The speed of sound in games?

[falconwind]

You always hear about people discussing whether or not gunshots are instantaneous in the game world, or if they're actually modelled as moving objects, or if there is a time delay to simulate bullet travel.

But what about sound?

Sound travels at 340.29 m/s (1225 km/h) or 1116.44 ft/s (761 mph), which is pretty damn fast. In a confined space such as many FPS games take place in, this is basically instantaneous, but what about large wide open spaces as seen in BF1942, or HL2?

One of my favorite things in HL2 is the rocket launcher. And nothing is more satisfying than guiding it to it's target over a long distance, and to hear the crack of the explosion echo all around. :sniper:

But I noticed that, even at extreme distances, there's no delay between the explosion, and the sound effect.

While this might be nit-picking, I think that having a distance delay on sounds would add a little something to the overall experience. it just makes the wide-open spaces seem all the more bigger. :thumbs: And am I wrong to assume that such an effect would be not-too-difficult to make?

what do you think?

 

[Xune]

I think this is possible. Didn't valve delay the onset of the tinitus effect in CS:S so that players could hear the grenade explosion sound first?

If so, I'm pretty sure this distance delay could be implemented without too much hastle.

 

[DrDevin]

It probably wouldent be that hard to model as they do it with bullets in many games. I think one of the reasons they dont do it is now they would have to do collision detection for sound objects which could quickly add up to CPU or DSP overload!

I dont think this would help too much but I agree if a jet passes far overhead in Battlefield 2 it should sound delayed. I bet they will do this in another generation or so just to have another back of the box feature. Think X-TREME SOUND DELAY!!!!

 

[Dekstar]

Yeah that would be cool, or that effect (I think it's the lambert effect) where when a sound passes you close by, the pitch increases and decreases when it moves further away.

I thikn some games have this in but it's scripted. To have it multiplayer would be good.

 

[Xune]

The Lambert effect, what the hell?

It's called the Doppler effect.

Lambert effect.......

 

[Iced_Eagle]

Xune: I think dekstar was playing too much Splinter Cell lol

The speed of sound doesn't bother me at all.... Reverb and echo though are what makes things cool I think people would get confused if there was a noticeable delay.

/me starts singing "Coldplay - Speed of Sound"

 

[Hazar]

that'd be really cool, but I think for not only efficincies sake, but also performances sake, it only should be for explosions.

 

[Baal]

The Lambert effect, what the hell?

It's called the Doppler effect.

Lambert effect.......

ahahahha lambert effect..

I love it. Added to my list of awesome wrong use of words.

The list:

1. lambert effect (doppler effect)

2. Symbolicy (symbolism)

The End.

 

[Lobotomy Lobster]

I think there was a model for the speed of sound in Operation Flashpoint. Quite often when there were large explosions in the distance, it normally took up to a second after the explosion before the sound was heard.

 

[clarky003]

thats right, Operation flashpoint does have the speed of sound simulated , not only from explosions, but from gun fire aswell.

 

[Baal]

"This just in, operation flashpoint sales sky-rocket. Officials say people actually now care about the speed of sound in games"

I wonder.

 

[dream431ca]

Next thing you know..some game maker is going to be like....My game is sooooo realistic that light actually travels at the speed of light....it doesn't really matter..and I don't think the sound thing matters too much..except for stealth games.