The Sound Update Thread (The Return)

[sems4arsenal]

The SLS GT3 sounds much better than GT6 as an example, they still need to work on the pops and crackles and some brake squealing for example but now I'm way more optimistic.

 

[Dylan]

That's exactly what I'm waiting for. For me, I think the game sounds great already. But those little crackles and pops are what I want to here. The Alpine VGT had them if you listened carefully in GT6, so I know they can do it.

 

[RACECAR]

.

I'm curious to hear what you think of the new r18 sample? You can hear it clearly in the video above at 5:55

R18 Sample, while more clear, still seems..bare (for lack of a better term). Its there and is its a V6 Diesel (Granted its the only racing V6 Diesel I know of) but it just missing things.

 

[GranTurismo guy]

R18 Sample, while more clear, still seems..bare (for lack of a better term). Its there and is its a V6 Diesel (Granted its the only racing V6 Diesel I know of) but it just missing things.

I honesty don't know what to make of it myself.

 

[citroengt1]

After i downloaded the "Digest" 2 GB video, i must say, those are some vastly important improvements.

 

[dacc10]

The thing with the R18 is that it doesn't really have a "memorable" sound, that you hear and just recognize. It's one of those cases that, one little detail could make it sound completely steryle, or could make it sound almost too good for that specific car or even completely different.

Other than that, I'm still curious to hear some more cars and then make a comparison to the next build we see of the game in future events, such as Goodwood.

 

[Rotorist]

New recording procedure should indeed help in making closer to the real thing sounds using AES also, not only using old methods imho. I wish AES is being fruitful as it will be much better in detail possible to pass in digital sound.

 

[TayeezSA]

Imagine if AES tech improves to such an extent where PD just needs to record a low, mid and high range source of a car over a single 1000m dash, let the AES software 'hear' the sound like Shazam then it inputs its own values and algorithms to accurately replicate the cars sounds for both exhaust & induction.

Imagine......

 

[Griffith500]

Imagine if AES tech improves to such an extent where PD just needs to record a low, mid and high range source of a car over a single 1000m dash, let the AES software 'hear' the sound like Shazam then it inputs its own values and algorithms to accurately replicate the cars sounds for both exhaust & induction.

Imagine......

There's little chance it will work like that, unfortunately.

More like meticulously collect data, build model, simplify (could automate this part), tune against references and save little preset file.

 

[GranTurismo guy]

Imagine if AES tech improves to such an extent where PD just needs to record a low, mid and high range source of a car over a single 1000m dash, let the AES software 'hear' the sound like Shazam then it inputs its own values and algorithms to accurately replicate the cars sounds for both exhaust & induction.

Imagine......

Honestly, the AES system going off engine parameters would probably be more accurate.

Edit: read it properly. That would be cool but highly unlikely.

 

[queleuleu]

I don't understand how every other devs manage to have some decent sounds from nice (Forza) to awesome (R3E) and Poly don't. But at the same time, every other devs struggle to have a realistic ligthing when Poly has the best one IMO.
Some devs with little budgets have great sounds with OK graphics, that is a proof for me that it's not a matter of money. Maybe a philosophical question for Poly Even modders can do it even if a lot are overdone.

 

[LeGeNd-1]

I don't understand how every other devs manage to have some decent sounds from nice (Forza) to awesome (R3E) and Poly don't. But at the same time, every other devs struggle to have a realistic ligthing when Poly has the best one IMO.
Some devs with little budgets have great sounds with OK graphics, that is a proof for me that it's not a matter of money. Maybe a philosophical question for Poly Even modders can do it even if a lot are overdone.

It's got to do with PD's perfectionist attitude, I think. Lighting can be calculated with mathematics, and the boffins at PD understands this and implements it perfectly. But sound is organic, messy, variable and imperfect. PD with their OCDness tries to make cars sound clean and perfect, which unfortunately makes it sound synthetic and completely different from reality.

Other games they don't spend as much time obsessing. That's why lighting can be off sometimes. But for sounds they just playback the recordings from real life as it is. Burbles, crackles, pops, dings, warts and all. It's raw, and it's fantastically real 👍

 

[phillgt2002]

This may have been said here on this forum before; it's not how the engine sounds are recorded by PD, it's how they are processed.

 

[Johnnypenso]

It's got to do with PD's perfectionist attitude, I think. Lighting can be calculated with mathematics, and the boffins at PD understands this and implements it perfectly. But sound is organic, messy, variable and imperfect. PD with their OCDness tries to make cars sound clean and perfect, which unfortunately makes it sound synthetic and completely different from reality.

Other games they don't spend as much time obsessing. That's why lighting can be off sometimes. But for sounds they just playback the recordings from real life as it is. Burbles, crackles, pops, dings, warts and all. It's raw, and it's fantastically real 👍

A rather bizarre way of thinking. Other games don't spend as much time obsessing but end up with better sounds overall, but PD are perfectionists and end up worse sounds overall I think you have you've got it backwards mate.

 

[LeGeNd-1]

A rather bizarre way of thinking. Other games don't spend as much time obsessing but end up with better sounds overall, but PD are perfectionists and end up worse sounds overall I think you have you've got it backwards mate.

No, that's what I'm saying. The perfectionist approach works well with lighting, because it can be reduced to mathematical solutions. But sounds are inherently chaotic so PD's sterile approach ends up backfiring (pun not intended).

Other games don't make as much effort "cleaning up" their sound recordings, so it just sounds exactly the same as real life. Which is perfect.

The poster above you said it well: it's not how PD recorded the sounds, it's how they processed it into the game. Kinda like taking a good singer and using too much autotune, geddit?

 

[Griffith500]

Engine sounds are also mathematical, it can all be reduced, it has been done already and the fruit already exists: Sonory. How do you suppose manufacturers design their engines to be both quiet and performant before even turning a nut?

Unlike lighting, however, which benefits from not having much frequency dependency on the typical scales we observe the world at (except for things like rainbows caused by droplets etc.), sound has a lot of important spectral "coding" that we (our ear-brains) use for various purposes. It's that aspect, the spatialisation, propagation, transfer etc. that is really important - but it too is reducible to any of several different mathematical approaches. Not that many of them will run in real time on typical hardware (again, unlike light).


The trouble is that once you start modelling things physically, you notice you have to start adding all sorts of other things in that are taken for granted with recordings, or you need to take stuff out of recordings that upset the model in some way. And the content production also requires substantial invention and development in itself - I would suspect this is currently the major limitation.

Whilst the established industry approach is far from "just playing back recordings" (there is considerable art involved, which is the major reason games sound so different), it is not in any way physical - as such it is a massive leap to go from samplers and pairwise panning to synthesis, acoustic transfer and spatialisation.


I notice the spatial mixing in the new footage is exceptional, another leap forwards. They just need to find something nice to put into that mix now, and maybe some nicer reverb.

This may have been said here on this forum before; it's not how the engine sounds are recorded by PD, it's how they are processed.

It's the lack of intake sounds, which originally was a recording issue.

So right now it's an art direction issue. But it's probably been protracted over several releases because of the difficulties with physical modeling (PD's intention to use AES) I mention above.

 

[G.T.Ace]

PD's approach, like usual, is just way too complicated and exotic. I said it once and I'll say it again: Give me the recorded samples and let me mix them in FMOD or Wwise, I guarantee you the result will be better than whatever we're hearing now.

 

[Griffith500]

PD's approach, like usual, is just way too complicated and exotic. I said it once and I'll say it again: Give me the recorded samples and let me mix them in FMOD or Wwise, I guarantee you the result will be better than whatever we're hearing now.

I might just take you up on that.

 

[G.T.Ace]

I might just take you up on that.

I can prove it to you in Assetto Corsa. My only issue is that I suck in getting good samples out of videos for example, but when you provide me loopable samples, I can create some decent audio in FMOD.

 

[citroengt1]

PD's approach, like usual, is just way too complicated and exotic. I said it once and I'll say it again: Give me the recorded samples and let me mix them in FMOD or Wwise, I guarantee you the result will be better than whatever we're hearing now.

I'll ask you what i asked someone else recently.
Have you tried contacting Sony or PD?
And if you have, also try contacting Jordan, see if he can help you.

 

[G.T.Ace]

I'll ask you what i asked someone else recently.
Have you tried contacting Sony or PD?
And if you have, also try contacting Jordan, see if he can help you.

The thing is, I'm no professional, I would NEVER get a job like this. Also, my handicap wouldn't allow me to travel.
Not to mention that I have no clue about PD's approach here. I never worked with AES and don't even know the tools they use (most likely some custom in-house stuff).

If they'd offer me to try it out, I would, but that won't happen.

 

[citroengt1]

Alright then.
But could you show us some stuff you have?
Like a comparison video between two cars?

 

[Griffith500]

I can prove it to you in Assetto Corsa. My only issue is that I suck in getting good samples out of videos for example, but when you provide me loopable samples, I can create some decent audio in FMOD.

The only thing I will say is that in my experience the loop extraction step is the most important, since it determines the content of the sound outright. Anything else afterwards is technically tweaking. It is hard, but there is a little trick you can use: pulsetrains sound the same backwards as they do forwards (psychoacoustics at work).

So what many people do is isolate a part where it sounds good or reasonably steady etc., copy it, reverse it, remove the first and last sample points (e.g. a 1/44100th of a second at either end) and append it to the "forward" section you already have. This is the kind of thing it would be beneficial to develop a tool for to streamline it, because the whole sound isn't just a pulsetrain, there are other parts that might sound obvious when reversed.

 

[G.T.Ace]

Alright then.
But could you show us some stuff you have?
Like a comparison video between two cars?

Unfortunately, the best projects I worked on were abandoned by the modders themself and I also lost a lot of stuff in an HDD crash some months ago. You could check out my work for the Sierra RS500 Cosworth mod for Assetto Corsa, although I'd do things different now.

EDIT:

The only thing I will say is that in my experience the loop extraction step is the most important, since it determines the content of the sound outright. Anything else afterwards is technically tweaking. It is hard, but there is a little trick you can use: pulsetrains sound the same backwards as they do forwards (psychoacoustics at work).

So what many people do is isolate a part where it sounds good or reasonably steady etc., copy it, reverse it, remove the first and last sample points (e.g. a 1/44100th of a second at either end) and append it to the "forward" section you already have. This is the kind of thing it would be beneficial to develop a tool for to streamline it, because the whole sound isn't just a pulsetrain, there are other parts that might sound obvious when reversed.

Yeah but that's not really ideal, because the audio starts to pulse and sound weird quickly.
You need to pitch correct the audio to get a constant engine tone for the several RPM ranges and for the love of all that's holy I usually screw it up.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Unfortunately, the best projects I worked on were abandoned by the modders themself and I also lost a lot of stuff in an HDD crash some months ago. You could check out my work for the Sierra RS500 Cosworth mod for Assetto Corsa, although I'd do things different now.

EDIT:



Yeah but that's not really ideal, because the audio starts to pulse and sound weird quickly.
You need to pitch correct the audio to get a constant engine tone for the several RPM ranges and for the love of all that's holy I usually screw it up.

Nice work:tup:👍

 

[GranTurismo guy]

PD's approach, like usual, is just way too complicated and exotic.

I take it you have already heard the final result then?

 

[G.T.Ace]

I take it you have already heard the final result then?

The approach has nothing to do with the end result. If they used a simpler technique, we would've better results now. Even if they add more effects, the engines, shifting and tyres still sound artificial and bad.
Yes, better than GT6, but that's nothing to be proud of...

 

[Johnnypenso]

I've been out of town a few days and reading about improved sounds and listening to them through my Samsung Galaxy. Got home and downloaded the videos to playback through my usual sound system and....not impressed. Sounds are so muted and artificial they sound weirdly disconnected from the car, almost as if someone took out real sounds and dubbed in artificial sounds. Still a long, long, long way to go IMO.

 

[Griffith500]

...

Yeah but that's not really ideal, because the audio starts to pulse and sound weird quickly.
You need to pitch correct the audio to get a constant engine tone for the several RPM ranges and for the love of all that's holy I usually screw it up.

Pitch correction is easily done automatically with the right tools - engine sounds are largely harmonic, so it should only need a small amount of hand guidance. Don't ask me which tools, though, and I've never bothered to try to implement any algorithms myself, but the granular stuff kind of has to have it by default, so that might be a good place to look.

The approach has nothing to do with the end result. If they used a simpler technique, we would've better results now. Even if they add more effects, the engines, shifting and tyres still sound artificial and bad.
Yes, better than GT6, but that's nothing to be proud of...

It's more that if they hadn't bothered with AES they'd have made better samples already, which might be what you mean.

 

[G.T.Ace]

It's more that if they hadn't bothered with AES they'd have made better samples already, which might be what you mean.

Pretty much, yes.