It has been awhile since I made a post about my audio work on Heroes of Newerth. I thought it would be good to write something
about our new upcoming hero Pearl and her alternate avatars.
Audiotory Gaming: The development of the audio I do for games and mods.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Blowing bubbles...FOR SCIENCE!
It has been awhile since I made a post about my audio work on Heroes of Newerth. I thought it would be good to write something
about our new upcoming hero Pearl and her alternate avatars.Friday, December 16, 2011
Small preview of Honmas music
Here is a small preview of one of the songs that will fill newerth with holiday cheer.
This one is called: Engineer's Shenanigans. (this is not the entire song)
Edit: I've added song preview of one of the more gothic christmas songs that will soon be heard in HoN: Shisha Odori.
Preview
Preview 2
There will be all sorts of genres for this holiday, from jolly orchestral music to gothic danny elfman sort of music, blues and even rock and roll. So hold onto your loincloth, you'll soon be in for a treat.
This one is called: Engineer's Shenanigans. (this is not the entire song)
Edit: I've added song preview of one of the more gothic christmas songs that will soon be heard in HoN: Shisha Odori.
Preview
Preview 2
There will be all sorts of genres for this holiday, from jolly orchestral music to gothic danny elfman sort of music, blues and even rock and roll. So hold onto your loincloth, you'll soon be in for a treat.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Volume within games
I find myself many times wondering when I design sounds and implement them, whether it should be loud or not.
In films, we normally mix by the philosophy of just using the audio that is important to the situation, like dialogue. Dialogue is important because that is where the story is truly told and understood. Without dialogue, it is usually up to our imagination to tell the bigger story. Sometimes though, a visual element can tell a story far greater than that of spoken word, but it is still dialogue and has to be emphasised in some way.
The point in the end though, is what should be loud and what should not be.
Dialogue should always be louder than anything going on at the time - unless it is intentional to muffle the spoken word, but then it is no longer simple dialogue, it is dialogue-by-design.
Dialogue can easily be narrowed down to just lines on a script being said, but actually, sound design, foley and music, can also become dialogue, because it can tell a story if used correctly.
The issue in a movie is often facilitated by a producer and a director who got the final word on said audio mix, but they will often understand that dialogue is important and let the sound mixer do what he\she was hired to do.
But how does this matter in games? How do we mix for games?
Games are really just terrible mediums for mixing because a game is normally not on rails. When it isn't, you have to think about what the player will do and how the player will interact with the world.
Normally, the player will do something that will just make a programmer cry. But when they do that, we as sound mixers and designers, have to make sure we don't ruin their experience when they decide:
"I want to kill that orc by using a drawbridge as a catapult and fire a sword in their face. NOT by using a sword the intended way."
So everything has to interact perfectly; they expect to hear the drawbridge, the sword flying in the air, it hitting the orc and the orc crying in pain. If they don't, the experience is less rewarding...though amusing nonetheless.
Then there is the time when you are mixing and you think:
"Well, I don't really wanna hear my own footsteps the entire game. But I do expect that, when my foot hit those wood boards, there will be a sound of someone walking on boards of wood."
Then you have to put that in, but you cannot and should not - make it so loud that you are aware of it consciously, only sub-consciously.
In films, we normally mix by the philosophy of just using the audio that is important to the situation, like dialogue. Dialogue is important because that is where the story is truly told and understood. Without dialogue, it is usually up to our imagination to tell the bigger story. Sometimes though, a visual element can tell a story far greater than that of spoken word, but it is still dialogue and has to be emphasised in some way.
The point in the end though, is what should be loud and what should not be.
Dialogue should always be louder than anything going on at the time - unless it is intentional to muffle the spoken word, but then it is no longer simple dialogue, it is dialogue-by-design.
Dialogue can easily be narrowed down to just lines on a script being said, but actually, sound design, foley and music, can also become dialogue, because it can tell a story if used correctly.
The issue in a movie is often facilitated by a producer and a director who got the final word on said audio mix, but they will often understand that dialogue is important and let the sound mixer do what he\she was hired to do.
But how does this matter in games? How do we mix for games?
Games are really just terrible mediums for mixing because a game is normally not on rails. When it isn't, you have to think about what the player will do and how the player will interact with the world.
Normally, the player will do something that will just make a programmer cry. But when they do that, we as sound mixers and designers, have to make sure we don't ruin their experience when they decide:
"I want to kill that orc by using a drawbridge as a catapult and fire a sword in their face. NOT by using a sword the intended way."
So everything has to interact perfectly; they expect to hear the drawbridge, the sword flying in the air, it hitting the orc and the orc crying in pain. If they don't, the experience is less rewarding...though amusing nonetheless.
Then there is the time when you are mixing and you think:
"Well, I don't really wanna hear my own footsteps the entire game. But I do expect that, when my foot hit those wood boards, there will be a sound of someone walking on boards of wood."
Then you have to put that in, but you cannot and should not - make it so loud that you are aware of it consciously, only sub-consciously.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
The Midas Touch!
Friday, Mr.Midas was packed up in a patch and sent off to the land of Newerth.
Now let's talk about his sound:
Now let's talk about his sound:
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Geomancer, I choose you!
After lots of work lately, I finally had some time to start writing a blog post about some of the additional sounds I've done for Heroes Of Newerth.
Though I wrote a Master of Arms blog post, I decided to put it on hold.
A video was filmed when I recorded gunshots, but I have yet to receive the tape from the man who did the video recording. Once I have it, Master of Arms' sound creation blog post will be up.
But lets begin on Geomancer:
Though I wrote a Master of Arms blog post, I decided to put it on hold.
A video was filmed when I recorded gunshots, but I have yet to receive the tape from the man who did the video recording. Once I have it, Master of Arms' sound creation blog post will be up.
But lets begin on Geomancer:
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Master of Arms pending
I won't be posting this week about the sound work for master of arms. I am working on a film here in Norway and also going to do voice overs in a film and a video game (not s2 related)
Here's the spotlight of Master of arms:
You can get the remixed song here:
http://t.co/lBCOlRH right click > save as
I think there will be another spotlight at a later time which Arney did the sound design for.
Here's the spotlight of Master of arms:
You can get the remixed song here:
http://t.co/lBCOlRH right click > save as
I think there will be another spotlight at a later time which Arney did the sound design for.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)