This week work had to do with taking the music and sound files that I had worked on for this project and put them into packets and script the sounds for the characters for our teams game. This did not run a smooth as I was hoping for, for this part of the process of the game making. I ran into quite a few set backs in this last stage of our project.
Last week when I started putting the remainder of the sound and music files into UDK packets, I notice a couple of the music files would not import into UDK. All the sound and music files where .wav files (which UDK should not have a problem with), but a couple of them would not import. It turn out to be a convert problem from my Pro-Tools system, when I bounce the track into the .wav file. All that was needed was to reconvert them .wav files in a converter that I have on my computer and all was fine.
A second thing that worked against me was the levels on some of the sounds and music files where low, when playback on my PC. I had to redo this tracks to give them enough levels without distorting the sound quality (mixing) that went into it. I went through every file checking levels into Pro Tools, adding gain if need be, and evening redoing some tracks. When all this was finished I had to remake my sound and music packet again, since it was updated. This took me the longest to do, but I really didn't mind it since this is what I live for.
The last thing I needed to do was work on the scripting of sound cues for each character (six total). This proved to be the wost for me. I never have done scripting before in UDK or any game engine before, wanted this challenge.....well I got it. I want to learn more about sound for gaming and get my hands on everything (or as much as possible for this project) dealing with sound, so I pushed to do the scripting for sound. Well, I got a quick lesson of it from my teacher on scripting and thought I had it down. I worked on the scripts a couple of days and was unsure if I was doing it right.
Today I brought the scripts to one of my teammates Tate to put into our game engine to make sure that they worked properly, unfortunately they did not. Our teacher Prof. Santello looked at the scripts and pointed out where I went wrong and how I need to do these scripts.
I did learn a lot from these experiences this pass week, that is for sure. If I could redo this week again I would definitely make some changes. Some of the changes I would make would be making a sound packet for each character, a packet for weapons, the tank, and miscellaneous sounds (beside just dividing the .wav files in file folders) instead of lumping the sounds in one packet. Another thing I would change is making sure when I did one scripted send it Santello first, have him check it out, then I would send the script to my teammate Tate to make sure it worked. As for the sound levels, I looked as I broke even on this. It was unfortunate to go through all the files to check the levels, but in return I reedit some sounds, deleted extra copies of sounds, remixed some other sounds, and even added some new sounds for the characters. Well, that is it for this week. Until next week....
Friday, October 14, 2011
Friday, October 7, 2011
Music For The Game
This is the last real part of the game I had to put together for our game, which is the music. This was quite a bit of a change to me. I'm not much of a song writer. I only write when something comes to me, for instance like when I'm playing around on my guitar or piano with chords, sounds, or just playing around with notes. Another way I come up with ideas for songs are in dreams or when I'm calm and relax (could be driving in my car, watching a movie, or even in class). When I'm force to come up with ideas for music class or even this project. It was difficult to produce ideas, because of the stress of coming up with a great song (even if it was only a minute long). It felt like I had a gun to my head sometimes when I was writing.
The amount of songs I had to come up with was: four level pieces, one secret area level, credits, intro to the game piece, enemy song, ending boss piece, and a menu piece. In total there are ten piece all together for this game. Our teacher Prof. Santello gave me permission to reuse songs if we like, but my other teammates said no. I think they where taking advantage that there was a musician on the team and want new music for everything, which made my job harder to keep coming up with new music all the time.
The first piece of music I did was for our first level the "Kitchen" level. This one I quite enjoyed doing. I enlist my friend from music school at College of DuPage to help me out, her name is Jaime. I gave her my draft of the music piece that we where to do and revise it a little together. From there we listed all the instruments that we where going to use for this piece. This was a little bit of a change, because they where instruments we did not have. They where percussion instruments that we needed for this piece. So, I called my percussion teacher from College of DuPage (Mike Folker) and asked him if I could come over and record some of the instruments with my portable Tascam DAT machine. He was all for it and gave me some times that where available to record when nobody was around so that I won't have bleed through of other people or instruments on my recording. We went to College of DuPage a couple days later to record: Chimes, Ocean Drum, Vibes, and Bells. I used my portable Tascam DAT machine to record apron and used Shure 57 condenser microphones. See the mic pattern of this mics below.
This Picture can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microphone
There is more about cardiod mics and what they do at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardioid
About Shure 57 microphones can be found at: http://www.shure.com/americas/products/microphones/sm/sm57-instrument-microphone
I used a mic technique called stereo coincident pair, to record these instruments in stereo. This this technique is best used to record on a single instrument verse other stereo techniques. Other techniques would only leave a space sound in the recording. Another reason used this technique instead of mono recording, was simple, this DAT machine only records in stereo otherwise the instrument would oly be heard on the left or the right side of the recording. This would be a no-no, unless I was doing something creative like one instrument on one side another instrument on the other side, but I don't recommend this at the recording stage. Here is an example of a coincident pair technique.
These pictures can be found with other mic techniques pictures at: http://www.google.com/search?q=pictures+coincident+pair+microphone+technique&hl=en&qscrl=1&nord=1&rlz=1T4TSHB_enUS301US301&biw=1216&bih=799&site=webhp&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=bPuOTpSjPM6msALynIG7AQ&ved=0CCsQsAQ
Once I recorded these instruments I headed over the record studio (V Note Studio) to put the recordings into Pro Tools session to be edit and mixed. When I was putting this song together in the session and playing back everything I did at College of DuPage, I realized it need a little something. I used a MIDI sound of a cello which add a little more flavor to the song. I took out most of the bells except the into of the song, because it didn't fit in the piece as I thought. It was too much for this piece. The sound I was going for was a mystical, calming, and soothing sound. So I just had the bells for a couple seconds in the beginning and faded it out and what was used for the rest of the piece was the MIDI cello part, vibes, and the ocean drum (which gave that mystical sound).
The next piece I did was the four level (the Bedroom). Why I did this level right away was because this piece was the only feedback I got from my team of the sound that was need for this level (I never end up getting any feedback on how the other main levels should sound....which made it harder to write for). This was the easiest to write for, because I had the piece already in my head and my team had a very similar idea on how this level should sound. This song is a peaceful, relaxing, and a music box sound. To get this sound I used the chimes and bells recording from College of DuPage, plus I once again I used a MIDI sound and played a part on keyboard using that MIDI sound. I was able to knock this out in a ten minutes.
For the the "Intro of the Game" and "Menu" pieces was all done on MIDI. I used a couple of different sounds for this piece and layered it. I was pretty happy on how this came out. As for the intro piece, was created by my friend Jaime. Mainly she was tinkering on the keyboard for fun as I was going through the very long list of sound that the MIDI program had. When I came cross the sound that end up being used for this game and with her playing the different chords on the keyboard the intro song was born. The Intro song has a typical game sound. It is uplifting, happy, medium fast tempo to excite the player to enter our game. The "Menu" song was a calming, mystical, and happy sound to it. These songs where done in session in August.
The Credits and Vent pieces was done in September at V Note Studio. The "Credit" song was happy, calming, relaxing sound to this piece. For this piece I recorded myself playing my classic acoustic guitar playing in G major, using an AKG 414 microphone. Why this microphone was, because the range that this mic can pick up, dynamics can be used for, and this is a great microphone to used for acoustic instruments (beside ribbons mics which the studio did not have). Here is a picture of an AKG 414 below.
This picture was from: www.akg.com. Can find more about the AKG and what it can do at: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/C414XLII/
Once I got a great track sound, it was mixed inside Pro Tools. It give more to the track (beside me playing just guitar) I add a MIDI sound of a flute. I just played the chords in each measure of the G major song on the keyboard using the MIDI sound. This work perfectly for what the team was shooting for this area.
For the "Vent" piece, the sound that I was going for was a simple and deeper tone then the main levels. Once again I used the MIDI program and keyboard, but I only used one sound for this entire song. These songs where finished in late September.
For the remainder of the songs (Foyer, Living Room, and Boss) where done over a co-worker house from my regular job. These songs where done on other music program Sibelius. The Living Room (level 2) was the hardest to write for. The question was always in my head, "What does a living room music sound like?". I wrote two pieces, but eventually scraped them. I went to my co-worker to get some ideas from him since I was stuck. We bounce a lot of ideas from each other and came up with a styling of Burt Bacharach sound with our own touches. We came up with more of a lounge sound, which worked for this level.
For the Foyer level (level 3) was more of an inviting, peaceful, uplifting sound. Once again using a MIDI program was used with different sounds and was layered to created this song.
The last song was the Boss song. It was done in Sibelius and the sound where layered. This was a faster tempo, dark, and aggressive sound to give that threatening sound when the player is dealing an enemy. This piece was my favor, mainly of all the ideas that came out of this piece and how easy it was to come up with this piece. This was done at the very end of September. For information and pictures on Sibelius look at caption below.
The worst situation was doing the last boss song (ending boss). I was working with two other musicians on this. One is a friend of mine (he the drummer) and the other is friend of the my drummer (he is the keyboard player). I was suppose to play guitar for this piece. It never happened. The drummer was in a car accident and screwed up his right arm and the keyboard player was not blowing our sessions off. I having to come up with another song (which was a shame because the song that I had for the game was awesome). I end up pulling out an song I wrote a year and half ago that was never used for anything. I used some sound effects for the song, processors, and MIDI keyboard for this song. It was great to finally use this song, but I wish the other song was used instead, because all the hard work and sound fitted so well with this scene of the game.
This was the longest and hardest part for me for this game, because of the amount of song, lack of input of teams for song ideas, and amount of time that was need (3 sessions) to do this part of the game. Now it on to scripting the sound and editing in the game in UDK. Until next time.....
The amount of songs I had to come up with was: four level pieces, one secret area level, credits, intro to the game piece, enemy song, ending boss piece, and a menu piece. In total there are ten piece all together for this game. Our teacher Prof. Santello gave me permission to reuse songs if we like, but my other teammates said no. I think they where taking advantage that there was a musician on the team and want new music for everything, which made my job harder to keep coming up with new music all the time.
The first piece of music I did was for our first level the "Kitchen" level. This one I quite enjoyed doing. I enlist my friend from music school at College of DuPage to help me out, her name is Jaime. I gave her my draft of the music piece that we where to do and revise it a little together. From there we listed all the instruments that we where going to use for this piece. This was a little bit of a change, because they where instruments we did not have. They where percussion instruments that we needed for this piece. So, I called my percussion teacher from College of DuPage (Mike Folker) and asked him if I could come over and record some of the instruments with my portable Tascam DAT machine. He was all for it and gave me some times that where available to record when nobody was around so that I won't have bleed through of other people or instruments on my recording. We went to College of DuPage a couple days later to record: Chimes, Ocean Drum, Vibes, and Bells. I used my portable Tascam DAT machine to record apron and used Shure 57 condenser microphones. See the mic pattern of this mics below.
This Picture can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microphone
There is more about cardiod mics and what they do at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardioid
About Shure 57 microphones can be found at: http://www.shure.com/americas/products/microphones/sm/sm57-instrument-microphone
I used a mic technique called stereo coincident pair, to record these instruments in stereo. This this technique is best used to record on a single instrument verse other stereo techniques. Other techniques would only leave a space sound in the recording. Another reason used this technique instead of mono recording, was simple, this DAT machine only records in stereo otherwise the instrument would oly be heard on the left or the right side of the recording. This would be a no-no, unless I was doing something creative like one instrument on one side another instrument on the other side, but I don't recommend this at the recording stage. Here is an example of a coincident pair technique.
Once I recorded these instruments I headed over the record studio (V Note Studio) to put the recordings into Pro Tools session to be edit and mixed. When I was putting this song together in the session and playing back everything I did at College of DuPage, I realized it need a little something. I used a MIDI sound of a cello which add a little more flavor to the song. I took out most of the bells except the into of the song, because it didn't fit in the piece as I thought. It was too much for this piece. The sound I was going for was a mystical, calming, and soothing sound. So I just had the bells for a couple seconds in the beginning and faded it out and what was used for the rest of the piece was the MIDI cello part, vibes, and the ocean drum (which gave that mystical sound).
The next piece I did was the four level (the Bedroom). Why I did this level right away was because this piece was the only feedback I got from my team of the sound that was need for this level (I never end up getting any feedback on how the other main levels should sound....which made it harder to write for). This was the easiest to write for, because I had the piece already in my head and my team had a very similar idea on how this level should sound. This song is a peaceful, relaxing, and a music box sound. To get this sound I used the chimes and bells recording from College of DuPage, plus I once again I used a MIDI sound and played a part on keyboard using that MIDI sound. I was able to knock this out in a ten minutes.
For the the "Intro of the Game" and "Menu" pieces was all done on MIDI. I used a couple of different sounds for this piece and layered it. I was pretty happy on how this came out. As for the intro piece, was created by my friend Jaime. Mainly she was tinkering on the keyboard for fun as I was going through the very long list of sound that the MIDI program had. When I came cross the sound that end up being used for this game and with her playing the different chords on the keyboard the intro song was born. The Intro song has a typical game sound. It is uplifting, happy, medium fast tempo to excite the player to enter our game. The "Menu" song was a calming, mystical, and happy sound to it. These songs where done in session in August.
The Credits and Vent pieces was done in September at V Note Studio. The "Credit" song was happy, calming, relaxing sound to this piece. For this piece I recorded myself playing my classic acoustic guitar playing in G major, using an AKG 414 microphone. Why this microphone was, because the range that this mic can pick up, dynamics can be used for, and this is a great microphone to used for acoustic instruments (beside ribbons mics which the studio did not have). Here is a picture of an AKG 414 below.
Once I got a great track sound, it was mixed inside Pro Tools. It give more to the track (beside me playing just guitar) I add a MIDI sound of a flute. I just played the chords in each measure of the G major song on the keyboard using the MIDI sound. This work perfectly for what the team was shooting for this area.
For the "Vent" piece, the sound that I was going for was a simple and deeper tone then the main levels. Once again I used the MIDI program and keyboard, but I only used one sound for this entire song. These songs where finished in late September.
For the remainder of the songs (Foyer, Living Room, and Boss) where done over a co-worker house from my regular job. These songs where done on other music program Sibelius. The Living Room (level 2) was the hardest to write for. The question was always in my head, "What does a living room music sound like?". I wrote two pieces, but eventually scraped them. I went to my co-worker to get some ideas from him since I was stuck. We bounce a lot of ideas from each other and came up with a styling of Burt Bacharach sound with our own touches. We came up with more of a lounge sound, which worked for this level.
For the Foyer level (level 3) was more of an inviting, peaceful, uplifting sound. Once again using a MIDI program was used with different sounds and was layered to created this song.
The last song was the Boss song. It was done in Sibelius and the sound where layered. This was a faster tempo, dark, and aggressive sound to give that threatening sound when the player is dealing an enemy. This piece was my favor, mainly of all the ideas that came out of this piece and how easy it was to come up with this piece. This was done at the very end of September. For information and pictures on Sibelius look at caption below.
The worst situation was doing the last boss song (ending boss). I was working with two other musicians on this. One is a friend of mine (he the drummer) and the other is friend of the my drummer (he is the keyboard player). I was suppose to play guitar for this piece. It never happened. The drummer was in a car accident and screwed up his right arm and the keyboard player was not blowing our sessions off. I having to come up with another song (which was a shame because the song that I had for the game was awesome). I end up pulling out an song I wrote a year and half ago that was never used for anything. I used some sound effects for the song, processors, and MIDI keyboard for this song. It was great to finally use this song, but I wish the other song was used instead, because all the hard work and sound fitted so well with this scene of the game.
This was the longest and hardest part for me for this game, because of the amount of song, lack of input of teams for song ideas, and amount of time that was need (3 sessions) to do this part of the game. Now it on to scripting the sound and editing in the game in UDK. Until next time.....
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