Ok I'm abit of a perfectionist when it comes to things like ambience on a map. Don't take this as a *****/rant to all mappers etc out there I just want to express my opinion on this subject.

Now what I'm getting is how on some maps you hear owls, birds and other things that wouldn't fit into a battle scene.

Mainly its birds and so on you hear in the likes of forest and gilder, realisticly the birds and other wildlife would of fled the area even before the battle start or as soon as it did they would of fled.

Now why do people insist on putting these things in to their maps if it wouldn't be there in a real combat zone.

Now I do understand its hard to get someone to make an ambience for you and the mapping community at large uses alot of the same things in their maps over and over.

But for the people who are lucky enough to have an sound editor up their sleves please if you are getting an ambience done could we be keeping it realistic to an extent and not have birds and what not hooting at us :p

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simply because if its all quite it make the map seem a little.

type in stopsound and ull see that theres quite a difference.

Because I like the way it sounds...remember that this is a fps game...not a realism game...and adding ambient sounds to maps gives them character...perhaps not authentic character...but character nontheless.

Originally posted by TheNomad
simply because if its all quite it make the map seem a little.

type in stopsound and ull see that theres quite a difference.

I play with stopsound quite often during clan matchs anyway. And I don't notice this making the map seem "little".

Originally posted by FuzzDad
Because I like the way it sounds...remember that this is a fps game...not a realism game...and adding ambient sounds to maps gives them character...perhaps not authentic character...but character nontheless.

I know DOD is an FPS game and not so closely based on realism either, but at least some of the mappers like myself out there must have an inkling for a tad of realism when it comes to certain things?

Originally posted by Sly Assassin
I play with stopsound quite often during clan matchs anyway. And I don't notice this making the map seem "little".

I know DOD is an FPS game and not so closely based on realism either, but at least some of the mappers like myself out there must have an inkling for a tad of realism when it comes to certain things?

You use stopsound and you want realism? You don't see the paradox?

The sounds in Forest and Glider dont' strike me as that out of place, but never having been in a real combat zone, like you have, I can't say for sure.

Two words: Mappers Choice. I do not like maps that are silent. Bugs chirp...birds tweet...water rushes...wind rustles..etc. Sure...the birdies and the buggies shut down for a moment or two when serious gunplay starts up...but as soon as the gunplay is over...they start a-chirping and a-tweetering.

Actually...I was in the army...damn bugs sometimes don't shutup during a firefight...although the birds certainly do...but all that other ambient noise that comes from wind and the far-off distant sounds of aircraft, vehicles, small arms fire, artillery, rainstorms, etc...does keep going. What I used to notice were the few times there was zero sound...usually after a large explosion had died down...and after all the little critters had scampered away in the underbrush...you could get a death-like quiet...but only if there was no wind.

Wind is the biggest sound-maker of them all next to combat noise...go out one day in the woods and listen...try to close out all the bug noises...and listen to the sound of the wind twirling around in the tops of tree's...it's a very noisy and soothing sound all at once. Face it...the world is a noisy place...we just happen to shut out a lot of the noise because it's always there...so sometimes you just don't "hear" it.

Originally posted by Shane
You use stopsound and you want realism? You don't see the paradox?

The sounds in Forest and Glider dont' strike me as that out of place, but never having been in a real combat zone, like you have, I can't say for sure.

I said only for clan matchs ;) Cause that why I can hear foot steps better. And on pubs I don't bother with stop sound.

Yus I do relise its the mappers choice Fuzzdad I think I stated that else where, I was just wondering why people put them in more then anything. Like I also said I'm not making this a rant just wanted to express my veiws and see what/why people did this.

Sorry if I've offended anyone due to this thread didn't mean to at all as it wasn't my intentions.

What about dynamic sounds, triggered by the players? They won't even know they trigger the sound themselves.

A few trigger_multiple with "Delay before trigger: 8" can offer real dynamic sounds, and that's better than one big ambience sound, which is usually cut by the stopsound command.

On this subject i noticed most of the ambience sound are too loud. That's probably why everyone is using stopsound. A ambient_generic with a value of 2 or 1 is much better than 10.

Nah...no problemo Sly...sometimes the sounds are bit loud and we can always tweek that. I have a lot of those trigger events too...at least in glider...there are a bunch of bird and other sounds tied to advancing allies that a lot of folks do not pick up on

if you don't put in any ambient sounds the map just dosnt seem done like you havent put enough effort into it. The problem as you say is the lack fo sounds and sound misuse. Currently in my map its up in the mountains away from battles. This is making sure i have lots of little ambient sounds everywhere with only 1 true ambient sound of the wind. The problem for me however has become entity counts.

You can't say dod is not close to realisim, yes it is a video game but you can surely see som realisim in it, quite a lot.

about the birds sounds... in maps like forest it's normal to hear birds cause one time there is a battle in the first flag, so birds get out of there, then you move on to a diffrent place in the forest and you hear there some other birds, and after few mintues of silence birds can come back to the area.

also bear in mind that you can't make an ambience sound that ends after firing in the area.

I like the ambience sounds that dod features, they are quite good although the custom community almost always gives you better stuff, when 15 people +- make several sounds for everything, you got a lot to choose from rather than 1 dev sound maker.

Originally posted by Mortar
You can't say dod is not close to realisim, yes it is a video game but you can surely see som realisim in it, quite a lot.

about the birds sounds... in maps like forest it's normal to hear birds cause one time there is a battle in the first flag, so birds get out of there, then you move on to a diffrent place in the forest and you hear there some other birds, and after few mintues of silence birds can come back to the area.


I see the realisim in DoD I'm not that blind ;)

Yer sure you hear birds and other animals in a forest, but when theres large amounts of troops and so on moving through an area and then theres battles happening the birds and other animals won't be making a peep at all, this is what I was getting at as my first point in this map.

Actually in WW1, soldiers oddly enough reported birds singing during the most absurd hellfire...

But in forest you can hear house sparrows. Theres a reason they're called HOUSE sparrows too, but thats a minor problem!

Usually the only animals that make a sound during the day are birds anyway! I suppose animals might make "alarm" calls after gunfire, but my dad says a robin will happily chirp away next to you when ur making a right racket.

Too much talk about birds, I prefer to talk about the other kind of bird :D.