Audio Handling

Roccondil · February 26, 2016, 6:10pm

I am just curious: how will audio be implemented? Specifically, will it be a general crossfade of sounds from one side to the other or will sounds on the left come only from the left and what’s on the right only heard in the right speaker?

The reason I ask is because I am deaf in one ear and use headphones. In pretty much all games, including high-profile games like Mass Effect, Bioshock Infinite, Assassin’s Creed, and others, if a sound (AFX, dialog) is made directly on the left side of my character the sound will be played only in the left speaker, and the same if on the right side. This is a problem when the sound is played on my deaf side; I have to turn the character or the camera around so as to be able to hear the sound properly. Which in some occasions causes me to miss whatever is causing the sound or look at whatever someone is pointing out.

If you notice in real life if you have one of your ears blocked you can still hear sounds coming from that side with the unblocked ear. Of course it will be at a slightly lower volume or muffled, but you can still hear fairly well.

I know I can set the whole PC audio to force mono sound over all applications, but then that forces the loss of the 3D-ness of the audio which I can still detect even with one ear. Also I hear (hehehe) that Windows 10 - which I have - actually doesn’t support global mono audio.

Blacksmith · February 26, 2016, 6:20pm

Hello @Roccondil,
this is a interesting question.

Maybe @AdamJ or @DrFusselpulli can answer this.

AdamJ · February 28, 2016, 6:09pm

Hi guys! Indeed an interesting question. @Roccondil, basically, you’d prefer an option for mono? I am definitely going to speak about this with Vojta Nedved, Warhorse Studios’ in-game sound engineer and Foley artist. (I am one of the two musicians on the team.) I am afraid we won’t be able to have this option in the upcoming beta but we’ll try do stuff for the final release.

Roccondil · February 29, 2016, 3:59am

I’d say less a mono option and more of reducing left-side sounds to maybe 25-50% in right-side speakers (and the same in the opposite situations), not 0% as in most games. I’d still like the 3D-ness of the sounds, because by volume I can kind of tell where horizontally the sound is coming from.

Another solution: in Skyrim there was a scene in about the middle of the main storyline where you have to be seated as part of a conference/peace negotiations. While direct sounds from one side were very reduced in the opposite side, I could still hear those characters because they set it up that there was an illusion of the voices echoing off the walls into the opposite ear. Probably not possible in all locations since that scene played out in a closed room; open spaces like the hills you’d get a little bouncing/reflections but not at a pronounced effect. This effect also happened in pretty much any room you were in with another character that tried talking to you.