Forums Thread

Hi Shayn!

Happy New Year!! The holiday season was fantastic!
Nice piece, can't wait to hear the final.

As for me, nothing new really, just punching along. Kinda nice to move on into sound effects now.

Cheers!

@Shayn I went ahead a link that url for you nice work on it sounds good.

Thanks,
James Fleming

Hey guys,

Holidays were nice for me too but up to my eyes in work. These guys actually have me doing work; how dare they?!?

Sorry to hear you were unwell Shayn. I feel like I've had the flu forever at this point, like I don't remember a time not having it :) Glad you're feeling better and that you're over your writer's block too!

Good stuff Robert. I'm looking forward to seeing more of what you can do and picking up some knowledge and know-how from you along the way as you're obviously really strong in this area. 

Nice piece there Shayn, I like it. Lovely build and plenty of variety. Where do you see that fitting in? It feels more like music that would accompany story progression rather than in-game music, if you know what I mean, good RPG-type track. Ideally, we'd like to get it all in but it really does feel like one piece and I'd prefer not to cut it up. I can see a mission being explained to the player and battle preparation being made then, as the tempo picks up, we move to the battlefield.

I worked on a couple of pieces there recently which I think might work. I'll upload one to the TLS Soundcloud account today and link to it. I'm happy with the kind of futuristic communication sounds and what I imagine to be alien telecommunications, ha ha, but let me know what you reckon!

Here's the link:

https://soundcloud.com/the-last-stand-2015/untitled

Unfortunately a virus ate a lot of my music so I can't edit that apart from the WAV file. If one of you wants to cut it up and mess with it then please feel free.

Thanks Sean,

Feel free to ask any time. I will try to answer to the best of my knowledge.

Nice track!

@Sean Wow, that track was pretty awesome!

As for my piece, I kind of envision it where the player is idling in a capital ship and comforting in the peace (hence solace of the titans) in between missions, and then at the climax, the ship goes into warp or something. When the pace starts picking up, it reminds the player that they are on a military ship, and either A they are about to be sent out again, or B they are under attack or something.

Or maybe in the beginning he is in awe at the majesty of the fleet or something, and at the climax, a transport ship comes to bring him up to the fleet, and he enters and feels the military vibes when the pace starts picking up.

Either way, I'm sure we will find a place for it, and I can always modify it need be.

Hey guys,
I am not sure if you have seen the current discussion for the current sprint, but there may be some problematic files. It is believed that some files are not 16 bits on the sound effects portion. I'd double check the files you have turned in and make sure they are 16 bit.
   I found some files on my end that I turned in at 16 bit, but the sample rate was left at 48kHz. Not sure if that is what is causing the problem.

Anyway, I asked Nick if it was possible to get a list of the problem files.

Take care gents!

-Robert

Gotcha, will check my files 

The only SFX I have uploaded thus far is the sniper rifle, and that is 16 bit 48khz

That could have been me, early doors. Hopefully they weren't files that were wiped recently from my PC but I'll take a look. Cheers Rob

Hey Shayn,
   I am trying to reach out here. What would you like to see more of in the sprints? (in regards to sound effects or music). 

You thoughts are valued.

-Robert

I'm fine with what we are currently doing for now, since I know that the project is still in early development phase, so there isn't much that needs to be done in terms of sound at the moment. Once the project starts picking up pace though, I'd love to get into more specific goals for the game, such as scoring for cutscenes, creating specific themes for characters, levels, factions, etc. and making REALLY COOL sound effects for specific instances, such as an entire capital ship smashing into the ground and screeching across the surface :P I really want the music and sounds that we create for this game to be really memorable, and to enhance the player's experience with it.

Not sure if you have read this already Theater 1 Characters . Its gives some insight on some ideas of how characters look. Found it pretty cool. Also shows some references. Maybe it will spark some ideas as far as music goes.

Actually, yeah I just read it a while ago! The writers did a really good job to create memorable characters, so we need to do our part and honor them as well, haha!

Indeed.

Hey guys, I hope you're well!

Sorry to bail. I had some bad news and needed to take a bit of time but I'm back and ready for what The Last Stand has to throw at us.

Sean

Welcome back Sean!
I hope all is well!

-Cheers!

Thanks Robert, good to be back!

Welcome back Sean!

Thanks buddy :)

Hey guys!

Just a forecast of what will be coming up in the agendas.

• Communication Blips

• Mech Destroy Sounds

• Dust Devil Sound

• Dust Storm Sound

• Flechette Cannon Sounds

Got it!

Cool! Cheers Robert

Cool article on sound at Blizzard. Checkout the aluminum foil sound Shayn.
http://www.polygon.com/features/2016/2/24/11003640/blizzard-sound-design-heroes-of-the-storm

Sweet, never would have thought to use styrofoam for lightning arcs, haha! Anyways, I have a small question. When you guys are implementing a soundtrack into a game, how do you work with looping points? Is that something the programmer does, or is it embedded into the music file or something? To be more clear, I don't mean just repeating it when the track ends, but what if you have a track that has an intro and an ending, but for game purposes, it will only play the intro once, then it will loop a certain section of the track, and won't play the ending untill a requirement is met?

Traditionally it is done by the sound designers with middleware like FMOD or Wwwise.
Unfortunately these programs are expensive. (I would look them up online for free courses)

So I am hoping that our programmers will be able to do what you mentioned. I think it will be tricky.

Otherwise another option will be to cut the track up and have programmers make a script for it to play in whatever order, or to be triggered whenever a new event happens.

This is why I would like to know about the programming side of audio.

Thanks Robert! I took a look at fmod and wwise, and apparently they have free licenses for hobyists, students, freeware games, and low budget indie games (us)! Although it looks like wwise has a limit of 200 sounds per game, not sure what limits fmod has. I will do some more research.

No problem, the part I'm not familiar with is getting Wwise to work with Xenko.

Which do you prefer? Wwise or Fmod? I did some snooping, and apparently fmod is free to indie devs with no limitations at all, but it looks like wwise has the 200 sound limit. I also saw a short overview of wwise and it can be implemented in games at real time, but the layout looks a little complicated to me haha. I also saw an fmod overview, but I'm not sure if it implements in game real time, but it looks a lot simpler.

To be honest, I think any new software is going to be tricky to pick up but, provided we all work on the same one, we'll learn together and share tips and tricks. This is something that you mentioned in our first conversation Robert, wasn't it, applying our work through Fmod or Wwise. It's going to be learning to swim at the deep end gentlemen ha ha!

I am more familiar with Wwise, but if Fmod doesn't have the any constraints to indie developers, i'd go with that. There are plenty of resources out there to learn about them.

SchoolofvideogameAudio.com comes to mind. The only down side is that it cost money and you have to go at their pace. (I like learning at my own pace)

https://www.audiokinetic.com/learn/certification/ for Wwise, audiokinectic offers a free class, at your own pace, down side is that you have to pay to take the test to become certified. If you fail, you don't get your money back.

All of this being said, I am not proficient at either of these great tools, but I would love to learn to use them more.

This would have to be brought up to James and the other programmers to see if this would be viable for the team.

@Sean, yes this was something I mentioned earlier. Sounds like it would be a whole new beast.

What are your guys thoughts?

Yeah, I'm more familiar with Wwise too but am more than happy to go with Fmod because of the reasons you've both mentioned regarding fees and restrictions. 

I hadn't seen the audiokinetic one before but I was thinking of the FModtv Youtube Channel too, in keeping with the price restrictions :) Could be an option but I appreciate not everyone likes to learn through video.
I think that, with all of us working together, we'll actually learn a lot more, regardless of our chosen medium for learning, than if we learned alone so I'm feeling really positive about it.

Honestly, I'm happy for you guys to choose but am equally happy to vote if it's a hung jury!

I'm fine with learning through videos :) Like you guys said, this is going to be a real beast, and im still tring to get to rope with DAWs, but I'm ready to tackle it with you guys! I remember the first time I figured out that the music in the game I was playing was changing dynamically around me, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever, so I'm ready to learn!

@James, what are your thoughts on the last 9 posts?

@Robert I will review this tonight when I have a bit more time to review it thoughtfully.  Thank you all for your opinions and helping with the team.

Thanks,
James Fleming

@Robert I did a short review of FMOD website can you explain to me more in-dept of what its for and why we needed.  I am sorry but the audio field is something I lack in.

The fact that its free to Indie is probably the winner software compared to the others.  We have to make due with what we can get our hands on for now.

Thanks,
James Fleming

@James

Fmod (and Wwise) is middleware. I guess the best way I can explain it is where sound design meets programming. This program will allow us as sound designers to create sfx and music effects for the game without bothering programmers too much (at least I hope).

As I said earlier, I am not proficient at this due to the fact that I don't know how it will tie in with the Xenko game engine .(I really wish I did, this is one challenge I really would like to figure out the programming side) Other game engines (Unity and Unreal) are able to use this. I am not sure if Xenko will.

Here Is a youtube video to get an idea of what it is: (Using Unreal)  https://youtu.be/K64sGI9cKEg 


I think we would need help from the programmers to figure this out. But I also think this would let our creative potential be done without hindering programmers too much. It would let us create events or trigger sounds exactly how we would want them to sound in game.

Thanks for taking the time to look this through.

-Robert

@Robert I know Xenko might have a plugin by now see the links below.  After you review these why dont you make an agenda for a programmer to research it and see what we can do.

https://github.com/SiliconStudio/xenko/issues/190

https://github.com/SiliconStudio/xenko-deps/blob/master/NativePath/NativePath.h


This is pretty awesome what other exporting ability does it have?  At this point that would be the only way to use it by exporting to *.wav files.  Just in case Xenko does not have a plugin.

Thanks,
James Fleming

Seems like they have been working on this!

I will make an agenda soon!

I believe another neat feature is to make interactive music. i.e. Have a cool change in chord progressions when an enemy gets near. Then intensify it when they start attacking.

Hey guys, here are some articles of how DICE created the SFX for Star Wars Battlefront, they should be helpful since there are lots of sci fi sounds in them. I'm really thankful for these articles because when I read the first one, that's when I decided I wanted to pursuit sound design as a career. http://starwars.ea.com/starwars/battlefront/news/creating-the-sounds-of-star-wars-battlefront http://starwars.ea.com/starwars/battlefront/news/sounds-of-star-wars-battlefront-part-1 http://starwars.ea.com/starwars/battlefront/news/sounds-of-star-wars-battlefront-part-2 http://starwars.ea.com/starwars/battlefront/news/sounds-of-star-wars-battlefront-part-3

Awesome, thanks Shayn!

This may or may not be useful for the last stand, but it may be of interest to you guys: https://youtu.be/re0PaEEbPVE

@James, I seem to only get updated by mail sporadically. Do you have any idea why this would be? This was the main reason I went off the radar before as I thought we were waiting for progress and came back to find lots of sniper sounds etc ha ha!

Lots of good stuff here guys. Thanks for the links. I read that about Battlefront, it's good stuff. There's also a good one on XCOM: The Bureau somewhere. Hopefully I saved it to Pinterest and can dig it out for you to look at.

On a different note, something we put on the backburner a while ago was setting up the Soundcloud account for Audio from The Last Stand. We were waiting for artwork from the game but this is something I'd like to pick up again, if that's ok Rob. What do you think?

@Shayn Haha, I love SciShow. I watch it most of the time. I don't recall seeing this one. Thanks for the share.

@Sean I think James sent you a message saying that the system automation set you as "resigned".
He may have corrected this, but if you are still having issues I would send him a message.

If you would like to continue with soundcloud, i'd say go for it. As far as the art goes...I'm not sure.



Have a great weekend guys!

@Sean The whole system is set to only send one email per request until you have seen it.  Then it will repeat itself one email until you come to the site to review it.  This stop the system from spamming everyone.

Outside of that I did find a bug in the system that was stopping it from running yesterday which is why we have not been getting update emails.  This has been fixed.

Oh and you where set to resign by the automation system because of an issue with the join date this also was fixed.  You are the first person to go resign and then come back so it is the first time we have seen this issue.  We normally use a Leave of Absence but in either case it worked out.  We are glad to have you back.

Thanks,
James Fleming

Sorry guys, FMOD is a no go with Xenko. We will keep going as we were. 
http://www.thoucurator.com/agenda/viewagenda?agendaid=1176

Perhaps in the near future.

@James, Thanks mate, that all makes sense. So I'm the first to come out of retirement, like Rocky ha ha!