From November to late February, most Friday's we have had a sound workshop, Matt has showed us multiple techniques in sound design and sound use. The first workshops that we had with Matt he showed us sound in films and TV, the first scene's from the first Star Wars a New Hope.
What he showed us was the use of sound to help the audience perceive what is going on and that different sounds ques are used for different characters. The first examples of the sound used in the film to show the audience the mood of the scene is the introducing combat scene, The sound que here really introduces the combat theme of the film and reinforces the epic space battle going on in the film.
The next way music is used in film is character ques and helping the viewer separate the bad characters from the good characters, the example of what we saw is that Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader both had different sound ques in the film when they went onto the set, The reason in why this is done is mainly to reinforce the view of the good or bad character and to introduce them when they walk onto a scene.
Matt also shows us how they have developed the sound effects for the film, such as the lightsabre and the blaster or laser from the films and how really easy it is to create the sounds from stuff you would find at home, for example the lightsabre effect that we hear in the film is only really a microphone that is waved too and from an exposed cathode ray TV this gives the trademark sound of a lightsabre from the film, however the laser sound in the film is much easier to set up, the way they they made the sound way really just passing a microphone through a slinky to get the film effect.
In later lessons Matt shows us how sound is used in retro video game, there are some really good examples of how sound is applied and the best game that used sound well was Super Mario Bro's, this is because of the way the game uses different sound ques for different scenes, for example there is a main beat for the level that is constant throughout the whole level until completion, however different items you get may change the beat of the game, a good example of this is the invincible star item, when the player gets this item the beat will change to a very fast paced track that changes the general beat of the game. This technique is really helpful to speed up the game and again reinforce what's going on and what the player is doing.
A more modern example of how this sort of beat is applied is in the game portal 2, where using different assets like using the propulsion gel moving platforms and the gravity lifts add different beats and sounds to the general music of the game what proves to be very effective in allowing the player to know what he is useing just by listening to the que of the item.
Finally one of the last workshops that we do, we start to look at sound in more modern types of games, the two games that we look at is left 4 dead 2 and dead rising 2, both zombie games, but not quite on the horror aspect of the genra. First of all we start to look at left 4 dead 2's sound and it is quite interesting on how valve use different sound ques to hint to the player what is about to happen, for example the game will make a sound que for a wave of incoming infected and then seconds later there would be a wave, each special infected have there own que when they appear on scene like sound ques from a film. This type of sound hint dropping really hints to the player what is about to happen and how it can help the player better prepare for what is about to happen in the game.
Left 4 dead 's main element of music is mid southern America and this helps in reinforcing the general there of the south american landscape and characters, however at the same time its hard to take left 4 dead 2 serious with the music it has.
Dead rising 2 however is quite different from left 4 dead as its more black in terms of comedy, for example the menu theme for dead rising 2 sounds quite man made, using the same note and pitch to create a sense of uneasiness and a man made horror hinting into the story before the player has a chance to find out. However the general ambiance in the malls and buildings are quite different to the menu theme as its general store music that plays throughout the levels that sort of counteract the horror to more comedy, Dead rising 2 is not a full fledged horror game but more or less makes fun at the american view of commercialism and over the top media.
The workshops here have been really helpful in showing us all better ways of using sound design and sound ques in our game, I think that I do have a much better idea of how to use sound, how sound deign can used to hint such things such as story and character.
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