Just an idea: attn. Line6, Roland, whoever...

[Chip McDonald]

So I'm sitting here watching the F1 race in Monza, Italy, trying to ignore the rest of the world. It occurs to me a video game that captured the real sound of those cars would be very irresistable to me. It would make the immersiveness of a game so much higher if the sound was realistic. Current technology uses manipulation of a simple OPL/FM synthesizer, or taking a static sample and playing it back at different rates. This is always unsatisfactory: as a sound is required to mutate over time, it never sounds real. Or, it sounds flat and unorganic: the same sound over and over. For starters you can hear the harmonics of the sample going up linearly with the rate of change, which isn't natural. Overtones are always too linear. Response lags irregularly. You could take an initial sound, or create it from simple additive synthesis, and run it through a veritable model of a car engine. Model cylinders, bore, stroke, gas expansion rate, expansion rate through the exhaust, resonance of the exhaust... etc. Add in models of air going into the intake, the whine of the motor turning itself. Model the interaction to this system of the transmission. Figure out backpressure from downshifting making explosions in the exhaust itself - backfiring. Make the model controllable through an API layer so that the programmer could procvide a simplified data stream: engine rpm, transmission gear, surface grade, etc. The programmer would then have clock cycles freed up to make the graphics look better. There wouldn't be massive samples to shuffle through memory. Likewise, it would react quicker - again more realism. You could make basic models: pistons in cyliders (engines, gun muzzles, pumps), turbines (compressors, jet and spaceship sounds), surface impact (footsteps, things being punched, doors shutting, etc.). Basic models could be established or downloaded intially from the program. A VLSI/SHARC processor on the sound card would enable the programmer to set initial conditions and variable parameters, the model would be responsible for generating harmonics and resonances. Piston bore, stroke, gas expansion, internal/external pressure gradients, piston groupings, exhaust coupling, size/diameter, compressor blades, intake/exhaust ratios, gas characteristics, internal resonances, surface impact textures, hard soft/durometer, wet/dry, angle of attack/surface area/kinetic energy... which could also be used to model the sound of 4 tires interacting with a variable track surface, or merely footsteps walking across the ground. The interactive nature of the models would allow for more organic sound while providing quicker response. It would be a new paradigm in sound cards for games. It would effectively be the equivalent of Direct X function calls for sound. Like you do a function call to draw a circle, you do a function call to tell a cylinder to go faster. Or, the entire system to "go faster", and bleed in variances when needed. This approach allows the computation to be moved off the CPU to the sound card in a way I don't think any current (consumer) sound cards can do. Put this on a sound card, market it in package deals, knock out Creative Labs. Easy. Just give me a call... ------------------ [b]New and Improved Music Soon:[/b] http://www.mp3.com/chipmcdonald

[Salyphus]

I actually did some work a few years ago for a company which was doing physical modeling, and they did have models of car engines and the like, with this very purpose in mind. Not sure whatever became of it, but I think at the time it was still very costly in terms of processor power. Unfortunately sound usually gets the least amount of attention in things like games, so the CPU load would have to be pretty low before they would consider it. As far as hardware goes, since Creative was able to eliminate their competition for consumer sound cards (Aureal), they haven't really had much incentive to innovate in the last couple of years and things have remained stagnant. I'm sure it will happen eventually though.

[surfjunkie]

yeah, man. all i can say is that maybe Line6 & Roland don't need to hear ideas like that as much as 3D0 and Accolade do.

[Chip McDonald]

[quote]Originally posted by Sal Orlando: [b]Unfortunately sound usually gets the least amount of attention in things like games, so the CPU load would have to be pretty low before they would consider it.[/b][/quote] That's why I'm suggesting putting the load on a card.... [b]As far as hardware goes, since Creative was able to eliminate their competition for consumer sound cards (Aureal), they haven't really had much incentive to innovate in the last couple of years[/b] Which is why Line6 is positioned well right now, if they have any interest... ------------------ [b]New and Improved Music Soon:[/b] http://www.mp3.com/chipmcdonald

[Anderton]

The problem with Line 6 doing something like this is that they aren't set up through the proper distribution channels to push this kind of thing. But sound WILL get better. Things like xbox look awesome, and EA just announced a game that uses 5.1 surround. That would REALLY take gaming to another level!!

[-]

Unfortunately, screenshots sell games... Not the sound. I say this as both an music/audio guy and a [url=http://www.waterslideisland.com]video game developer[/url] ... When I wrote the game in the link above, I thought that a lot of game developers didn't care about the sound too much, so I was gonna make it a priority... When faced with having to do as many things as I had to do to pull the project together, the sound -- while I'm overall pretty happy with it -- took a back seat. So in the end I'm a big hypocrite. [img]http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/wink.gif[/img] I can see how easy it is for larger development teams with real money on the line might approach the sound issue... It's nice if you've got the time/budget, but it doesn't sell games like screenshots do... And games are getting graphically more and more complex... I think the game I wrote (finished it a year ago) was probably one of the last somewhat-competitive-with-current-technology one-man-programming-team kind of projects that might be possible... I can easily see how development houses might find it to be too expensive and too time consuming to stay cutting-edge. This message has been edited by popmusic on 09-18-2001 at 02:20 PM

[Chip McDonald]

[quote]Originally posted by popmusic: [b]Unfortunately, screenshots sell games... Not the sound.[/b][/quote] That's just because current video game sound sucks. [b]I can see how easy it is for larger development teams with real money on the line might approach the sound issue...[/b] Well of course that's the way things are *now*; my point is that a soundcard with this capability wouldn't require more resources but less, and the result would be dramatically better. [b] It's nice if you've got the time/budget, but it doesn't sell games like screenshots do... [/b][/QUOTE] A game that conveyed the same vistceral effect of the sound it is supposed to be representing - a car or plane for example, *would* be a selling point in a big way if it did it right. Here's another idea: someone make a screensaver that lets you build models of car engine sounds and stick it on your desktop as a screen saver-thingy. Make it authentic enough and it would be a hit, I promise. The trick is that right now it's not even in the parking lot of the ball park as far as realism goes. ------------------ [b]New and Improved Music Soon:[/b] http://www.mp3.com/chipmcdonald

[surfjunkie]

maybe it's that video game audio is already [i]pretty[/i] close to reality, but video isn't as close..

[Chip McDonald]

[quote]Originally posted by wager47: [b]maybe it's that video game audio is already [i]pretty[/i] close to reality, but video isn't as close..[/b][/quote] Video game audio that involves a convoluted sound, like engines do not sound anything like reality. One shot sounds are "fine" from a simple one-shot playback standpoint, but that's pretty annoying after hearing the same sound played back repeatedly over and over. ------------------ [b]New and Improved Music Soon:[/b] http://www.mp3.com/chipmcdonald

[-]

[quote]Originally posted by Chip McDonald: [b] Video game audio that involves a convoluted sound, like engines do not sound anything like reality. One shot sounds are "fine" from a simple one-shot playback standpoint, but that's pretty annoying after hearing the same sound played back repeatedly over and over. [/b][/quote] Agreed... But despite some improvements, "good enough" has been the standard for a while. The audience generally doesn't care or doesn't know the difference. Part of the problem is, unlike the music scene, there's not really anyone making video games from purely an artistic angle. It's all about eye-popping graphics, marketing, branding, and -- most importantly -- selling as many units as possible. Sure, there are passionate folks who work within the video game industry, but how many *original* concepts for games have there been in the last five years, especially when compared to the golden age of video games (the '80s)? Yes, there was a lot of dreck and copycats in the '80s too... But because games were able to be designed by a few people quickly rather than a comittee/marketing department over several years, developers were able to take more chances... and sometimes they broke new ground as a result. Most game companies are understandably not taking risks, as cutting-edge development is more expensive than it's ever been... *One* bad-selling title can spell the end of a small or medium-sized game development house. Compare that to a small or medium-sized record label, where a bad-selling record can be absorbed by some of the better-selling albums... Albums are a lot less expensive to make. It's like the "you're only good as your last hit" saying in the music biz, but moreso "you're only good as how much your last title sold". Maybe I'm getting off-track here... It's just that, from what I've seen, the video game industry is more stagnant than Top 40 corporate pop/rock has ever been... and the video game customers generally don't care or know any better. What I should've said at the beginning is that, the idea is a cool one [i]if[/i] there were some developers (like "artists" in the music biz) whose driving influence was artistic, not monetary... But the state of technology and the realities of doing business in the video game industry prevent that from happening, unfortunately.

[surfjunkie]

<<[i]maybe it's that video game audio is already pretty close to reality, but video isn't as close.. [/i] i guess by that i meant that it sounds more like a real F1 than it [i]looks[/i] like a real F1, so maybe audio isn't a huge priority for developers. i don't know much about game designing/programming, i'm just a player. Chip, when they steal your ideas and make gaming audio [b]rock[/b], i'll come here and thank you.

[Matt.Hepworth]

Didn't Gran Turismo have alot of real engine whine? Matt No clever saying.

[Chip McDonald]

[quote]Originally posted by wager47: [b]i guess by that i meant that it sounds more like a real F1 than it [i]looks[/i] like a real F1, so maybe audio isn't a huge priority for developers.[/b][/quote] But they *don't* sound like a real F1 car. ------------------ [b]New and Improved Music Soon:[/b] http://www.mp3.com/chipmcdonald

[Chip McDonald]

[quote]Originally posted by theglitch: [b]Didn't Gran Turismo have alot of real engine whine? [/b][/quote] It's real samples, but it's compressed and eq'ed funny. The overtones don't "bloom" right. If you hear a recording of a car rev a motor, it's not harmonically flat across the range of rpm. Plus, there's other sounds: intake noise for instance, backfiring. The point of view of the game is inside the car, but it sounds like a generic copy of sound from a distance - with ambience removed. A game where the engine sounded totally convincing, with ambient effects realistically done - get close to a wall and you can *hear* you're close to a wall, or another car; hear the overtones change as a car goes up a hill, decends, the sound of gear changes... if all of that was dead on, and *responsive* - it would be enormously addictive. Game designers [erhaps discount the importance of how a car sounds to car enthusiasts. Regardless, current soundcards require more of the CPU. ------------------ [b]New and Improved Music Soon:[/b] http://www.mp3.com/chipmcdonald