broad sound scapes

[Joss Sanglier]

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Confused beginner!

I have got myself involved with a small independent MMO since I am a professional composer and was for 30 years a sound engineer - though on TV and film, not games stuff

We are rebuilding the sound and I want to get the broad panoramic sound I am used to from the film world, allowing for 3d positioning and moving smoothly from one environment into another.

My question is:

How do I put together the sound elements so that a player will be able to wander round the massive world, from forest to lake, mountain side to desert, in such a way that it is seamless?

As a player moves towards a different environment, they need to be able to hear "where" it is in the 3d sound field and it slowly raise in volume till they enter. Then the background sound should level out till they leave again. Obviously the reverse would then happen to the old sound.

I have started by putting together layers of sounds for each environment (just as a way of organising my old analogue brain) . I am putting together a nominal "left" and "right" leg for each layer, since openAL cannot handle stereo tracks in 3d (pity).

Layer 1 - very broad, unspecific, looped buzz track
Layer 2 - day and night variations, busier and less busy (randomly selected) loops.
Layer 3 - weather - wind, rain (on leaves for forest, for instance)

All these are split into two files - I would have produced these in stereo  or 4 channel in other circumstances.

There are other layers for music and spots - though since they are one offs and not looped, they are the easy bit!


Any help or guidance would be gratefully appreciated. The development team is missing anyone experienced in developing sound in this way and there is one heck of a lot of guess work going on! We have good coders though, so it is how we do this not what the actual code is they need to know.

I just know there is going to be a standard, accepted way of doing this which you are all going to tell me - I just don't know what it is!

Then I can run off and give them lots of gorgeous tracks to play with!


Thanks in advance



Joss





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