Assignment 2 Creating and applying sounds to a specific game

BTEC Extended Diploma in Games Development

Unit 73: Sound for Computer Games

Plan for the weeks:

·       Week 1

Think about emotion and atmosphere
Consider whether I want the sounds to be mono or stereo - Stereo

What platform is it going to be on – PC/Phone

File Conventions – MP3 (Compressed)

Pitch – Relatively high

·      Week 2

Record sounds

Create Music tracks (Garage Band?)
5 sounds FXs and 2 tracks

Sound FX for =   Picking up an item
                        Jumping

                        Using the lever
                        Rocks breaking

                        Next Level teleporter

Music Tracks for = Main menu

                            Levels

·       Week 3

Edit the recorded sounds using Adobe Audition/Audacity

Edit Music tracks if needed

Put them in the game

Write about the process

·       Week 4

Finishing writing about the process of how I recorded/edited sounds

Start on the evaluation

Finish evaluation by the end of the week

What I have decided to do is create sound effects and music for two games. I have made 3 music tracks for the Space Invaders game and 4 Sound effects and then I have made 2 music tracks for my Snowball platform game and a sound effect for collecting pickups.

The software that I used to edit the sounds was GarageBand, GoldWave ,SoundTrap and Adobe Audition. For the music tracks I used GarageBand and SoundTrap. GarageBand is a piece of music software available on Macs and SoundTrap is an online music website in which is similar to GarageBand however you are limited to what tracks you use.

Music Tracks: Space Invaders

The image above shows the two tracks I have chosen which loop to create a music track for the Space Invaders game. The music track created is for the main menu of the game. I believe that the atmosphere this song gives is a relaxed, sci-fi atmosphere. The top pink track in the image has long soft notes and the purple track beneath the pink one has short notes repeated to create a catchy tune. I thought the Synth instrument was best for the space themed music I was going for due to it's techno sound.

The image above shows 3 tracks, 2 synth tracks and a beat track. The two synth tracks mix well with one another as one track is a high pitch synth and one is a low pitch. The last dark purple track is the beat. I made it fade in slowly until a new bar started. This fade in track builds up anticipation and then it plays in full when a new bar starts. Towards the end of the track, I have made the beat track fade out in a similar fashion to the start of the track so that the full track would loop perfectly.

The image above displays the tracks used for the boss music for the Space Invaders game. The top two tracks are beat tracks and the bottom track is a synth track. Again, I used synth because it gives off a sci-fi vibe and is very techno. The problem I had with the top track was that, when listening to the track through my laptop the bass wasn't coming through. The bass was so low that the integrated speakers couldn't support it. However, when listening to through my headphones I could hear the bass. Considering this game can be a PC/Phone game, when playing on the PC, using headphones, peripheral speaker and earphones are most preferable, when playing on a phone, earphones are preferable but if you use the integrated speakers then this track wouldn't give off a strong tense vibe as it would with the bass.

Sound Effect: Boss Grunt (Space Invaders)

I recorded 4 sounds for the boss grunt sound effect and I chose 3 out of the 4 sounds to edit. The reason behind why I chose 3 out of the 4 sounds to edit was because 2 of the sounds were near enough the same. I had the idea of using all 3 sounds in the game and it will alternate between which sound is played when the boss is hit. This makes it more interesting and less boring for the player to hear the same sound effect being repeated. The changes I made was I made the sound stereo, changed the depth of the sound to 37.6% and added a flanger to 160%. The flanger makes it sound like the 2 of these grunt noises are being played at the same time.

This image above shows what I used to alter the pitch of the sound. I reduced the pitch down to 75 and I kept the tempo because when you make something sound deeper the slower the sound plays. I wanted to keep the speed of what it already plays. Changing the pitch gave me the desired result I was looking for, a deep grunt noise for the boss.

Sound Effect: Bullet Noise (Space Invaders)

The image above shows I have recorded someone in GoldWave making the same noise 5 times. I knew that it wouldn't be the same each time so I listened through them and picked the one I preferred the most.

I wanted to speed up the sound so that it had more of a laser bullet sound effect, quick and short. The image above shows how I managed to speed up the sound. I chose the FFT algorithm because this section changes the length of the wavelength without the pitch changing.

After changing the speed of the sound, I felt like there was something missing. Although the sound was quick and short like I wanted it to, it still didn't sound much like a laser/bullet sound. The image above shows how I got the desired sound effect for the players bullet. I used the pre-set "wobble". What this did was add a wobble to the sound. The pre-set frequency bar was originally at 20, I changed it from 20 to 15.743.

Sound Effect: Pick-up (Snowball Game)

I wanted to create a sound for when the player has picked something up/collected something. When the sound is played the player will know for sure that they have picked up something/collected it. I first recorded someone making a sound effect for me which was 3 sounds close together. However, when recording, the first part of the recording was quite quiet. The image above shows how I managed to equal the loudness amongst the three sounds. As you can see in the "Presets" section, I used a pre-set called "Equal loudness". This allowed all 3 parts of the recording to match the same decibel level.

The image above shows how I managed to achieve the final form of the desired sound effect. As you can see in the "Presets" area,  I used a pre-set called "Speed Up" and what this did was change the yellow line which was straight across from 1.0 to it going diagonally up. I then added points into the middle which gave the sound effect a whole different sound, you can hear the pitch changing slightly.

Snowball Game:

The image above displays how I imported the sounds/music into my Snowball Game.

The screenshot above shows the names of what I called the sounds/music so it was easy for me to input them in code.

The image above and below shows the code I used to make the sound/music work in game.

The video above did have annotations and images with it, it was also exported as a MPEG-4 video and it didn't show up. However, you can still hear all of the sounds in the video in which I have used in the two games. The image below is a screenshot of all the annotations and images I used to create the video and it also shows the length of the sounds/music.

Evaluation:

When it came to input the sounds and music into GameMaker, I realised that the music was too loud and you couldn't hear the sound effect sounds. What I had to do was go back into the sound file and edit it again and brought up the decibel level, not too high so that the sound was distorted but loud enough. It wasn't my original intention to work on the Space Invaders inspired game however, I really liked what ideas I had for the sounds and music. I think that the music fits in well for each section it is assigned to, especially the boss music. With the snowball game, I found it quite difficult to make a piece of music and sound effects for the game. I wanted to create a happy/cheery atmosphere but then when I added the InGame music, it gave off a lonely, cold atmosphere. I believe that the music I created to play in the game actually fitted the game well. When playing the Space Invaders inspired game with all the sounds and music in, I believe that it all worked really well and playing the snowball game, it also worked really well even though I did not put in as many sound effects or pieces of music in the game. 

The plan in which I had created at the start of the project was not the plan that I followed. Below are images of my written notes for what sounds I wanted to create, what software I wanted to use, what file extensions I wanted and so on. Furthermore there are written notes of what I decided to do in the end. The reason behind I why I chose to work on the Space Invaders game too was because I had more of an idea of what sort of sounds and music I wanted.