Sound Physics Adapted

Features in detail

Occlusion

The mod traces a ray from each sound to your ears. Every block on the path removes volume and high frequencies. The material decides how much. Stone blocks more than wood. Wool and containers block more than a fence.

Doors, gates, hatches and glass panes use their real state. Open a door and the sound is clear at once. Close it and the sound goes dull.

Chiseled blocks and slabs occlude by their true volume, not as a full block.

Reverb

The mod sends rays from the sound source and measures the space around it. Size and material give the echo. A cave rings. A small cellar sounds tight. Open ground stays dry.

Four reverb slots run at the same time, so sounds in different spaces keep their own echo.

Sound paths and repositioning

A wall between you and a sound does not stop the sound. The mod looks for an open path around the wall. If it finds a door, a window or a gap, the sound comes from that opening.

Sounds around a corner lose treble by the angle of the bend. Sounds in a fully sealed space stay dull and dry.

Weather

Rain, wind and hail are not a flat layer over your head. The mod finds the openings near you and puts the weather sound at each one. A window on the north wall makes rain come from the north.

Your shelter level controls the volume. The change is gradual, not a switch. Wind sounds move to roof height at a sky opening.

Thunder

Each strike gets a direction above the horizon and a distance up to 1000 blocks. Distant thunder is deeper and quieter. Indoors, the mod muffles the crack and keeps the rumble.

Distance and air

Sounds carry farther than in the base game, because walls now stop them. Distant sounds lose treble through air absorption. Every value is in the configuration file. Set the multiplier to vanilla values if you want the old range.

Blocks and other mods

Resonators keep the correct sound through pickup, placement and world reload. With the CarryOn patch, you can carry a resonator that plays.

Other mods can change occlusion and material values at runtime through the mod API.

Debug

Type  .sp  in chat to show all commands

Type .sp viz in chat for multiple debug views (WIP)

Configuration

The mod writes two files into VintagestoryData/ModConfig:

• soundphysicsadapted.json for the audio behavior and the performance limits.
• soundphysicsadapted_materials.json for the occlusion and reflection value of each material and block.

With the ConfigLib mod you can change the settings in game.

Useful values for performance:

• MaxSoundsPerTick limits how many sounds the mod updates in one tick.
• EnableStaticSoundCache lets sounds that do not move skip their raycast.
• EnableDistanceModelOverrides turns the range and air absorption changes off.

An old configuration file updates itself after a mod update (Thanks for Dana for guiding me towards their Config Update flow)

Compatibility

Vintage Story 1.22	Mod version 0.2.3 and later
Vintage Story 1.21	Mod version 0.2.2 and earlier
Client	Required
Server	Not required
Multiplayer	Works. Only the client with the mod hears effects
CarryOn	Compatible. Extra patches for carried resonators
Medieval Expansion	Compatible. Extra patches for doors and gates
ConfigLib	Optional. Adds an in-game settings screen
Cave Symphony, Forest Symphony	Tested
Wildcraft, Wildgrass	Supported. Plants occlude by their volume
RPVoiceChat	API merged on RPVoice since 2.6.1

Report a problem with another mod in the comments or on GitHub.

Known limits and planned work

Known limits

• A sound that starts while the world loads plays without the filter for about one second. The fix is in work.
• A door and a window closer than 3.5 blocks to each other can merge into one weather source. The direction is then between them.
• The reverb can change in a step when you walk over an internal cell border.
• A chiseled block with a hole can still block sound. The collision shape of the block decides this. Test coverage is thin here.
• Dense geometry costs CPU time. The mod limits the work per tick, so distant sounds update more slowly under load.
• Custom sound replacement for Thunder is off currently..

Planned

• Attach the filter during the world join, so no sound starts wide open.
• Thunder VFX Adjustments / Sound Replacement System eg. Rain / Wind
• Blend the reverb between neighbor cells to remove the step.
• Cache the reverb of a sealed room until a block changes.
• Ready-made performance presets that you drop into the configuration folder.