General ambience idea I knocked up

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jakegabb
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General ambience idea I knocked up

Post by jakegabb »

http://www.mediafire.com/?2qh3trws0b1694r

Hey I guess since there's only like 20 threads in here I'll end up spamming this whole place with a load of sounds (provided they get a good reception of course)

I've knocked up an ambience-scape draft type thing for interior ship based maps. I'm not really sure what the future would sound like, so I kept away from using stuff like steam sounds and old machinery type sounds and tried to come up with some random things that aren't identifiable as actually existing in this time period. Overall there's 3 layers to the ambience which I could split into 3 files if needed. Especially since at the moment the game isn't wanting to work on my computer so I only have youtube videos of people playing the game to go by. :(

The first is this rumbling bassy type whirring thing which I would assume you'd place on actual machinery and use as a 3d sound which gets louder and quiter as you get closer and further away, because otherwise it'd be obnoxious, but I made it as bassy as possible so if this game was played on a surround system it'd shake the house haha.

The second is this phasing whirring noise made out of the bass sound which represents the sort of midfrequency and actually sounds more like something that you'd hear in the future as a machine, it's more like an artist representation and I doubt machines would even make a noise in the future but that'd be boring to not listen to in a game like this ;)

The final layer is this sound that I can only really describe as high pitched miners chipping really fast at metal in a cave. But in context with the rest of it I think it sounds right. However, since this is a draft up I did, please throw criticism at me until I cry.

I'm done waffling now x

YOU ARE NOT REAL. - https://soundcloud.com/yanr

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seana11
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Re: General ambience idea I knocked up

Post by seana11 »

This doesn't sound very realistic imo... The 'high pitched miners' sound very much like small ball bearings being shaken in something. They aren't dissimilar enough to make a difference, and that's kindof screwing with my immersion. The lower pitched stuff doesn't sound like machinery at all... It just sounds like a quickly pulsating hum. I think a good idea would be to make this start and stop at the end of the loop to reenforce that this is a machine and not just some noise. Playing this every so often (maybe every 2.5 minutes) would add to the feel that this is something that turns on periodically.

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jakegabb
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Re: General ambience idea I knocked up

Post by jakegabb »

seana11 wrote:

This doesn't sound very realistic imo... The 'high pitched miners' sound very much like small ball bearings being shaken in something. They aren't dissimilar enough to make a difference, and that's kindof screwing with my immersion. The lower pitched stuff doesn't sound like machinery at all... It just sounds like a quickly pulsating hum. I think a good idea would be to make this start and stop at the end of the loop to reenforce that this is a machine and not just some noise. Playing this every so often (maybe every 2.5 minutes) would add to the feel that this is something that turns on periodically.

Cheers for your feedback! You're defo right about the realism, but I'd have to say, looking at the video up so far that I've been going by none of the sounds are particularly realistic and I personally quite like that. I'm thinking of films like star wars where the tie fighters are actually elephants that were modified loads (true story). I feel that for this game it's more about trying to create sounds that don't even exist since everything is based on aliens and sci fi.

Btw this is also my first sound design foray so I'm in the same position as you with the lack of tutorials :).

I guess this is the closest thing to a machine ambience I have that I've made before, but it was music based and I didn't really feel that it fitted with this cause it sounds like a factory (unless you see anything in it that could work), I'm finding it's really difficult to make specific sounds when you want to make them and really easy to make cool sounds when you never intended to: https://soundcloud.com/architect-sound/machine-death

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seana11
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Re: General ambience idea I knocked up

Post by seana11 »

jakegabb wrote:

Cheers for your feedback! You're defo right about the realism, but I'd have to say, looking at the video up so far that I've been going by none of the sounds are particularly realistic and I personally quite like that. I'm thinking of films like star wars where the tie fighters are actually elephants that were modified loads (true story). I feel that for this game it's more about trying to create sounds that don't even exist since everything is based on aliens and sci fi.

The sound doesn't have to be realistic, or even sound realistic. It just has to fit in the listener's mind. What I'm saying here is that that sound doesn't make sense. It doesn't really sound like something that would be a machine. It just sounds like some pulsating stuff.

Btw this is also my first sound design foray so I'm in the same position as you with the lack of tutorials :).

I guess this is the closest thing to a machine ambience I have that I've made before, but it was music based and I didn't really feel that it fitted with this cause it sounds like a factory (unless you see anything in it that could work), I'm finding it's really difficult to make specific sounds when you want to make them and really easy to make cool sounds when you never intended to: https://soundcloud.com/architect-sound/machine-death

That's an... interesting sound there. It feels like a bunch of rhythmic sounds mashed togather that don't particularly belong with each other. My musical sense likes the patterns that build up in the beginning, but they are broken at the point where you have the buildup of the percussion. There are 3 addidion percusion parts built up, but no fourth, and the music just kindof does the same thing for a few measures where it should be adding the new percussion. The piano also doesn't realy fit. Up until that point it has been all percussion, and sortof everything is in the same theme, but with the addition of piano, it breaks what was left of the song. You have either done a very nice job of creating art, or a very poor job of it.

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KenuR
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Re: General ambience idea I knocked up

Post by KenuR »

I think if you tone down the "pulsating" a bit it will be a lot better. Otherwise, I like it.

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Viech
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Re: General ambience idea I knocked up

Post by Viech »

Hi, I'm one of the level designers and I could use a background sound for my map Parpax. There are also the maps yocto, Platform 23 and Thunder that have no or only partial background sounds. Maybe you would like to play these maps and attempt to make fitting ambient noises for them? The idea is that they should be unobtrusive/subtle, nonrepetitive and atmospheric. They should add some life to the otherwise rather static maps. A good example is the game Arx Fatalis, where most of the atmosphere is conveyed using ambient sounds.

Responsible for: Arch Linux package & torrent distribution, Parpax (map), Chameleon (map texture editor), Sloth (material file generator), gameplay design & programming, artistic direction

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jakegabb
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Re: General ambience idea I knocked up

Post by jakegabb »

seana11 wrote:

You have either done a very nice job of creating art, or a very poor job of it.

Yeah yeah.

-

Hi, I'm one of the level designers and I could use a background sound for my map Parpax. There are also the maps yocto, Platform 23 and Thunder that have no or only partial background sounds. Maybe you would like to play these maps and attempt to make fitting ambient noises for them? The idea is that they should be unobtrusive/subtle, nonrepetitive and atmospheric. They should add some life to the otherwise rather static maps. A good example is the game Arx Fatalis, where most of the atmosphere is conveyed using ambient sounds.

Hey man, I'm down for trying that out! Unfortunately I'm having problems with making this game run on my OS so I'll have a little look see if I can make it work again and check some other posts and see if I got any replies back. I'll tone it down with the pulsation thing btw. I used too many instances of them haha. Overkill to the max

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seana11
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Re: General ambience idea I knocked up

Post by seana11 »

jakegabb wrote:

Yeah yeah.

But whichone is it? :P

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