Greetings Devs and Everyone!
Ive been noticing that the sound distribution in ashes seems very tight.
At the lower magnification (zoomed out) the sound is good and audio positioning accurately represents sound-events on screen. However, when increasing magnification (for instance playing between maximum-zoom-out and default-spawn-zoom levels) the distribution of sound over 5.1 in relation to sound sources onscreen starts to drift.
Sounds that seemingly should be 'centered' drift off, most of the time very abruptly, into different channels.
For a very simple example to illustrate this, do a skirmish, do not zoom in or out, and que a heap of engineers at the nexus.
Then pan the nexus around the screen very slowly and listen.
Building sounds chop off and move into different channels very abruptly and although things still see (or seem) centered, they drift into the other channels disassociating the sound from the on-screen source.
At the moment combat and noise supposedly in the center of the screen can be more dominantly hear in any of the channels SURROUNDING the center due to super tight channel boundaries/tolerances leading to a disassociated viewing-hearing experience.
I think this is due to a number of reasons - picture below (excuse my MS-Paint skillz) 
Note to that I am using a 'nexus sized area at spawn' as a uniform area of measurement. This 'area' in relation to overall screen can also be applied to all levels of zoom.
CURRENT SOUND:
- Note the center is larger than the object producing sound (to standardise the 'area', picture the size of the nexus)
- VERY narrow front and rear channels. If you move more than slightly off-centre, the sound source immediately jumps into the adjacent channel
- No discernible blending between audio channels. Sounds are suddenly in one channel, then in the next. This is less pronounced along the left and right channel lengths, but very distinguishable over the center-line and side-to-side lengths.
- Note how the sound box (red) overlaps the screen in the verticle plain, but not horizontal. Vertically sounds tapper off 'above' and 'below' the screen. However, they dive-off quickly when panning from side-to-side
PROPOSAL/IDEA:
- Note how the center is much larger now and encompasses the 'standardised nexus-area' representation WITH leeway to pan without sounds generate by this area suddenly migrating.
- the center channel area is a more 16:9 aspect to better match most screens (can/should change shape for different screens. Wider for ultra-wide monitors, but still the same aspect as the center monitor in multi-monitor setups)
- MUCH wider front and rear channels along the vertical plain
- Equidistant channel bands along the vertical plain for FR-R-RR and FL-L-RL channels to give better sound position representation when panning vertically
- SMOOTHING CHANNEL BOUNDARYS... no sudden sound-source channel jumping. Everywhere between all channels please
- Notice the increased sound-area overhang in relation to the screen. This is to better hear and draw your attention (if battle noise or alerts) to action/sound-sources off the screen.
Cheers,
eb
