David Demko Final Project

After a brief run around of the "Red Square" map, I had some ideas floating around in my head concerning the vibe and aesthetic I wanted to create. First of all, I needed two types of ambience; one for the outdoor parts of the map, and one for the indoor parts. I chose to tackle the outdoor ambience first, considering it would be the main sound the player would hear.

The Red Square map gives off cold, dark, and miserable vibes (see video above.)  I made ambient loop that (to me) sounded like a cold, windy night and an overall uninviting atmosphere. For the indoor atmosphere I created a low frequency hum in an attempt to simulate the low frequencies of the outdoor ambience.  There really is not much else to that ambience, it is supposed to be very simple.  However, to create the effect that the room is mostly soundproof, I created a reverb volume around the indoor room and set the indoor and outdoor parameters to zero (0) so that none of the outdoor ambience comes in and none of the indoor ambience goes out.  This gives the player a very strong indication that they are in a totally separate room.

I created 6 different stingers to accompany the ambiences in the map. Three of them were individuals screaming out in terror or pain. The Red Square map gives off a vibe of a russian labor camp, so it only seemed fitting that there might be people being tortured or something of that nature somewhere near by.  Other sounds I used as stingers include the cracking of a whip (again the labor camp idea,) the sound of a hammer hitting an anvil several times, and a ghostly frequency sweep that might make a player look around suspiciously.  Most of my stingers were pulled from free online sound libraries and unchanged for the most part.  The only one that I modified was the hammer hitting the anvil. It was originally two different one shot sounds, so I made a file and copied each of the sounds into it a couple times to avoid making it repetitive.

For the teleporter, I felt that it needed an electric sound to give off the effect that it might be somewhat primitive in its design (kind of like the portal at the beginning of the first Hellboy movie.) The sound for using the teleporter is synthesized to sound like a time warp of sorts. The sound is bright and quick and alerts the player that they have just been transported to another part of the map. I was shooting for a somewhat futuristic sound for the use of the teleporter, considering that the game either takes place in the future, or perhaps in this case, in Soviet Russia with futuristic technology implemented.

For the jump pad, I used a sound that I am finding very difficult to describe right now.  To give it my best shot, I think it sounds like a pulsing energy fountain. When the player is standing in proximity to it, they will definitely be able to tell that the jump pad is what is making that peculiar sound.  The sound of using the jump pad was a loud, low-end heavy "whoosh" that gives the user the feeling that they are flying through the air. I think the aesthetic for that sound fits, considering the player is flying through the air when they use the jump pad (duh.) Given more time to work on this map, I may have chosen to add an alternative sound for the use of the jump pad or implemented settings to randomize the pitch slightly. I felt like my jump pad use sound also fit the general aesthetic of the UT3 game itself, not specifically for the map.

The aforementioned reverb volume keeps the jump pad sound from bleeding into the teleporter room, and also prevents you from hearing the teleporter when you are outside, next to the jump pad.  Speaking of the teleporter, I would have also liked to have had more time in order to stop or change the teleporter sound that occurs when you walk through it and are on the roof.  I felt like the sound i created was out of place up there considering there was no graphic attached to the sound.

Overall, I was trying to create a sense of realism, but also with a little imaginative fantasy with my sound palette.  I want the user to be fully immersed into the game, however still noticing some of the less real elements (weapons, teleporters, jump pads, etc whatever whatever.)  I feel like I accomplished that on a basic level, along with the atmosphere I created to encompass all of the other sounds. With more time I could have probably made it even better.

AIA Music Project

AIA_UDK_RacerMusicDemo_DavidDemko.m4v

Considering the fact that I am not great at original compositions, I chose to use Apple loops to create the music for my racer game.  I started out by taking into consideration what kind of music was used in other racing games such as Mario Kart or Need For Speed. The first thing that came to mind was that the music was often upbeat and fast paced, I felt this was a quality that would fit the task at hand.  Another thing I took into consideration was the fact that the game I was creating music for was futuristic and the player races in a hovercraft. After weighing all of this, I got to work (if you could even call it that.)

I felt that the music should have a consistent beat throughout, so I chose a single house drums loop and stuck with it.  To add some variety to it, I found a group of cheesy pop synthesizer loops that I felt fit in with the fast tempo and futuristic aesthetic. After analyzing them, I decided I wanted to approach the design in a way that would make it sound like a logical progression. I achieved this by picking the least tense synth loops and using them for the first lap. The second lap's loops (say that ten times fast) are slightly more tense, to portray a slight sense of urgency like "hey, it's time to get serious, we have a race to win!" The third lap has the most intense music, which gives the player a feeling that its crunch time and that the race is not to be taken lightly anymore (it is a matter of life and death, afterall.)

Other than the standard lap loops that play throughout the race, there are other pieces of music that I implemented into this map/game. One of which is the music that plays when you pilot your hovercraft through one of the green booster blocks.  I kept the same drum beat I had used with the rest of this music for this part to keep everything consistent, however I chose a loop from a different set of sounds to mix it up a little bit.  The loop was a little more chill and not quite as sharp as the other loops I had used. I felt that it had more of a "cruising" vibe to it, which seemed appropriate for the part of the game where you are boosting.

The other non-lap music I created was the sound that alerts you that you are in first place. After seeing how mine sounded in the game, I would have liked to have had a second chance to go back and change it, unfortunately I was unable to. I used another loop that sounded more like a notification than an actual loop and started on an odd time. It is in the same key, meter, and tempo, but I still feel like it is sticking out a little more than I would like in some parts. Given the opportunity to re-do this particular part, I would likely have sequenced some hi hat sounds to layer over the initial drum beat.

The sounds are implemented into the game using sound cues.  These sound cues in particular are relatively simple in my opinion (the rest of the coding is a headache!) If I recall correctly, we simply hooked up a randomizer node to the speaker in each sound cue for the lap music sequences.  The randomizers have two inputs, for the 'A' and 'B' music sequences for each lap. The randomizer simply chooses one of the two sequences at random and plays it, before the sound cue is re-triggered.

The sound cues are set up to work on a timer that sounds flawless with the specific tempo and number of bars we used in creating our music. The sound cues for the other two sounds work a little differently.  For instance, the sound cue for the boost music is programmed to play the music when you have driven through one of the green booster blocks on the track. This triggers the boost sound and action to engage after the previous loop has finished playing. The first place sound cue is programmed to play at the same time as the lap music, while the boost cue is a standalone sequence. These cues do not have the randomizer node in them because they are only playing one sound.