Sound Lead Application - Adrian

[Cardioid]

Position: Sound Lead.

Do you understand that Wildfire Games is a non-commercial project, work for 0 A.D. is volunteer, and work is done for free?

 

Yes

 

Do you agree to distribute all your work for Wildfire Games under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license?

 

Yes

 

Are you sure you are not wanting to work on something programming related? (Then you don't need to send in an application form.)

 

Yes

 

Name:Adrian 

 

Email: 

 

Location:Spain (GMT+1), Scotland - UK (GMT) (from September)

 

Availability:It will depend on my workload. Let's say 5h/week for a year period. 

 

Age:27

 

Occupation:Student

 

Skills and Experience:I took a HND in Creative Media Production and a "Técnico Superior en Sonido para Audiovisuales y Espectáculos " (Superior Technician in Sound for Audiovisuals and Spectacles, which is the spanish HND equivalent. It works like a double degree) and I've just finished a BA in Music Production. Between the HND and the BA I worked as a recording engineer in a video games ADR studio for the Spanish localization of games such as Fallout 4, Just Cause 3 or Until Dawn.

During this year I've been working in a couple of games as a composer, one of them in a game jam where I also participated as a sound designer (sadly not released). I have other works in sound design for media that I've done for other students during this year, I'm happy to share them with you if they are needed

I've all the resources needed to create the original sound assets (I'm experienced with Pro Tools and Nuendo, Omnipshere, Waves stuff and so on). Besides I can do field recordings/foleys with a Zoom H6, own mics, etc. 

This September I start a Master's Degree in Sound Design at the University of Edinburgh to improve my skills in that area (that's one of the reasons I'm here!), so this is a perfect opportunity for me to put everything I'll learn in a real world project.

Other than that I've been recently learning Unity, Unreal and C#. I'm still a newbie at those, but maybe it helps (I read you use Pyrogenesis, don't know if it's similar). I'm not familar with the audio implementation in that engine either (does it support Wwise or FMOD?), but I can learn if needed.

 

 

Motivation:As I said I'm about to start a MSc in Sound Design, so the timing is perfect. Besides, I love the overall concept of the game (AoE-style ancient history RTS!) and the collaborative philosophy behind it .

 

 

Personality:I'm very passionate about my work and I'm always looking to new challenges

 

 

Short Essay: A friend showed me the project this week and I instantly liked it. I want to expand my portfolio and knowledge as part of a team.

 

Interests and Hobbies:Music, everything audio related, astronomy, hiking, gaming. Beer (of course).

 

Staff:Nope

 

Community:Not very active on forums but YouTube. I enjoy LGR, Giant Bomb, AVGN or TotalBiscuit

 

 

Favorite Game:ATM: Probably CSGO (I've been playing since CS1.6). Overall: Hard to say... Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, MDK and SIient Hill 2 

 

Work Examples: Just Sound design related:

Wwise and sound design tutorial I made with a colleague:

 

I can share with you via PM several unreleased works I have if that's ok.

 

As a composer (I believe you don't need extra music, but still):

Main theme, menu and several maps (RPG game) http://www.kongregate.com/games/Disruption/carpe-diem

Music

 

 

Edited November 11, 2018 by Cardioid

[niektb]

When I saw your avatar I knew you had something to do with sound/music Welcome to the forums!

[Cardioid]

56 minutes ago, niektb said:

When I saw your avatar I knew you had something to do with sound/music Welcome to the forums!

Thanks mate 

[Lion.Kanzen]

Ok, Bienvenido, to start can be nice your opinion about actual game, so we can wait for your propose about how can be improved and how you can improved the actual sounds.

sería interesante que ideas tienes, conocer juegos parecidos, me imagino que te gustan este tipo de juegos, básicamente es darle más vida y crear alertas y sonidos que mejoren la experiencia del jugador.

[Cardioid]

4 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Ok, Bienvenido, to start can be nice your opinion about actual game, so we can wait for your propose about how can be improved and how you can improved the actual sounds.

sería interesante que ideas tienes, conocer juegos parecidos, me imagino que te gustan este tipo de juegos, básicamente es darle más vida y crear alertas y sonidos que mejoren la experiencia del jugador.

Buenas,

As I've playing for a very short period of time I'm not that aware of all the sounds needed. At first shigt I noticed that some animals (i.e. goats and deers) don't produce any sound, same thing happens for rivers and waterfalls. I miss some other sound effects to remark the "start/leave battle" options when selected. I don't know if you are planning to implement new units/buildings that require new effects or if you already have an asset list where I can check everything that have been done, things to improve or the work remaining.

In any case I'm happy to help

Saludos

[sanderd17]

Sounds for animals will be easy to add (from a technical POV). Waterfall sounds and other environmental sounds will need a looping positional sound emittor, which isn't implemented yet AFAIK. For the moment it's only possible to choose between looping global sounds (like the music or generic background noise), or positional sounds on an event (like when you click a unit).

On your question about Pyrogenesis: that's an engine we're developing in-house. so it's an inherent part of 0 A.D. for the moment, though it's possible it will get released as a stand-allone engine in the future when it's more feature complete.

You can find the sound definitions in directories like here: http://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/audio/actor/fauna/animal

We use ogg to encode the actual sounds, and then XML files are used to define some variation on it (select one sound out of a list of possible sounds, alter the gain or pitch randomly in a range, ...). It's also imortant to know that positional sounds should be created as mono sounds; the engine will take the in-game position into account to give the full game a stereo sound. Sounds that are stored as stereo sounds will always be treated as global sounds (which caused some annoyance in the past, when you could hear lions roar no matter where they were).

Sounds are then bound to events on entities (animals, units, buildings, ...) by defining it in their templates. See f.e. here: http://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/templates/template_structure_civic_civil_centre.xml#L98 (the <Sound> part). These names are references to the sound XML files.

That all said, I like your work and I guess it's best if you can try to create some sounds for the animals that are missing them, or propose some improvements to sounds, and then they can get included in the game. Note that not only animals need sounds, but f.e. different technologies also need sounds and many are still missing sounds.

[Stan`]

Hello, and welcome to the forums.
You might want to look at this thread and this one though they are not very well organized. We probably should have a list of those missing sounds somewhere.

For now as far as I can tell the game doesn't support ambient sounds. It might be something we support in the future.
 

[Cardioid]

2 hours ago, sanderd17 said:

Sounds for animals will be easy to add (from a technical POV). Waterfall sounds and other environmental sounds will need a looping positional sound emittor, which isn't implemented yet AFAIK. For the moment it's only possible to choose between looping global sounds (like the music or generic background noise), or positional sounds on an event (like when you click a unit).

On your question about Pyrogenesis: that's an engine we're developing in-house. so it's an inherent part of 0 A.D. for the moment, though it's possible it will get released as a stand-allone engine in the future when it's more feature complete.

You can find the sound definitions in directories like here: http://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/audio/actor/fauna/animal

We use ogg to encode the actual sounds, and then XML files are used to define some variation on it (select one sound out of a list of possible sounds, alter the gain or pitch randomly in a range, ...). It's also imortant to know that positional sounds should be created as mono sounds; the engine will take the in-game position into account to give the full game a stereo sound. Sounds that are stored as stereo sounds will always be treated as global sounds (which caused some annoyance in the past, when you could hear lions roar no matter where they were).

Sounds are then bound to events on entities (animals, units, buildings, ...) by defining it in their templates. See f.e. here: http://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/templates/template_structure_civic_civil_centre.xml#L98 (the <Sound> part). These names are references to the sound XML files.

That all said, I like your work and I guess it's best if you can try to create some sounds for the animals that are missing them, or propose some improvements to sounds, and then they can get included in the game. Note that not only animals need sounds, but f.e. different technologies also need sounds and many are still missing sounds.

Got it, thanks for the explanation. I've noticed that there are actually goat sounds in the directory but I can't hear them in game. Are they going to be integrated or are they just waiting for replacement?

Once I create a new sound, do I have to edit the XML or send it to the dev team (how/where?)?

2 hours ago, stanislas69 said:

Hello, and welcome to the forums.
You might want to look at this thread and this one though they are not very well organized. We probably should have a list of those missing sounds somewhere.

For now as far as I can tell the game doesn't support ambient sounds. It might be something we support in the future.
 

Thanks, that's some valuable info!

 

I think I'll start by creating a sound when the player hits the "start game!" button (similar to the "next turn" button on the Total War franchise). It could work like so:

Game launches: Main theme

Start game: SFX

Loading screen-> gameplay: in game music

 

However, if everything is OK and you want me in, I'll create a new topic (just as LAVS did) asking for sound request, their priorities, etc. I don't know if I have to wait for someone's approval to do it

Cheers

[Stan`]

If you want to do something different we might need your help here 

 

[sanderd17]

38 minutes ago, Cardioid said:

Got it, thanks for the explanation. I've noticed that there are actually goat sounds in the directory but I can't hear them in game. Are they going to be integrated or are they just waiting for replacement?

Once I create a new sound, do I have to edit the XML or send it to the dev team (how/where?)

For code contributions, the normal proces is to create a patch and submit it on trac. However, for art contributions, it's easier to share it on the forum as binary files can't be put in a patch. About the goat sounds, I didn't know they were in there. It looks like the sounds are very old (from when the game code moved to SVN, so we don't know how old as we have no history before that). So I guess the sounds are older than the actual model, and perhaps were never added to the model. If you find the goat sounds good enough, they can be added to the template I guess.

38 minutes ago, Cardioid said:

However, if everything is OK and you want me in, I'll create a new topic (just as LAVS did) asking for sound request, their priorities, etc. I don't know if I have to wait for someone's approval to do it

Asking for priorities is unnecessary IMO. It's a lot better to just create the sounds you want. Be it animal sounds, UI sounds or other sounds. That's the best way to create quality, and also keep you motivated.

[sanderd17]

@stanislas69, the issue you mention is mostly a code issue, though perhaps having the sounds available will make some programmer more motivated to implement it in the code. Currently the sound selected on an attack only depends on the attacker and not the target. So the SoundGroups XML format should probably change a bit to allow f.e. differentiation of sounds by target class.

[Stan`]

@andy5995 had mostly problems to make the sound not the code.

[Cardioid]

1 hour ago, stanislas69 said:

If you want to do something different we might need your help here 

 

Thanks, will check it

1 hour ago, sanderd17 said:

For code contributions, the normal proces is to create a patch and submit it on trac. However, for art contributions, it's easier to share it on the forum as binary files can't be put in a patch. About the goat sounds, I didn't know they were in there. It looks like the sounds are very old (from when the game code moved to SVN, so we don't know how old as we have no history before that). So I guess the sounds are older than the actual model, and perhaps were never added to the model. If you find the goat sounds good enough, they can be added to the template I guess.

Asking for priorities is unnecessary IMO. It's a lot better to just create the sounds you want. Be it animal sounds, UI sounds or other sounds. That's the best way to create quality, and also keep you motivated.

Thanks. Do you prefer me to submit the sounds as packs (let's say everytime I have 10 or so) or individually (every time I have a new one)? If that's OK I will create a topic just to know which sounds players miss the most and have a "to do list" besides of making them at my own pace

 

PS: Is there anybody else working in sounds right now? in case we need to coordinate each other.

 

Cheers

Edited August 17, 2016 by Cardioid

[sanderd17]

For the first ones, it may be easier as a single one (so it's easier to refer to when giving feedback). But if your creation speed is quite high, perhaps reviewing a set at once is better.

AFAIK, nobody is working on the sounds at the moment.

[Cardioid]

17 hours ago, sanderd17 said:

For the first ones, it may be easier as a single one (so it's easier to refer to when giving feedback). But if your creation speed is quite high, perhaps reviewing a set at once is better.

AFAIK, nobody is working on the sounds at the moment.

Thanks

 

I've already created the UI sound I mentioned before. As is not possitional I've made it stereo, what do you think?

 

I'll open a new topic to have everything tidy and organized. Cheers!

UI Start Battle.ogg

[Stan`]

Sounds nice

 

[sanderd17]

Nice sound to start the game. It certainly sets the mood.

I wonder when is the best time to play it: when the button is pressed or when the loading is finished. It sounds like a warning that the game has begun, so perhaps it's better suited when the game starts.

Would need some programmer to add it to the code though ...

[Imarok]

Done

(Just need to change the name of the sound file and discuss/decide if the sound should be played too when starting a replay)

 

gameLoadedSound.patch

[Lion.Kanzen]

11 minutes ago, sanderd17 said:

Nice sound to start the game. It certainly sets the mood.

I wonder when is the best time to play it: when the button is pressed or when the loading is finished. It sounds like a warning that the game has begun, so perhaps it's better suited when the game starts.

Would need some programmer to add it to the code though ...

There aré a sound is difficult to found and need be worked... Incoming messages by chat. This includes messages by the ai.

 

Others :

attack sound by Gaia.

heroe under attack in regicide.

units sound after trained.

before music play after win or lose, example AOE (I)

[Cardioid]

On ‎18‎/‎08‎/‎2016 at 4:59 PM, stanislas69 said:

Sounds nice

 

Thanks !

22 hours ago, sanderd17 said:

Nice sound to start the game. It certainly sets the mood.

I wonder when is the best time to play it: when the button is pressed or when the loading is finished. It sounds like a warning that the game has begun, so perhaps it's better suited when the game starts.

Would need some programmer to add it to the code though ...

Thanks, I think it makes more sense when the player press the 'start battle' button as far as it will feel more interactive and a frontier between the menu and the actual game, However it could work as you suggest too!

22 hours ago, Imarok said:

Done

(Just need to change the name of the sound file and discuss/decide if the sound should be played too when starting a replay)

 

gameLoadedSound.patch

Thanks!

22 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

There aré a sound is difficult to found and need be worked... Incoming messages by chat. This includes messages by the ai.

 

Others :

attack sound by Gaia.

heroe under attack in regicide.

units sound after trained.

before music play after win or lose, example AOE (I)

Thanks, I'll work on these. I've opened a new topic so we can have all the requests and updates organized at the same place (if you can post them there would be nice so people can see that they have already been requested):

Cheers