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[sambojin]

Very hard in the way I read what you're asking. A bit of real-time volume adjustment isn't hard, stereo-panning for action to the left/right of you, different richocet sounds is easy (it's just playing another sample on a different channel, just after the first one), even a little bit of environmental modification isn't too bad (echo/delay processing for echoey caves, etc), but I wouldn't really call that procedural. That's just sound. You can make it as complicated as you want, or as simple, taking variables to modify samples played from player actions/weaponry/environment however you feel necessary.

Procedural sound? Be buggered if I know. Like the above, but it *has* to have a massive sound library to back it up. Procedural how? Like creating new samples from a set of "rules", either from a sound library or through a programmable synth? Or do you just mean a sound engine, but a complicated and big one?

[puke]

Procedural sound? Be buggered if I know. Like the above, but it *has* to have a massive sound library to back it up. Procedural how? Like creating new samples from a set of "rules", either from a sound library or through a programmable synth? Or do you just mean a sound engine, but a complicated and big one?

I'm not talking about dynamic sound purely from code, but I guess more like what Kyzrati is calling semi-procedural. 

You'd have a library of effects.  perhaps a projectile gun would have an initial fireing sound, a bullet in flight sound, and a cycling sound.  a larger gun might play some of those sounds more deeply, more loudly, or more slowly.  a rapid fire weapon might repeat some set of those sounds at some interval based on its fireing rate.

Similarly a launcher might have sounds for preparing-to-fire, fireing, in flight, cycling a new round.  modified by the type of launcher.

impact reports, you might have a set of pre-recorded sounds and a matrix of type of weapon vs type of target, but you could modify them on the fly so that you dont need a unique sound for every individual weapon within a broader weapon type, and you dont need a unique sound for every individual target within every target type. 

You just need to know that you are firing an explosive at metal, or a projectile at plastic.  then you can pick a sound from the matrix and modify it based on what kind of explosive and how big of a metal thing.

I'm just shooting ideas around while we're talking about interesting audio concepts, not really advocating that this be done within the scope of the current project.

[sambojin]

Ok. That sort of is what's being done, but not so finely grained. Real-time processing can be a bit of a cpu hog, but some of the simpler effects can be done easily (either cpu based or through basic intergrated sound hardware).

Take DoomRL's stereo-panning. Light on the cpu, but is actually a part of the game mechanics. I don't think kyzrati (although I don't know) wants to make it too complicated, but I think X@com had stereo-panning and volume adjustment for distance, with different samples played for different environmental conditions. It can get very complicated, but it doesn't have to be.

Rather than a gun being made up of different "bits" of sound, they'll just have their own unique sound. Ricochets are probably "weapon type" based. So sort of like what you're saying, but in bigger chunks. Yes, what you're describing can be done, but it tends to sound worse than a large pre-built library of unique samples. Pitch shifting, volume, delay, stereo panning, etc can still be done to them, but they sound better "as a whole", rather than as a composite of pieces.

ps. It's a good idea though, depending on the game. In a "real world" based game, slightly futuristic, where you develop new weapons and technology based on current technology, it could actually be very handy. A new 5.56mm rifle got developed by your civilization? The engine could put together a fairly unique sound scheme for the weapon, just for you

[Kyzrati]

There's no panning, but volume adjustments (attenuation) do exist. I've covered that in a post a while back when porting it from X@COM. The system for environment-based sound I'll be covering in a post some time this month. Not a perfect solution as it does require the backing of a large sound library, but is something I can do and it works. <--most important part

[Kyzrati]

A little more about the making of Cogmind's weapon particle effects: http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2014/04/making-particles/


Lots of animated gifs in the post, though mostly chosen for explanatory purposes.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Oh my. These are amazing.

[Kyzrati]

Thanks! I'm fond of explosions myself, that's why there are a very large number of different styles for those. 29, in fact

[Kyzrati]

If you're color blind and enjoy roguelikes (or not and are just curious), check out this post about color blindness and existing and potential methods by which Cogmind deals with it: http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2014/04/accommodating-colorblindness/

Cogmind as viewed by 6% of male audience (a simulated conversion of the original mockup as seen in OP):

[Kyzrati]

Hear Cogmind for the first time here! (well, the intro anyway): http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2014/04/sound-roguelikes/

It's a general look at the topic of sound effects in roguelikes, including how they apply to Cogmind. This is the first of a series, with better clips and more details to come.

[Intrinsic]

Sounding good! it's missing something which i don't know how to put into words though on some of the samples in there, maybe sharpness/crispness and i can't think of a good example to give atm ;p

[Kyzrati]

Thanks, and you have good ears. You're quite right, the set of game sounds this was recorded with are all played at 22050 Hz, which can lose some of the crispness (that's half of CD quality, which most games use these days). Another less important factor is that I recorded it at a pretty low volume.

I will probably up the quality for release.

[forsaken1111]

ptw. particle effects look amazing

[Kyzrati]

And here I thought forsaken would have ptw'd this thread ages ago

Though I must admit I'm only showing pieces of things here and there because that's how the game is being built--in isolated chunks before putting the whole thing together where we can start to see some real gameplay.

[forsaken1111]

And here I thought forsaken would have ptw'd this thread ages ago

Though I must admit I'm only showing pieces of things here and there because that's how the game is being built--in isolated chunks before putting the whole thing together where we can start to see some real gameplay.

Honestly I probably did. I played the hell out of this a while ago.

[Kyzrati]

An overview of the weapon sound effects, including an audio clip from a mock battle: http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2014/05/weapon-sfx/
Someone once commented that it would be nice if all the 7DRL weapons had sounds. Quite a task, but now all 200 of them do.