Minetest Forums

I think one easy to implement and important for overall ambience feature is still missing in default game. I mean the sound of flowing water near streams, the sound of waves one the shores and the one of burbling water in the vicinity of rapids. There's a mod that introduces some sounds of that kind ("Ambient sounds" as far as I remember) but maybe this should be included in the basic game.

That's a good idea

It would be kind of relaxing a Minetest game with stuff like this.

+1 great idea!

MineYoshi wrote:It would be kind of relaxing a Minetest game with stuff like this.

Yes, sometimes apparently minor additions make for great boost in immersivity. And for those who seek some thrill and horror there could be added some creepy sounds near caves in mods featuring aggresive NPCs. But I believe the default game should remain relaxing as it is now.

voxelproof wrote:I think one easy to implement and important for overall ambience feature is still missing in default game. I mean the sound of flowing water near streams, the sound of waves one the shores and the one of burbling water in the vicinity of rapids. There's a mod that introduces some sounds of that kind ("Ambient sounds" as far as I remember) but maybe this should be included in the basic game.

I like your idea and also downloaded the Ambiance sounds mod last year, the only thing I don't like about this mod is the bat sound that plays too often when you're inside caves, and also the musics that get boring after some days of gameplay.
Maybe Minetest should have an entire OST along with native ambient sounds! (and options to disable some or all of those features, it's impossible to please all the people)

I have code ready to go for MTG, will reopen the PR.

paramat wrote:I have code ready to go for MTG, will reopen the PR.

Thanks a lot, it'll make the game yet nicer :)

I like the sound of flowing water :) especially in forests and caves.

Hume2 wrote:especially in forests and caves.

Gosh, it's a gorgeous idea -- haven't thought of it but featuring dropping water in caves making that characteristic echoing sound would make cave exploration a great experience.

Now with proper biome detection in engine I’m surprised that no one has written a better ambience mod yet.

Ambient sounds can be great, and add much..., if done correctly.

I find the sound of waves, which have been used in the past, to be truly 'out of place', with the visuals of coastlines in-game.
Perhaps a gently 'lapping' small, lake-like sound would be best.
Sounds of waves crashing into the shoreline, just doesn't fit, and give a very awkward feeling.

Any sounds chosen / created, should be quite mild, and not overloading on the senses.

Faint sounds of birds, and crickettes or 'peepers' for day and night in wooded areas.
Trickling and bubbling water sounds for streams, and (as stated) gentle lapping waves along the shoreline.

Possibly a light, howl of wind for cold biomes.
The slight sound of Desert Cicidas for Savannah or Desert https://www.desertusa.com/insects/cicada.html

But just as I feel about whenever nice shaders may come along, things need to be done in a rather 'eased' method/approach, or it can just as easily ruin the intended effects.

TumeniNodes wrote:Ambient sounds can be great, and add much..., if done correctly.

I find the sound of waves, which have been used in the past, to be truly 'out of place', with the visuals of coastlines in-game.
Perhaps a gently 'lapping' small, lake-like sound would be best.
Sounds of waves crashing into the shoreline, just doesn't fit, and give a very awkward feeling.

Any sounds chosen / created, should be quite mild, and not overloading on the senses.

Faint sounds of birds, and crickettes or 'peepers' for day and night in wooded areas.
Trickling and bubbling water sounds for streams, and (as stated) gentle lapping waves along the shoreline.

Possibly a light, howl of wind for cold biomes.
The slight sound of Desert Cicidas for Savannah or Desert https://www.desertusa.com/insects/cicada.html

But just as I feel about whenever nice shaders may come along, things need to be done in a rather 'eased' method/approach, or it can just as easily ruin the intended effects.

I think that in every aspect of your post you're absolutely right. One of the advantages of Minetest is that it does not feature rough seas :)

There are some sounds of when player is drowning or swimming in Minetest. Really did you not know?

Ambience lite has flowing water sounds and many more: https://notabug.org/tenplus1/ambience

TumeniNodes wrote:Any sounds chosen / created, should be quite mild, and not overloading on the senses.

I agree with your whole post, but this especially, I think a lot of the sounds in MTG are way too obnoxious, I generally play with the sound off for this reason.

If I had any decent sound recording equipment I'd try record my own, especially for grass, gravel, sand, water, doors and chests (I'm pretty sure you can install sounds in the "sounds" folder like texture packs right?), (I'd also say snow but the new snow sounds are a huge improvement over 0.4.x). These sounds are just too harsh in my opinion, but to get good ones you really need to have a good recording of the real thing. Obviously this applies to ambiance as well. I think ambient music would also be quite nice, but IIRC the devs have already said no to implementing that.

Andrey01 wrote:There are some sounds of when player is drowning or swimming in Minetest. Really did you not know?

Of course I know but this is by far insufficient. To create a better ambience you should be able to hear the environment's sounds no matter what actions you perform.

This should be an engine or builtin feature, so it can be used in games trivially and to avoid reduncancy. Flowing liquid sounds are a very common use case.

Having a decent sound API would be awesome. It could work the same as the textures, mods can easily add sounds and "soundpacks" (like texturepacks) can change them as wanted.

I prefer to work on switching to full-on media packs, where 4 folders can be drawn from

textures
models
sounds
ambience

with the ability to use code to set meta data from within each i.e. setting meta for animations from code snippets within the textures folder, speed, alpha, overlays, texture modifiers, etc...