Creation Process
Creating audio assets for Uranus Attacks was a fun and challenging experience.
Below are samples of audio assets created for this two level platform game.
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After Reviewing the Game Uranus Attacks without sounds, I started to imagine type of sounds that would work for this game. I realized this game consists of a UFO space ship that shoots creatures from two different planets with a vaporizer. While brainstorming for sound Ideas that would fit the concept of this game, I would think about retro Si Fi UFO movies. My ultimate goal for this game in particular was to create sounds that make the gamer think of classic UFO films, Maybe bring the gamer back to a time when they were up late at nite flipping through channels and stumbled upon a classic UFO film like H G Wells, WAR OF THE WORLDS or Fred F Sears, EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS, omong other's. Presenting sounds that may give a similar feeling to the gamer as classic films like these would.
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MY CREATIVE VISION
FOR
Uranus Attacks
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For the engine I recorded the sound of my cars motor running with a zoom H5. Using Pro Tools I created a seemless loop then used the Pro Tools Air Phaser and Pro Tools EQ 7 to achieve the spaceship engine sound. The first draft of this audio asset the sound source was an electric toothbrush. I really liked the sound. My Peers and instructor suggested that the engine had too much high end sound and needed more low end power. my instructor recomended using another sound source. So I did just that and it worked well for the ship engine audio asset.
For the Vaporizer I recorded a power drill with the zoom H5. This asset was edited in Pro Tool utilizing a small fade in the beginning and at the end of the audio clip. Pro Tools effects used were air frequency shifter, Maxim and drawn automation to achieve this sound. For this asset my goal was to get a Pressurized squirting sound for the ships vaporizer. This asset was inspired by classic si fi UFO films and modern UFO video games. The first draft of this was too thin and lacked power, My Peers and instructor suggested cutting the high end and increasing the bass and thats exactly what I did to get this sound complete.
Planet Kraktoh, comming up with am idea for Planet Kraktoh was an easy decision. I envisioned a cold wasteland of a Planet and this running water worked out nicely to aid in creating this ambience. Recorded with the Zoom H5. The low rumbling sound was produced by useing the Time Compression tool (TCE) after that Normalize and EQ 7 was rendered then created a seemless loop with crossfades. My first draft was in fact time streched too far and my instructor suggested I redo this asset with less of a time stretch and as you can hear it was a great suggestion.
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Planet Dkuk, a table saw compliments of my friend Dustin who was kind enough to let me record on of his tools. I have to say a table saw can produce a great foundation for an ambience loop. Recorded with the zoom H5 this asset was fun to work on. For this asset the TCE tool was use to slow down and lower the tone of the Table saw. Air Vintage Filter plug in was used to help represent a hot firey Planet Dkuk. Like Planet Kraktoh in the first draft I overstretched the time compression. I made did make some corrections. Instructor Pinsky suggested to time stretch this asset less and he noticed a pop in his DAW that was not present in mine. It was suggested by my instructor to bounce the track in place and it worked. The pop was caused by having the Vintage filter plugged in while bounceing the wav file causing a problem with my loop. So this was a good lesson in problem solving.
The Barnaby, this audio asset was created by recording my dog Sweetheart barking with the Zoom H5. I wanted to capture her voice because she has unique sound when she barks. She kind barks with a little howl at the end, almost like she is trrying to speak. The process of bringing her voice to life as a Barnaby in the Uranus Attacks project, first I cut out the three variations of her voice that I thought that would work the best for this project. After that was done I would time stretch the clips to two seconds with the TCE tool, this made her voice a little deeper, Each clip was topped and tailed. The explosion effect was created by using Air Lo-Fi plug with drawn automation on the sample rate. My peers suggest this sound offered a convincing cry of pain to help bring more exitement to the game Uranus Attacks. also my instructor enjoyed the sound so there was no reason to change anything in this audio asset.
The Fnoons in the game are creature that resemble humanoid pigs getting vaporized. and I needed a scary sound to show that the creature was in serious pain. The sourse of the Fnoon asset was a wav called chicken hen house clucks used from westarmusic,com free sound library. In Pro Tools I cut out three variation clips of the loud Cluck sounds and Used the TCE Tool to stretch each asset to two sec's, top and tailed each clip inserted air low fi and drawn in automation to get the explosion sound at the end. These assets went over well with my peers and instructor they did not want me to change anything.
Tel In/Tel Out This asset was inspired by sound desighner David Farmer. While viewing one of his youtube video's regarding what sound desighners do he mentioned capturing the sound of a toilet flush. I thought this would be great for my teleport sound asset so I decided to give this a try and it worked.
To create this asset I recorded a toilet bowl while flushing it with a zoom h5. This asset was edited in Pro Tools, I trimmed the middle of the flush sound out, than attach the beginning and ending of the flush together making sure that the transition is clean creating a crossfade. this asset was Topped and Tailed After that inserts Air Phaser and dynamic delay were added to help create a teleport sound. To create teleport out I used the same asset reversed.
This audio asset worked the first time and my Peers and instructor gave approval of the first draft.
Gameplay Example
Uranus Attacks
Final Reflection
During my time creating and implementing audio assets for the game Uranus Attacks, I found many new challenges and obstacles to venture through. Although this project was challenging I did enjoy what I was doing very much. The work I am proudest of during this adventure of game sound design would be the Fnoons, the reason I feel this way about this asset in particular is the simple fact that everything worked as planned the first time all of my clients enjoyed this asset I was happy with how the explosion effect worked with the painful scream of the Fnoon, everything about this asset just worked out as planned. What I learned from creating this asset will always be a useful tool for many future projects.
Throughout the creation process there were some tough challenges for me to hurdle. I found the Barnaby to be the most challenging. I started out creating this asset as planned by recording my little dog sweetheart. After finishing my first draft of the Barnaby and playing the assets variations back to make sure everything is sitting well with the way the assets sound. Something did not sound right with this asset. I took notice the Cry of pain coming from the Barnaby before the explosion sound was way too short. I could not let this go, so I just scrapped the entire Barnaby assets and remade them to make it better. The Barnaby cry of pain was longer and matched up better with the explosion sound. I was pleased with this asset in the end. So I learned it can be a good idea to start over again sometimes.
I would have to agree with some people who say that art is never done, I truly believe as long as you are working on an asset it is constantly growing like a tree. An asset that I think is the most developed today another asset may be considered the most developed tomorrow. Nonetheless in my work I believe the Vaporizer to be the most developed asset, due to the fact this went from a first draft that was good but had potential to be better due to lack of low end suggeted by my clients. I put a lot of time into getting this asset to sound the way it does now. This asset has gone through more development than the other assets and has grown to be a unique sound.
As for the asset that is least developed and could use some may get better over time and finally progress to a higher level would be the Barnaby. I did state earlier that I was happy with the sound of this audio asset. I can imagine this asset getting better. After listening to this asset over and over I think the explosion could be louder so therefore more development would only bring this asset help this asset grow.
If I could go back in time and let myself know what lies ahead, coming into this course. The advice I would give myself would be to slow down a little bit and give the audio assets more time to develope . I quickly learned sound designers need to keep moving with projects, I realize if you go too fast you may miss important information and details in a project.
I have to admit this course gave me a great workout in Pro Tools. From working in this course Project and Portfolio II, the skills I’ve learned combined with Pro Tools and its vast array of audio editing capabilities will prove useful for future projects. Many of the aspects learned in this course will carry over to other fields of audio production like creating and implementing sounds for movies as well as games. I believe that audio editing will be my bread and butter, without great editing skills any project would suffer. Another skill I’ve learned in this course that will be used in the future will be the use of plug ins and rendered effects. I like experimenting with different sounds and this course made that part of my DAW workstation skills increase by far, many future projects will definitely require effects and I will utilize these effect skillfully as well as artistically. For me this is only the beginning of this adventure. All of the Skills I’ve learned in this course will definitely be useful for years to come.