StarSiege - Rick Overman

Interviewed : Rick Overman / Programmer / Dynamix

                                    Interviewed by : Mark

                                    Date : June 26th 1998

<3DSS> Thanks again for taking the time to do this interview. Perhaps you can start out be telling our readers a little about your background and your current role with Dynamix?

<Overman> As far as the gaming industry goes, I believe I'm a bit of a rarity. I've been working for the same company, Dynamix, for seven years now. Nowadays it seems like no one stays at the same company for more than a few years before hopping to the next one. The first few years at Dynamix, I worked with the R&D team, which was dedicated to creating/investigating new technologies that could be utilized by any of the projects that were under development. Being on the R&D team was a great experience. It honed my programming skills and exposed me to the development of more products than most people ever get to work on in their entire career. Since leaving the R&D team, I've worked on Aces of the Deep, Silent Thunder, Battle Drome, Earthsiege2 and Red Baron II. And now I'm Director and Lead Programmer on Starsiege. Don't ask how I manage to shuffle both these jobs. All I can say is requires a lot of coffee, which Dynamix enthusiastically provides. :)

<3DSS> Thanks! How long has Starsiege been in development and when do you anticipate its release?

<Overman> We have been working on Starsiege for about two years now.  During the first half of the development, the core programmers from the Starsiege and Starsiege: Tribes formed a single team (mostly old R&D team members). Starting from scratch, we designed and implemented the Starsiege game engine, which both Starsiege and Starsiege: Tribes is built upon.

In February the team released an Alpha version of Starsiege and the new gaming engine. This multiplayer-only alpha has seen over 100,000 downloads as of June. The response and feedback has been absolutely unbelievable! Everyone's suggestions and the early testing have really focused our development and given Starsiege an edge I believe few other products have ever had. The final is scheduled to be complete in mid-September, which means you'll be able to pick up a copy in the stores a few weeks after that. For the latest information check out our website at  www.starsiegeplayers.com, it's updated daily.

<3DSS> Getting right into the sound related questions. Are you using a sound track in Starsiege? If yes, are you using a dynamic soundtrack like Unreal or a more traditional redbook audio sound track like Quake 2 and what were the reasons for your decision?

<Overman> Starsiege will have a Dolby-encoded Redbook audio sound track. See the next question for the rest of the answer.

<3DSS> Still on the sound track questions, personally I find that most of the time, if I am going for a truly immersive experience, I turn off the music so as to emphasize the environmental effects. Can you briefly give the pros and cons of sound tracks as you see it?

<Overman> I have also found myself turning off the game sound track more and more frequently the last couple of years. I think there are two major reasons for this. First, game graphics have become drop-dead gorgeous now that virtually all simulations support 3D graphic accelerators. Second, the quality of PC sound cards and speakers has also risen greatly and developers are spending more time on their sound systems and quality effects, including 3D audio. Put these two things together with a great game and you're in an incredibly immersive experience. I find that sound tracks reduce the immersive quality of a game because they have a tendency to dominate the subtle environmental sound effects and queues. Or even worse, they ruin the suspense because the music - like so many implementations of dynamic music tend to do - tips me off to the fact that there's an enemy waiting around the corner. I still find Redbook distracting but not as much as dynamic music. The nice thing about Redbook is I can take the CD and listen to it anywhere I want. It's kind of like electronic manuals vs. printed manuals.

<3DSS> Speaking of environmental effects, what type of special audio effects will Starsiege utilize?

<Overman> Let's see... I don't want to get too specific, but there are places you'll hear things that will surprise you. We started in the game shell, so pay attention, 'cause there are several very subtle but nice effects that I've never seen done before. In the sim, you spend most your time strapped into the cockpit of a huge fighting vehicle; obviously, many of the traditional subtle environmental sound sources wouldn't be audible through a thick cockpit hull, but the cockpit is a micro-environment all of its own. Also pay attention to the radio chatter from your co-pilots, support vehicles, and base commander.

<3DSS> How long has positional audio been in the plans? Have any 3d sound games influenced your decision to use positional sound in Starsiege? If yes, what game would that be?

<Overman> Being the audiophile at heart that I am, I was sold on positional audio well before I ever dreamt of coding games. When I got to Dynamix, it just seemed like the logical thing to do. My goal for Starsiege is to bring it to a new level.

<3DSS> How do you see positional audio benefiting game play in Starsiege?

<Overman> Let me answer that by telling a very short story. When I was writing my software 3D positioning code (before 3D audio hardware existed), I would test it by creating an invisible fly that would move around in the world making a buzzing sound. I'd set the fly loose, wait a few seconds, then try to find it and catch it. The moment I could consistently find it and catch it, I knew I had it right. 3D audio hardware makes the azimuth, incidence, distance, motion, and environmental cues more accurate. If I can find an invisible fly, imagine what Starsiege players will do with the 3D audio cues we will bombard them with...

<3DSS> You told us in an earlier e-mail that Starsiege will be supporting your own proprietary software 3D sound positioning system, DirectSound3D, Aureal A3D, Creative Labs LIVE! environmental audio extensions and Dolby encoded Redbook audio. From this I will ask several questions.

First, given the wide range of support for A3D in hardware today, why have you chosen to go with such a wide range of audio APIs?

<Overman>Each API/approach has its own strengths and weaknesses. I believe the set of APIs we have chosen to support in Starsiege will provide an incredible 3D audio experience to the largest number of users. In addition, that experience will scale with the power of their machine and the 3D audio hardware that they might install.

<3DSS> Does your own software positioning system offer the same effects as the hardware based APIs and what percentage of the system resources does it eat up?

<Overman> Most 3D audio hardware cards are performing incredibly complex audio processing, HRTFs, environmental filtering, occlusion, etc. Given typical game CPU budgets for audio, we just cannot afford to do that level of processing in software. The software positioning system that's implemented in Starsiege produces an incredibly believable 3D audio effect with extremely low CPU requirements. The Starsiege software positioning subsystem targets those gamers who have minimum machine requirements and do not own 3D audio hardware.

<3DSS> For your DS3D support are you using Qsounds QMDX?

<Overman> While QMDX is a great API that takes care of many of the tedious tasks involved in coding up a sound system and has great sounding software 3D, it is a proprietary API. Choosing QMDX would have meant abandoning the A3D and Creative Labs extensions to DS3D. While DS3D is not the most elegant API, it is 'native' to Windows and is extendable by third parties.

<3DSS> For A3D support are you coding to A3D 2.0 or the existing version? 

<Overman> Starsiege uses version 1.x of the A3D API. Version 2.0 of A3D is still beta.

<3DSS> Most of our readers have experienced 3D sound using Aureal's A3D algorithms. In Starsiege, how will the Creative Labs LIVE! environmental audio effects compare to A3D 2.0 based effects?

<Overman> The audible difference between the two approaches is subtle. The BIG difference is in the implementation. With the Creative Labs LIVE! Extension, you define world acoustics by specifying the amount of reverb, damping, etc., by hand. Aureal has taken a totally different approach with A3D 2.0: you actually pass the geometry of your world down to the sound API where it calculates the acoustical properties of that area. With this much data, A3D has the ability to calculate true reflections and occlusions, thus producing a much more complex acoustical model. While I find the A3D 2.0 approach very interesting, to be honest, it scares me from a development point of view. I don't want to be passing down high-poly models because it will eat up too much CPU, so I'll need to create low-poly acoustical models. If the low-poly models do not produce the desired effect, how do I tell my artists to adjust the geometry to get the correct effect? Great idea, but there's just not enough control.

<3DSS> What is the maximum number of channels of 3d audio that Starsiege might throw at a sound card and through what API will it occur?

<Overman> How many channels can your card play? The Starsiege sound subsystem can scale the number of channels it uses on the fly, from just a few to the maximum number of channels supported by your card. All you need to do is move the slider in the preferences menu. Obviously, there's a point where the number of channels you throw at a card becomes absurd, but you get to make that choice.

<3DSS> What impact on frame rate do the various positional audio implementations have? Any one more efficient that the others in terms of resource use?

<Overman> 3D audio hardware is definitely the way to go if you want great sound and great frame rates. If you don't have 3D hardware, Aureal's A3D provides great sounding software 3D, utilizing HRTF's (Head related Transform Functions) with very reasonable CPU utilization. If you're still holding on to your old processor waiting for that next generation chip to be released, Starsiege's software positioning will give you great positioning with minimum CPU utilization.

<3DSS> How did you generate the sound effects for Starsiege?

<Overman> The folks at LoudMouth ( www.loudmouth.com ) perform all that magic.

<3DSS> What is it that Starsiege will offer gamers to distinguish itself from all of the anticipated hot releases scheduled for the next several months?

<Overman> As far as sound goes, the distinguishing features in Starsiege will be flexibility, choice, and scalability.

<3DSS> Can you tell us anything about your plans beyond Starsiege, and more specifically, is continued support for 3d sound in those plans?

<Overman> The Starsiege team is dedicated to providing the best 3D audio experience possible. You bet we have plans for the next Starsiege! It's a bit early to discuss specifics without giving out too many secrets, but when the time's right, I'm sure we'll hook up for another interview. In the meantime, I'll be spending much more time with Creative Labs, Qsound, Aureal, and Microsoft to help shape future extensions to the DirectSound API and to streamline the process for creating superb 3Daudio effects.

Mark and crew, it's been great talking with you. We will keep you and your readers updated with the latest screen shots and news.  See you on the battlefield!

Rick Overman
Director/Lead Programmer Starsiege
Dynamix

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