Greetings,

I'm a Deaf gamer and I tend to go to LAN parties and get my ass handed to me in counter strike. The reason I don't do so well is I can't hear the enemy's footsteps, which opponents take advantage of real quick by never walking/croutch walking to muffle the sounds. I thought I should make a led light project that will show led lights in directions from where footsteps are heard. I tried looking at a few projects out on the web, but my lack of sound knowledge makes it difficult to figure out which project I should get or if those projects aren't what I have in mind.

Here's what I'm thinking of..

The led light board will hook up to where the stereo speakers come from. If a sound comes from it, the led lights will light up, but there is no sound. There should be a range of loudness so I could tell how far away.

In retrospect, maybe a surround sound would be better as it should tell me if the sounds are coming from behind or ahead.

any ideas would be helpful.. I'm hoping to get this project done by next lan party, on may 5th.

Thanks

 

If your system is only stereo and not surround sound then you can only get a visualisation of left and right.
This is a pretty easy project as you just need a circuit diagram for a VU (Volume Unit) meter but you will need one for each channel.
It is then just a matter of making up a display unit that suits you and then fine tuning it during play to give you the best audio visualization during play.

 

An LM3914??? Bar/Dot driver might be a quick and simple solution, fairly cheap as well. The louder the sound, the closer they be, right?

 

I haven't looked it up but LM3914 sounds farmiliar.
A Google search for VU meter schematics should throw up some suggestions.

__________________
''It was working when it went out''

 

The LM3914 has linear voltage steps for a voltmeter. For sound levels you need an LM3915 that has logarithmic steps that are 3dB apart.

The LM3914 would make a couple of huge steps at the quiet end and a few very close together steps at the loud end.
The LM3915 lights the next LED when the sound is a little louder than the sound that lighted the previous LED. Each step indicates a small increase in loudness.

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Uncle $crooge

 

Hi,

I wasted far too much time on CS a few years ago (student days) and I remember the gun sounds/voices/grenades being far louder than the footsteps. You'll see a pretty light show, that will obviously indicate 'sounds' but I doubt it'll be really useful, unless you're on a large map, with few players, so 'footsteps' are really the main source of noise (think 'italy', is that still played?).

Saying that, as the other guys said, a half decent VU meter would safice. You could make a bargraph, horizontally, with one one LED lit at a time (dot bar graph). The LM3915 has that ability (bar/dot). The further 'left' the left channel bargraph goes, the quieter the sound, as with the right. Both graphs going directly to the centre of the display would indicate a big sound directly in front, or behind.

Its a great idea you've got there, as hearing the footsteps is another advantage although many used to play sans sound, as it can improve your game You get used to checking ever corner, and being overly cautious, jumpy, and quick.

One more idea, I tend to over complicate things, all my projects balloon in complexity over time, so I'll stick with my little tradition.
[wacky idea]
You *could* (probably considered hacking/cheating/exploiting) replace the wav file for foot steps with a unique waveform. Something which a circuit can detect easily and distinguish it from other sounds. This would only be for footsteps though, or a single sound (like a grenade).
If you add a transistor the the ground of all the LED's in your display, you can turn the display on/off with a single digital line, 1/0. And with a suitable detector circuit, only turn them on when this unique sound is detected. That way, your bargraph will only show footsteps noises, plus their direction, and volume/proximity. Thats probably a crap idea, because explosions produce a multitude of frequencies, hence false triggering, so maybe a 'tone decoder' or two, and the wave file will be two or three distinct tones, lasting 0.5s?. Only when all these tones are detected do you light up your display.
[/wacky idea]

There may even be a way to bypass the wav file altogether, and replace it with a script that sends a msg out the serial/USB port to a back of led's every time the 'wav' is called by HL.

Zed, harvey, audioguru has this pretty much covered I think. I just tend to rant in the wee hours.

Blueteeth

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Inconsistency is the key to flexibility!

 

If you want to get funky, could you add a differential circuit so that it showed when there was a louder noise from one direction than another ? i.e. for stereo, subtract left from right, rather than watching two bars go up and down in sync.

The alternative would be to unplug the headphones from your speakers, and overwhelm everyone else Loud Britney Spears may have a similar disturbing effect.

I think a guy in our office has a hearing aid he can patch directly into a phone - is that an option for you ?

Edit: Going back to BlueTeeth's idea, you could edit the footstep sounds to make them louder relative to the other stuff (like explosions) so you can crank your volume a bit more, or depending on your particular hearing capabilities replace it with a tone or something that registers better for you.

This is actually a really dangerous idea. With powerful enough sound processing, and enough knowledge of how CS and other FPS attenuate sound you could develop a system that should let you locate almost EVERYONE on the map. You know the EXACT sounds they are making, and have stereo or surround input !

 

hi,
If you can write code in Visual Basic, you could display the left/right sound channel waveforms on a small area of the screen.

Or, [ I'm doing a Blueteeth, help!] you could download the free Audacity sound program and give that a try.

__________________
Eric
"Good enough is Perfect"

PIC tutorials:
Gramo's: www.digital-diy.net/
Bill's: www.blueroomelectronics.com/

 

Welcome to my world, a child-like obsession with micro's, little circuits, and things that glow

Thats a damn good idea. It'll bypass anything 'external', but always think programming is the easy way out. A solder burn or two is a sign of a hard worker. I can't write high-level software for toffee, how would one go about getting the information for such a utility? Oo just realised.....in windows, its possible to allow some app's to run on top of a full-screen game, and many mp3/winamp-type players have visualisations based on equalisation. If you could somehow get it to use your soundcards output, instead of a single music file, I've seen some cracking visualisations that would highlight both direction and volume!

Its pretty much a standard to have at least 5.1 sound, even the original CS (HL1, not source) has EAX 3D surround, so maybe a true 3d type display, maybe a circle of LED's should be doable.

Sorry, ranting again, I don't wanna waste posts.

Blueteeth

__________________
Inconsistency is the key to flexibility!

 

That was what I was planning to do.. although a little different.. I was planning to replace all .wavs with blank sound.. so the only .wav files that make a sound are the footsteps .wav

 

I have done some simple visual basic programs in the past, but nothing as complex as displaying left/right sound on the screen.

 

hi,
There are plenty of open source VB files on the web for using the sound card and displaying waveforms.
You could modify one to suit your application

__________________
Eric
"Good enough is Perfect"

PIC tutorials:
Gramo's: www.digital-diy.net/
Bill's: www.blueroomelectronics.com/

 

I found a few APIs out there, but the question remains, how would you program it to show in a full-screen game?

 

I can't hear at all.. any modification to sounds or tones don't help. I know a few other Deaf CS players use headphones to detect sound through the wave pressures, but those get really loud when using guns etc. It's an overkill when using that method to detect footsteps. It'll be like "Yeah I hear him coming around the corner..." then when he pops out and fires.. it's like the gun fires directly into your ears and you can get disoriented from the inner ear fluids moving around from the air pressure.. nah I'm not gonna go that route.

I know, I'm also trying to research what makes VAC ban cheaters.. apparently VAC bans only if you modify the .EXE or .DLL so if the other suggestions on here about modifying the sound .wav into VB and later on using the VB to detect just how far away they are.. yes, it's a dangerous idea.

 

Wow, I didn't think of that at all. Steam can get funny with file changes (like the start up music). You may have to make wav files, of the same length (and therefore the same size) but with no change in sample numbers (all 0x000's, or 0xFFFF). Either that or make them all 'read-only'.

Then I guess you're just choosing between coding or something external. If your programming is up to it, it'll be damn cool. I always go for 'glowing' things, regardless of the work involved. Depends on what youa re more experienced in. There are however, some kits available, specifically for VU meters. You could move the bargraphs into an arrangement that suits you, or slightly modify it, that way the bulk of the work is already done for you.

Blueteeth

__________________
Inconsistency is the key to flexibility!