Speaking of Silence

For some reason, all embedded videos look wonky on this blog – but who cares.

Here’s my latest reel.

This weeked I’ve spent on getting into Wwise by watching the tutorials by Audiokinetic themselves in the series Wwise 101. I already can see some of the advantages in comparison to FMOD, but I will need some more in-depth understanding before I dare have a real opinion about it.

It does seem like a really good tool though. Looking forward to learning more about it, and I’ll look into making a small project with Unity or Unreal using Wwise shortly.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=videoseries%3Flist%3DPLXMeprTk4ORNhg-eoPz3gFTWODfRQ4T6-

As of now though, I’m digging into Skylar & Plux: Adventure on Clover Island. Until some of that workload is done, I’ll have to keep cool with all the exciting extra projects I’d love to do. There are, unfortunately, only 24 hours in the day.

It’s called Wheelharp and I think it sounds amazing.

I’ve always loved Limbo’s quiet, soft, sound design, but recently I got my eyes on a new game that looks and sounds very nice. Once I get some workload off my shoulders, I’ll check it out.

Also, I must admit – I still haven’t finished Soma. I really should. It’s a very interesting game and the sound is great.
Also – I really want a hydrophone.
Also – I REALLY like the sound this does:

After a week of portfolio crunch I’ve finally had the time to get into Skylar & Plux.

As of now I have run through the game and started on the list of sound effects that need to be done. A lot of sounds are adapted to older versions of the game where the protagonist was still a robot, and thus a check on the appropriateness of each sound will need to be done.

I will have to do a lot of mechanical sounds as well as ambience, and that is exactly my cup of tea, so I’m more than happy. Next week I will get into making the actual assets and getting into Kevin’s implementation & FMOD structure.

I’m still working on the Gauntlet video. This morning I recorded some new “break pot” sounds. Last week I was at IKEA so I took the opportunity to get some cheap pottery I could break. I think the sounds turned out okay, and I will get to editing them soon.

Gauntlet vid is progressing!

I’m thinking of making just a few more tweaks and then calling it a day (week). I’ve started on redesigning the audio for a Dead Space 3 trailer, but I’m unsure if I’ll have the time to get it up before the portfolio course deadline on september 29th.

It’s a lot of fun and a completely different challenge from the Gauntlet vid, but challenges are important to improving one’s skills.
Here’s how the Gauntlet vid looks now.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls, for it tolls for thee…
Yesterday was an interesting day. I spent the morning working on my redesign of a gameplay video from Gauntlet (Arrowhead). It’s coming along well!

I have recieved some good feedback on my reel and am looking forward to developing it further. This is how it sounds now. It’s still quite rough around the edges, but I think you see what I’m going for.

Currently, the only sounds in the video that are not my own doing are the “charge up” magic for the enemies (the reversed echo of a cannon being fired, from BOOM library’s “Historical Firearms”), and the fire sound heard in the magic projectile effect near the end (Sonniss I believe).

I still aim to have 100% my own sounds and foley in it, but to achieve that I will have to make some additional recordings. Now where did I put that cannon…?

After lunch we had a visit from a King developer who turned out to be a former sound designer and musician. It was nice exchanging ideas! We don’t get a lot of sound designers here at FG, so meeting someone from the same field is always very valuable.

…And beyond
Today will be my first day working on Skylar and Plux: Adventure on Clover Island, where I will be providing environment sounds. The game is developed in Unreal Engine and the middleware used is FMOD, so I’ll get to focus on what I do best. Balancing that, my portfolio reel, revisiting old projects and ensuring the sound is up to pair and my King course is a lot of work. But this is what I love doing, so I’m not really complaining.