Teckle Games - LOCI - Tying up loose ends (University of Abertay Professional Project)
- Shane Ellis
- May 6, 2016
- 25 min read
University of Abertay, Dundee
Team: Teckle Games
The Chinese Room Professional Project Brief – “Tying Up Loose Ends”
Audio Portfolio
Proposer: Module Tutor: Alex Grahame Dr. Robin Sloan
Contents
1. Development Team 3 2. Overview 4 3. Research 3.1 Created by client 3.2 Games of similarity 3.3 Inspiration 3.4 Television/Film 3.5 Hospital machines 3.6 Music 3.7 Unreal engine & Miscellaneous 4. Workstations & Implementations
4.1 Audio Workstation 4.2 Game Engine 5. File sharing 10 5.1 Perforce 5.2 Google drive PROJECT WORK 6. Splash Screen (Teckle) 6.1 Foley 6.2 Mix 6.3 Music GAME AUDIO 7. Sound FX 7.1 Location Recording 7.1a.1 Room tone 7.1a.2 Stetting atmosphere 7.2 Foley Recording 7.2a Movement 7.2b Items 7.3 Synthesized Sounds 7.3a Memory locator 7.3b Memory transition 7.3c Menu buttons 8. Music 19 8.1 Menus 8.2 In-game 8.3 Music for dialogue 8.3a Linear scenes 8.3b Non-Linear scenes 9. Dialogue 9.1 Voice actors / actresses 9.2 Recording 9.3 Edit & mix 10. Evaluation 11. References
1. Development Team
STONE, MAGNUS - Team Leader
LILOV, SIMEON - Producer
KLIC, JIRI - Programmer
PEMBERTON, TARA - Programmer
LORNIE, MATHEW - Lead Artist
ADAMSON, ALEXANDRIA - Artist
HOWARD, LUKE - Artist
ELLIS, SHANE - Audio Engineer
DESHANE, ALYSSA - GDMPNarrative
2. Overview
I started as a self-taught musician playing the acoustic/electric and electric bass guitar and during the recent years I have been playing the piano and digital music. Before the University of Abertay I studied NC, HNC and HND in Sound Production at the Ayrshire College (Ayr Campus) where I learnt: How to use multiple Digital Audio Workstations, Sound reinforcement/live sound, Recording, Mixing, Mastering, Marketing in the creative industries, foley and sound design for multi-multimedia.
Since then I have learned basic skills in Adobe Photoshop and Premiere and since joining the University of Abertay I have learned how to use Audion Kinetic’s Wwise, Unity 3d and the Unreal engine.
I enjoy improving my skills in new software and working creatively in teams, my interest is to be working in the multi-media industry producing sound effects and music for games, apps and films.
In this project with Teckle Games I was the sole audio engineer, I played the roles of:
Foley artist & sound designer
Recording engineer
Mixing engineer
Music composer
I used multiple software including Ableton, Pro Tools and the Unreal engine to produce and implement all sound.
Our direction in style for this project is realistic, beautiful environments. Set in the present day the game outline puts the player inside the head of a coma patient who is able to walk around into different rooms (all in her head) and experience memories through objects. We will be modelling realistic assets for this game; some assets though will be modeled on an older time period. The protagonist is around the age of 58 so some of the assets in her mind will be based on the 1960’s and 70’s when she is growing up. Some assets will be more modern while others might be more retro.
Teckle Games is a team of 9 people, with the vision of creating realistic and captivating player experiences. We believe that environment and story-telling go hand-in-hand and that the emphasis should be on the player’s unique experience rather than complex gameplay mechanics.
3. Research
My research started by revising what the client has previously been involved in and where they would like the direction of the game to go allowing us to gather a much broader understanding the given topic in hope to understand the approaches that have been taken by them and other organizations and open new possibilities to the board.
3.1 PRODUCTS BY THE CLIENT
Korsakovia is a single player mod for the game Half-Life. (Korsakovia, 2009).
Amnesia: A machine for pigs, a survival horror sequel developed by the Chinese Room (Amnesia: A machine for pigs, 2013)
Everybody’s gone to the rapture is a first person adventure game where the player explores a small English town whose inhabitants have mysteriously disappeared; the player can interact with floating lights throughout the game world which will reveal parts of the story. (Everybody’s gone to the rapture, 2015).
Dear Esther is a first person adventure game based on exploration and discovery of a fatal crash on a deserted island. (Dear Esther, 2012).
3.2 GAMES OF SIMILARITY
The Stanley Parable is a narrative based video game that encourages the player to think about the nature of their choice constructed around seriousness and irreverence you never really know what to expect (The Stanley Parable, 2011).
The Beginner’s Guide is a narrative video game from the creator of ‘The Stanley Parable’ which lasts an average of 90 minutes of no goals or objectives but tells a story of a person struggling to deal with something that they do not understand. (The Beginner’s Guide, 2015).
Gone home is a narrative based game where the player can view objects in the game, although there aren’t any set goals within the game, however it encourages the player to explore new areas of the house and search for new messages. Much of the interactivity rests upon looking at objects within the house. The player finds objects which open other areas of the house that contain additional objects to be looked at. (Gone Home, 2013).
3.3 INSPIRATIONS
The project contains the use of memory flash backs which a games such as Assassins creed (2007-2015) are structured around.
Alan Wake is a psychological action-thriller game based on uncovering a mystery to save his love; the game uses items that uncover parts of the story using a variety of mysterious sci-fi sound effects. (Alan Wake, 2012).
Life is strange is a 5 part episode game based around choices and consequences affecting past, present and future events, this game contains both non-player interactive characters and dialogue from the main characters conscious thoughts just like we plan to in our game plan. (Life is strange, 2015).
3.4 TELEVISION / FILM
Flash back moments;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FE0aeMpi5Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB3ga_M2bmM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDQkvDLL_BA
Good practice to watch a few scenes from television shows based in hospitals as they will be dealing with many patients therefore will have tear jerking music moments. This also helps towards achieving the best performance from the voice actor when explaining how we need to drive the dialogue in specific scenes.
Such films would include;
House
Listen to your heart
If I stay
Scenes include;
House - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKW0Ba79zwA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJqGLjBRdv0
Listen to your heart - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C8QmdO47nI
If I stay - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8ahsNLNEBg
The Flash - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRpk61_9sAo&index=38&list=PLfsKpK6bbWQmSt-ANJCQAVx_vMlxYA7Ga
3.5 HOSPITAL MACHINERY
Audio scenes of the game were set in a hospital so I had gathered an equipment list in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) during the late 1990’s and early 2000’s will help to bring the sound to life from using a carefully revised room ambience and machinery beeping tones and sequences.
Figure 1. Image from http://ucneurocriticalcare.com/
http://www.soundsnap.com/tags/hospital_machines
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dgHVPFoP1A
IV PUMP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8CltymxLyE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efs5YLoyC6E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taGBx2fF6A8
VENTILATOR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNiUI8g9B9s
3.6 MUSIC
https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum/archive/index.php?t-952377.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGp_9fRUyYI
http://www.piano-lessons-made-simple.com/images/Dorian-Modes-Chart.png
http://www.creative-music-ventures.org/img/c-minor-scale-on-piano-keyboard.png
http://www.piano-keyboard-guide.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/piano-chords-in-the-key-of-D-minor.png
https://www.basicmusictheory.com/d-minor-scale
http://www.davidnevue.com/pianoadvice2.htm
https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum/archive/index.php?t-292573.html
3.7 UNREAL
http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2015/06/23/Unreal-Engine-Tutorial-Part-8-Playing-Audio.aspx
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Audio/SoundActors/index.html
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Audio/SoundCues/NodeReference/index.html#concatenatornode
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZrXPvWIXSs#t=351
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GwgXCXk6q4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsGwF2ufRAc
3.8 MISCELLANEOUS
Not only is it useful to refer to games however to collate experience and opinions from others, a useful youtube.com channel is “Extra Credits” (Extra Credits, n.d.) which is based around game development.
I wanted to gather as much understanding as I could in an attempt to transfer the feeling of music to an emotional level so along with my ‘Audio Production Methods’ module unit I sourced externally to use empathy as my motive by reading a PDF based on music empathy and understanding (Clarke, DeNora and Vuoskoski, 2016).
I attended a Trans awareness presentation with a couple Teckle team members to further understand from people experiencing actually living with these issues. I learnt the differences between; Transgendered, Transgenderism, Trans-sexual, Transvestite, Drag queen/king, Cross-dressing, and Tomboy.
4. Workstations & Implementations
To create the sounds required I will use a variety of different audio techniques, digital audio workstations and sequencing.
4.1 DIGITAL AUDIO WORKSTATION
Depending on the sound required will determine the initial procedure for the digital audio workstation, some sounds can be generated from white noise, others sampled from raw recordings, plugins and musical instruments which all will be recorded at 48kHz 24 Bits.
Ableton - Flexible software for making music and synthesizing.
Pro Tools - Recording and mixing, seems to be the industry standard and provides a smoother workflow when polishing audio, each share beneficial resources.
Steinberg’s Nuendo - The Abertay University has a specifically designed vocal booth which is ideal to record the dialogue.
After the sounds have been created, mixed, applied with dither and bounced as 48kHz 16Bits WAV. Files they will then be ready to be implemented into the game engine.
4.2 GAME ENGINE
The Unreal 4 engine is the gaming software that being used for to build this game, this has a straight forward audio implantation using audio cues and attenuation parameters. Unreal audio has a variety of audio editing and sequencing tools within the software.
5. File sharing
5.1 PERFORCE
To securely and efficiently send and retrieve access to other team members/departments work we have a dedicated PerForce account set in place. This will allow us to work from home while technically still together and this also enables us to merge branches together to the master build.
5.2 GOOGLE DRIVE
Due to googles high online storage space we also had a team account set up for documentation, audio files, splash screen and resources.
PROJECT WORK
6. Splash Screen (Teckle)
6.1 FOLEY: THE CUBE
So as per usual before thinking about recording sounds I have a quick browse through my already recorded library, which happened to give me exactly what I needed for this.
Layer 1 - This layer is for the box itself which used the same audio sample for each hit and remained unchanged throughout the clip, this is because I imagines the box to be solid all over, so if I could physically touch it the material would be the same all over, so no matter where the box was hit it would still be the same solid material striking another, does this make sense? if not it should in a moment. For this I used the rubber top of a baby bottle being flicked.
Layer 2 - This is where each hit has its own flavour of sound, as you will notice in the video that the box strikes the white surface at various angles, therefore the corners of the box are going to sound different from the flat edges along with the intensity of each hit so duplicating an audio sample is out of the question! For these sounds I used the popping sound of a milk cartoon filled at different levels (below half measures).
Layer 3 - For added effect I used the popping sound of my finger pulling out from the side of my mouth, I felt that this would enhance a less serious and more animated feel to the clip, again each sound was slightly different to the next and I tried to match each one to closest in velocity to the previous layer.
6.2 MIXING: PANNING & VOLUME AUTOMATION
After synchronizing all the hit points including some additional hits prior to the cube coming on-screen, the next step was to use volume and panning to follow the cubes movement, in this case from left to center.
6.3 MUSIC: TECKLE
The last thing to do was to fill in the empty space at the end and to have more impact on the "Teckle" writing appearing from the box, so to do this I thought that a nice shiny/glistening crescendo un-percussive sound would be more appropriate to fit into the game design it will be included in, something that could flow into the game it is leading into.
It took me about 6 attempts to get it how it sounds now! I thought I'd get in 2 but I guessed wrong, it happened when I was listening to previous songs that I had written for the Loci game when I heard one of the intros I immediately thought it would fit, I tried it, edited it to fit and added a shimmer I made from the shiiiiing of my new bread knife sampled and edited in Ableton. I then went on to use the shimmer (or one of the many that I recorded) as a transition within the game when entering a flashback memory.
Videos can be referred to online at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPs2pVXQL9M
OR
http://saellis88.wix.com/derivebysound#!gallery/cee5
Previous attempts can be found by following the links provided;
https://youtu.be/JA-nJxIKtnk
https://youtu.be/sINzY-RZ_j0
https://youtu.be/STovtGopq8k
https://youtu.be/Ke32j8ZyzHo
https://youtu.be/FJ_U3c1giJ0
https://youtu.be/7YDvo5F4nAQ
GAME AUDIO
7. Sound FX
7.1 LOCATION RECORDING
7.1a AMBIENCE
ROOM TONE
For the tone of the living room I recorded the tone of the recording studio, this is because it was;
Easy to access
No windows for disturbance from civilization
Spacious room of equal size
This was recorded with a large diaphragm condenser microphone with the polar pattern set to Omni-directional for full spatial capture. The placement of the microphone in the room was slightly off center (Figure 2) for accurate spacious quality and to avoid equal reflections from every side of the room, and at a length of over 8 minutes (Figure 3).
When listening back to the recording I noticed what sounded like plastic and metal being hit, probably from temperature reactions so I cut these parts out of the sample and bounced down to 48kHz 16bit .WAV.
7.1b SETTING THE ATMOPHERE
HOSPITAL EQUIPMENT
I retrieved the beeps of the heart rate monitor and the IV pump from a site online which were recordings from hospitals and free to use, I cut out the noise from in between each beep to get a clear sound. (Snap, 2016).
For the oxygen ventilator I used a sound retrieved from youtube.com only as a reference point, I wanted to have less of the noise from the machine console itself in order to have enough room in the frequency spectrum to hear the dialogue clearly.
To do this I pieced together a recording of an air ventilator for the console, a click of a button from a tape machine for the clicking sound as the pump is making movement, myself inhaling with exaggeration and an amplified signal from the Sans-Amp plugin for the oxygen suction of the pump, and the popping of a milk carton for the clicks as the machine is processing. (Figure 4).
I was able to line these up to be in time with the reference recording from youtube.com and set the volume levels accordingly. (n Beats Sound Effects, 2015).
Once I had the dialogue and ambiance set in place I could then apply the music and set the levels within the mix.
To hear this with dialogue follow the link provided; https://soundcloud.com/teckle-games/sets/dialogue-with-sound-fx-no-music
7.2. FOLEY RECORDING
7.2a CHARACTER MOVEMENT
7.2a.1 FOOTSTEPS
Recorded at the University of Abertay studio I recorded myself walking on the spot on a cut out piece of wood and then cut into 'heel' and 'toe' sections for the left foot and the right foot. This allowed for less chance of repetitiveness when walking around the game on one surface material. However, I did also record footsteps on carpet in my bedroom in both without shoes and with shoes just in case the game expanded to another room that may have had a change in floor surface around the house, it is common for homes in the United Kingdom and United States of America to have a mixture of carpet and wooden flooring.
7.2a.2 CLOTHES
Recorded at the University of Abertay studio I recorded myself rubbing my arms against my torso with multiple pieces of clothing.
Arm on torso (Layered, 50% cotton & 50% polyester)
Arms on torso (Skin, 30% cotton, 70% polyester)
Sleeping bag on sleeping bag (100% polyester)
These were stripped into single files and exported at 48 kHz 16 Bit ready to be imported into the Unreal game engine.
7.2b ITEMS
7.2b.1 PAPER
Recorded in vocal booth while recording dialogue (not at same time)
7.2b.2 DOOR
Recorded a home with Behringer C-4 matched pair, one directed at the top hinge and the other directed at the door handle for open and closing movements, Sontronics STC 3X at a slight distance capturing the sequence as a whole. In the Pro Tools session, I kept the mic at the hinge panned slightly to the left, the mic at the handle panned slightly to the right and the room mic panned center, I found that this provided a nice stereo image should the player have interaction with doors in the game.
7.3 SYNTHESIZED SOUNDS
7.3a MEMORY LOCATOR
To notify the player of a nearby memory object the team wanted to have a whispering effect of multiple people whispering without hearing the words being said. For this I used some of the dialogue recorded guide takes, some applied with the reversed reverberation technique which I learnt from taking the Pro Tools certified audio for games exam (Kuehnl, 2013). This involves reversing the standard audio clip, applying reverb and then reversing the clip (back to being forward), which I then realizing this would be related more to a horror/thriller based project so I took a different approach.
My next approach was to record multiple takes of myself whispering and layered them to bulk up the whispering effect, however I still felt that this wasn't quite enough, almost empty so I added in a layer of a sparkled chiming effect and a lower tone pulse to give the sound more body to it.
7.3b MEMORY TRANSITIONS
I didn't get assigned to do this for the project however I chose to experiment with it and hope that the rest of the team would agree to keep it. I like the fact that when the player picks up a specific item a memory is played but I felt that the transition from picking up the item and playing the memory was not dreamy or sci-fi enough for the game. Assassins Creed uses memory scenes throughout the play through which has a crystallized digital sweep not just at the beginning but throughout the scene however the scenes here are also visual so this isn't too distracting as you can see it matches the shines in the atmosphere that synchronize with the sounds.
The Chinese Room also used soft plosive sci-fi sounding beams when leading into an audio sequence in 'Everybody's gone to the rapture'(2015).
I thought that a shining shimmer effect would add an extra dimension to the game in both characteristics and colour.
To do this I used a sample recording of a shiiiing from my new bread knife when scraping it against a butter knife because it has bright and vibrant fundamentals to work from to achieve the sound that I had in mind. The sample was applied into the sampler plugin within Ableton and then reversed it to have a rising crescendo of the sound with a low frequency oscillator to wobble the frequencies around 2kHz (Figure 5).
Grain delay plugin was added to act as an open air spray to the sound. I set up an effects rack on a multi-band dynamics plugin which allowed me increase/decrease the intensity of the in/outputs of the frequencies in sections (High, Mid, Low). For this sample I wanted to concentrate on the higher end of the audio spectrum (Figure 6).
A slight ping ponging delay effect and some slight saturation was added to enhance the sound and give it that extra sense of space (Figure 7).
This was then layered with another sound set up with a similar line of plugins however; this part carried the weight of the lower tones. (Figure 8+9).
I’d then record myself playing a variety of notes through my MIDI controller and then export them from Ableton into Pro Tools (Figure 10).
To listen to the final results from this refer online by following the link to the playlist provided;
Memory Locator - https://soundcloud.com/teckle-games/sets/memory-locator
Memory flashback transitions - https://soundcloud.com/teckle-games/sets/memory-transitions
7.3c MENU BUTTONS
Using a similar technique to the previously described I recorded metal cooking pan filled with water in various scenarios of;
Flicking the pan
Slapping the water
Dropping small items into the water
This provided nice soft attacking sounds that we used for the buttons; I gave a folder of the sounds to the team then chose from.
8. Music
8.1 MENU MUSIC
This music loop was a short sample of what I was going to expand on for the walk through soundtrack before the change of plan, we also came to realize that this was too cheerful for the game it didn't quite fit but the team and I didn't want to cancel it out completely, we enjoyed the melody of it so I derived from the clip into the menu music the game has now, slow and setting the tone before the game.
To do this I used Pro Tools instrument tack applied with the XPand!2 plug-ins which has various instruments available to use. I chose the piano sound that I liked by combining multiple pre-sets together.
I started by finding a dreamy spacious ambient drone for the background setting of the song to create the illusion of the coma state.
Making use of MIDI I set the rhythm with the lower tones (left hand) on a separate track while I applied the melody over the top.
Once the mix was completed I would print the tracks onto an audio track to ensure that I could visualize a healthy waveform with no cut offs, and by doing this I could apply fades to the start and end points for looping to be subtler in transition. (Figure 11).
I was attempting to create a sad but hopeful short loop, however the team leader and producer felt that it was too cheerful and needed to sad.
Keeping the same ambient drone in the background I copied the notes of the rhythm track onto the melody track, with the different tone and the delay effects the song became slower and still in rhythm rather than slowing down the piece as a whole by the tempo controls the music would sound out of place in places.
All of these tracks can also be viewed in a playlist on soundcloud by following the link provided; https://soundcloud.com/teckle-games/sets/loci-menu-screen-audio
8.2 IN-GAME MUSIC
Originally the game was going to have a looped but varied soundtrack in the background as the player walked around the levels however we came to accept that we were being too ambitious with the production size in the time period we had, it would have meant that the game would constantly be dipping and changing sounds which would become distracting and unsettling however, up until this point I made various style of song drafts that were able to be looped and have certain sound entering the soundscape without any stress/distraction.
Stems and full songs can be found by following the link to the soundcloud playlist https://soundcloud.com/teckle-games/sets/gameplay-music-sketches
8.3 MUSIC FOR DIALOGUE
Each event required a different tone, tempo and flow of rhythm to relate to and drive the emotion of the dialogue; however, each piece still needed to fit together with the next so that they sound like they belong in the same game.
I experimented with a variety of scales and tones on the midi keyboard to have something that would allow me to have mixed emotional performances without separating the happy and the sad emotions from the same scene.
8.3a LINEAR SCENES
8.3a.1 Key Event 1 - Scene 01 – Doc & Sam:
I aimed to have the music in this scene to have multiple meaning behind it, I set the rhythm of the piano to be almost like a heart-beat for the reason being that the scene is based in the hospital and it is the first scene to be played so it helps to set the tone. For when the doctor is speaking I kept playing the lower tones as he was delivering unfortunate news and for the short parts that Sam spoke, she consumed panic and hope for things to get better so I used higher notes for these parts.
I then gave my piano track to another audio engineer (Rob Baron) who then added an ambient drone effect from my piano piece which I thought added an adequate depth to the feel of the musical piece.
These can be found by following the link provided; https://soundcloud.com/teckle-games/test-piano-drone
However, I did not realize that this audio scene was to be set as the intro of the game, after implementing this into unreal I noticed that this was too much too soon, I spoke to the team leader to get a second opinion and he agreed that the emotional connection with the characters hadn’t been made yet therefore we should have just dialogue for this scene but encouraged to keep the style of it for a later memory scene.
8.3a.2 Key Event 2 - Scene 02 Hospital – Sam:
After attempting a variety of scales for this scene I found the F-sharp harmonic minor scale easier for me to get a warm socializing tone and to a style that the protagonist may have listened to when she was younger, while Samantha is having a standard conversation to her mother who is in a coma casually reminiscing over past events she starts to get a much more serious and emotional tone, for this I slowed down the movement and number of notes used on the piano to blend in with this and to become less distracting from the seriousness of the dialogue, I took reference to the film “If I stay” (2014) which has scenes that are emotional and have family and friends talking at the bed side of the patient.
8.3a.3 Key Event 3 - Scene 03 – Sam:
I started this scene after the next because I found this one needed more attention to get the fine line between being a cheerful rhythm to then a quick and subtle flow into a sad plea type but I was able to apply the D minor scale this scene by deriving from the sadness from the Key Event 4.1 scene I was able to find a jolly rhythm within it that I could use for this.
8.3a.4 Key Event 4.1 - Scene 04 – Doc & Sam:
This scene is a delivery of disconcerting news therefore required soft, slow and sad sounding tones. After reading reviews online and testing the recommended scales I came to the conclusion the scale of D minor happened to be a well suited sad sounding scale that would flow nicely with the scale previously used in other events.
8.3a.5 Key Event 4.2 - Scene 05 – Doc & Sam:
This scene is for the ending and would require more time to get done to its full potential but the music would be similar to that of the Key Event 4.1 scene with a more dramatic ending while the machines change to more alerting sounds and Sam begins screaming for help from the doctors and nurses the music is need to sound disconcerting while at the same time enlightening for an ambiguous ending, is the protagonist dying? Or is her body just adjusting to change? For now, this scene has a placeholder piece of music which is currently the backgrounds sound of the menu music
Soundcloud links;
MUSIC – https://soundcloud.com/teckle-games/sets/music-for-dialogue
MUSIC & DIALOGUE – https://soundcloud.com/teckle-games/sets/dialogue-with-music-and-sound-fx
8.3b NON-LINEAR SCENES:
Cup of tea: Placeholder music – menu music background
Hair gel: Placeholder music – menu music background
Earrings: Placeholder music – menu music background
Doctors report: Placeholder music – menu music background
Knitting needles: Placeholder music – menu music background
Toy car: Placeholder music – menu music background
Letter: Placeholder music – menu music background
VHS: Placeholder music – menu music background
Wedding shoes: Placeholder music – menu music background
These can be found on soundcloud following the link; https://soundcloud.com/teckle-games/sets/dialogue-placholders
9. Dialogue
9.1 VOICE ACTORS / ACTRESSES
Protagonist: Anna Lisa Stone – Scenes: Letter, Cup of tea, Hair gel, Earrings, VHS, Wedding shoes.
Doctor 1: Chris Louch - Scenes: Key event 1, Key event 3, Key event 4.2
Doctor 2: Shane Ellis – Scenes: Doctors report.
Samantha: Alyssa DeShane - Scenes: Key event 1, 2, 3, 4.1, 4.2
Mark: Luke MacDonald – Scenes: Knitting needles, Toy car, VHS, Wedding shoes.
9.2 RECORDING
Magnus (GDMP - Team Leader) and I arranged for aspiring voice actors to come into the University of Abertay (Sunday 13/03/2016 & 13/04/2016) where we were able to use the vocal booth there with no interruption/noise from other students (Figure 12).
I provided water for the actors to prevent dry mouth, before each scene recording Magnus and I would explain how the actors should convey each take and did what we could to make them feel comfortable.
I used my own Sontronics STC 3x large diaphragm condenser microphone set to a cardioid polar pattern; this microphone provides clear and professional standard results on vocal recordings picking up less of the frequencies below 80Hz which can unknowingly distort the signal.
Instead of recording one person at a time we decided to have both actors in the booth acting out their scenes together, which they also found to be easier to work with, they said to me that it actually feels like they are having a conversation with someone rather than pretending to. This also help me save time on our short time period of putting the pieces together in my digital audio workstation as they were already in place and if I needed to change part of a scene for one from another take I would easily find my place.
We recorded multiple takes of each scene, due to the game being linear and the dialogue to be triggered from picking up an item for a flash of a memory we didn't need multiple versions, just the one specific type, although in some places we did mention to the actors if they wish to emphasize on certain parts they could.
9.3 EDIT & MIX
I sat down and listened to each take of each scene via my home studio Yamaha HS7 monitors and AKG K44 perception headphones to determine which takes I thought were best, in some cases I needed to cut certain parts from others and place them into the main one (Figure 13).
I then remove the deep breathes and any other unwanted sounds then apply fades to each clip to prevent unwanted noise such as clicking at the start and end of each cut clip before I consolidate them into one whole file (alt+shift+3) (Figure 14).
I set up an aux send on each vocal track to send a signal (while keeping the original) to a compressor and another for reverberation. Only small amounts for each were used to provide a more realistic tone to the environment as the vocal booth produces a dry sound (Figure 15).
I applied a De-Esser to target the frequencies that may cause exaggerated sibilant sounds to appear which could be more noticeable when reducing bit depth from 24bit to 16bit (game engine requirements) (Kuehnl, 2013). The scripts have a lot of words using sibilants so I used a De-esser on each track concentrating on the high end frequencies and another on the master track covering sibilants on all frequencies (Figure 16).
Dialogue samples can be found online by following the links provided;
Dialogue only - https://soundcloud.com/teckle-games/sets/dialogue-samples
Dialogue with sound fx - https://soundcloud.com/teckle-games/sets/dialogue-with-sound-fx-no-music
Dialogue with music & sfx - https://soundcloud.com/teckle-games/sets/dialogue-with-music-and-sound-fx
10. Evaluation
I joined the team roughly 3 months after the team had started on the game development, the team leader (Magnus Stone) and producer (Simeon Lilov) gave me an outline of the game design, mechanics, how the game was going to be and what had been changed then they directed me to how they wanted the music and sound effects to be.
I put together an asset list spreadsheet in Microsoft excel which is separated into 3 sheets for; Sound FX, Music/Ambience and Dialogue. This was the uploaded on the teams google drive account for all to see and to edit at will, I kept a fortnightly update to show my progression as well as keeping up to date with ongoing changes.
I was unfortunate to only be able to meet the client on one occasion which was via a skype call. I missed the second (1st for me) presentation to the client on the progress update of the game due to being occupied with a presentation for another games development team (Sonder) which was booked for the same time. I did however provide the client with an Audio Design Document (ADD) and audio files of my progress.
The Unreal game engine is a new software for me that I would love to further pursue in, I wanted to learn and work more with the blue prints where I could edit to create randomized footsteps and other various sound effects, I did attempt to do this however I found it harder to achieve in first person rather than third person, so my only implementation was to add the sounds to the sound cues set in place by the programmer, should I have had more knowledge of the software the programmers may have had more time to concentrate on other parts of the project to progress further.
Regarding the elements of the project, I believe that we have met the demands of the of the product on a similar level to that of the clients’ previous developments by the means of the discovery in a unique storytelling experience on an authentic, beautiful and thought provoking narrative that allows for linear structure as well as non-linear events that elaborate on the story. Without being bias I believe that the music has been done well to support the narrative and tones of the game, I didn’t just create a piano track, I created a piano track to set the tone and follow the moods of the characters involved which was and is a difficult but satisfying experience, however being a rookie piano player and an aspiring audio engineer I believe that with more time would be able achieve the needs to fulfil the emotional dynamics to complete this tear jerking and thought provoking experience.
When presenting the game to students at the University of Abertay we had great feedback from several people in the audience that said the narrative and the music worked really well with the game, I was then further approached by a couple game development team members asking if I would create audio for their game which in turn made me feel that I was on the right track with the music style and sound effects.
The music in our product isn’t as epic as the existing products to that of the client including “Everybody’s gone to the rapture” and “Dear Esther” as our direction was to steer slightly away from the original products by not using orchestral instruments to get a sense of originality with the game so within reason I was limited to piano, guitar and digital music. However at the same time this made some sense as the music in our product was there to support emotion in the narrative whereas in existing products of the “Chinese Room” the music drifts in and out throughout the gameplay.
After playing the prototype I did notice that when picking up an item and holding the button down to hear the audio was kind of a nuisance in the way that it became tedious as the audio events are varied from around 1-3 minutes long, maybe if the events were somewhat shorter this may not be an issue of fatigue or strain.
Understandably the game is very small/short, being based in one room it is hard to keep the player interested and able to explore, it would have been nice to structure the level from being in the house then walking to the hospital passing memories on the way to the hospital bed seeing yourself (the protagonist) in the hospital bed with Sam (protagonists child) at the bedside, should this had been the case I would have loved to have tried the dreamy music that I created as a walk about theme setting and been able to experiment further with it.
The dialogue and music for the key event scenes were done with more time and processing than that of the events that trigger from picking up memorial objects. All the events are still lacking atmosphere to bring the scenes to life, as it stands the memories only really hold narrative and music rather than character movement and interaction with the environment, for example; in the scene “Toy car” when Mark says “listen to the sound it makes..” there should be a sound of a toy car as he is demonstrating the toys function to his child, and in the “wedding shoe” scene there should be sounds for Mark and the protagonists’ movements as they’re prancing into their new home.
It is obvious when playing the game that as far as the final product stands it is quite bland but the idea is there to give the implications of the style of game that we were aiming to create.
The biggest noticeable error for me is that the majority of scenes with the protagonists’ voice overs sounded more airy and reverberated when the other characters spoke, this is because the voice for the protagonist was externally recorded and the files were sent to me, the files were fine however when I recorded the voice actors for the characters “Sam” (child) & “Mark” (husband/father) I did not realize that the microphone was set to omni-directional polar pattern rather than cardioid for direct vocal capture which caused an airy and sensitive recording, however despite the rookie mistake I think that to some extent this may have been a happy accident. I do not believe the recordings or the mix to be of great quality however it has opened up doors for ideas that the final pieces could have, it would be good to experiment with strong and cleaner signals for the protagonist and more reverberated for the other characters because it is essentially the protagonists experiences and her own voice is going to be more prominent as it is the one inside her head and most familiar, the other characters being reverberated would highlight the dreaminess of the memory, I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner, it would have been a nice original touch.
It is a shame that the build of the ‘Tying up loose ends’ brief game had not further progressed as much as it could of, with assets being installed later than the initial plan I could not realistically put all my time into recording and editing dialogue, setting the atmosphere of the all the scenes with Foley sounds and adding a custom musical piece for each scene knowing that my efforts may not have been implemented into the final build of the game before the prototype deadline, however if I was not involved with another game development team as well as having my modules for university I would have been more enthusiastic in progressing with the audio and music for this game, I love the topic of the storyline I believe that it has strong potential competing with the existing “Chinese Room” games, I love the narrative that goes with it, and have grown fond of the team and my experience at composing on piano, ambient drones and combining them with the concept of creating an audio soundscape to fit in with the flashback atmosphere.
11. References
Korsakovia (2009). [dlc]. Microsoft Windows.
Amnesia: A machine for pigs (2013). [dlc]. Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS. Frictional Games.
Everybody’s gone to the rapture (2015). [disk]. Playstation 4. Sony Computer Entertainment.
Dear Esther (2012). [disk] Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS. The Chinese Room.
The Stanley Parable. (2011). [download]. Microsoft Windows, Mac OSX, Linux. Galactic Café.
The Beginner’s Guide (2015). [disk]. Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS. Everything Unlimited Ltd.
Gone Home (2013). [disk]. Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Playstation 4, Xbox One. The Fullbright Company.
Assassin’s Creed. 2007-2015. [disk]. Microsoft Windows, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox 360. Ubisoft.
Alan Wake (2012). [disk]. Xbox, Microsoft Windows. Microsoft Game Studios.
Life is strange. (2015). [dlc]. Microsoft Windows, Playstation 3,Playstation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One. Square Enix.
Extra Credits, (n.d.). Extra Credits game development youtube channel. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/user/ExtraCreditz [Accessed 24 Dec. 2015].
Clarke, E., DeNora, T. and Vuoskoski, J. (2016). Music, Empathy, and Cultural Understanding. 1st ed. Arts & Humanities Research Council, pp.1 - 23.
If I stay. (2014). [film] Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: Warner Bros.
UC Health, (n.d.). ICU hospital patient. [image] Available at: http://ucneurocriticalcare.com/ [Accessed 27 Nov. 2015].
Snap, S. (2016). Hospital Machines Sounds. [online] Soundsnap.com. Available at: http://www.soundsnap.com/tags/hospital_machines [Accessed 3 Jan. 2016].
n Beats Sound Effects, (2015). Hospital Ventilator Sound Effect | Sfx |HD. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNiUI8g9B9s [Accessed 3 Jan. 2016].
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