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
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
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
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
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
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.
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