Why is 3d sound based off camera position?

Why is 3d sound based off camera position?

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Posted by: claudekennilol.9251

claudekennilol.9251

Q:

My character is standing right in front of an NPC with the camera zoomed all the way out (because I like seeing as much as possible). So why, if I want to hear what’s being said to me, do I need to swivel the camera around in some ridiculous way so the camera is facing up at the sky behind me to hear what the person in front of me is saying?

Why is 3d sound based off camera position?

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Posted by: Foddzy.6291

Foddzy.6291

This is a problem in many 3rd person view games, I was hoping GW2 would shake this trend.

I refer to this as “locus of hearing”.

Related to this are the droplets of water on the camera lens when a character exits water; ahh what magic camera is this following me around? The droplets of water should appear on my character, not an immersion-breaking magic floating lens.

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Posted by: RLDragon.1738

RLDragon.1738

IIRC in one of the MMO’s I have played there was a control in the options that allowed placement of the sound on the character in addition to sound according to the camera view. I know for certain that at least one of the 3rd person games I have played had this option.

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Posted by: claudekennilol.9251

claudekennilol.9251

It’s ridiculous. I literally can’t hear the person if they’re standing right in front of me. I have to turn the camera to be able to hear them.

(edited by claudekennilol.9251)

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Posted by: Ottyk.1528

Ottyk.1528

I suppose sound being based on the camera makes some kind of sense, since that is where you are physically experiencing the game from, but I do see your point. Maybe some sounds, such as NPC speech, should be based on your character. But I imagine having a mixture would create some jarring inconsistencies in the sound…

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Posted by: claudekennilol.9251

claudekennilol.9251

It wouldn’t bother me so much it being this way if I could hear the NPC directly opposite my PC from the camera.

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Posted by: Paulytnz.7619

Paulytnz.7619

I have this problem too. Sometimes it can be real bad in the personal story as even when I am facing the person and they are right in front of me I still can’t hear them. Also sometimes the voice sounds just bugged, and can’t be made sense of, it really gets annoying……

I really wish there were options to ALWAYS hear npc’s that are talking to you no matter what direction they are to you. It should just be determind on their distance to you not their location.

As to those water effects I just think of it as my eyes are wet and blurry for a few seconds when I get out of the water and I’m sure this is what Anet were going for. After all we have no way of drying ourselves off.

Since when did this business of being a hero become being a business?

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Posted by: weolgwang.9642

weolgwang.9642

In case you still have this problem after more than a year, I found a solution. I had the same problem as you. I couldn’t hear what was directly in front of my character.

It was actually a setting in windows that was the problem: Go to Control Panel -> Sound. There’s a list of your outputs. Select the one you’re using and press “Configure”. Mine was set to 7.1 Surround… I changed it to stereo, since I’m on headphones. And voilá, problem solved!

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Posted by: Behellagh.1468

Behellagh.1468

Since the camera represents your viewpoint, your eyes if you were there looking at your character, why wouldn’t your ears also be there?

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

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Posted by: TheBlackLeech.9360

TheBlackLeech.9360

Since the camera represents your viewpoint, your eyes if you were there looking at your character, why wouldn’t your ears also be there?

…except the RPG in MMORPG means role playing game….. you are not the camera….. you are your character.

As far as I know this game is not advertised as a camera-man simulator.

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Posted by: Andred.1087

Andred.1087

Since the camera represents your viewpoint, your eyes if you were there looking at your character, why wouldn’t your ears also be there?

…except the RPG in MMORPG means role playing game….. you are not the camera….. you are your character.

As far as I know this game is not advertised as a camera-man simulator.

If you want to think that you’re the person in the game, I can understand why this is annoying. But you aren’t. You’re the person outside the game, experiencing the world from a few feet above the head of the character you’re controlling. It’s done to give the effect that you are watching what is happening.

“You’ll PAY to know what you really think.” ~ J. R. “Bob” Dobbs

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Posted by: timmyf.1490

timmyf.1490

This is almost certainly a problem with the game outputting surround sound but you only having two speakers. If you have a surround sound system, check to see if there’s a Matrix option – this mixes left and right channel audio to form a center channel audio… but with the effect of silencing the intended center channel.

Karaoke – Guild Leader – [MEGA] Super Mega Happy Fun Time
www.getunicorned.com / northernshiverpeaks.org

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Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

Konig Des Todes.2086

It’s like when sounds get muffled because your character is standing around a corner or on the other side of a plank of wood (I’m looking at you, Dragon Age: Origins).

It’s a rather odd thing designers decide to make, for some reason.

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.

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Posted by: Cody Crichton.7516

Cody Crichton.7516

Sound Designer

Next

It’s ridiculous. I literally can’t hear the person if they’re standing right in front of me. I have to turn the camera to be able to hear them.

This is a classic symptom of having your audio device set to surround sound at the operating system level when you either don’t have surround sound speakers or the center speaker of your surround system is malfunctioning. Check your hardware and/or OS audio settings and see if that doesn’t straighten things out for ya?

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Posted by: Inculpatus cedo.9234

Inculpatus cedo.9234

Let’s hope the OP found a solution more than a year ago. ; )

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Posted by: Cody Crichton.7516

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Cody Crichton.7516

Sound Designer

Or, in other words, had I not just skimmed over the bottom, more recent comments, I should just say weolgwang and timmyf have already troubleshot the issue just fine. Good job spreading the word about these technical problems!