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Re: Saxaphone trouble
Posted By: Rockslider	Date: 9/26/09 7:00 a.m.
In Response To: Re: Saxaphone trouble (Anton P. Nym (aka Steve)) : Apparently the problem is with sound mixing. : One of the podcasts from pre-Halo 3 (with Marty and Frankie) talked about : custom soundtracks and the Halo 3 engine. Apparently the audio engine can : track the volume of Marty's soundtrack, as it's mixed "on the : fly" * , so that it can be "ducked" under combat dialog to : keep the dialog audible and comprehensible to the player. However, the : engine doesn't seem to do this as well with custom soundtracks; with them, : apparently, there was as much chance of the music "talking over" : the dialog as there was the dialog trumping the music. : So rather than settle for an uncontrollable and likely unsatisfactory : experience, they opted instead to grant custom music primacy and switched : off the combat dialog entirely. : -- Steve's not an audio engineer (or audio Engineer) and so has likely made a : hash of at least one point in the above. : PS: the sound effects were likely left on because you don't need to : "understand" them, just hear them... so custom music stomping on : them wasn't as big an issue. : * which seems to be the function of that Waves plug-in that Marty gushed : over pre-Halo 3. Thanks for chipping in with that Steve, but if things were like that it wouldn't seem to make sense to me. When I was trying H3 with custom music, I was hearing gunfire sounds fine, once I'd adjusted the relative volume of the custom music appropriately (there was a control that I think was for doing just that). This shows that gunfire sound clips can live perfectly well with custom music. Assuming that there's nothing technically and radically different about dialogue clips - and by that I include enemies and allies calling out things in battle and reacting in pain - then they too can live perfectly well with custom music (and as with gunfire there's no need to "understand" such audio). Just have them at their normal volume relative to gunfire clips, and that would do fine. Not only could they be present, surely the developers would realize that we'd want such sounds just as much as weapon-fire sounds, because they're just as integral to the feel of combat. Without either one, things would feel distinctly unnatural. In particular, there's not a lot of satisfaction firing a weapon when the enemy reacts only silently. Enemy cries of pain are part of the fun, and frequently a big part of the humour. I should add that I'm not sure if the lack of voicing is something Bungie-specific. When I engaged custom music for use in H3, I got a warning message saying that I wouldn't hear any dialogue, and I think that message was from the dashboard. This suggests either that custom music cuts off voicing in every game (for reasons I know not), or that each individual game can express a preference and the dashboard was giving me the message based on H3's preference. If the latter, all I can think is that either Bungie made a lamentably poor judgement thinking we wouldn't be interested in hearing enemies and allies react in battle, or that they genuinely did set out to nobble the custom music experience to discourage its use. But whatever the explanation, the lack of voicing makes custom music unusable for me in H3 as things feel too unnatural without it.

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Message Index

Ars Technica pans ODST	Jordan117	9/21/09 12:36 a.m.
Re: Ars Technica pans ODST	PsychoRaven	9/21/09 12:42 a.m.
Re: Ars Technica pans ODST	Hedgemony	9/21/09 12:47 a.m.
SPOILER (not really)	Lord Osiris	9/21/09 1:03 a.m.
Re: I'm right there with you *NM*	Hedgemony	9/21/09 1:07 a.m.
Re: Ars Technica pans ODST	Cody Miller	9/21/09 2:11 a.m.
Re: Ars Technica pans ODST	PsychoRaven	9/21/09 2:56 a.m.
Re: Ars Technica pans ODST whoa, whoa	Hedgemony	9/21/09 3:03 a.m.
You're right	PsychoRaven	9/21/09 3:07 a.m.
Ugh I'm calling it.	PsychoRaven	9/21/09 3:09 a.m.
Re: Ugh I'm calling it.	Hedgemony	9/21/09 4:56 a.m.
Sorry about the angry reply	PsychoRaven	9/21/09 3:05 a.m.
Re: Ars Technica pans ODST	Narcogen	9/21/09 5:03 a.m.
Re: Ever the voice of reason, Narcogen	Hedgemony	9/21/09 5:50 a.m.
Re: Ars Technica pans ODST	Blackstar	9/21/09 5:52 a.m.
Stacker.	Narcogen	9/22/09 2:55 a.m.
Re: Ars Technica pans ODST	rolandk73	9/21/09 6:20 a.m.
Re: Ars Technica pans ODST	PsychoRaven	9/21/09 11:01 a.m.
Re: Ars Technica pans ODST	Cody Miller	9/21/09 12:18 p.m.
Blame Microsoft's Men in Black?	kapowaz	9/21/09 7:03 p.m.
Saxaphone trouble	Rockslider	9/21/09 7:53 p.m.
Re: Saxaphone trouble	Narcogen	9/22/09 3:00 a.m.
I hope I'm not the first to say this...	stan	9/22/09 10:33 p.m.
The only thing I don't like about it...	Jordan117	9/22/09 10:50 p.m.
Re: I hope I'm not the first to say this...	Ibeechu	9/23/09 9:27 p.m.
Re: Saxaphone trouble	FyreWulff	9/23/09 12:16 p.m.
Re: Saxaphone trouble	Louis Wu	9/23/09 12:25 p.m.
Re: Saxaphone trouble	Narcogen	9/23/09 11:50 p.m.
Re: Saxaphone trouble	FyreWulff	9/24/09 12:56 a.m.
Re: Saxaphone trouble	Narcogen	9/24/09 2:05 a.m.
Re: Saxaphone trouble	Rockslider	9/23/09 5:13 p.m.
Re: Saxaphone trouble	Bry	9/23/09 5:40 p.m.
Re: Saxaphone trouble	Narcogen	9/23/09 11:51 p.m.
Re: Saxaphone trouble	Anton P. Nym (aka Steve)	9/25/09 11:08 a.m.
Re: Saxaphone trouble	Rockslider	9/26/09 7:00 a.m.
Re: Ars Technica pans ODST	Ragashingo	9/21/09 12:51 a.m.
Re: Ars Technica pans ODST	electrojew	9/21/09 2:13 a.m.
How odd...	Anton P. Nym (aka Steve)	9/21/09 10:51 a.m.
Re: How odd...	DogCow	9/22/09 10:38 a.m.