Sound Physics Remastered in All the Mods 10: To the Sky

Sound Physics Remastered is part of the pack's mod list. The pack ships version 1.21.1-1.5.1, built for NeoForge on Minecraft 1.21.1.^[1]

The mod has been in the pack since this version or earlier, so you don't need to install anything extra to have it.^[1]

Unverified The sources I have don't describe what the mod does or who it is aimed at, so I'm not going to guess at its features or settings. They also don't show the pack changing any of its recipes, configs or values. ForgeBase's records show no quests involving the mod, no place for it on the ATM Star path, and no in-jar guidebook.

Good news: there is nothing to craft to get started with Sound Physics Remastered. The descriptions I have for it only cover its settings, and they describe a mod that changes how sounds behave in the world. It has no items you need to make first.^[2]

What it does for you

The mod simulates reverb, muffling through walls, and the way air absorbs high frequencies over distance. Sounds in caves, the Nether and underwater can get these effects too, if the option for ambient sounds is enabled.^[2]

First things to try

1. Open the mod's settings screen. The options use Cloth Config, so they are grouped as sliders and toggles. The master switch enables or disables all sound effects, which makes it easy to compare with and without.^[2]
2. If you get lag spikes when sounds play, lower the number of rays and the number of ray bounces used to work out reverb. More of either gives more consistent results and more echo, but costs more calculation time.^[2]
3. If walls feel too quiet or too loud, adjust the default block occlusion factor. Lower values muffle sound less through walls, and higher values make sound inaudible through thicker walls.^[2]
4. If the echo feels too long or too short, adjust the reverb gain, the reverb brightness and the default block reflectivity. Lower reflectivity gives shorter reverb tails, and lower brightness gives a more muffled reverb.^[2]
5. If you want to see what the mod is doing, turn on the options that render occlusion or the sound bounce paths in game.^[2]

Unverified I could not confirm any items, recipes or quests for this mod in this pack, nor which values the pack sets for its options. Check the in-game settings screen for the actual current values.

Sound Physics Remastered is an audio mod, so there are no machines, multiblocks, power, fluids or automation to cover here. What the sources describe is how the game's sounds get processed before you hear them, and that is what this section covers. It all comes from the descriptions of the mod's settings.^[2]

Reverb and echo

For each sound source, the mod traces rays through the world to work out reverberation. The number of rays and the number of bounces per ray are both adjustable. More rays give more consistent results, and more bounces give more echo and sound ducting. Both cost calculation time, so the mod suggests lowering them if you get lag spikes when sounds play.^[2]

• Reverb gain sets the volume of the simulated reverberations.^[2]
• Reverb brightness controls the high frequencies in the reverb. Higher values add more, and lower values give a more muffled reverb.^[2]
• Reverb distance sets how far the reverb reaches relative to the sound distance.^[2]
• Reverb attenuation distance is the ray distance at which reverb starts. Setting it to 0.0 disables reverb attenuation.^[2]
• Default block reflectivity is the base amount of reflected sound energy for all blocks. Lower values give shorter reverb tails, and higher values give longer ones.^[2]
• Sound direction evaluation makes the mod try to work out where a sound should come from based on reflections.^[2]

Occlusion: sound through walls

Occlusion is how muffled a sound gets when blocks sit between you and its source. The default block occlusion factor applies to all blocks. Lower values mean sounds are less muffled through walls, and higher values mean sounds can't be heard through thicker walls. A separate cap (max occlusion) limits how far occlusion can go.^[2]

• If a sound hits a side that isn't a full square, block occlusion is multiplied by the non-full-block occlusion factor.^[2]
• Occlusion variation: higher values mean smaller objects won't count as occluding.^[2]
• Max occlusion rays is the maximum number of rays used to determine occlusion. It directly correlates to the number of blocks between walls that are considered.^[2]
• Strict occlusion makes the calculation use only one path between the sound source and you instead of 9.^[2]
• Block absorption sets how much sound is absorbed when traveling through blocks.^[2]
• Redirect non-occluded sounds controls whether sounds you can see directly get redirected. The description says it skips redirecting them.^[2]

Distance, air and water

Air absorption controls how much air soaks up high frequencies as distance grows. A value of 1.0 is physically correct for air with normal humidity and temperature, higher values absorb more, and 0 turns the effect off. Attenuation factor controls how quiet a sound gets with distance. Lower values make distant sounds louder, and 1.0 is the physically correct value.^[2]

Attenuation factor only works in singleplayer or when the mod is also installed on the server. The sound distance allowance has the same restriction. It is a multiplier for how far away a source may be and still play, because Minecraft normally refuses to play sounds beyond a certain distance.^[2]

The underwater filter sets how much sound is filtered while you are underwater. 0.0 means no filter and 1.0 means fully filtered.^[2]

Moving sounds and special cases

• Update moving sounds decides whether music discs and other longer sounds are frequently reevaluated. Sound update interval sets how often that happens, in ticks. Lower values mean more frequent updates but also more lag, and it only matters if updating moving sounds is on.^[2]
• Evaluate ambient sounds decides whether sounds like cave, Nether or underwater ambience get sound physics.^[2]
• Sound blacklist regex is applied to every sound that plays. If it matches, that sound gets no effects.^[2]
• Simple Voice Chat integration turns the effects on or off for Simple Voice Chat audio, and a separate option controls whether you hear your own echo with it.^[2]
• The master enabled option switches all the mod's sound effects on or off.^[2]

Debugging tools

If you want to see what the mod is doing, it can draw occlusion in game and render the path of a sound. It also has separate logging options for debug, environment, occlusion and performance (how long computations take).^[2]

Unverified The sources here include no config files for this mod in the pack, so they do not show whether the pack changes any of these settings from the mod's defaults, or what the default values are. Check the in-game settings screen for the actual numbers.