021337: Transition between no audible battle sounds and full-volume battle sounds when zooming in-out is too sharp
Description	The transition between battle sounds muted or too quiet to hear and being at full volume is too sharp when zooming in-out. The range where the battle sounds are some volume in between is too small.
Tags	No tags attached.

TechSY730 Jun 27, 2019 3:14 pm reporter ~0051981	This sort of sounds like a classic case of linearly scaling the volume with zoom, when our perception of sound is actually logarithmic. This results in the behavior seen here, zones where it sounds too quiet or all the way being way to big, with a big cliff in the middle, instead of sounding like a smooth transition.

BadgerBadger Jun 27, 2019 4:51 pm manager ~0051982	As far as I can tell this is handled in Unity-specific stuff, so only Chris can handle it.

Chris_McElligottPark Aug 30, 2019 7:08 pm administrator ~0052691	Thanks! * The volume levels at the lower end of the spectrum, for various audio channels, should now be a lot more reasonable. If the sensitivity is still not feeling right, we might need to tweak our math a bit more, but this should give you more finesse in an audible range. * Previously, the audio sources used by the different audio buses in the game had a lot of values just baked in. And many of them were too low for the "new" (as of a year and a half or more ago) max zoom distance to really be effective. Now you can set the spatial_blend (between 0 and 1) directly, and this makes them 2D or 3D or partway between. 3D sounds have a spatial element to them, and attenuate based on distance, as well as letting you hear what direction they're coming from relative to the camera. Which sounds are spatial versus 2D is unchanged at the moment, but can be changed now. The min_distance can now be set, and was previously almost always 1. Now it's always 500. This is the distance -- in unity units -- at which a 3D sound is played at max volume before linear attenuation based on distance kicks in at all. The max_distance can now be set, and that was previously all over the place, from 1500 to 6000 usually. Now it's mostly 6000 to 8000 for the 3D sounds (this has no effect on 2D sounds). This makes for very little distance attenuation, meaning that with headphones on things all sound closer in general, but it also means that you don't get silence during a battle when you're very zoomed out. Battles thus sound FAR better. doppler_level can now be set (between 0 and 5), and all the values are now 0 rather than ever being 1, which they sometimes were before. This prevents any of the sounds from being choppy as you zoom in and out and the doppler level was trying to kick in and not really doing well when doing so. It's not an effect you would likely have noticed because the attenuation was too strong before, but we encourage you not to use this feature now that the attenuation feature is fixed.

Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
Jun 27, 2019 3:13 pm	TechSY730	New Issue
Jun 27, 2019 3:14 pm	TechSY730	Note Added: 0051981
Jun 27, 2019 4:51 pm	BadgerBadger	Note Added: 0051982
Jun 27, 2019 4:52 pm	BadgerBadger	Assigned To	=> Chris_McElligottPark
Jun 27, 2019 4:52 pm	BadgerBadger	Status	new => assigned
Jun 27, 2019 4:52 pm	BadgerBadger	Relationship added	related to 0021235
Jun 27, 2019 4:52 pm	BadgerBadger	Relationship added	related to 0020829
Aug 30, 2019 7:08 pm	Chris_McElligottPark	Status	assigned => resolved
Aug 30, 2019 7:08 pm	Chris_McElligottPark	Resolution	open => fixed
Aug 30, 2019 7:08 pm	Chris_McElligottPark	Fixed in Version	=> 0.885 The Audible Bodyguard
Aug 30, 2019 7:08 pm	Chris_McElligottPark	Note Added: 0052691