Sound Directionality as an in-Game context awareness signal

When a monster roars, I should know at least which quadrant it is in. When I throw a rock (or my voice) to distract, the 'hearer' should respond to that quadrant with (temporarily) heightened awareness.

Because we autolocate (by having two ears and amplitude/time differentiation) at a level of perception below consciousness. Why can't the game incorporate this functionality?

The main challenge (A) is that the screen is always 'ahead' for the player, but their ears are on the sides. (Just try NOT turning your head or body on hearing a threatening or surprising sound from outside your field of vision.) The second challenge (B) is Point-of-View tracking for the player generally is visual, not aural. (The screen, not the speakers, are the primary focus for the player.) (C) The third challenge is that sound generation (for the player) is from at least one speaker, with location(s) unknowable (and varied) for the programmers -- where the signal is emitted is not directly linked to the in-game context.

Let me 'unpack' with short examples. (A) If I'm playing Point-of-View (e.g. Skyrim 1st person view), when a monster is activated and howls/roars/scritches, the game gives ZERO cue to indicate which direction that noise is from. I can look around 360 degrees, but if the monster is out of line of sight, I still have no hint. If the game made the noise louder when I face the right quadrant, the game would match focus and signal "correctly"; while a hot-key 'look' option would let me shift attention but inflict a penalty for that shift (lower defense, movement while hidden). (B) If I am not in combat, or maximal stealth, and the game swapped visual view momentarily towards the sound's location, this would reflect the innate 'attention shift' to the possibly important cue. (C) Some sort of intensification/lessening scale (louder or softer as orientation of view changes; or brightening/darkening at the appropriate side edge of the screen) could allow interpretation of the in-game locationality, without requiring full-surround stereo playback and computer-'known' aural output directions for each specific player.

Yes, this is a possibly complicated problem/opportunity for SOTA. Giving sound 'locationality' within the game, would definitely enrich the immersive experience. Background and theme sound would not have a directionality; in-game noises (and conversations) would. If I turn my back to an NPC (or other speaker), I should lose some of the quality -- especially if there are other, competing, sounds. Like the battlecries of the charging berzerkers, coming over the hill to attack us both.

So please -- don't just _put_ sounds in the game. PLACE sounds in the game. And let our characters use sounds -- or experience the consequences of not taking care with our own sound-generation -- to affect the behaviors and actions, triggers and responses, of the world we will be 'in'.

 

Unity has pretty robust three dimensional sound capabilities, so this should definitely be in the game. Visual cues should be togglable for those lucky people who have surround sound speakers or headphones. For important sounds like an enemy making a war-cry at you there could be something similar to the grenade markers in Call of Duty.

 

Sounds like a pretty cool idea although I'm not sure how hard it would be to do. I watched this video the other day and it really gave me perspective of what you can do with controlling sound between the left and right ears. Virtual Barber Shop