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Published - 7/24/99 Introduction:
In
a world of 3D cards and blistering graphics, sound seems to take
a back seat to it all. For years now, sound and music have been
merely "nice" additions to a game. Most often, sound is
low quality, CD music was either techno or sparse, and unimaginative
at best. But now because of games like Half-Life, Theif-The Dark
Project, Sim City 3000, and many others, sound is making a huge
splash. Not only has the quality of the sound
we hear gone up, but now some games are being made with sound in
mind and having sound be an integral part of gameplay. Also, the
sound we can hear now may come from not 2, but 4 speakers and a
subwoofer. What this effectively does is simulate "real life"
sound and projects it all around us. Some people may doubt the usefulness
of this, but I can attest to the fact that 3D surround sound adds
an amazing new level to gaming. Sounds come from where they naturally
should come from, and for once, I actually use sound to deduce where
enemies are. Namely Half-life and Thief have made vast advances
in the use and control of sound in games.
In
Half-life, the use of sound was incorporated directly into gameplay
because the AI not only could recognize and detect the player by
sight, but also by sound. Not only that, but some enemies
(like the Houndeye and Tentacle) could only detect their
environment through sound. Thus making the "Blast into a room,
biggest guns blazing" technique not as important anymore. Sometimes,
the best way to get through an area was to be "sneaky"
and fight as few enemies as possible. (gasp!) Now for some
of you, that is blasphemy, "What, no endless violence, where
is the senseless killing, I WANT GIBS!". Long gone are the
days when you can aimlessly wander the halls of a game blasting
randomly at walls, and chucking grenades for the hell of it. Each
move you make can be heard, seen, and felt by the AI. Carefully
skirting around a group of Houneye's and inching your way across
a huge platform while a 40 foot tentacle listens for you in hopes
of utterly crushing you is definitely a heart stopping experience.
Now, for some of you, the use of sound still may not seem very important,
so, I am going to describe a scene for you in hopes of better showing
you how things work.
Half-life scene: You are sprinting down a hallway as you make your way through the level and as you turn the corner, and what do you see? A pack of Houndeye are mulling about over a dead scientist. You instantly freeze as one of the Houndeye cock its ears in your direction. You have 2 choices, pull out your machine gun and start blasting, or try something a little more craftier. Now normally the Houndeye are not very hard, but in this room there are over 10 of them, all willing to blast me to gibs. So you rule out choice number one and move onto to try something a little more "unorthodox". You slowly pull out a grenade (which has no chance of killing all the Houndeye. SO, you aim at the opposite end of the hall and chuck away. Instantly the Houndeye bound off in that direction hoping to find another victim, but of course they won't, you are already off in the other direction without ever firing a shot Still not convinced? Well another game you may
have heard of, called Thief - The Dark Project, has taken 3D sound
to even greater heights. In Thief, not only can all the AI units
detect the player through sound, but Thief's gameplay is centered
around not making sound. The basis of Thief's gameplay is
centered around stealth, and the use of it to achieve your goals.
While Half-life does not force you to be stealthy, Thief makes stealth
a requirement for success. In Thief you stand no chance against
more than a few opponents in the open, while in stealth, you can
kill entire garrisons. Some people did not like this style of gameplay,
but I for one thought that it just moved us closer to games trying
to reproduce realistic scenes.
This excellent use of sound jump-started an aural
revolution which led to the hardware acceleration of sound, and
in turn allowed for the best spatial representation of sound a computer
has ever had. What does the Future of 3D sound hold? Right now,
not many people can tell, but we know that no longer can you play
with your sound off, no longer will sound and music take a back
seat to graphics, sound is back baby! <End Austin Powers Voice>
:)
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Author: Type: Developers: Requirements: Page1: Introduction Page2: The Chipsets Page3:
Vortex2 Page4: Soundblaster Live! Page5: Professional Sound use Page6:
Conclusion
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