Friday, April 21, 2017

Audible II

Week Thirty-two

(or Biff! Bang! Pow!)

Before I get to the audio I've been making, I'll talk a little about the music w're using in AIM<. AIM< isn't being made for profit so our studio is going to be using Creative Commons tracks. Unique music would be ideal but I've not had the time to compose any during development.

The menu track is "Prologue" by Alex Mason from an album called "Return" and is licensed under creative commons (CC BY-NC 4.0). Give it a listen!



"Prologue" fits AIM< well and plays after the game starts while players navigate menus. There is also an awesome in-engine scene that plays out in the background in time to the music.

Game play music is "A Moment" by Scott Gratton and is also licensed under creative commons (CC BY-NC 4.0). Here it is!



At first, I had picked something a bit more percussive and slightly more high energy, a track called "Overflow of Time" by Artofescapism (also CC. BY-NC 4.0) But as awesome as the track was, the music overwhelmed the gameplay audio and just didn't sit right as we play-tested with it. Here's the track for comparison.



"A Moment" works far better with the game play in AIM< establishing some good ambiance without overpowering the other audio.

Besides researching music, I made more sounds. The first set I'll share is audio created to give feedback with player/environment interaction and a walk sounds for the mech. Click the play button to hear them!



 When I started this particular set of sounds, I thought the impact audio would be the easiest but quickly found I was mistaken. The difficulty in creating believable, satisfying impact comes back to what I mentioned last week about reality vs fantasy. I found that what I expected to sound like impact was quite flat and lacked character. I discovered that layering the "swoosh" and impact of bamboo pole impact with other foley audio created the sounds I was looking for.

I made only one impact sound per material for now since to create more to cycle through and vary the sound takes time and I had more audio to make before creating alternates.

The mech walk loop features some interesting foley, layering drills, miniature servos, drums, and other sounds to convey weight and large, mechanized movement. it took a few passes to make something I was happy with and felt would be convincing.

The last set of audio I made for the game elaborated on the player/environment interaction, a couple ambient loops, enemy shooting, and near miss feedback. Give it a listen!



Creating looping audio that doesn't sound too repetitious was challenging. I mixed up small audio segments, randomly dispersing them so the loop would be less noticeable for both tracks. Avoiding any sounds that are too rhythmic helps trick the ear into missing the repetition, a lot like working with textures. The less patterns, the less obvious the looping will be.

For the enemy laser sound, I drew inspiration from unusual weapons fire sounds like the WWII German nebelwerfer artillery. The enemy fire had to be distinct and evoke a similar fear response in the player as my sources of inspiration. I also needed the audio to stand out over player weapon fire but not get too annoying when multiple enemies fired simultaneously.

The other tracks were created in a similar manner as other tracks I talked about here and last week.

I hope you enjoyed using some different senses to interact with the past couple blogs. Future posts will most likely return to visuals.

Next week on May 4th is the premier of AIM<! Click on the link for event details and come check out the game if you're in the area.

Have a great weekend and I hope to see you next week!

Audible

Week Thirty-one

(or Can You Hear Mech Now?)

Last weekend I made several new sounds for AIM<. The game is far enough along that I can look at what will actually be in our game play and focus on just the sounds we need instead of guessing. Chloe Terry got some of the audio in last weekend and Patrick Oudemans has been working on getting the rest done this week. I've got a few more to do this weekend and all the final sound will be implemented throughout the next week in time for the SGX debut.

The last time I talked about sound was four months ago, where I mentioned that general power-up audio, drone jet engines, and a couple more tracks were mastered. This set of sounds and the audio featured in AIM< Audio II and III further down this post were created by an auxiliary team I lead from a Fall 2016 digital sound studio. The contributing members of that team are as follows: Shane Yach, Hannah Bragelman, Derek Sirp, and Daniel Mike. Take a listen to the first set of tracks!



The team and I made this first set of audio for the areas I thought would be the most important at the time. Some of the mechanics have changed since then and a couple of the sounds are not as critical as they once were but are still being used in some form or fashion.

Next came the audio for picking up power-ups, swapping power-ups, firing projectiles, launching drones, and an alarm for nearby danger. Out of all of these, the projectile sound was the most difficult. Field recordings of firearms contain a lot of reverb (kind of like echo) even if they are recorded in a small room. The presence of reverb causes the audio sound like it's happening in very specific environments. Removing the reverb is necessary so the engine can control audio "size" based on how the levels are designed. Here's the audio!



I really enjoy the physicality of  the swap power-up track created by Hannah Bragelman. It's going to be used for menu sounds and when players swap ammo types with the "ammo cards". As I mentioned in my UI post, portions of the UI were inspired by trading card games so this track emphasizes the physical inspiration quite well.

The last of the audio created with the auxiliary team features explosions, alerted enemy sounds, and an impact sound. Click play!



Shane Yach was responsible for the hilarious drone alert sounds. All of the sounds he synthesized have a lot of personality and are very dynamic breathing welcome life into the AIM< world.

The explosion sounds were challenging. Any field recordings of explosions face the same problems as firearm sounds. Once reverb is removed, the recordings tend to feel flat and unsatisfying. There are a couple tricks to bring back some depth. A rumbling low end can be made by slowing down a lion or other big cat roar. Layer that with a kettle drum and the depth is returned without too much reverb.

Audio, like any other art, is about trying to find what to exaggerated to create the feeling, world, character, or other elements one desires to create. It's not always beneficial to try to mimic reality exactly since the fantasy of what something is is almost always better than the reality. I'll elaborate on this thought a bit more in my next post when I cover the most recent audio I've made.

I know I said this last week but be sure to keep checking the AIM< Facebook page! Mark May 4th on your calendar and stop by to play the game if you're in the area! Have a great weekend!

Friday, April 14, 2017

Mines

Week Thirty

(or Mine? Mine!? Mine?!?)

The other members of Violent Traversal and I have been ramping up work for the public demo of AIM< at Stout's game expo, SGX. Several members of the team have been working steadily on a level and squashing bugs while Chloe Terry and I finish the UI and pull together sounds. The UI is looking really polished now so my focus is starting to narrow in on sounds. I've got many more more to make this week/weekend, which I'll talk about in a bit more detail in an upcoming post.


In a past post, I showed a concept for some mines and shared some brief details. They are now fully realized in-engine with 3D models and textures! There are two versions; one is a mine that lays on the ground and the other floats in the sky, inspired by sea mines.

Both versions serve as hazardous obstacles and encourage players to pay attention to their surroundings while moving through the environment. The mines explode on contact and emit a beeping sound when players get too close. I'm hoping to get some time to add in more "personalized" sounds to both, such as a jet sound for the hovering mines. Check out the full screenshots in the gallery below.

That's it for this week. Have a great Easter weekend!

Be sure to check out the AIM< Facebook page! Mark May 4th on your calendar and stop by to play the game!


Mine Concepts by Aram Wahler


AIM< Air Mines by Violent Traversal


AIM< Ground Mines by Violent Traversal


Friday, April 7, 2017

Rift

Week Twenty-nine

(or Shift to Balance)

This week I planned on detailing the other power up in AIM< called "Rift". As the week progressed however, I had a couple conversations with one of the team members working on level design. We decided that the Rift concept created problems requiring more time than we have remaining to address. With only about 2 weeks and a couple days left to the deadline, we've had to make some tough decisions as to where to spend our precious resources. For now, "Rift" has been shelved in favor of making sure that the other power-up, "Rocket", receives the amount of polish and dedicated level design it deserves in order to shine.


I'm learning that balance is an important word for game design. Most obvious perhaps is the realization that balance can refer to the distribution of power each element is allowed to have during game play. I've learned this week balance is also needed in making sure that all the parts of a game are treated with the attention and resources that they need in order to pave the way for fun.


Each dev team has to decide for themselves what the balance looks like. Violent Traversal decided that we would rather have a polished portion of game play demonstrating the essential components of AIM< than an amalgamation of disparate parts. I think a good goal is to show the potential of our game's design than leave the audience wondering what we were trying to accomplish. I'm confident that AIM< will be a fun and polished experience on release day.


More topics are on the way in upcoming weeks so make sure to check back for more AIM<! Have a great Spring weekend!


Rift Concept Ver 1 by Aram Wahler


Rift Concept Ver 1.2 (back) by Aram Wahler


Rift Concept Ver 2 by Aram Wahler