MC-71552Far away sounds are louder than they should be
I did not find any other reports about this problem, so here it goes:
In Minecraft, the sounds that are far away from the player seem too intense. And when the sound is played a bit further away, it abruptly gets quiet (See graph 1). This has to do with the fact that Minecraft uses a linear way of calculating sound intensity for the distance. In real life, it is more like a curve. See attached graphs.
It's just a minor thing, and easy to fix, but still a noticeable flaw.
EDIT: This is what the calculation should be:
SoundVolume = 1 / ( Distance^2 - 1 )
This creates a curve similar to graph 2. SoundVolume = 1 means 100%, 0.5 means 50% etc.
When Distance is 0, SoundVolume is 100%. When the distance increases, the SoundVolume decreases.
This shouldn't be too hard to implement.
Linked Issues
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Created Issue:
Far away sounds sound louder than should.
Even though this isn't really high priority, I do feel the need to notify it, as I did not find any other reports about this problem.
In Minecraft, the sounds that are far away from the player seem too intense. And when the sound is played a bit further away, it abruptly gets quiet (See graph 1). This has to do with the fact that Minecraft uses a linear way of calculating sound intensity for the distance. In real life, it is more like a curve. See attached graphs.
It's just a minor thing, and easy to fix, but still a noticeable flaw.
Environment
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Attachments2
Even though this isn't really high priority, I do feel the need to notify it, as I did not find any other reports about this problem.
In Minecraft, the sounds that are far away from the player seem too intense. And when the sound is played a bit further away, it abruptly gets quiet (See graph 1). This has to do with the fact that Minecraft uses a linear way of calculating sound intensity for the distance. In real life, it is more like a curve. See attached graphs.
It's just a minor thing, and easy to fix, but still a noticeable flaw.
EDIT: This is what the calculation should be:
SoundVolume = 1 / ( Distance^2 - 1 )
This creates a curve similar to graph 2. SoundVolume = 1 means 100%, 0.5 means 50% etc.
When Distance is 0, SoundVolume is 100%. When the distance increases, the SoundVolume decreases.
This shouldn't be too hard to implement.
Even though this isn't really high priority, I do feel the need to notify it, asI did not find any other reports about this problem.In Minecraft, the sounds that are far away from the player seem too intense. And when the sound is played a bit further away, it abruptly gets quiet (See graph 1). This has to do with the fact that Minecraft uses a linear way of calculating sound intensity for the distance. In real life, it is more like a curve. See attached graphs.
It's just a minor thing, and easy to fix, but still a noticeable flaw.
EDIT: This is what the calculation should be:
SoundVolume = 1 / ( Distance^2 - 1 )
This creates a curve similar to graph 2. SoundVolume = 1 means 100%, 0.5 means 50% etc.
When Distance is 0, SoundVolume is 100%. When the distance increases, the SoundVolume decreases.
This shouldn't be too hard to implement.
I did not find any other reports about this problem, so here it goes:
In Minecraft, the sounds that are far away from the player seem too intense. And when the sound is played a bit further away, it abruptly gets quiet (See graph 1). This has to do with the fact that Minecraft uses a linear way of calculating sound intensity for the distance. In real life, it is more like a curve. See attached graphs.
It's just a minor thing, and easy to fix, but still a noticeable flaw.
EDIT: This is what the calculation should be:
SoundVolume = 1 / ( Distance^2 - 1 )
This creates a curve similar to graph 2. SoundVolume = 1 means 100%, 0.5 means 50% etc.
When Distance is 0, SoundVolume is 100%. When the distance increases, the SoundVolume decreases.
This shouldn't be too hard to implement.
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Is this still an issue in the current Minecraft Snapshot 15w49b or later? If so, please update the affected versions in order to best aid Mojang ensuring bugs are still valid in the latest releases/pre-releases.
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![[Mod] Urielsalis](../../../data/assets/gravatar/urielsalis.jpeg){kind=small}
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Far away soundssoundlouder than should.Far away sounds are louder than they should be
relates to
The following problem might be subjective and depend on other software and hardware (but shouldn't).
So to the problem: Minecraft seems to have a linear model of sound intensity. And I'm not talking about directional/distant sounds. In the real world, the perception of sound(sones) is logarithmically proportional to the intensity of sound(dB)(attached plot). A general rule of thumb would be: to make something sound 2x louder, we must increase the power by about a factor of 10. After some testing it occured to me, that the sound volume sliders don't really seem to change the perceived sound by their value. To illustrate: place a jukebox, stand next to it and play a music disc, then change the setting for jukebox/noteblock volume from 100% to 50%. It doesn't really sound like "2x quieter", does it? Maybe like ~80% the starting volume. What seems to be actually "2x quiter" is value ~7%. Not something I would expect. Why is it annoying? First of all: try setting the volume to 1% - still pretty easy to hear. Second: I don't want to meddle in windows sound mixer each time I want to change the volume in game.
In conclusion: test it (and maybe other aspects of sound in game like MC-71552), check if it occurs to you as it occurs to me (and by check I mean ask others about their opinion and collect the data from many people) and give feedback.
And in attachments the dB to sones(perceived loudness) graph:
Does MC-71552 describe the issue?
It's not that I don't trust your measurements, but how did you collect the data for those graphs?
Minecraft only supports linear sound attenuation at the moment:
This is a pretty big deal in my book. Even though Minecraft is not Real Life™, in a 3D environment, we expect that sound should behave somewhat realistically.
Using a linear EQ with a low pass filter on sound sources as they recede from the player would help address the issue, even if the true solution is the curve in the graph above, in addition to EQ (the filter emulating absorption from the air, if we assume a uniform temperature).
Indeed, a low pass filter would help A LOT, and is actually a great idea. Being a programmer myself, I do not see much difficulties in changing the sound emulator to a curve, but with both effects the result would be amazing! Really, really nice idea, actually.
Most of the sfx in the game could benefit from a low pass filter, even for sound sources that are relatively close to the player. I hear players on YouTube who bemoan the sfx as "harsh" or "annoying" all the time; a low pass filter EQ would help greatly in reducing that by taking off the edge a little bit.
To say nothing of when a sound source is obstructed...
I understand if they don't address the problem of sound obstruction (it's hard to fix, and not this particular bug), but AT LEAST they could try improving current sound mechanics. It would definitely help getting the harshness off the sounds, but it would also feel much more natural. Right now, you only listen to sound direction, not so much distance. It feels flat and uncomfortable.
This issue still exists in Minecraft Snapshot 15w49b.
Confirmed for 1.13.1.
Cannot technically confirm, but can say that I have experienced behavior similar to what you are describing in 1.16.5.
Can confirm in 1.17.1. Here is an interesting way to reproduce this: in a creative world,
1. Set an observer clock facing into an empty dispenser and start facing the dispenser.
2. Run /give @s repeating_command_block
3. Paste the command execute at (your name) run tp (your name) ~-0.03 ~ ~
4. Listen to the sounds. They do not fade out smoothly, in a logarithmic scale as you would expect, but in a linear scale.
This is probably because most sounds in the game have a linear attenuation.
may relate to MC-141201