K.Mills Development

Keyboard Cataclysm Sound Assignment, Evaluation

Through my assignment, I’ve had to produce sound effects and backing music to place within my flash point and click game. To create these sounds, I’ve had to use my own Foley work to develop sounds that could be used in the instance of my game.

 Using a sound recorder on my iPhone, I recorded the sounds that I wished. However, I felt that the quality wasn’t as good as I thought it could have been, but after editing the tracks in Audacity and Soundtrack Pro, I managed to create suitable sounds to implement within my game. The recordings seem clearer and more acceptable to be included within my game than if they were unedited.

 To create the background music, I used the digital instrumental sounds that were available to me in Garageband. Using piano, strings, woodwinds and more, I managed to create a perfectly acceptable music track that could be used within my game. Due to my creativity with the music creation, I structured another track that I would also use within my game.

 I didn’t create all of the sound effects that I had planned to include within the game, due to lack of time and recording apparatus that I had at my disposal. However, if I had more time and resources to further develop my sound assignment, I’d have improved on the recording of the sounds and included many more.

 To implement these within my game, I coded them in using Actionscript 3.0. As everything was already developed in Flash and Actionscript, the sounds were easy to include within it.

 Overall, I am pleased with the development of my sounds effects and music development. I understand the difficulties that arise when sounds and music are created, including formats, quality and more. I would most likely expand on the sound development in my own time. 

Download Completed Game

Recorded Sound Effects

After working on my vocal sounds, I began to work on the recording that are created using Foley sound creation. I’ve placed this into my game successfully, creating all the sounds that I’ve wanted to do for this assignment.

I started with the phone ringing. I thought that a traditional ringing wouldn’t be as effective when it came to the style of phone that I designed. It took me a while to think of what to include for the sound of the phone ringing; however after listening to a friend’s alarm tone, I recorded it to use within my game.

After some editing in Soundtrack Pro, I had a phone ring what I was satisfied with:

 

PhoneAlarmClock

 

Keeping to the phone, I had to develop a click for when the player hangs up the phone. Whilst playing on the Playstation 2 with a console gun for the controls, I liked the sound of the recoil for the hang up of the phone. Recording under the duvet cover (where most of the recordings took place to reduce echo noise), I created another sound for when the phone hangs up.

This took three attempts to complete, as I kept jumping at the noise and making a shuffling sound. However, after more editing in Audacity and Soundtrack Pro, I got my final result:

Download PhoneClickFakeGun

Next, I began to work on the key. I didn’t just want to drop or jingle some keys to make the sound, but be a little more creative. I took a bag of chocolate coin wrappers and shuffled them about close to the microphone. After recording the jingle of the coins, I edited a little more before I finally got my result. It was difficult to get the slight grinding noise from the track, but with a little help from family, it was disguised.

Download Keys

To make the sound of a door opening, I rattled the circular door handle at home, recording it with a microphone. As it wobbles noticeably, I decided that it would make a great noise for when the door is supposed to open. I ran into a problem with the house being too noisy to record the door in the beginning, but after asking everyone to leave, switching off anything that could prove a problem with the recordings (such as the TV, Radio, computer), I then recorded the sound what I’m now proud of using.

Download OpenTheDoor

Finally, I had to make a door “click” for the lock. I decided that locking my front door wasn’t the sound I was looking for, but I stumbled across the right sound by accident.

After turning off the light switch late at night, I thought that it would make a good noise. I pushed it to the back of my mind for a while, before I recorded it the next morning. After a little tweaking in soundtrack pro, I thought that it sounded okay to record for my door sound effect.

Download DoorClickLightSwitch

I tried to experiment a little more with my sounds and effects, hoping that it was an effective way. So far, I think that they serve the purpose they are supposed to do. 

Vocal Sound Effects

Today, I have made some changes to my planning and how the sound development for my game is going to be carried out. Other than this, I have implemented the majority of the sounds into my game, coded them to work and played alongside them.

First of all, I started to place three sounds into my game, all clipped and edited from a longer clip containing them all. This larger clip is the following: 

Download RecordingSteph

After ripping the three from this clip, I named them according to their role within the game. However, this is where my planning started to change, after I decided that I was going to include the sound to different aspects rather than those I initially chose.

I decided that I was going to have eggs to play a sound when they were clicked; this hasn’t changed. The clipped sound can be listened here:

Download EggClick

However, I wanted this following clip to activate when the main character is clicked:

Download Rei

I then changed my mind on this, and changed it to fit the character, Rei, as it sounds to be a cat’s yowl rather than a rabbit squeak. Rei was going to have a sound to be activated after she was clicked, giving a purring sound. However, I changed this yet again, to play when the ball of yarn is clicked.

Download Purr

Those were the three sounds clipped from the longer file above. They were from vocal sounds, created by Stephanie Chui for the sole purpose of this assignment. With permission, I have used them to be placed within my game.

These are the vocal sounds that I have implemented within my game. I was going to have the speech spoken out to each conversation, but it would become too difficult and cause more problems than I first thought. Instead, placing just a few background noises seems like an acceptable alternative.

Despite the change in planning, I’m pleased with the sounds that I have edited and where they have been placed. I’ll be working on non-vocal sounds next, and these will be taking the key from the hanger, opening the door, locking the door and the ringing and clicking of the phone. I’m also looking for a sound effect of the bird character, Zana. This could be created by recording birds singing, and hopefully placing that within the game too. 

Sound Design

Sound Design and Development

Audio Environment

As the sound media has grown and developed since the ‘80s, so has the environment and immersive methods that sound and audio has to give to those listening to it. This is no different in the gaming industry, but it applies with a slight difference.

Thinking back to 1980, when Pac-Man was released, it used simple 8bit music with monophonic, looped music what seemed to just bleep at different notes. At the time of development within the gaming industry, this was a breakthrough; sound in games had never been so advanced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chiptune2.ogg Here’s the example of the music that shook Japan, and then the rest of the world, by storm.

Now, in this day and age, we’re thinking “what on Earth...?” Of course, nothing can beat the classics, but when we compare that with the theme behind Valve’s Half Life series, it’s a completely different story. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUKcAo8AriM

Aside from the themes behind the scenes that introduce the games to the player, there’s also the sounds inside the game that give the player a much more immersive experience, so it actually makes them feel more interactively involved. These can vary between fast paced beats to indicate a happy, fast and adventurous game, or a slow, dismal, low-key tune that can be creepy and frightening.

Using Pac-Man and Half Life again as examples, we can see that there’s a key connection between the sounds and effects that the gameplay actually gives. Mono sounds in Pac-Man are classic, quick, speedy and exciting; everything that a colourful arcade game should be in the long run. They’re catchy and easy to recognise. This shows just how Pac-Man plays: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uswzriFIf_k  This music is a prime example of 8-bit music.

In further games developed, such as Half Life, there’s more action going in with the sounds itself, usually presented in a stereo format. For example, Half Life includes enemies that need to be attacked and combated against. These are easily recognized by the sounds they make ingame. Without these sounds, the gameplay is a little harder than it was planned to be. Here’s the example of Half Life dropships http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oae9btXTXm4

But that isn’t the only example. It’s beneficial when another enemy known as the “Head Crab” is heard, as it’s easier to identify where the enemy is located.

Soon, games may include more advanced sounds known as “3D sounds” which make the player aware of everything that’s around them in a 3 Dimention atmosphere. This is a very good example of that: http://gprime.net/flash.php/soundimmersion

Notice that wherever the sound is, it feels like that it is presented there in a real life atmosphere, not just in the headset.

Overall, it’s better with the sound in gameplay to identify what’s going on, and what’s going to happen later. For the games what do not include combat, the sound is best for making the player go faster, slower, warning them, congratulating them or just something to entertain them. A game without sound is known to be boring, and interest is often lost.

Audio Limitations of game platforms

In a technical side of things, there are many limitations in the audio aspect of quality and insertions in the past, and still in today’s media too. As the music industry has clearly advanced over the past few decades, so has the software and development that has been introduced too. But it’s not just music and sound that could be the limitations available in the quality and control of audio within games and films, but also storage space, processing, memory, anything that could be a problem with the performance of computers and situations as such.

Approximately 10 to 15 years ago, everyone still used Floppy Discs to store information. These contained approximately 800kB, or 1.4MB if the disc is high quality. These were the main form of portable storage, and those what weren’t so easily moved still contained very little. The quality of the 8-bit music was enough to fit into one of these cartages. This (now considered) poor quality of sounds in the media was actually the best of its kind in the game industry at that time.

Therefore, due to the limitations of storage and useable software to actually create sounds, the problems in the past were basically just that. As technology has advanced further in the media itself, it’s become a lot easier to develop perfectly acceptable music to use within the games and films that we view today. We now have more software, more storage, and more advancement in technology which makes producing a good piece of music to use within the entertainment industry.

However, despite how much our own software and development has advanced in the past years, it’s simply still not enough to create the best quality music and sounds to produce within a game that will run on machines that are not specially designed for that game itself. This means that the game will need to be played on as many platforms as possible without having to make special purchases just to run.

Further advancement in the scientific field in the research of developing computer development would be very beneficial to everyone, and despite the possible costly research, the games will pay for themselves in years to come by. Companies will be able to make more money due to the development of games that could be 3D in both graphics and sounds, playable on consoles that could just be upgraded instead of bought specifically.

Briefly, yes, everything has advanced, however it still hasn’t advanced enough to be classed as the “best of its time”. Audio is limited by performance, memory and processing within any industry. So far, it can only improve.

Audio recording systems

There’s different terms when it comes to audio, which are important when it comes to the development of sounds.

Sample Rate is measured in hertz, and these measure the rates of samples per second. Hertz are these samples. There’s approximately 44,000Hz in a single audio CD; this means 44,000Hz per second is measured by the sample rate. The Sample Rate limits the frequency range of the audio.

Bit Depth is measured in bits, describing the number of information in each sample of the audio sample. This is the resolution of the audio file, calculating the difference between standard and high definition in audio terms. Common examples of bit depth are CDs, what is recorded at 16 bits, and DVDs, which can be up to 24 bit.

Stereo channels are actually known as Stereophonic, but shortened to Stereo. These channels are pulled together to give the illusion of better sounds in more depth. This is due to the channels being separated into more than one, so sound can be balanced throughout the different channels that are available. For example, taking a headset and plugging it into a mobile phone makes it a lot better to listen to the song in more quality than not plugging it in at all. It’s not only that the sound speakers of the phone is in poor quality itself, but it’s the fact that the channels that come through the two wires in the headphones are duplicated, making a clearer and more directional listen to the audio. Stereo channels give music and audio a sense of direction by going down the different channels of sound.

Mono channels are actually known as monophonic, but shortened to Mono. This channel of sound is where all the audio channels and signals are fused together and channeled through one single audio channel. The signal from the Monophonic channels contains no level or arrival information that would simulate direction. It’s just one channel where all the sound is pushed around.

Sound file formats

There are different types of sound file formats; Uncompressed audio formats, lossless compression formats and lossy compression formats. These are the three major groups where the sound file formats are placed within, and the three groups that will be covered next. 

Uncompressed Audio Formats

Uncompressed audio formats contain the suffix of WAV, AIFF, AU or PCM. The one major format would be PMC, which is usually stored in a WAV file or AIFF file. These are flexible file formats designed to aid almost any combination of sampling or bit rates. These are great formats for archiving old recordings, and the ones that are first created (the original recordings). BWF is a format what permits metadata to be stored within a file. This is the primary format used in professional audio stations due to the quality and timestamp references that the format enables to save. For this reason, I think that the games industry will use the BWF file.

Lossless compression

Lossless compression audio formats contain the suffix of FLAC, APE, WV, TTA, ATRAC, M4A, MPEG, WMA Lossless and SHN. These store less data by removing the unnecessary data within the file. Uncompressed audio formats encode both sound and silence with the same number of bits per unit of time. This means that if you make an uncompressed minute of silence, it would produce a file that’s the same size as making an uncompressed audio file. The quality of sound would decrease with lossless compression; therefore the games industry wouldn’t use this.

Lossy compression

Lossy audio formats contain the suffix of MP3, AAC, ATRAC and WMA Lossy. These make even greater reductions in the compression, further distorting the file size and sound quality. The most popular format type is MP3, but with AAC coming close behind. The quality that this produces would not be used in the games industry due to the compression severity. 

Music Creation - Editing Tracks

Today, I've been editing the tracks that I've been using to make the background music for my flash game. Last week, I created the basics to my track, but it was rather messy. This is what I ended up with last week.

 

Draft 3

 

However, it's not hard to tell that there are some stray notes there that really need fixing in order to give the track that little bit of a professional finish. So, using garageband again, I manually fixed the notes to fit into the bars at equal lengths. 

 

This is how my garage band looked like to start with. See the lines and dashes? They are the notes and keys that I played. They are terribly out of line with one another, as you can clearly tell. We need to change this by manually adjusting this. Eventually, it ended up like this:

They are so much clearer now, and the track seems to go a little more smoothly than before. Let's take a listen:

 

Draft 4

 

Better, right? In some sense, yes. However, a friend of mine listened to Draft 3 and - apart from the odd notes here and there - said that the "hissing" sound was bothering them. Looking back at the track in Garageband, I noticed that the volumes were up for certain parts of the band itself. This is how it was to begin with:

I decided that yes, Falling Star was a little loud to be played in the background of the track itself. I also felt that it was not necessary for the pianos to be so loud also. So, switching around the volumes to give it a more "string" and "wood" effect, I increased the volume of the violins and the flute to make them the main lead of the song itself. I also included another instrument just to make it that little bit better in terms of flow and how the music went along. This is what the volume screen ended up like: 

After including the Thumbstroke Bass, I felt that the musical piece was a little more informative than if it had not been included. Also, the sounds are a little less heavy on the irritating hissing that was pounded through our ears. This is the music track so far:

 

Draft 5

I'd like to work on this a little more; maybe changing the notes and extending the song completely, but I'd just like to see it fit in with the game itself. For now, I'm going to experiment with other instruments available in the program itself, and see how it goes from thereon. 

 .:Edit:.

After working on another piece of music, I decided to look at the comparison of both the previous composition of music and the one that took less than a day to produce. This is the new music track that I have created: 

Newsong

This has more of a composed tune to it, and it makes it sway softly. It's something that can be identified as a legitimate song and soundtrack to a game, possibly identified as belonging to the game I created itself. 

However, I do not like how this loops to return to the same drum start and entrance than I created it with. For the reason of looping, I will use the newsong to be a title or end song rather than the looped throughout the game. Despite taking such a short time on this piece, I'm actually going to use it within my game itself. 

Maybe because I just like it so much. 

Draft 4 (loop song)

Newsong

 

Music Creation

During today, I've been using Garage Band to create a music soundtrack to accompany my game. As this is the first time using Garage Band, I've found it rather tricky to get around the features. However, I've managed to create a successful piece of music what I plan to loop throughout the game. 

My game is an easy, peaceful and flowing point and click, where the character has to collect eggs. It's not judged on the speed that the eggs have to be collected, and it encourages exploration. 

My first draft I got distracted with, finding it a little difficult to concentrate whilst playing the music. Therefore, it did get a little odd when it came to the notes; I was out of timing and out of tune for the most part, but this was my first draft after all. 

Draft 1

I elaborated on the Draft 1, redoing the keys and making sure that everything was working to a standard that I liked. 

I started with the Piano instrument to use as the base of the music. This gives the whole base of the soundtrack for the game, using the same combination of notes to paste onto other layers. 

Grand piano

Using the same notes from the Piano, I then went on to copy them onto the electric keyboard

Electric piano

And the guitar. 

Guitar

I then changed the notes for the Flute and Violin parts, using the same notes together. These are different to the other notes, but aren't too far from them. 

Flute

Violin

Finally, I added the "Falling Star" effect, just to give something to cover the "Blank" parts of the music, creating elegance and a professional polish. 

Falling Star

Together, the sounds form this:

Draft 2

After editing some stray notes, I finally created draft 3.

Draft 3

This will be edited and changed in the future, but for now this is satisfactory. 

The first draft of notes that I created were just jotted down quickly, before I began to edit and neaten them up a little bit. Eventually, it lead to the guideline and music sheet that I used to create the final composition of the music. 

This is the first draft of the music I  thought of:

Second Draft of first line.

Third Draft:

Fourth Draft with the inclusion of Chords:

Fifth Draft; rough music sheet:  

Final Draft: Music Sheet

Character Vocal Scripts

Scene 1:

Conversation Script:

KREAM: Hello?
ZANA: Kream! I’m so glad you answered!
ZANA: It’s Zana, and I really need your help...
KREAM: Zana! What can I help you with?
ZANA: Oh Kream, it’s terrible!
ZANA: I’ve lost my eggs in the storm last night
ZANA: All ten of them!
KREAM: Oh no! How can I help?
ZANA: Please may you go find them for me?
KREAM: Of course I will! I’ll see you soon!
ZANA: Bless you, Kream. Thank you.

Error Script:

“There’s no need to go outside...”
“What do I need this for?”
“You need to unlock the door!”

 Scene 2:

Help text:

“You locked the door.”

Error Script:

“You need to lock the door first!”

Scene 4:

Conversation script:

KREAM: Rei!
REI: Huh? Oh, hey Kream. What’s up?
KREAM: Zana’s lost her eggs. I’m finding them for her.
KREAM: Have you seen any around here?
REI: Yeah, I’ve seen a few.
REI: I think that there’s some around, actually.
REI: I have one here too, but I don’t want to give it up.
KREAM: Why not?
REI: I lost my ball of Yarn in the storm.
REI: If you could bring it back, I’ll give you this egg.
KREAM: All right, I’ll find your yarn.
REI: I saw it go near your house. Maybe you could check over there?
KREAM: Will do!

Error Script:

“The purple fluff ball shakes her head. You’re not ready to go up there yet!”

Scene 6(b):

Conversation Script, Game End:

ZANA: Kream! Have you found my eggs?
KREAM: Yes! They are here, all ten of them!
ZANA: Thank you so much! This means a lot to me
KREAM: It’s not a problem. Keep them safe now!
ZANA: I will, I won’t let them out of my sight, I’m sure.

Conversation Script, Not finished:

ZANA: Kream! Have you found my eggs?
KREAM: I don’t have them all...
ZANA: Oh... please find them soon! I worry...
KREAM: Don’t worry Zana, I’ll find them!

Voice Over Planning

Within the game of "Little Hoppings", there will be voice overs from the three characters that lay inside it. These three characters will be spoken by three difference voice actors for the assigned Character of theirs.

As well as the characters having a voice over, there will also be a small sound that will play whenever an egg is collected. This will, again, be used by a voice over actress who voices the main player character.

Here's the plan for the voice acting:

 

See the game at its current state, uploaded on deviantART

 

Sound Time Plan

The following sounds will be inserted into my Point, Click, Win game of a happy, Easter theme. The sounds that will be created will be inserted into various aspects of the game, making it as realistic as possible (sound-wise).

I will be using Audacity, a free alternative program to Micosoft’s Sound Recorder. This can be used as a recorder and editor for sounds that have been created, offering exportation in a variety of sound file formats.

I will be using the highest quality sound file format when it’s exported, which will most likely be WAV files, uncompressed. This is because I will be editing and changing the sounds at a later date, and I wouldn’t want the sound to become distorted over a period of use.

The following is my plan of what sounds I’m going to make, what they should be made as, and how I’m planning to make them. Hopefully, everything will go as I have planned and the sounds will perform perfectly for the flash game I’m going to produce.

 

Download Planning -- Microsoft Excel File containing a plan for the development of my scenes.

More blogs to follow continuing the progress of Sound with the Games Development Course.