Engines and Middleware 1 - Assignment 1: Audio Implementation

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One of the big pieces of work I submitted back in April this year was the audio implementation assignment of my Engines and Middleware 1 module. Working in a group with my friends and fellow game audio students Adam White (@AdamRWhitehead) and Aaron Turner, the objective for this module was to take an existing Unreal Engine 4 game with all the original audio assets removed, and substitute them with our own (hopefully suitable) replacements.

The specific game we were given for this task with was the tower defence strategy game from the UE4 example game projects collection.

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Manchester Field Recording with Martyn Ellis

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to go field recording with audio engineer, Foley artist and all-round audio wizard Martyn Ellis (@Ellis_Audio). It was an incredibly fun and rewarding experience, so I thought I'd throw a few sentences together about it on here!

Over a two-day period, we scouted out several locations around Manchester to record interesting ambiences and capture a variety of city soundscapes; all the while experimenting with different configurations of mic types, polar patterns and mic positions, including mid-side & binaural recording setups.

Along with fellow game audio students Adam Whitehead (@AdamRWhitehead), James Balshaw and Josh Hindle (@BassFaceBindle), we set up our recording gear (including our very own disembodied polystyrene head for the binaural sounds, which definitely drew some funny glances from onlookers) and got to work. Whilst we were out and about, we also had a fortuitous encounter with NJ Apostol - the audio designer from White Paper Games - and got to briefly chat about game audio with him. Very cool indeed!

Fancy a listen? Here's a few samples of what we recorded :

New Bailey Street/Chapel Street Crossroads

Binaural Head Recording - Sennheiser Lav MKE2 Gold Mic Pair

First up is a binaural recording we sourced from the junction of New Bailey Street and Chapel Street, right next to Salford Central station. The mics were taped to either side of the head, and covered with Rycote Ristretto Lav mic windshields to attenuate wind sounds. I like this recording a lot as it's really cool being able to hear a busy detailed audio picture in your head of cars passing by on the left and right. We were even lucky enough to snag the sound of a rattling overhead train as it makes its way into the station.

Deansgate

ORTF Pair - Superlux CM H8Ks with Omnidirectional Capsules

Another roadside recording, this time we were situated on Deansgate, the busy main street of Manchester. As you might have guessed, we were to capture some really beefy passing car sounds from the traffic from this position! The omnidirectional capsules on the Superlux mics really helped to capture the detail of the scene without also picking up extraneous wind noise.

Trinity Bridge Construction Site

Mid-side Pair - Sennheiser MKH 8060 (Mid) and AKG C414 (Side)

For this recording, we set up just outside a loud construction site close to Trinity Bridge. What was good about this location was that the tall buildings and walls surrounding the construction site provided a lot of hard surfaces for all the bangs and engine rumbling to reverberate against, which created a nice sense of distance and depth in the recording.

Big thanks to Martyn for showing us game audio greenhorns the field recording ropes, it was really useful! 

Futureworks: Year 1 Complete

My first year studying Game and Interactive Audio at Futureworks has been absolutely fantastic experience. When I started this blog halfway through the academic year in January, my intention with it was to post regular, timely updates about my audio design projects as a means of documenting my progress. Well, a quick look at the date of this post compared to the previous one confirms that this didn't exactly happen!

Now that all my assignments have been handed in (for better or worse), my intention is to make a few retrospective posts on my work so far, both curricular and extracurricular. I know, I know; backdating information is never as good as capturing one's thoughts and processes in the heat of the moment, but I'm hoping this should nonetheless be a productive personal exercise in recording which areas of my work went well and which bits need a LOT of improvement. Oh, and hopefully I'll make it somewhat interesting to read about too!

Recording and Production 1 - Creature Comforts (Assignment 1)

After several months of hard work, I submitted Assignment 1 for my Recording and Production 1 module at Futureworks today - phew!

Working with my fellow game audio students Joe Foulds (@Foulds_Joe) and Josh Hindle (@BassFaceBindle), our brief for the assignment was to replace all the original audio from a Creature Comforts clip with our own recorded sounds. I was primarily involved with recording the musical elements of the project, recording and performing Foley work and transcribing and editing the script for the VO actors.

Here's the finished production we came up with:

I’m really pleased with how this one turned out (if I do say so myself). Anyway, onwards, ever onwards; Assignment 2 will be due in shortly, so I'd best get cracking with that!

Cube Tossers

I took part in the Futureworks game jam (held from the 17th-19th October 2016, during the Semester 1 Development Week of my first year studying Game and Interactive Audio) and helped make Cube Tossers with fellow students Thomas Kennedy and Callum Wyness.

We had two and a half days to come up with something playable in Unreal Engine 4 based on the theme of 'ten seconds'. Together, we came up with a simple timed cube throwing game. The games rules were, as you might well imagine, pretty simple: get the cube into the goal within ten seconds.

Each of us designed three of the nine levels in the game, and TK and Callum handled the bulk of the design and scripting duties. My main contribution to the project (apart from making the three dumbest levels in the game) was the creation of the following 10-seconds of aural agony that served as the game's soundtrack. Feast your ears on the audio abomination that is 'Boxing Clever':

As you can hear, it's pretty basic stuff. However, I think it suited the rudimentary nature of the game pretty well. Yes, the music is annoying, but despite its crudeness, I feel it's appropriate to the game's themes of speed, urgency and mounting panic. Stylistically, I was going for a similar feel to the stressful drowning music that played in the Mega Drive Sonic games.