Map Project.

For this blog post I am going to be discussing the map project in the UDK Engine. The Shock Rifle sounds have also been placed within this map, but are not focused on.

I had chosen the Red Square map, which is clearly set in Russia during winter. Looking at the map I get a feeling of desertion and emptiness. I decided the area was deserted, but is it clear that turmoil and chaos is surrounding the area. There are futuristic elements within the map, but there is an older feel of war in the background to show that war has been and will always be present.

Exterior Ambience

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73X2J7kcjQY&feature=youtu.be 

In the map it is slightly snowing, so I decided that the exterior ambience should be very quiet to signify that the character is alone. I had found an ambience of a desert/snowy area, which I had processed by raising the lower ends of the sound. I did not place any wind sounds in the map because the snow does not move around in the wind so the wind would not match. There are opens stone hallways, which I had used the same ambience, but I had placed Reverb Volume in each hallway and set the reverb to Stone Corridor. I used an AmbientSoundSimple for the exterior ambience and set the minimum and maximum radius and non-spatialized to outside of the map.

Interior/Door/Portal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzXcxW3eX-U&feature=youtu.be

All of the sounds used for these are in the exact same area, which is a hidden room within the map. For the interior I recorded room ambience because it does not need to be extremely noticeable, just different for the exterior, because the portal is the main focus in the room. For the door I found two different sci-fi doors opening, which is to show the futuristic idea I had for the map. I had changed the pitch for both of them. For the door opening I had raised the pitch just a small amount and for closing I had lowered the pitch. Inside of the room there is a portal that takes the player to the roof in the center of the map. For the portal I found a machine humming sound, which I had adjusted the EQ to bring out the high ends. For the actual use of the portal I had found a laser sound and pitched higher to make sound more like walking through a portal. For the Interior I had used an AmbientSoundSimple and set the minimum and maximum radius to just around the room and non-spatialized. For the door I made two new Play Sounds in Kismet, one for open and one for closed to connect it to the trigger of the manitee.

Jump Pad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moKuJvghLLk&feature=youtu.be

The jump pad is another futuristic element to the map. I had found a pulsing machine hum for the looping sound of the jump pad. For the use of the jump pad I had found a release of pressure sound, which I had brought out the low end with the EQ. For the jump pad as I did was replace the original SoundNodeWaves of the portal with my own in the SoundCue editor, which was already set up in Kismet.

Pickups

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1WT-zmWLm0&feature=youtu.be

The very first pickups was from the Shock Rifle, which is explain in the Weapon Design blog post, but the health pickups was not discussed. For the health pickups I had found a sound perfect for it, which was a previously created gun pickup, but I had decided to change it to make it fit better for a health pickup. I had adjusted the pitch a little higher and brought up the high ends to make it sound like a lighter pick up instead of a heavy gun pick up, which worked nicely. For the health pickup all I had to do was replace the original sound with my own SoundNodeWave, which was previously set up in Kismet.

Stingers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTQU3u_pg0I&feature=youtu.be

For the stingers I wanted all of the sounds to seem farther way showing that the player is alone in the area. The first stinger is barking dogs near the trash bins, but a little in the distance. I had a couple different sounds of dogs barking, which I placed an AmbientSoundNonLoop. I placed a different one in each slot of the AmbientSoundNonLoop and set minimum delay to 5 seconds and maximum delay to 10 seconds to randomize the sounds. I set the minimum and maximum radius around half of the area and kept is spatialized to ensure the play hears it from that particular area. The next stinger is a jet plane flying in the distance that is to be heard every 1 to 2 minutes. I found the sound and brought out the low ends to making it seem farther away. I used an AmbientSoundNonLoop and set the minimum and maximum delay to 60 seconds. Then next sound is distant bomb drops that are very subtle, which is set the same as the dogs barking except is non-spatialized, the radius is around the entire map and the delay is the same as the jet plane. The bomb drops were recorded distant fireworks that I had recorded years ago. The last stinger is an old siren that was used to warn that there is a bomb raid, which I had found the sound and kept the same. I used an AmbientSoundNonLoop in the center of that map with the radius covering the entire map and set to non-spatialized. The volume is set higher because it is supposed to stand out from everything else.

Extra

Something I had wanted to do for this project was to have an extra bot and have to sounds follow that bot, so whenever the play is near the bot the sounds would play. I was unable to get this to work and decided to go with another option. You can hear in all the videos the player’s heartbeat and every once in a while radio static. Instead of having the sounds follow another bot and only the player hears it near the bot, the sound is on the player and can only be heard by the player. For the heartbeat I found a heartbeat sound and intensified the low end and for the radio static I found radio static. I had to create a new SoundCue to make this happen and I added attenuation, looping, mixer, and the two SoundNodeWaves and a delay on the radio SoundNodeWaves to play between 5 and 10 seconds. For the looping I have it set to loop only 10 times. In Kismet I had created two new Play Sounds and added the two new SoundCues in the Play Sounds and set the target to player 0, which is my player.

This was how I designed and implemented these sounds within the map.

Weapon Design

Weapon Design Post.

For this blog post I am going to be explaining my process of creating and implementing sounds for the Shock Rifle in the UDK Engine.

Looking at the Shock Rifle, you can clearly see there is a futuristic electric charge coming within the gun. This detail of the gun is what made me decide to make it futuristic sounding. The primary shot, which is left click, was created by layering a sine wave that I had processed and a processed electrical current shock sound. I also needed to have another variation for the primary shot because hearing the same sound many times can drive someone crazy. For the second variation I brought out the high ends just to change slightly, but keep the sound similar because if they were too different it would not sound right. The secondary shot, which is right click, has three different elements to it, the initial release of the orb, the orb traveling, and the orb colliding into an object. The release of the orb is very similar to the primary shot, but with a few EQ changes. The traveling of the orb is a processed hum of machinery. Finally, the collision of the orb with an object is a processed explosion with reverb at a lower volume. The collision did not work as well as I planned because the impact sound is way to quiet, especially if it hits a nearby object. This was the only thing that did not fit very well. There is another element to the Shock Rifle, which is the combo. The combo is the firing of the secondary shot and then the primary shot that creates a black hole type of explosion. I wanted to make it sound like the explosion was bringing in all the energy around it, so I made a vacuum-like futuristic sound by layering a processed sound with a pre-made laser type sound and a distant explosion sound. The next two sounds do not have to do with firing the gun. The sounds are the ammo pickup and the gun pickup. I decided to make them a little different because I wanted comical sounds just for fun. The gun pickup is a processed sine wave layered with a processed spring-like sound that I had found. The ammo pickup was just a simple light beeping sound that I had EQ to bring out the high ends and I also placed a tiny delay on it to brighten it up a little more.

For the implementation I had to add my sounds to the pre-made soundcues for each sound individually. For the primary shot, in the soundcue editor, that had attenuation, mixer and random nodes, I added soundnodewaves of the two variations of the primary shot. The random node is to cycle through both sounds at random. For the first element of the secondary shot, in the soundcue editor, that had attenuation and mixer, I added the soundnodewave of the secondary fire. For the traveling element, that had attenuation, mixer and looping, I added the soundnodewave of the orb traveling. The reason for having the looping node was to make sure the sound constantly loops until the orb stops traveling. For the last element, the impact, the pre-made soundcue had attenuation and mixer and I added the soundnodewave of the impact. For the combo, ammo pickup, and gun pickup I did the same thing in the soundcue editor has for the impact. Each sound had individual soundcues except for the two variations of the primary shot. After I had placed my sounds in the pre-made soundcues I had to work in Kismet to have my sounds implemented into the game. In Kismet I had to go to the playsound of each specific sound and add my sound to preferences of the playsound.

That is how I created and implemented my sounds of the Shock Rifle into the game using the UDK Engine.

http://youtu.be/d3CYsWRHIgQ - Link to the Shock Rifle video.