Journal Page - Team Project

One of the comments we received about our Team Continuous Assessment 3 was that there wasn’t really a conclusion at the end of the level as was. To fix this we started putting together an ending sequence, in terms of sound the game. 

Ending Dialogue

When creating the ending dialogue for the game, in which TRISH remarks “That this isn’t part of the plan”, the procedure for recording this was similar to recording the new TRISH lines with the new TRISH. The team got into a call to write possible end lines, after which I went off, got them all recorded and we picked the one we felt came out best.

Trish Overlay Fix

One of the issues we were having is that while unlikely, if a player ran between two TRISH line triggers, they would play over each other, so it was really important to get that fixed. Luckily I was able to solve this through the use of buses in FMOD.

Trish Audio Ducking

One of the problems we were having is that often it would be hard to hear what TRISH was saying in the game. Initially the solution was just to have her be louder than other things, but then those other things would be too quiet when she wasn’t speaking. This week I used ducking where when TRISH speaks the rest of the game temporarily lowers itself down.

Revise Quiet & Loud Areas

I was so focused on trying to fill out the foreground for the soundscape after our previous suggestions from the Sound Design Lecturer & students that I was neglecting the actual player experience. The game’s foreground was constantly full now, meaning that the game was, in a sense just yelling at you the entire time, which, is not super great. So I took time this Sprint to revise how much space each sound would actually cover.

The game’s soundscape is less constantly busy now, all the sounds, for the most part are still in there, but they play less often or have a reduced range for how far away they can be heard. This has allowed for both loud and quiet spaces in the game, so the sound is dynamic instead of just a massive constant wall, which it pretty much was before. Whoops.

After getting some feedback from a Sound Design lecturer and some Sound Design students, the main comment was that while the background ambience was good, the foreground of the soundscape needed some additional attention.

Parametric Sound

Over the course of this sprint I implemented parametric sound via the player being damaged. The way it works is that the sound of the player being damaged is modified depending on how much health is left. The less health the player has the heavier the sound is and the player may make a grunt noise as they are struck.

Filters

In the second week of this Sprint I also implemented a filter into the game for the anti-grav room. This hopefully would solve the problem I had before personally, where I felt when you went into the anti-grav room, it just didn’t sound right. It felt like while you could see things just spinning around in space, the sound just was standard, it was normal, it was the same as any other room. Initially when I looked into implementing something like this when I first started using FMOD it went a little over my head so I was particularly glad to get this implemented.

COVID-19 Update

Despite the college being still closed we’ve found that it hasn’t impacted our communication too much as we text and call quite frequently as a team and did so already.

New TRISH Auditions

We started looking for additional TRISHes to replace the old one, initially, we were going to select the new TRISH based on users selecting which TRISH they thought was best out of the better auditions we had selected. Unfortunately due to COVID-19, out of those three final TRISHes only one of them had a proper mic setup at home, and with how important these lines are it was important that they are recorded clearly and properly. 

TRISH Remote Recording

The way we remotely recorded lines was the actor and I would be in a Discord call as they recorded the lines, after which they would send them to me. While in the call I would provide additional direction as well as answer any questions they may have about TRISH or the world of The Thinking City.

Test Tube Smash

One of the hardest things I’ve had to record over the duration of this project so far was definitely this week with the test tube smash. I acquired some cheap glasses and attempted to record them breaking, but between ensuring my own safety and the safety of the mic, I just couldn’t really manage to get a sound I was happy with. I’m glad I tried it but unfortunately, this may be a sound we get via a third party.

COVID-19

With the college closing until further notice, we’re wary about how this may impact our workflow and communication.

I’m going to start recording these as Sprints rather than separate weeks.

Tentacle Slither

One of the main things I really enjoyed making this Sprint was the slithering sound for the tentacles found in the creature lab. I took a similar approach to when I made the tentacle foot movement sounds for the robot antagonist, but instead of individual slaps of the tentacle, it’s a more sustained slither.

Power On Sound

Additionally this sprint I used Pure Data to make the powering up sound for the generator, as the project progresses I feel like I am better understanding when to use particular tools, and I’ve definitely found that Pure Data really shines when making more synthetic ambient sounds, whereas a foley approach is more appropriate for getting the base of more kinetic sounds like the tentacle slither.

Another aspect of the sound design for the power on sound was actually the sound of the card insertion itself. When I saw the model for the card it and the model for the console, it all looked a bit chunky and industrial, so instead of a smooth slot sound, it's an aggressive sort of bang as it cracks into place. The base of that sound is an old radiator making contact with a floor at speed.

Audio Feedback

This week we got feedback on our voice actor for Trish. Some of the panel liked it but others didn’t. We need to check and look for more voice actors but it’ll have to wait until after this release.

Enemy Movement Implementation

This process involves matching the sound from FMOD along with the animations in Unity. I scrub through the animation in Unity and add an event to call the sound event from FMOD. We had a slight issue where it was set up, but there were some issues with animations and had to be redone, but sometimes things like that just happen. In FMOD I've made separate events for each foot, as they are comprised of different materials. Each event has a few recorded sound effects from which it selects one to play every time it is called, so this will help provide some variety. Additionally, the pitch modulates within a small range so even though it's only working with a few samples for each footstep, it is altering it every time it's being played.