Sound Effects

I went through the some of the sound effects in our game and edited a lot of them. I also updated our google doc with the information of our sounds.

 With our short time, I've been getting most of our sounds from freesound.org and mixing a lot of them together to create new sounds that would work better with our game.

We also have outsourced some of our sound to a friend and fellow student of mine, Christian Merrill.  He's pretty good with editing and creating sounds, and I'm glad to have some help with our game as I focus on both art and sound.  I've been in contact with him to help get our game the sounds we want and need.  However, some of the sounds he has given to the team do need some work and I have been working on editing what he's given us to get the sound I and the team want.  It's a work in progress.

It's been kind of hard doing sounds, mostly for the fact that I can't get our Unity server at home and it's hard for me to listen to the sounds actually in game.  It's one to edit the music and listen to it, it's another actually listening to it with visuals.  Sadly, I'll have to make do and do my stuff quickly.  We present our games tomorrow and Thursday is our open house.  My team isn't too worried about sound effects at this time.  It isn't our top priority.  I...secretly make it my priority, though.  It's too important to me.  Next semester I hope to dedicate a lot of my time to it.  I want people to enjoy our game, both visually and audio-wise. 

I've been in contact with the sound designer, Nick LaMartina,  at BioWare Mythic for a possible sound position there.  I researched what they use and what the sound designer uses.  I found on his LinkedIn page all sorts of programs he uses and have been downloaded a lot of them (at least the free ones or trials).  I also saw that Mythic and a lot of other video game companies use Fmod or Wwise.  I really want to implement Wwise into our game.  So, I hope to read up and learn a bit about it for next semester.  It'd be really great if I could put that under my skill set as well as see what it could do for our game!

Winning Music

We needed an ending music for when the player actually reaches the end of the level.  Not very exciting if they beat the level and nothing really happens, right?  It's been shown that sound enhances emotional reaction to visuals by 30%!  So, we need something!  So, I sat down at my desktop and opened my music program, Fruity Loops.  I sat there for what seemed like FOREVER just staring at my screen and messing with sounds.  My brain was not thinking of anything.  I already needed a break; a research break.  I started listening to other victory themes from games and asked questions to myself about them.  How long are they?  Do they portray their game well and fit in with the game's theme?  What instruments are being used?



Then I started thinking about my game theme.  Chinese.  I am using Chinese sounds, what could I do with that?  I then looked up music from Kung Fu Panda.  John Powell and Hans Zimmer really bring out the Chinese and western instruments in the Kung Fu Panda series. They also do a wonderful job of bringing out the "epicness", so to speak, about the Panda being a hero and the awe-inspiring ways of martial arts.
At 44 seconds within the video below is an excellent example of this "epicness" I speak of.






After the research I went back into Fruity Loops and listened to what Chinese-like instrument samples I had and just started composing. It was hard. I'm usually pretty good at sitting down and getting a fairly good piece of music out, but this time I struggled. I did end up with a song that mixes in elements of both John Powell and Hans Zimmer not just from Kung Fu Panda, bust also from the movie Madagascar.

Overall, this isn't my best work. I did write it to loop, but I feel like there's too much going on in it. It needs a lot of touch ups or what I might to is completely compose a new piece. It works for now. It's at least something for the end. I'm not saying it's horrible, but I know I can work on it more.

Finishing Up

We're going to present our games to our cohorts and professors on the 5th, and on the 6th we will display them to the public including industry professionals.  So, I am gearing to get everything I need done by the 5th.  I have finished the goat animation to a good standpoint to present.

Don't know why Blogger doesn't like my updloads, but you can kind of see what I was doing.  He's running more like a deer/dog than a horse.  I made him stay in the air a bit longer as well.

Now, I am working on music for our end of the game when you reach the Jade Palace.  It would be boring if nothing happened when you got there!  So, I want something up-lifting and exciting to help the player feel accomplished that they finished the level.  So, I am messing with ideas on how to exactly do that.

More Goat References

I was able to get some input from a professional animator about where my goat animation is at.  It's at a good standard run cycle, now I just need to brighten it up and make it interesting: especially the back side of the animal.  The player will always see the back side of the animal as our game is 3rd person and the camera is fixed back there.  So, I need to make the goat (and the other animals) as interesting as possible as I can.  I looked at more references, and was able to get some actual goat animations.

http://sillydragon.com/muybridge/Plate_0676.html
http://sillydragon.com/muybridge/Plate_0678.html
http://sillydragon.com/muybridge/Plate_0679.html

I've noticed that goats are very constricted and stiff, but that's not very fun to look at.  So, I'm trying my best to make the goat interesting.  I've even deleted the head frames and started over on that.  However, I was able to get a good head animation in half the time from when I did it the first time!  Now that I can sorta see where I am going I can get this done faster...hopefully.  Just gotta make him fun!

Updated Goat Animation

I have updated the goat animation!  Woot!  I got some help from this guy to help me understand a run cycle of a horse, and then I applied it to my goat.

Prettying Up Animations

Now, I am prettying up our animations and putting them all in one Maya file instead of multiple separate animation files.  That way the engineer only has to call up one object.  My peers critiqued my animations and I am tweaking up the goat to what has been said.  For example, I forgot to animate the hips! Totally passed my mind, but thankfully that's what other people are for: to see things I don't.  So, I am fixing that up along with the goat's legs so they are more differentiated.  Right now the back legs leave and hit the ground at the same time.  I've been looking at other animations and found one of a horse.  I can see they leave separately.  So, I am tweaking my animation so it has more variation.

 

Animations

I've been doing animations of our 3 animals basically non-stop this weekend.  Our game is due on the 31st, so we need our stuff.  I still have some work to do with the tiger, but basically for now I'm all done animation wise.

We were told that it would be nice to see more of the animals so the player feels more connected to them.  So, I thought maybe that maybe when the tiger and rabbit hit something, they could do some sort of somersault and flip around.  Albeit, the player would only see the flip happen in a short amount of time (like a second or less), they'd still at least see something.  It also is good feedback that the player hit something.

These animations aren't perfect.  Animals don't do straight somersaults.  I figure when the other artist remakes the rigs I can go in and be able to make the animals move more naturally.  However, I don't want them to move exactly like they would in real nature.  They are still made out of paper.  So, I have to wonder what a could way to animate it would be.  Do I make it as natural as I can?  The player will sees a tiger, so do they think it will move exactly like a tiger or will they see that's it's paper too and won't expect it to move naturally?  I'll have to test it out.

I've also been researching on how animals flail when they trip.  I haven't been able to find a tiger flailing, nor a rabbit.  I did find a documentary about the Out of Africa Park in Arizona.  It shows the caretakers playing with a lot of the animals including tigers and panthers.  I haven't seen any tripping or too much flailing, but it's giving me an idea on how these felines move.



I also found a live stream of cats! So, I've been watching what they do and how they move. Not to mention they're super cute :)
http://new.livestream.com/FosterKittenCam/TheSpiceKittens