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[Cotes]

Sound should take in the form of invisible, non drowning, non drinkable, water (mechanics technically wise), but the flow speed of this water should be increased quite fast, and evaporate at higher levels.

Basically, this would crudely replicate what sound was like without much programming a new system.


With the "water" sound system, basically a 7/7 sound block would be deafening, and then it dissipates like a water stack, and spreads into the room until it's all 1/1's, and then evaporate quickly.

Anything that generates sound could make this invisible block of sound, and because of it's waterlike movement, it'll spread quickly but not spread too far and have variable distance.

It should be instant rather than a flow though, and using stacks of 1-7 would make sound travel way too short distance. It wouldn't work on z-levels either.

Also, this would mean that sound would be calculated all the time even for stationary objects, which seems a bit unnecessary.

Well, it would make it that the closer you are to the source, the louder it is. And what do you mean it won't work on z-levels, it'll go down if there's any sort of way to go down.
:/

Sound usually travels in every direction, not just downwards. It just doesn't work out it you treat it as a liquid.

[Rainman]

Sound should take in the form of invisible, non drowning, non drinkable, water (mechanics technically wise), but the flow speed of this water should be increased quite fast, and evaporate at higher levels.

Basically, this would crudely replicate what sound was like without much programming a new system.


With the "water" sound system, basically a 7/7 sound block would be deafening, and then it dissipates like a water stack, and spreads into the room until it's all 1/1's, and then evaporate quickly.

Anything that generates sound could make this invisible block of sound, and because of it's waterlike movement, it'll spread quickly but not spread too far and have variable distance.

It should be instant rather than a flow though, and using stacks of 1-7 would make sound travel way too short distance. It wouldn't work on z-levels either.

Also, this would mean that sound would be calculated all the time even for stationary objects, which seems a bit unnecessary.

Well, it would make it that the closer you are to the source, the louder it is. And what do you mean it won't work on z-levels, it'll go down if there's any sort of way to go down.
:/

Sound usually travels in every direction, not just downwards. It just doesn't work out it you treat it as a liquid.

I certainly think you could use the water mechanics as a starting point. It could make it an easier topic to tackle - the clear difference being how the sound spreads. However, the 0/7 to 7/7 volume would work. It needs some sort of scale, so why not 0 to 7?

[Cotes]

Sound should take in the form of invisible, non drowning, non drinkable, water (mechanics technically wise), but the flow speed of this water should be increased quite fast, and evaporate at higher levels.

Basically, this would crudely replicate what sound was like without much programming a new system.


With the "water" sound system, basically a 7/7 sound block would be deafening, and then it dissipates like a water stack, and spreads into the room until it's all 1/1's, and then evaporate quickly.

Anything that generates sound could make this invisible block of sound, and because of it's waterlike movement, it'll spread quickly but not spread too far and have variable distance.

It should be instant rather than a flow though, and using stacks of 1-7 would make sound travel way too short distance. It wouldn't work on z-levels either.

Also, this would mean that sound would be calculated all the time even for stationary objects, which seems a bit unnecessary.

Well, it would make it that the closer you are to the source, the louder it is. And what do you mean it won't work on z-levels, it'll go down if there's any sort of way to go down.
:/

Sound usually travels in every direction, not just downwards. It just doesn't work out it you treat it as a liquid.

I certainly think you could use the water mechanics as a starting point. It could make it an easier topic to tackle - the clear difference being how the sound spreads. However, the 0/7 to 7/7 volume would work. It needs some sort of scale, so why not 0 to 7?

The problem with values between 0-7 and using water even as a starting point is this:

Code: [Select]

00000  >  00000
00000  >  01110
00700  >  00110
00000  >  01100
00000  >  00000
That's a single soundwave. Despite starting as deafening barely travels a radius of one tile and is never more than whisper outside the source tile.

And if you now suggest that it should be continuous "stream" from the source tile instead of just dropping one stack of 7 at once, that doesn't work either. First of all, what about non-continuous sounds then? And for that matter continuous sound wouldn't really work like that, i.e. a liquid that eventually fills up a space. Also it would take a too much FPS to have the game constantly calculate a "stream" of sound (it'd be like having waterfalls all over your fortress). And it just wouldn't be very realistic depiction of sound overall.

Just simply: Sound is not a liquid.

[Virex]

Decibels are a log scale anyway, so you could aproximate it as following:

Code: [Select]

00000  >  00000  >  55555
00000  >  06660  >  50005
00700  >  06060  >  50005
00000  >  06660  >  50005
00000  >  00000  >  55555

or something like that

[Rainman]

Decibels are a log scale anyway, so you could aproximate it as following:

Code: [Select]

00000  >  00000  >  55555
00000  >  06660  >  50005
00700  >  06060  >  50005
00000  >  06660  >  50005
00000  >  00000  >  55555

or something like that

That's exactly how I imagine it would work. The only difference being if there was an obstacle in one of the squares through which the sound passes, which could muffle the sound, hence dropping the volume depending on the dampening factor of the obstacle.

Looking at your diagram though, the 0 to 7 scale probably isn't suitable, as that wouldn't allow sound to carry very far (maximum 7 squares). Maybe an increase to 20 would be more realistic, albeit likely a lot of processing power required to model the sound mechanics.

[Calvin]

Also, if sound muffling/penetration is going to be implemented, rough walls should completely muffle the sound, while smoothed walls should have minimal muffling.

Which implements the feature of hanging carpets on your walls to soundproof a room
(Also, nobody will get disturbed from a noble screaming for his life in a rough deathchamber)