Mumble voice range limitations.

[Qaiex]

First off, heres my idea for how I think PTT buttons should be set up.
1. Button that uses only Mumble.
2. Button that uses regular squad VOIP, with added Mumble.
3. Button that uses commander radio but transmit to all squad leaders aswell, with added Mumble.

When you're using button 2 and 3 you should move your hand from your weapon to your shoulder radio thing, this will ensure that players don't go for the radio that their whole squad can hear when they're in a firefight, because you can't shoot and talk on the radio at the same time.
I also think the regular squad VOIP should get the sound effects that commander chat gets.


Now to my main thoughts.
Mumble is pretty great, it makes the game more realistic. But I think the main flaw is that you hear people whispering 70.1m away, which is pretty unrealistic.

When you set it up you come to a Volume Tuning thing that has the bar that registers how loudly you're speaking.
Couldn't we use something like that to set a standard for how far away sound should travel and how much the volume should decrease over distance?

Sound within the blue field are whispers and will only be heard 5 meters away, sounds within the green go 12 meters, yellow goes 20m, orange 40m, and red 70m.


Just an idea.

[Jigsaw]

Think part of your suggestion there is hardcoded... Afaik I dont believe that you can stop a player firing whilst he is talking on VOIP/mumble on the BF2 engine.

However I do agree with your other suggestion that when you talk on VOIP you should be talking on mumble as well. Its part of the gradual full integration of mumble into PR and will make it highly realistic with mumble allowing everyone around you to hear as you talk on the radio, as would happen in RL.

As for distance at which you can hear, it is adjustable and if it is too high for you then you can reduce it. For me it is perfect. I can hear my m8 standing 10 meters away but much farther and its hard to hear unless they shout which is entirely realistic, especially given the general noise generated during combat.

[McBumLuv]

I'm thinking some of this is hardcoded with the BF 2 engine, though I wouldn't worry if PR 2 heads to a less limited one.

[OldGoat5]

VOIP in bf2 is delayed about two seconds so if you talk on bf2 voip and mumble at the same time, you hear an echo since mumble has less latency to it. But i thought that the positional audio already meant that it is harder to hear someone far away than someone who is close, atleast from what ive heard in-game.

[FL-CPL J.Burton[EEF]]

I do agree with your other suggestion that when you talk on VOIP you should be talking on mumble as well. Its part of the gradual full integration of mumble into PR and will make it highly realistic with mumble allowing everyone around you to hear as you talk on the radio, as would happen in IRL.

Yup, I wanted to bring this into EEF's mumble use, but people didn't like it as they said it "echoed". But it does that irl so I cant see what the problem is and thought it was great.
For mumble I've got a PTT button, and an Alt-PTT which is bound to my squad voip (default B)

I like it, and still use it, but I'm pretty sure 90% of EEF don't use that set up anymore

[Wiman]

because you can't shoot and talk on the radio at the same time.

You can, even talking with the hand microphone connected to the huge swedish ra180 on your back and shooting at the same time is possible. With decreased accuracy (hip shot 'ish) sure, but you can most definately fire the weapon in close quarters to defend yourself.

Army training even learns you how to carry another person on your back while being able to shoot at the same time, so a small radio in your hand isn't much of a problem. Even less since there are headsets avaliable with just a small talkbutton fastened somewhere on your chest/elsewere.

[Qaiex]

Well of course you could fire it with one hand, you just probably wouldn't hit anything.
Which part is the hardcoded one? The button to radio squad leaders or the volume to distance adjuster?

Because the last one seems more like a mumble thing than the BF2 engine.
I should probably be more knowledgeable in Acoustics but we don't start with the technical side of it until 3rd year, so I don't know the specifics.
But you'd think there would be a way of elimiating sound based on distance.

The lines represent a measure of distance, for every one of these lines you get a dropoff in volume, first one is you, then it drops off midly and continues to decrease in volume until you can't hear it.
The louder you speak into the microphone, the more the volume has to drop off before it becomes inaudible.
So with a fixed set of volume per distance volume reduction, that would pretty much make it so that the louder you speak the further the sound travels.


|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| <-- Screaming would go to here, these are 12 year olds dying and bitching about it.

[munky91]

If Mumble can get players' positions from the game, can it also get other data? Like what weapon you have out, are you firing it, and what firemode its in? Then you could have a radio weapon with different firemodes representing different radio channels, and Mumble could transmit in that channel whenever you hold fire.

[Carlez_1]

i don't think this matters really. It would cause problems with all of those who have their mics too close or on too loud, and you can already hear the difference if someone is screaming in mumble vs when he's whispering.
If i stand next to a guy ingame right now with mumble, i can hear his whispers fine. But if i walk further away the sound volume drops. If he then starts to scream i can hear him again, like the real world. Mumble already works fine imo.

[Wiman]

Well of course you could fire it with one hand, you just probably wouldn't hit anything.

You should't make these kind of assumptions if you don't have any first hand experience with it. And as said earlier, it is possible to defend yourself effectivly at a range about 20 meters. I'd even go to the extent of being able to hit a man sized target at 100m on a range.

But you'd think there would be a way of elimiating sound based on distance.

Mumble already does this with positional audio, or am I understanding you wrong here?

The louder you speak into the microphone, the more the volume has to drop off before it becomes inaudible.
So with a fixed set of volume per distance volume reduction, that would pretty much make it so that the louder you speak the further the sound travels.

Me and a few clanmembers discussed this, could probably be possible to use diffrent sound thresholds with set maximum distances. However having these set staticly would make diffrent people's speech go very diffrent distances since people have diffrent mic input settings and just diffrent mics/soundcards making some be very very quiet and some really loud with a lot of static noice.

[Rudd]

2. Button that uses regular squad VOIP, with added Mumble.

I find alternate push to talk buttons don't work, the entire server hears them.

[Qaiex]

You should't make these kind of assumptions if you don't have any first hand experience with it. And as said earlier, it is possible to defend yourself effectivly at a range about 20 meters. I'd even go to the extent of being able to hit a man sized target at 100m on a range.


Mumble already does this with positional audio, or am I understanding you wrong here?


Me and a few clanmembers discussed this, could probably be possible to use diffrent sound thresholds with set maximum distances. However having these set staticly would make diffrent people's speech go very diffrent distances since people have diffrent mic input settings and just diffrent mics/soundcards making some be very very quiet and some really loud with a lot of static noice.

For the one hand shooting thing, I was thinking more along the lines that since we can't hip shoot that great in game when having both hands on the weapon, it would have to be at least the same for when you have one hand on the radio.


I sometimes hear people talking on mumble and it sounds like they're standing right beside me, or on the other side of a wall or something but theres no one within a 50 meter radius of my position.
The direction the sound is coming from is correct, it's just the distance isn't accurate.


The threshholds would be set with an audio wizard, Mumble would ask you to speak in a normal voice, and then you would adjust the volume slider thing to make it so that your normal voice ends up within a very very narrow decibel marginal.
Then it would check whispering and loud speaking to get a range, and calculate the difference in decibel between the three, this would give the program a set value for drop off volume.

Ex. if the difference in metres between whispering and talking is 10 metres, and I, with my microphone, have a decibel difference of 40 between whispering and talking normally. Then every 4 decibel would be a metre of extra sound.
But if the difference is 80 decibel, then 4 decibels would only be half a metre.


I hope that explains it.
And Rudd, I don't really understand what you're trying to say there.

[Wiman]

I sometimes hear people talking on mumble and it sounds like they're standing right beside me, or on the other side of a wall or something but theres no one within a 50 meter radius of my position.
The direction the sound is coming from is correct, it's just the distance isn't accurate.

Ah yes, I've noticed the same thing, especially when you turn around and hear sound, at certain angles you hear people better than other. If that is the occurance you are talking about.

The threshholds would be set with an audio wizard, Mumble would ask you to speak in a normal voice, and then you would adjust the volume slider thing to make it so that your normal voice ends up within a very very narrow decibel marginal.
Then it would check whispering and loud speaking to get a range, and calculate the difference in decibel between the three, this would give the program a set value for drop off volume.

Sound good, if it's possible to get someone to code such a thing.

I hope that explains it.
And Rudd, I don't really understand what you're trying to say there.

[/QUOTE]
He's talking about the alt-push-to-talk key having the same function as the "force center" key in mumble. And the last time I used it, sometime arund the 4km patching, it worked fine. Worked just as the regular ptt but with another key, no force center effect at all, if that is I remember it correctly.