Sounds In Tsw2; Musings.

Just had a rummage in the UE tutorial and information site and quote:

"Sound is immensely important to creating believable and immersive environments. From ambient sounds in the level to interactive sounds from vehicles or weapons to spoken dialog from the characters, the audio in the game can make or break the user's experience"

I wonder where out of 5 they put the importance of in-game audio as stated above? From my experience, it's about 1 or 2.

How many of us as users agree with this statement?

To me, it seems obvious but does it with DTG I wonder? when so many of their in-game audio defaults to "that'll have to do for the track on routes"?

Bakerloo line is a good example, BVE got the underground sounds spot on 20 years ago. I understand there were limits during this pandemic but not enough to stop masses of reference material for the 72 stock or stations at the time?
I really hope that at some point soon that more of an emphasis is put on sounds within TSW2 that match the statement from UE's own material above.

As a reference to immersive in-cab audio take a real listen rather than seeing with the eye only, particularly when passing or going underthings or track sounds as in the second video. Each route has its own sound characteristics, pity that can't be emulated in TSW2/3/4/5.




Link to material: https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/Audio/index.html

 

Sounds on TVL seem very good to me and ECW.

Bakerloo I would say is quite weak in that it seems to quiet unlike the real thing. As you say though the pandemic has probably had a bearing on that though.

 

Is it just the in-cab sounds on the German DLC then that has gone AoT with the transfer to TSW2?

 

I think so, I haven't used any of my German DLC yet in TSW2 apart from the new Koln to Aachen route.

 

They should give us an option to the rid of that "Ding" sound when you finish the objective too .(Especially when I arrive at the station) I hated that sound.

 

It does get a tad annoying after a while, I would like the option to turn that sound off too.

 

there is a mod to remove it for TSW2020 that still works in TSW2

londonmidland was it one of yours?

 

Further musings on the sounds..... I have noticed that in some routes particularly NTP (Northern Transpennine) that the soundscape is flat, trains radiate an awful lot of noise and this is typically reflected from other surfaces bridge parapets walls of all types, buildings, and especially tunnels, now I can tell you that if you have a window open going through any tunnel or bridge for that matter there is a heck of a din coming back in! Yet there is nowt nada nix! How is one supposed to feel immersed in a world that is for all intents and purposes silent? Is it impossible to implement? TS Classic does it better even in that sims limited sound capabilities, just take a ride on Im Koeblitzer bergland's latest iteration. This was one of my biggest hopes for TSW but sadly sounds up until recently have been a very poor and inconspicuous 3rd cousin to all else.

 

This issue partially relates to the sound and audio issues faced after the preserved content was ported over to TSW 2. You can see my thread about that here

 

The lack of reverb has been raised in a bug report by myself, no doubt others too. DTG have acknowledged the issue but no ETA if/when a fix.

 

I think that even in TSW2020 the soundscape was pretty flat still don't have bridge sounds even now, steel bridges are noisy things when traversing over them, there are several in Ruhr Sieg Nord, and no sound.
Tunnels have never been realistic in TSW/TSW2 heck some have reverb and some don't even on the same route?!

 

That’s true. Environmental noise in TSW have always been sterile. The environment artists really need to improve on route sounds. Even the newer TSW 2 routes lack any environmental sounds.

 

Despite the known issues I think one of the main problems is related to audio volumes. Sounds are there and indeed there are a lot of them, not only on the trains but on the scenery as well.

For instance in the scenery road traffic, wind, moving trees/bushes, and city/station ambience are implemented. On the parked trains you can also notice the clicks/clacks from the diesel engines once they are turned off, and the frequent air flows when trains have just stopped. There are compressor, fans and compressed air noises, in addition to the typical metal tension on couplers and wagons or the ones produced when brakes are applied. Track junctions and rails also produce sounds.

But the engine sounds and the train movement mask the rest, cause in some cases the others are too soft compared to the main engine or train sounds, and normally you don´t listen to too much things inside the cabs, as they are soundproof (specially the newest ones). One solution is to open the windows, which for me is a must as I like to feel the horsepower But for instance, the metallic sound of tracks and wagons should be increased as engines do not so frequently mask it in real trains.

Another topic is what produces sound in real trains. Normally there are several stages depending on distance and speeds:

1) Distant trains: the train wheels sound propagated by the rails ahead of it is what you hear. This can be seen at 6:56 in this video, as that passenger train is quite silent and camera is placed at the perfect location to record it, but also freight ones produce it:



That´s one is one of the main alerts for workers in the tracks and pedestrians in level crossings, as in most cases you don´t hear the train until is too late to react, as its sound propagates sideways, not ahead of train. This sound is missing in game, or at least I was not able to find it so far.

2) Slow moving trains: there the engine and the tracks are the leaders. They are the most noticeable.

3) Medium speeds: the wheels and the airflow are the most noticeable ones.

4) High speed trains: here the main sound is the airflow and the pantograph, even if that results shocking to some people, as it produces a high pitch sound as it cuts the air. Engines, even on diesel trains like the british ones, are barely noticeable until they are really close to user or train is spotted from the sides.

I think they need to tweak the audio volumes and also add some echo/reverb effects (specially to horns) and increase the limit up to which sounds in general fade-out, as sometimes this distance is really short. You should be able to notice the distant sounds much more in game.

Cheers