How Sound Travels in Doom

Fart joke? Unsubscribed.

Patreon:

[decino]

Background song now available on Bandcamp:

[neputendo]

I forever love the idea that Demons are basically deaf to basically everything BUT the very very nonexistent noise of punching air across the entire fuckin map

[BigPapaKaiser]

*Doomguy walks intp a room of demons, unseen.*

*Coughs*

"Oh, sounds like Billy got flu again."

*Farts*

Michael, what did you eat?!"

*Causes Cyberdemon to infight*

"Sounds like Kyle got the bad news. Apparently his wife lieft him for a mancubus during his last deployment to Earth..."

*Grabs a running chainsaw*

"Carl, is that your stomach again?"

*Accidentally moves his hand forward a little too aggressively*

"HUH WHAT WAS THAT OMG IT'S HIM!!!"

[bauul.]

I remember when beta-testing Bastion of Chaos (an immensely sector-dense level) we found that the chaingun and plasma-rifle were causing massive slow-down.

It confused everyone why only these two weapons were having issues, and eventually we worked out it was due to sound propagation: because noisealert triggers every time the weapon fires, the fast-firing weapons combined with the huge level (which featured zero sound blocking lines) were causing CPUs to overload. They couldn't finish one sound propagation check before the next one started.

The author, Bridgeburner, put a bunch of sound blocking lines in and just like that, the FPS issues were solved.

[onepureturtle]

2:12 Quake ended up having this functionality - if you anger a monster, it will also activate every monster that can currently see it.

[hallucinationthoughts]

It's honestly surprising how sophisticated it is for a near three decade old game

[orchid]

It's amazing how stupidly primitive Doom's tech is, everything is super-fake and built with a duct tape and harsh language (because it's the most PCs of that era could handle), but it still approximates the intended result really really nice if you don't look that hard to break the illusion. No miracle it became a revolution - it punches way way above it's height by using smoke and mirrors. This engine is genius.

[wallyhackenslacker]

I imagine that only player-emitted sounds are propagated due to performance constraints from 30 years ago, but it's wild to think that the id guys considered making demons wake up when other demons make noises. Such a relatively tiny change would have made Doom play very, very differently.

[IllusoryMaze]

The fact that sound tunnels exist and I've always seen them but never understood what they were blew my mind.
I wouldn't call them ugly, but they're certainly confounding to the player who doesn't know.

[iguana]

The thumbnail: Doomguy rocking and rolling all night and partying everyday.
Zombieman: aww for god’s sake it’s 3am and my ears are bleeding.

[hrnekbezucha]

Fun fact, 2:22 is how it works in Quake.
When an idle monster sees a monster that chases the player, it too will begin chasing the player. So one can easily alert a big portion of the map.

[clairecelestin]

I've seen those sound tunnels for 30 years and never knew what they were. It all makes so much sense now. Thank you!

[Chozo_Ghost]

The "squeak" sound when the Lost Soul fell down after crashing into the wall was... strangely adorable.



Never did I think I would associate adorableness with Lost Souls, but once again, here we are.

[malfolin]

My Doomguy punching air with so much anger that it alerts demons.

[Unk_Ghst]

The information given and the amount of his effort is one thing. A decino vid for Christmas is another special treat!

[unchaynd]

1:12 I think that Doomguy is so strong that he creates a sonic boom when he punches the air. Maybe he doesn't hear it because he's standing behind his fist when he makes it.

[EsoiTheGrumpyMawile]

P_noisealert could have had some interesting interactions, lost souls have no alert sound so they may have been intended to never wake up other monsters, paired with how forgetful they are, they could have had some interesting stealth missions involving them.
Also Cyberdemons and Spider masterminds play their wake up sounds at full volume... imagine if that woke up every monster in the map.

[Kyezoar]

The fact that the punch can alert enemies without even touching them is hilarious.

They get aggravated at the air silently moving from a human's fist

[cyberdemonic]

1:49 in fairness it actually might be normal, the Cyberdemon seems like the kind of demon that kills other demons just for the sheer fun of it

[scottl.]

Decino even putting in work on Christmas Eve... Either he's the most dedicated YouTuber out there, or he's the heathen! Or maybe it's a bit of both...?