#shared playgrounds

Clint showed us this in creative audio the other day which is very useful for my sound design for Project Kowhai the game that We’re making in Studio.

Also this article has some pretty useful tips for starting to record Foley.

Was looking up Foley techniques and found this very handy resource for creating different sounds

This week I added the prototype sounds to the first of our game demos. I finished the first prototype of the forest music soundtrack. I lowered the volume compared to the forest ambiance to make it subtle. There should be music but it shouldn’t be overpowering. In there is no music in nature but this music helps build the atmosphere.

I’ve started to collect field recordings for the second prototype. I’ve cut together some grass and mud footsteps and edit together some whistling wind samples.

I’ve been working on the first demo soundtrack for our game. I listened to a few ‘autumn themed’ music tracks and found them to be nice and calm and soothing. However, the feeling of this game is supposed to be more tense as if your’e on edge and you don’t know what to do. Sort of eery. This is because of the situation you find yourself in. Your’e lost in the wilderness, the music definitely wouldn’t convey that your’e lost if it was happy and calming.

I also listened to some game tracks for inspiration and to get  feeling for different game atmospheres like these.

Okay, figured out the dynamic ambient noises, I simplified the code a little to make it work for multiple trigger boxes. Basically, If you enter an area, it’ll fade in it’s music. When you leave, it’ll fade out it’s music. This means that each trigger box needs not fade out anything. Except in certain situations.

Okay so I’ve been thinking about the feel of the game and I think it’ll be great to come up with a few ambient sound tracks rather than no music. It’ll add to the atmosphere and I’d argue it would immerse the player more by giving them a sense of the situation. I was talking with Kavita about the feel of the game and we agreed on a sort of ambient tense feeling sound track as if you were lost and you don’t know what to do. This would contrast with some magnificent, beautiful music when showing off some of the landscapes in certain scenes. I think it would give a great effect for the player to stand back and appreciate the natural landscapes of New Zealand.

I’ve figured out how to have material dependent footstep sounds in Unreal Engine! The only problem I see is that the terrain only has one physics material associated with it. There is a way though that you can make the terrain painter associate different physics materials. I’ll see if I can get Nathan Newland to figure that out because that’s more his field. however, if I can finish this other thing quickly, then I’ll see if I can help him out.