After finishing all our respective parts in relation to the Phonebooth game we set a date to meet up and mix the project together. This was a decision we made as a group so that we could all have an equal say in how the final product sounded. Meeting at mine, we set about combining all the audio we had recorded/ made, but only after we discussed and agreed on what we thought were the aesthetic requirements of the game. Some of which included bringing the User Interface sound fx as well as the dialogue to the forefront of the mix in order to lead with the narrative, whilst music and foley remained in the background. Some last minute touch ups on the overall flow of sounds within the game were made. Bringing all our individual elements was very satisfying as it Brought game to a new level of immersivity. Without the other elements my outlook on the game was fairly unimpressed due to the minimal nature of sounds needed. However when combined with my group member’s elements we were all extremely pleased at how well our independent work complimented each others. Surprisingly so, as minimal processing was needed as each element of ours held its own space in the spatial image of the mix-down.
Thoughts/ Research
Category: Collaboration (VR)
Categories
Atmosphere Design
When I eventually got round to designing the atmospheres, I intended to create immersivity using the sound of howling wind. I found this changed the entire nature of the black space in the game, turning it into a more threatening and confusing place to be, echoing the mental state of the character. Keeping in line with the narrative of the game, the dialogue goes on to explain how the main characters loved one died because he drove into a storm and I thought recreating a storm like condition, would not only increase the feeling of isolation, but almost act as a foreshadow of what we are about to told, or rather a memory that the character cannot seem to escape from.
Inspired by the hand turned wind machines used by Ben Burtt in the animated film Wall.E I was tempted to create wind from foley somehow, but given the time constraint I had, and the potential inconsistencies in sound this method might produce, I decided to take more of a sound design within Ableton approach. Using a plugin called Audio Wind, I was able to fashion the sound of the wind and tailor it exactly how I wanted, giving it a howling/ whistling feel in order to enhance the eeriness of the game. I felt like, not much else was needed in the parts of the game that involve the black space, as I wanted to avoid making the sonic environment too busy, as I was aware that Inaki’s music would also have to overlay my contribution.
Sticking to the original recordings of the phone booth I had taken before the first crit, I chopped and crossfaded sections of it that I deemed suitable for contextualising the non-diegetic sounds that surrounded the Phone-booth. In order to maintain continuity however, I found myself sound designing the sound of a car, automating the volume, filter and reverb of the designed sound in order to introduce distance, albeit manually, as well as to glue to the ambience together.
Categories
Re-recording Foley & FX Design
In order to implement some of the techniques I have learnt over the period of time I have spent researching I decided to have another look at the video file of the game play footage of the Phone-booth game. Taking into account the narrative aspect and the themes of depression and isolation I decided to record some more foley sounds to increase the presence of said themes. Recording myself breathing heavily, and applying reverb really did enhance the sense of space when the player is encapsulated in darkness at the beginning and end of the game. I did the same with other elements of sound that required it, but limited these effects to only the black space in which the player finds himself in before and after entering the phone-booth, exercising the idea of juxtaposition I had been introduced to earlier on in my research.
Due to lack of communication with the Games students we were ultimately unable to retrieve the unity compatible file for the game and so were limited to working in Ableton. As a result of this I re-recorded the certain foley, such as the footsteps, as the one shots we had taken were no longer relevant to the software we were using.
Adding to this, although my primary concerns were that of the atmospheres and the foley, I took it upon myself to create some whooshing sounds In order to introduce a sense of movement to the game, specifically so when the player enter the shaft of light that the phone booth is in. Using the sound of paper being flicked through the air close to my microphone, I applied some filtering and reverb and boosted frequencies, whilst also layering it with a sine wave and another wooshing sample I had made myself a while back to create the transitionary effect, which defines the movement in and out of the phone booth.
Categories
What Remains Of Edith Finch
‘What Remains of Edith Finch’ being the main reference given to us by the Games students for their Phone-booth VR game, I decided to delve further into the methodologies behind it.
It is essentially a narrative driven, first person game that uses storytelling, gameplay mechanics, music and a variety of visuals and movement to create a collection of short stories that are meant to shed light on the odd events that cause the members of the finch family their tragic demises. When beginning to watch a walkthrough video of the game I instantly noticed the uncluttered nature of the opening environment. Set in the woods, in which the main character is walking through, the sonic feel is uncluttered allowing us to enjoy the atmosphere of the woods whilst also registering every sound made through interaction, as well as the narrators overarching voice.
As the designated foley artist, I tried my best to pay special attention to the foley sounds throughout the game. The first thing I noticed however, which is also one of the first sounds we hear in the game, was the footsteps and how they seemed a little too robotic and without appropriate variation to recreate the feel of reality. Once the character reaches the house, once more I noticed that the sounds of the footsteps were inaccurate based on the amount of steps being taken, and did not sound appropriate the surfaces that were being tread on. Learning from this, I will make sure to pay special attention to variation and recreation when re-recording the foley for our group’s game.
On the other hand I noticed that in other parts of the game, footsteps had been omitted altogether, which I thought was done tastefully as it gave space for the music and narration and other sounds to take precedence. Being in a world that has been created for the purpose of narration means that the creator has the choice of what is heard, and in a way this omittal helped add to the suspension of fantasy one would find playing this game.
Considering the narrative nature of What Remains of Edith Finch, and it being the main reference, it made me see the Phone-booth VR in a different light; less about the completion of tasks, and more about the overall story or narrative. Using this newfound look on our work I wondered how else What Remains of Edith Finch could inform our game.
A couple things I noted was that the music at many points was intertwined with the soundscape, helping to underscore th narration as well as direct the emotional undercurrents. As well as this the music ever became an interactive experience of the game during parts of it; for example when winding the music box in the hallway to play the theme song. Lastly, descriptive sounds accompanied the narration at points, even being cued by it, bringing sounds in dependent on what the narrator was saying. This perhaps might be a handy tool to help concretise the spoken narrative that takes place in the phone-box in our game.
Categories
Mixing In VR
After our crits I decided it would be beneficial to do more research into mixing for virtual reality in order to bring an increased sense of sonic realism to the game.
While in two dimensional media such as movies, mixing involves adjusting volume levels, appropriate panning and reverbs, however for more interactive experiences like that of VR, these qualities of the mix rely on distance and direction. In softwares such as Fmod and Unity, as opposed to Ableton (which is what I am most used to using) we are able to automate and attenuate these qualities based on distance. For VR specifically, panning is replaced with HRTF, which stands for Head-Related-Transfer-Functions, which supposedly provides more accurate directional cues than panning.
To expand on this HRTF is seemingly a more advanced way of localising audio as it is ‘measured in a specialized facility under controlled conditions. During such a measurement, a sound is played through a loudspeaker from a certain direction and microphones placed at the entrance of your ear canal register how your ears ‘hear’ this sound’.
Moreover, while non-VR games can be played on any form of speaker, however this means somewhat compromising the quality of sound in order to ensure the final mix sounds good on all kinds of sound systems. VR headsets however are all equipped and played with headphones, allowing for a more consistent audio reproduction. However taking this into account, when mixing for VR, one has to be aware of user fatigue, requiring volume levels that can be listened to for sustained amounts of time as well as not cluttering the mix with too many sounds in the same frequency ranges.
Distance is also crucial to successful immersion within a game. For example when considering audio cues, if a sound is loud despite it being perceived as far away then it will most likely throw off the player and confuse them, breaking down the illusion of immersivity. The rule of thumb for physically accurate distance attenuation is apparently that ‘the doubling of distance is a halving of intensity’. Reverb is another important tool that, if used effectively, can create the illusion of distance also. Sounds that are far away we perceive to have more reverb.
All of the research into these techniques are sure to help me when coming together with the rest of my group for the final mix down and has only reinforced the importance of controlling and treating the relative qualities of each sound as a critical component in the mix.
After creating an excel file and organising all the different components needed for our game with my group members, we discussed what roles should be designated to whom. Being given the task of remaining in charge of foley and atmospheres I decided to take my handheld recorder to a phone box on a busy road near mine to recreate the events in the game as accurately as possible.
Before this however, I made sure to meet up with the games students one more time, in order to play the game again, refreshing the mechanics and the general feel of the game in my memory.
After getting them to send me a video file of the game I overlaid it with the atmospheres and foley we had recorded prior to this. This experience provided to be quite rewarding in how the sonics came together. While there was some miscommunication on the musical aspect of things, I decided to make a simple composition using a Tibetan bowl, manipulated in Ableton to create an eeriness to the parts of the game that required it. When doing this however, it was with the intention of being temporary, eventually being replaced by a more collaborative effort for the eventual hand-in.
When evaluating our progress after showcasing our work to the rest of our class during the crits, it became apparent that we needed to focus more time on the immersive nature of the game, particularly so as it is virtual reality.
In the very early stages of designating roles to one another, we decided to visit the foley room as a group in order to take the first draft recordings for the game. We felt that by coming together to complete to the first task, we would gain more clarity on the other dimensions of the game, making it easier to designate roles within the group. In this session we recorded footsteps, mechanical sounds of the phone-box and the sounds of doors shutting using a Sennheiser 416 shotgun microphone. Whilst these sounds may not be used in the final product, if at all, we decided to get the ball rolling. This way we can trial and error sounds with the Games students and rerecord sounds accordingly.
As we are expecting to eventually put the sounds into Unity when mixing down the final product, we decided to record one shots of each sound required as well, in order to keep in line with the nature of working in Unity or FMod.
At Hwyels disposal, we used his vintage telephone mic to sample some recordings of the dialogue. Using this beat-down microphone, we thought, would give the audio an interesting nature. Unfortunately however, the audio was too distorted to be used due to a lack of a powerful enough pre-amp. Nevertheless the distortion gave us ideas on how to possible manipulate the dialogue using audio effects in the final mixdown.
An issue we ran into was the multichannel nature of the recordings as we incorrectly formatted the Zoom F4 that we were using whilst recording. However this was swiftly fixed by Inaki, extracting the separate audio channels on pro tools.
‘A VR Narrative game, addressing the effects of depression and the process of reaching out to people around us. The player will call-up friends and family and make dialogue choices over the duration of their conversations. The consequences of your choices will visibly impact the environment around the player’.
After meeting with the Game students, myself and my classmates, Hywel and Inaki, had a better idea of what they wanted the sonically aesthetic nature of their game to be. Contrasts between a feeling of clarity and tension we discussed could perhaps be portrayed through music and atmospheres. Dialogue could also be warped to display the contrast of emotion too. Simply put, they required atmospheres, foley and dialogue. Music it seems has been composed already, by someone they know, however we may debate this with them in order to add our own compositions that we feel would benefit the game more than the simple single piano melody they had shown us during the meeting.
On an overall basis, the nature of the game seemed to us very sonically barren. The beginning and end of the game takes place in an empty black cavernous space, while the climax takes place in one spot, that being the phonebox. As a result we weren’t able to record much in the way of foley as it seemed like at this point there was not much of it needed. However the space left for a sonic environment meant that immersion through atmospheres and music may have to be the main focus of the game