Version 3.1 beta of Pirates, Vikings and Knights has been released today. Look for some of my environmental sounds in Pinegrove and Cara, as well as a rather rude special attack for the Man at Arms.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/17570
For the zombie survival shooter No More Room In Hell, I’ve been working on creating new sound assets for the doors, hoping to match the game’s creepy atmosphere. To begin, I went through and screen-recorded footage of the various types of doors, gates, and barricades that needed sprucing up, so I had a better idea of what to record, and the approximate timing.
I brought my field recording kit out on a door safari, starting with some of the more interesting doorknobs and hinges in and around my home. While scouting around the neighborhood, I found an abandoned newspaper vending machine that looked promising. It wasn’t as squeaky as I had hoped, but I was able to get some good thumps and rattles, which proved useful for roll-up metal door sounds. Continue reading
Twittlers, twattlers, twits and twats, I am now on board.
My folks got me a Cold Gold hydrophone for my birthday last weekend and I’ve been having fun playing with it over the past few days.
In this example, the first two recordings are in my bathtub, the last are from a metal soup pot in my kitchen sink. I now know that there is a slow leak in the drain of my tub.
Continue reading
My great job search continues. Current projects I’m juggling: implementing a rudimentary dynamic music system into Cube, another round of editing and revisions for my novel Further Complications, and putting together a more extensive sound reel using clips from Facewound, PVKII, and NMRIH. I just got a Cold Gold hydrophone and I’m excited to try it out. I’ve heard they make good contact mics even out of the water, so we’ll see.
Here is another work in progress video of my sound design and implementation of the open-source FPS Cube, using the Wwise sound engine.
Thanks to a code fix by Simon, I was able to get the projectile sound events working. I added the rocket explosions, fire, ice, and slimeball hits, and beefed up the monster voices. I have tweaked the voice limits and priorities, though I might need to play with attenuation distances and cones a bit more. I’m not quite happy with the quad damage effect. I thought I’d put some low and high pass filters to give the sense of focus, but I think it ended up taking away most of the oomph instead. It also makes it harder to notice the synth loop and stingers that happen when you attack during quad mode.
For my previous post, check here.
In this clip from the 1998 Alex Proyes film Dark City, I have completely replaced the soundtrack with original sound designs. I wanted to avoid using library sources so I started by recording as much as I could myself.
For the footsteps and foley, I built a small platform using wooden pallets and scrap lumber. The rope strain sounds came from a number of different types of ropes, combined with a wicker basket that I twisted and pulled apart. All of the vocal sounds started from my voice and I used the FL Studio vocoder to impart some different texture layers to the Strangers. Although I was able to record some actual sparks with the help of my father, most of the electrical elements at the end came from an experiment with a contact mic taped to a wooden dresser with a thin chain dragged over it. The brain creature was a combination of a squeaky keychain, synthesized elements, mouth noises, and a layer of cooked pasta for the extra squishiness.
Some experiments with the gate and vocoder plugins from Reaper turned into this soundscape. This evolved from recordings of ocean sounds, wood impacts, and some stressed ceramic tiles.
I have been juggling quite a few projects lately, several of which are almost polished enough to release. I am most of the way finished with a cinematic sound design reel from the film Dark City and my Cube Wwise just needs a few tweaks to the balance. I am going through another set of edits to the manuscript for my first novel, Further Complications, with the help of some of my beta readers. I have not sat down to work on Caustic Reverie or TheForgotton tunes in a while, aside from a number of short works for the NMRIH soundtrack, but I am hoping to change that once my employment status changes for the better.