LISTENER_HEIGHT increase results in too low volume for soundeffects about gemrb HOT 6 OPEN

Feel free to play around with other values, I focused on voices of NPCs around and watched the amplitude to be about the same.

from gemrb.

Just a note to anyone testing. Make sure the volume levels are set to the same values in both {gem-,}baldur.ini, just in case you modified either via the GUI.

from gemrb.

I played the beginning of BG1 from Candlekeep to Friendly Arm with different LISTENER_HEIGHT values (0, 50, 100, 200) and different AL_GAINs. A change in AL_GAIN doesn't do much in my perception. The bumped volume is definitly noticable from 1.00 to 1.25, but afterwards not so much.

A higher LISTENER_HEIGHT does indeed smooth out the L/R-transitions, but the price to pay are swallowed soundeffects. In this regard a value of 0 seems to represent the volume of the original game the best. In addition, at least in original BG1, speech/dialog is always centered and volume isn't depending on listener position. This adds the question if GemRB actually should depend the dialog volume on the listener position at all, which then questions the gains in smoother L/R-transitions in its foundations. That's probably another topic entirely.

All in all I think there's no absolut best value for LISTENER_HEIGHT which fits all users and preferences. This should probably be an user configurable option.

What do others think?

from gemrb.

Just as an idea: If the channel is any of the sound effects you find too low, does raising the Z position of that source a little (0 < z < LISTENER_HEIGHT) help/sound good? Not sure how cleanly the channels are distinct in detail here, but two things:

1. if it's your banging door, I don't see any reason against helping like this, these are short bursts, not ambients
2. some things like spell sound effects, that may last a little longer, appear to be little broken, like having a lighting or web explosion off-screen still makes your hear a full blast, this is what I'd adress in the future maybe

from gemrb.

I don't think this should be user configurable, since they already have both the volume controls and can edit the relative volumes per channel. What we need is a sane default for whatever values are required, whether we need to take a different approach or not.

from gemrb.