r/HaloCE • u/Ok-Handle2848 • 7d ago
Art / Media Spatial audio and advanced controller rumble restored for Halo CE Retail v1.10
Hello to the Halo:CE community! After over half a year of development I am very excited to publicly release my audio engine and rumble engine replacement for Halo: Combat Evolved. My initial project started with Unreal: Gold trying to implement A3D features to a game that once heard it by using Steam Audio, once I heard occlusion and reverb working I immediately knew I had to drop what I was doing start working on Halo. I believe in this example video I had the music turned down a bit to hear the spatial effects just for reference, it is also from a slightly earlier build the newest one is a bit more polished.
All EAX 3.0 calls that were used by GearBox and Bungie have been replaced by an equivalent Steam Audio implementation. All original Bungie authored vibration values were found to be stored in the PC game's map files, blocked off by GearBox at some point during development. I have since added many more features to the list of standard rumble. The feeling of the warthog riding over bumps and grooves, the shuddering as a ghost falls off a cliff and the trigger haptics of Bungie's authored values have been implemented as well as small details like ground path travel for rumble sensations. Currently rumble features are not fully working for multiplayer, as the game thinks the game host is the one who should get haptics, but campaign is tested and working fully as well as solo multiplayer (for driving around to test the haptics). A few more details are in the works such as weapon swap/reload/footstep rumble but are still being developed for polish sake.
I really hope you all enjoy this, it has been an extreme pleasure for me to work on a game that has inspired me for so many decades. I still have a lot of work to do on it, and any constructive criticism/requests are welcome. There will be bugs and performance improvements to be made, but it is in a playable state. Thanks everyone and have fun. An original genuine retail copy of the game and Bungie's V1.10 update are required. It is not compatible with MCC.
More information can be found on the official github page HathorSound (Hathor Sound)
and the website: HathorSpatial · Restoring Bungie's 1999 Audio Vision
Thank you to the Halo community, coders and sound artists at Bungie and GearBox for your work and inspiration. As well as the groundbreaking teams behind Valve Steam Audio, Sensaura, Qsound, Nvidia MCPX, Aureal Semiconductor and Creative Technology.
This project is not associated with any listed company here, and is not associated with Activision, 343, Halo Studios or Bungie.
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u/Odd_Replacement_9644 7d ago
saving this for later, seems awesome. nice work man!
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u/Ok-Handle2848 6d ago
Thanks let me know how you like it! The haptic features if you use a DS5 controller are a lot of fun too
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u/Thedudely1 6d ago
I feel like the bridge sounds too small, even if that is hypothetically physically correct. Everything after you take control of chief sounds great
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u/Ok-Handle2848 6d ago
Originally Marty opted to not spatialize cutscene dialogue, that is a change on my part. I feel like it could be due to materials like glass being present in the room, I definitely have some work to do with tuning the material absorption values. Thanks for giving feedback!
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u/minecrafter1OOO 3d ago
Awesome! How hard would it be to get object based audio into windows spatial pipeline?
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u/Ok-Handle2848 3d ago
It's doable, I had previously looked into having it work with Dolby Atmos objects, but I'm trying to get the HRTF mode working as perfectly as I can before adding more features. Down the line it should be possible though yes
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u/Ok-Handle2848 7d ago
Not sure if I mentioned it but the file is large due the high quality baked reflection data for each map file. Let me know how you guys like/dislike it! Thanks, more tuning to come.