Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12

Mole HD

Mole HD
Garix said:
The ones I really don't get (sorry Mole) are those who refunded and then bought back in.
That's just really odd to me
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I refunded (and bought back in) so long ago...it was almost in a different glacial epoch :D

...but yeah, I know where you're coming from. For me personally, it was just the way my gaming moods went at the time...Unfortunately, besides the refunding of my original SC account which had very good reasoning behind it, I can't offer anything by way of deep meaningful thought behind any of the rest of it except "I'll give it another go and see where it ends up...but I'm not spending anything beyond the price of a Cutty Black."

Two certificates of stupid (plus change) and several years later, I'm still here 🤷‍♂️
 
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Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
Well, just had my morning coffee and a browse through Spectrum and I think could become a millionaire if I possessed the amount of salt that that is currently on display there :p
 

Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
VR Golgot said:
Seeing as I'm intrigued by the chaos in the audio depts, I checked out the SCL with the new director...

TLDR:

  • The new Director has never worked in games before. He's a TV/film guy, and he's been hired to bring the 'cinematic'. [He has many shades of Chris about him...]
  • Things break all the time because the game keeps changing. (Flight model reworks etc)
  • The fly-by and ship audio sounds etc were reduced repeatedly for performance reasons.
  • Their current systems aren't very good, but don't worry, Star Audio is coming!
  • Chris wants radio stations. The Director wants them to change based on planet, economy, etc.
  • VOIP was designed for 50 players and needs a rework.
  • Rain audio was built for the worm event and has 'unintentionally scaled across the entire verse'. It's 'Tier 0.5'.
  • ATC audio is 'in its infancy'.
  • Director says he has resourcing to double the team. [Doesn't respond to Jared's probing about fixing tech debt and legacy issues though.]
  • The Tech Dir thinks new hires will like revamping the old ships because everyone likes working on a 'finished product'.
  • They didn't realise the auto-destruct audio voices had been broken for years.

Will be intriguing if they have indeed 'doubled' their resourcing. (I'm suspicious. I think it might mean: 'resourced to claw back the recent losses, plus a few extra' ;)). The Dir strikes me as pure blowhard though. (And something of a panic hire. The guy has mainly done TV, with just the odd film like Alien Versus Predator to date).

It all just seems like more ideas for the ideas factory...

Audio Team SCL
Source: https://youtu.be/WSm-uwRB_ZM?si=kf8tLzpEc1VOFntt


Intros:

2m - Phil Pierce Smallwood [QA/graduate at FDev -> Jnr -> Snr Audio Manager - 10y8m]
  • More recently just working on SC to 'deliver on SC' with Simon
  • Moved into that role after 'change of leadership a few years back' - trying to build up the team to make sure they could logistically deliver [:D]. Now back to designing a bit

3m - Graham Phillipson - [Dir of Audio Tech 10y 6m - exp]
- Some tech called 'Claudius' is now called 'Star Audio' [:D]. Is partially out and will weaves its tentacles into the game in the future.

3m30s - Simon Gershon [the new Audio Director - 5m]. No prior job data on Linkedin. Seems to have been totally busy in TV audio (and a few bad films ;) Alien vs Predator standing out ;) since the 90s). Has never worked in games before? [Certainly not modern ones anyway?]

4m13 - mentions his background being in film, which he won't go into there, and wants to bring that to games... Say he wants to 'listen to the community more' and 'make the game he wants to play' [CR style ;)]

Jared bigs up the internal roadmap presentation for 1.0 he gave. Dir: 'Sonic gold' that he wants to bring to the game...

5.50 - what happened to the flyby sounds. And the quality of the ship noises?

Dir: 'They are. They are going to come back, with a bit more enthusiasm. I want them to vibrate'

'Things aren't exactly how we want them to be. It's a priority to bring that back'.

The sounds are all there but there have been some backend changes. The hooks can change. Have to prioritise newer content. Now building the team to be able to get back to that.

Tech Dir: "There's been a gradual shrinking of how big the ship sounds are, in order to make the game performant, but now we're reworking that so they can be performant and you can hear them a long way away as well."

8m - state of realistic audio mode?

Been a question forever. Problem is the game is huge. Would need to treat every sound. Plus game dev and scheduling is difficult. Have ships to deal with. Not scheduled.

Dir: Wants to bring his 'sack of sonic delights' to the game as well.
700,000 sounds, adding more all the time.

Dir: "So, we're we we will be going much more immersive. So, that means what that does that mean to the player? I know it's a very overused word. We're going cinematic because that's what I was brought on to do. So, we we're going to be, every environment you're in, you're going to feel like you're in the environment. I don't want to go into the nitty-gritty details about when, what systems we're we're developing with Star Audio or any any other systems I would like to bring to the game,"

11m10s - More professional mayday distress calls?

Phil: Have a high-level mandate to get more dialogue into the game. When talking to NPCs etc. Working with the Narrative dept to get more recorded on the 'wonderful P-cap [?] stage' there in manchester.

12m15s - Ship horns?

Maybe yep, with gravity

13m15s - radio stations?

Dir: Was talking about this yesterday. (He was). Would love to. Maybe exclusive ones per planet. [:D]. Different economies. Radio music. Narrative adverts. Shipping forecasts. How much rocks cost.
[15m] Jared: It's something Chris wants. Finding a way to do that will be interesting...

15m35 - ship damage states?

Dir: "Yes, we will. We're going to elevate all of the sounds in the ships, particularly in on the console UI and things like that. You will absolutely get that kind of stuff. Uh, more basically, I'm going to be elevating the experience in all vehicles and ships. they're gonna have much more personality and much more presence."

Tech Dir: Want Star Audio to make ships more easily aware of changes to the ship itself
Manager: Historically tied to VFX. They want more access / control

VOIP:
[16m50s] - Tech Dir: VOIP system needs rework as it's creaking under new player counts. Needs backend work.
+ [17m40] On the list. Don't know when. Work for Turbulent. VOIP backend was designed for 50 player server caps. That system hasn't grown.
Jared: It's fallen in to the backlog of fixes...
Tech Dir: It needs to run off its own service, independent of shards...
Jared: It was struggling before SM, it's worse now

20:14 - Variety to rain?
Manager: They scoped the rain initially for the 'storm breaker' event. It unintentionally scaled across the entire verse. [!?]. Need all the surfaces, types of rain etc.
It's 'version 0.5 [:D]

22m23: There is a dynamic weather system planned. They'll be fully supporting that. This is more limited. But far reaching...
Now need to backfill and sort it out...

22:35 - ATC?

It's in its infancy. Want to bring a lot more. Narrative implications.

24m26 - Ships with distinctive engine sounds now almost silent. Bug? Or waiting for a pass?

Tech Dir: Bit of both. Changes in ship model changed things. Need to get around to all the ships, to make them respond properly.
Wants to refresh the 8 year old ones etc

Dir: "I'm doubling the department in order to give a fantastic experience. You know, I've been given the opportunity to increase the department in order to turn this around."

26m
Manager: I've been here 10 years. The ship systems we've built were built for the game at the time. [Tech Dir looks uncomfortable]. Haven't been able to keep pace with all the flight model changes etc. The legacy ships.

Bulking up the team.

[27m30s] Jared on the backlog / legacy issues / not just audio

Whether it's right or not, SC is very 'forward looking'. Always looking at the next patch, the new ship. [They drool over the newest ships coming up]. Fall into the trap of only looking forward. The backlog builds, tech debt mounts up. He's curious about their plans for audio tech debt. Got to be more of a solution than just hiring people. [:D]

Dir: Remit is work on current material, the top layer, to do top work 'from now on'. Below this is the legacy stuff. Gonna elevate that. Will see what he wants to change. The final stream is to connect with the community. He invites feedback. Will be very involved. [Total blather basically ;)).

Jared: Wants more tangible answer. How? Build a team that only works on old stuff? Is that boring for new hires. [Tech Dir thinks the opposite, but gets cut off...].

Dir: Wants to focus on ships. Will update all the weapons. Ambients. Flora and fauna. [More non-answer basically]. The diegetic music... [:D]
"I'm going to have a department that going to be focusing all of it." [What?]. His priority is to focus on what SC needs now and what the community want.

Manager: Bigger team will be able to get in early doors on future stuff, look at current builds, look at backlog. Very fortunate to be in a period of growth.

Tech Dir: The backlog is fun. It's working on a finished product [:D].

33m25 - Crates?
Dir: Everything is going to be addressed. The weight of objects. So it feels real. And stylised.
Tech Dir: Simon gave an amazing demonstration. Wants to give everything audible weight.

34m20s - downstream dependencies. Audio is last in the chain: How do you work like that?
[Jared's question again]
Dir waffle about it being true in all audio visual industries.

36m - IE weapons etc had VFX changes but no audio changes
Don't always have time. Lucky we're a live product because can change later.

38m30s - Diff between Star Audio and Realistic Audio
Tech Dir: "Star Audio is effectively a kind of middleware replacement. It's not going to replace Wise which we will always use at least for the time being to play back our sounds but it's a replacement for the glue between game systems and the audio system that then allows a lot more freedom to sound designers to do whatever they want."
Currently quite prescriptive. SA would allow flagging fact that animation played etc, then audio can play around with it. PAssin events down hierarchies at runtime. [They can make the gun on your ship rattle if the ship gets hit etc...]

Realistic Audio is a subset of that. "basically listening to whether there's any audio pressure between the listening device of the ears and the the sound emission device which maybe a ship or a weapon or whatever." [?]

[Much chat about vibrations being good. Gravity changes]

[Ambient soundscapes. Yes. Complicated. There are LODs for cities. Star Audio can let inaudible distant enviro sounds statistically influence audible ones...]

48m - Footsteps on surfaces?
Dir: Yes going to replace as much foley as I see fit.
Tech Dir: Compounded by a bug that's just been fixed. Materials weren't being picked up. Coming in a upcoming patch.
Dir: Will come quickly, because I'm here

49m19s - Self-destruct audio alarms?

Manager/Tech Dir: Didn't we do that years ago? :D
Jared: Don't think they work any more. The countdown voices etc.
We should resurrect them.

50m50 - Big ships hovering almost silent
TLDR: Yes, talked just this morning again, yes
Need smarter ways to tie in to that context. In a way that's not parlysing if there's lots of them.
Dir: Wants to say no.

52m30s - will music work for groups?
Yes we were rushed on jump points. Should be for the ship, not just the captain.
Click to expand...

Things break all the time because the game keeps changing.
Click to expand...

Its like they've never heard of Agile development.
 
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