Also a spot effect thrown your way, beside the thunder systems and menu system. Just a quick Video blog today. Let me detail whats going on in this video a little. We have 2 types of thunder implementation, 1 which uses a blend container and randomly selects thunder. There is a silence of 10 seconds it could randomly choose also which has a lot more weight - it has a higher chance of playing. We also have a few random contained thunders to choose, from the events list. I feel the blend containers play of one event is more effective, rather than play them all individually.
We got a menu system which pauses all other audio and lowers the level of the music. Then when going into the dragonform part, the music also pauses. Then reverse that when you quit dragonform/menu. Little spot effect in there of a river which when your more than 30 units above it (using height RTPC), you wont hear it. Roughly 30 units from it using the positioning Wwise tools also you wont here it. so that covers a 3D area of influence.
Today, I did some foley recording out the back and found out how useless my wind protector is in this valley. Managed to get some stuff recorded though - more footsteps, landings for the PDS game. Some rain effects and saw my neighbour looking out his window at me...didn't stop me. Pulled out some stuff for the recent changes I made today in the Wwise project.
I made a set of weather events, set to an attack, sustain, release concept. For the wind I just faded in and out, however for the rain I wanted it to seem real. A rain shower starting isn't a rain shower faded in, I'm inclined to believe. Made some droplets start and then get louder and more of them, then faded in the rain loop. Did this with a sequence container, placing the play and loop sections within. The loop section set to loop infinitely, and the out section separate. When you stop this sequence container, the out is set to play.
So, I have rain and I have wind events. I now can play about. The factors I used to manipulate these are speed; on your flying speed, height; your flying altitude, cover; how much out of the weather you are. I made 2 to 3 random and sequenced events of rain and wind for the heights. The reason for that being, rain and wind sounds different/have factors that alter them, on the ground to in the sky. So the height factor faded between these rain on ground and rain in sky containers. The speed, set about changing the pitch on the wind, making it more wispy and low pass on the rain to give the wind the high frequencies. The cover simply lowers volume on both but also a low pass on the rain again, when in high amounts of cover.
I have a video detailing how it sounds and works in Wwise.
Other projects atm, still waiting on confirmation on 1 if I need to change anything. The other is still end dev, but will soon be out I imagine. My colab is ongoing, we settled on a nice fmv of Klonoa. Which I never played tbh, looks like a counter to Sonic.
Very up-beat about the current position i'm applying for, I really want it, really. It would be a big step in the right direction on multiple fronts not just career wise, but lifestyle too. The prototype patent application is pretty much a go soon as the lawyer is paid, with all my savings and some help from family. Have enough money to pay for my phone bill and that's about it haha. Its a risk to move onto better things though, I'm taking it. Will be great to see it being used, and hopefully I can further develope it.
FTL the game btw, has pretty much been nagging at me to play it all weekend. But it is good, the music is especially nice. It seems to pull inspiration from so many different artists, you'll hear some stuff from all over. And, it has a nice base track with layered battle track dynamic. Sound design compliments the music, nicely leveled sounds and peachy graphics and animations.
So the last few days, pretty much a week. I have been up to a lot of stuff. I went for my first singing lesson with an opera singer and really produced some self respecting results on the first day. Gave me a bit of a confidence boost by the end of it, and I will be going back. The reasoning behind this was first brought to my attention by my old lecturer, Joe Lyske. He said to get better at composition,
"I know your not going to do this, but join a male voice choir"
Presumably because anyone he taught, never did. I couldn't sing for starters, but now I'm on the right track after helping this lady with her website. So I build, maintain and get her site up and running and she teaches me to sing. Deal.
Also fired through some more composition and SFX for Geemzo last week - finished that hard to write for track too. Maybe fire that up at some point. Got some more theater group SFX to bout up, shouldn't take long. Kind of put upon me without my consent however, and non paid. Few games simmering in the background atm, not quite ready for me to dive into. Will see how they progress.
Otherwise, I've been at Wwise. So I got my SFX I made for the short trailer in and modeled them on a game aesthetic like random, blend containers etc and today I recorded some foley. I made footsteps on all surfaces apart from plastic and metal beforehand. It so happens I have a wheelbarrow and plastic fiber sheets out in the garden, Over Yonder Ye Recordin Scum! Pirate bit done now, moving on.
After battering away and scraping my way to source material to create footsteps, on ancient tech and bizarre materials of the PDS game. I decided to make some more foliage foley. My thinking behind this is to randomly create footsteps and foliage together when walking in said areas. Steps, breaks, brushes and possibly more will be added to the pot. Also thinking of setting up RTPC parameters for weather and thus delve into footsteps on a whole new level. Whether to add sounds for when the character moves their hands to push themselves from the foliage (or tech), could find its way into the mix too. Climbing, now there is another option I hadn't thought about.
This is all for when the character is on foot, which isn't a lot at first inkling. Maybe more so? It is a theoretical game after all. Without design, I have begun to spin a big web.
No word from the most recent job application thus far, and I'm tempted to go there and speak to the lead in person. To avoid the failing aspect of the job market; the CV. But, I did hear I'm not moving to Sweden, some other lucky designer got that privilege. Congrats to them on the new post at DICE.
No Wwise work this week, Im sure a few of you just stop reading now :P I had a game project fall into my lap on the weekend and have been working on it every day since. Its going well, im now down to the last 4 music tracks and SFX testing. By the way, calypso style reggae beat, happy fun time music, is tough to compose for. There are certain key structures that help make it up, I know none of them. But, its getting done.
What else have I been doing this week. Well today, I got shocked into overtime and poured two and a half hours of my life and soul into SFX making and syncing with this next video. The reason, to boost my portfolio for a demo reel I'm handing in to a company. Im relaxed more now as its all integrated into my new demo reel including a look at my dragon form again, also with panning.
Hope you enjoyed it. Its short and sweet and if you wish there was more, then I've hit it right (I think)
Other things were added to the portfolio, my chart topping game Gravity Maze and my indie RTS TD CvC. As well as the Urban Abstract video which is still cool, tbh. I made a slight change in my demo reel than what you just watched, I mention how I made each sound. It comes down to, a back garden river, my vocals, a toilet (more water) and a brief stroke of a carpet.
All things considered, I'm hoping the lead sees enough in that to take a closer look at me for the position. So you might understand why I haven't brought any Wwise insights to the table today, maybe next week I will be more free to tackle it.
Also, watch "Hanna". I nearly shouted out how brilliant one moment was - I wont spoil it. Excellent sound and music design again (watch Atonement) from the same director, Joe Wright. Diversion! Mocap. I'm thinking, that's a pretty cool step to make. I understand there is a lot of updating and correction with mistakes awry with the computational aspects. But it should evolve or die like everything else, looking into audio recording as well. End of "Mars Needs Moms" (I know, but hey I haven't had TV in years - catching up) has its ending credits with a few clips on the Mocap recording. A little bit inspiring if I do say, wanting to get more involved in that sort of stuff. Which I won't, being a solo practitioner of the arts.
So, some sound design tips from me,
Object, Location, Motive, Interaction.
Not always in that order. What that means is, to accurately place audio in a "realm", you need those things. Interactivity isn't for film, on the face of it.
E.g. a game
hammering a nail, shed in the garden, achieving a goal/frustration at missing?/tailored audience, tapping X at right time to connect.
So, the hammer and a nail indicates what sound sources you need and the garden gives you the sense of space it should sound in. Consider the shed as well. The goal, or frustration gives the "acting" of how you record or create that sound or how the sound evolves through the gameplay. While the audience could be kids, adjust to that by crafting a fun sound. Tapping X - could be there all day? too repetitive? all need to be considered.
Well the video is uploaded so I'll stop there, and let this post go free.
So what I did today on Wwise was limited, was working on some music mostly and waiting for phone calls. However , I did happen to go over the Setting the Ambient Stage, Ch1 of the Wwise Project Adventure and found the Positioning tutorial very enlightening. The PDS project now has a 3D positioning on my XY grid as well, huzzah!
On the X RTPC is shifting from x: 0 left to x: 100 right and on the Y RTPC shifts from y: 0 back to y: 100 forward. Now, you don't quite get the effect through my stereo speakers but at least X works. At the moment hard panning seems a bit much and will likely pull it back a bit. Been also looking at the animation graphs for 3D positioning and curious as to how it could be done via that graph and not the RTPC.
Originally, the music clips were hard panned at their respective points and the XY would only trigger Volume. The movable positioning was found to be much more effective and more to what the project was aiming for. So you don't get the music clips only when you're close to a definitive point, but rather, hear them where you are on the grid.
Working on the events music now, so you will likely see me dive into events management and interaction in Wwise soon. Delving into unknown territory with these last two, and its refreshing.
Avoid button skipping?
A moment struck me yesterday playing a trad style RPG when the character died and had to fight the boss again and scrolled through a heap of texts. Annoying, slightly. Being able to skip dialogue pulls me out of the game sometimes, Diablo III for example. So thinking along the lines of what Bastions audio did with Darren Korb having the narrator talk while you played, similar to some other games I grant you. But effective, and so why not have the boss monologue/interaction (situations apply) be apart of getting to the boss. Its very case by case, but sometimes its not even considered.
When the boss fight comes, you could plunge into it, having been fed stimuli to nurture your motivation for getting there. A mechanic that is used during the monologue would help, God of War springs to mind. Also, the Batman Arkham series has you able to at least walk when a call comes in, simple yet it keeps the momentum.
This is only in certain cases, like end bosses, or your character has enough motivation to skip talking while you watch and get into it etc. Or it just fits. Limiting play downtime and increasing immersion should be a good thing to strive towards. However, not if it sacrifices story that is essential or atmospheric implications like tension building. Which is immersion on a different level, passive interaction I would call it. Versus I suppose, active interaction. Another discussion for another day perhaps.
So I was thinking about drawing some graphs for you about what Im doing atm (which I might still chuck up) but I made a recording of me fidling with the states and RTPC parameters "X Y" within my Wwise project. The basic rundown of what I talk about is:
Multiple RTPC curves on 2 paramteres, XY as in a grid reference.
Cross fading music between levels
Random cue entry for the Town's constant moving, and exit from Battle
Transitions, used when entering battle.
The video isn't that accurate to see what I'm doing some of the time. Hopefully enough though, that what you hear makes sense.
What I did from the last post was integrate a base track to cover the silence, imagine a sandbox. 4 sides and all the sand is pushed away to each side leaving a slope into the center. It needed filled. So I had the task of again, trying to work out how to shrink the effective area of a base track into this small hole. Two RTPC paramteres that had to reduce volume, wouldnt work. So I came up with a Low Pass Filter curve, when I was driting off to sleep and pondering this question. And it turned out pretty good, yeah? Well I'm happy :)
You may be thinking for example, that the volume of one track (controlled using the X curve) at x:100 and y:0 will be the same as x:100 and y:100 and you would be right. Well this will not be able to happen if the X and Y coordinates can not achieve that grid point. What I mean, is that it will be contained to a circle. Like the video in the last post. I am also keen to try out adding another parameter to XY and that's a slight pitch shift. Or another suitable effect, which will show a
moving effect on the music between points. This could help defining the difference between the before mentioned grid points on a non circular grid.
I also changed the entry battle music into a transition with an immediate entry and a 2 second fade out on the level it transitioned from, then immediate entry to the battle loop. So I've still to fire up a winning transition and a Loot menu music as well, atm it just fades out of battle. As well as, eventually consider making an SFX library. Although for the time being its just a music album I'm building.
"If you don't stop to listen to the wind, you'll forget how it sounds" - Remember to go out and listen and play, is what I keep telling myself. Don't get bogged down by presets and libraries.
Have a great day
SGW
Monday 3 September 2012
Hey guys,
So my first topic today is Interactive music, since that's whats going on atm. With Wwise I hope to branch out of just making music and sound effects for games and get more creatively involved with it. So, I started out with using my current projects music tracks for the basis of interactive music. This made a lot of sense as I was fabricating tracks to coincide with a theoretical sequel game, Panzer Dragoon Saga. So it had battle music, landscape music, town music and some events.
I managed to have transitions going between landscape and battle and out again. With the entry cue in to the Battle being instant and a relatively sharp fade out of the background. The Battle for now fades back out to the landscape, until I whip up some victory and menu music. But, it syncs back at a random cue and not at the start. I wanted to do this for a few reasons.
Battles could come very quickly and you would keep hearing the start of the track over and over again.
It created a sense of time passing when you came out of battle.
I also had a similar way of thinking with the town music faded into from the landscapes. What I chose to do is having a long fade in, around a 5 second cross fade into a random cue (trying custom too). Now this, I don't think has been done very much in these RPG systems. I wanted you to to feel separate of this city, as if this town went on its own business without you. So it doesn't kick in when you enter. This basically goes back to, creating a sense of time passing.
So this structure took a few days to read up from scratch how to implement all this. But it has been incredibly fun, thinking of fun ways of interaction, with backing from some followers in twitter.
Still on Interactive music, but in a more directly involved way.
You might be familiar with Panzer Dragoon Saga, It is the basis of the music and of the structure of the hierarchy. It has a fantastic piece of coding animation for its time, when you choose your dragon stats. It is a circle with 4 points being attack, defence, magic and agility, you could move your cursor freely in the circle creating a mix up of the 4. Also the dragon changed form in real time to the cursor moving, amazing. The audio aspect was just a tone and it shifted pitches and filtered where you went.
There is a weird bleeping in the video though, ignore that.
I am now currently plotting to implement that with 4 music styles at each point with cross fades to the closest two of each track. I tried working Volume with 2 separate RTPC factors which didn't work, and shouldn't the way I wanted it too. Its all good and well though as I have a good solution, apart from the center of the circle. This is the area I'm unsure what to do there. Because the tracks fade away from the center, having them amalgamate in the center seems silly.
Having another track play in this area seems logical but having 2 RTPC factors control 1 parameter isn't going to work. Even then, it creates a "box" of influence rather than a circle as far as I'm aware.
To push forward, I made the 4 dragon form music tracks today, applying metaphorical thinking to their creation. The Attack is a harsh pushing forward tune, where as the Defence hangs back and dominates the lower end. The Magic has an offbeat tune to the rest and wisps up and down on its synth, then the Agility has some airiness to it and a constant flutter and popping beat to it.
The tracks where also all in 120BPM 10/4 timing for seamless looping, although will have to fire them in to see if natural decay isn't as smooth as it should be. I excluded a decay tail from the tracks, will just put one in to fix any problems. Also, I'm having trouble playing a post entry region only once on the battle themes intro. The solution it seems is to turn it into a transition so far, having it immediately play and then seamlessly transition to the battle theme.
So that's all for integration for today.
No prepared sketches to show what I'm doing and should probably do that next time. All I have is rough sketching from waking up in the middle of the night and having cracked a problem, haha. Nothing new on the prototype either, setting up a documents package for my lawyer and then, might be able to talk about it freely. I can say, that I'm pretty skint now though.
Little bit of audio theory, why do we like the sound of waves, rain, wind, general "hush" ing noises. I wrote a bit on this in my 3rd year dissertation and it still comes back into my mind. There is much debate on this topic and i believe in a multiple effects factor, including evolution of our ears. Seeing as its almost unconditional our liking to it, even before we know it. For example a mother "hush" in a child to sleep, why does the mother instinctively know that works? and of course, it doesn't always to be fair.
Serenity, freedom, tranquility, all words commonly associated with rain, the ocean and wind. It could all be, we were just very hot back 10s of thousands of years ago and really needed to cool down, dancing around for our baths. Or the simple fact that these are life giving sources.
Ill end today with a few links,
www.audiokinetic.com/en/resources/documents - a few downloads to learn your way about Wwise
geokda.co.uk - my site, where you will hear some of the music and eventually a video tutorial on how I implemented the audio into Wwise
So, I've come to the conclusion that another blog must be started. As I've got a lot going on in projects, my life and my mind that I can't otherwise start talking to people about. Firstly because I don't use messaging or social media much, aside from twitter but you can hardly get a great topic going. Secondly, I feel I need to get this stuff out there and off my chest, got started into interactive music design lately with Wwise and the ideas are just flying out.
So I want to talk about that here, my projects mainly and ideas etc. I will dive into my secret prototype project here, gratuitously, once its safe to do so. For now I'm not sure where to start, current past or future goals. So I will ponder that for a while before getting this all started.
