Car engine sound in games
Author
Hi,
I want to make a car race game (like grand turismo on PSX) and I want my car engine to sound right. I''m pretty much equiped for sonorisation, and I can record almost any car engine I want to. The thing is, I don''t know how to program the sound so it sounds like the car is accelerating or decelarating. So, if I don''t know how to program it, I don''t know what I will need to record. So I need to know how to program it. Is is just modulating the sound? make it''s pitch higher(or lower)? If I must change the pitch, How can I be sure I don''t mess the sound up?
The solution to my problem should be that hard, they''ve been making it for ages... well, not that long, but long enough so someone knows. I hope!
So I repeat the questions : How can I program the sound of a car engine so the revolution of the motor goes up or down? And if someone know, how do I record the car engine sound so I can have optimal results? Do you have some links or ressources I can start with?
Thanks
ThunderMusic
When I was involved in writing the sound engine for a racing game we used multiple sound loops of the car engine at different revs of the engine. This is roughly what we recorded:
loop of car at idle loop.
loop of car in reverse.
loop of car in each gear both under strain and free wheeling.
gear shifting from each gear up and down.
driver side car door opening.
car horn!
then we played each of the loops and crossfaded between them based on which gear we were in and whether the car was on the ground (under strain) or in a jump (free wheeling).
When playing the loops we modulated their pitch within a certain band to simulate the sound of the car accelerating or decelerating.
Hope that helps.
loop of car at idle loop.
loop of car in reverse.
loop of car in each gear both under strain and free wheeling.
gear shifting from each gear up and down.
driver side car door opening.
car horn!
then we played each of the loops and crossfaded between them based on which gear we were in and whether the car was on the ground (under strain) or in a jump (free wheeling).
When playing the loops we modulated their pitch within a certain band to simulate the sound of the car accelerating or decelerating.
Hope that helps.
Author
So basicaly, you modulate the pitch of each gears AND crossfade between them to make them almost seemless? and for in between gears, you put that gear shifter sound?
Thank you very much.
ThunderMusic
Thank you very much.
ThunderMusic
Author
Do you have some example of code for doing this? a ressource to get me started (like a web page, a pdf or something else...)?
Thank you very much for your help
ThunderMusic
Thank you very much for your help
ThunderMusic
Unfortunately this was for a commercial title and as such I am unable to give you any source code.
Think like an automatic gearbox...
take some input from your physics engine, and the cars speed, the strain on it (uphill, downhill, freewheeling) and what gear it''s in.
This should give you enough info to know when to shift gears, just like an automatic gearbox works.
Example:
gear 1, standing still. - Play a down pitched gear one sound.
gear 1, accellerating. - raise the pitch according to the engine rpm.
gear 1, full revs - play an up pitched gear 1 sound.
shift to gear 2 - play the gear shift sound.
gear 2, accellerating - Depending on the gearbox configuration, you would find the new revs after the gear shift, depending on car speed and gear ratios, so you can start the gear 2 sound on the right pitch, then just repeat, basically.
Though I havve never done it, this should work quite well, and a wild guess is how the previous poster did it.
The more I think, the more confused I get.
take some input from your physics engine, and the cars speed, the strain on it (uphill, downhill, freewheeling) and what gear it''s in.
This should give you enough info to know when to shift gears, just like an automatic gearbox works.
Example:
gear 1, standing still. - Play a down pitched gear one sound.
gear 1, accellerating. - raise the pitch according to the engine rpm.
gear 1, full revs - play an up pitched gear 1 sound.
shift to gear 2 - play the gear shift sound.
gear 2, accellerating - Depending on the gearbox configuration, you would find the new revs after the gear shift, depending on car speed and gear ratios, so you can start the gear 2 sound on the right pitch, then just repeat, basically.
Though I havve never done it, this should work quite well, and a wild guess is how the previous poster did it.
The more I think, the more confused I get.
This topic is closed to new replies.
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