Game Audio Network Guild

I thought that this might catch some good attention, for a two good reasons:

 1. Our fellow guild member Jesse Harlin is the first person you see in the video.  In other news, nice goatee, man!

 2. It's Star Wars music.  Sound/Music enthusiasts (i.e. all of us) would be simply insane not to give a look and listen.

I've been working long and hard on SHMUP: Orbital Combat , and since it's been done, I've started the two simultaneous clean-up phases of the game: hunting bugs, and writing the post-mortem of the game so other developers can learn from my travails.

 While I've already identified two minor bugs that will be trivial to solve - an update will come in a few days, as soon as I've beaten Knights of the Old Republic again - I've already began work on the post-mortem.

Introduction: Not Quite A Post-Mortem of SHMUP

Sound: Resuming A Quasi-Post-Mortem: Sound

Graphics: Resuming A Quasi-Post-Mortem: Graphics

I'm adding entries daily on my GameJolt blog.  GameJolt isn't making me a lot of money (67 views, less than $0.01 in revenue, for the hard numbers on it), so I'm using it as a secondary blog now.

By all means, continue enjoying my work!  I'm also concocting my next evil Indie world-do...erm, game project.

I've done it.  I've finally done it.

No, I didn't go to work with a tutu, whilst wearing the most spectacular fake handlebar moustache I can find.  I'm not debunking the idea completely, because it could come in handy later.  You never know!

 Rather, I've got a stable build of my small shoot-'em-up, for those who don't know named SHMUP: Orbital Combat - playable here on GameJolt, and soon on Wooglie and other portals.

 Rounding out the sound effects on the game was fun:

Engine Accelerating: Vacuum Cleaner, tuned the wave to a concert C-5, inverted the waveform, reversed the waveform.

 Engine Decelerating: Retuned the above to a concert G-4, same process from there.

Blaster: Fun stuff.  After reading some helpful material other guildies have posted - many thanks by the way - I found Audacity's tools more than up to the task of Blasterizing the same Vacuum cleaner theme, with more steps than I actually remember.  It involves the Phaser, funny enough.  Vacuum Phaser = Blaster.  Don't tell any Trekkies I wrote that down, ok?

 Music: Some of my usual synth rock instrumentation, but for the final piece - soon to be uploaded for listening pleasure - I caught myself listening to the Knights of the Old Republic soundtrack and I decided to have another go at instrumentation.  I learned to stop being a musical newbie and thinking of instruments as single instruments - in an ensemble, instruments are effective when working together, and thus I'm experimenting with groups of instruments in unison.  My compositional skills have a ways to go yet, but I've made a good start.

 Besides the aural side of the game, I've learned a lot from striking out on my own, giving myself sometimes punishing deadlines, and actually making a first project public.  I don't expect to have done it perfect, but I've cleared the first hurdle for any game developer: make something.

Next on the list: make something worth playing, unless I've already done that.  We'll see.

...Excepting my girlfriend Jennifer, of course my Mom, my fellow GANG guildmates...wait, this isn't the Oscars.

 Ahem.

I've overcome my latest, two-month long bout of writer's block.  Something about having a final four days away has unlocked my inner artist, and allowed me to finish Game ~ Orbital War, the in-game background music for SHMUP: Orbital Combat (which, if you were interested, I have a beta up here , with things like remappable mouse controls and two unfinished, but "new" planets.  Noxus, the triple planet is thus far my personal favorite.)

 One of my good friends, a Composition major named Raymond Inman said it best to me: "I don't pay attention to the theory, I just write."  He said that...and I think it's the best way I've yet heard to overcome writers block.

 Noodling around on my guitar works, too.  I'm starting to get the hang of faster strumming patterns, and have quit relying on my thumb for notes!

 :D

It's closing on May 8th, my graduation date - and the hard deadline I've imposed on myself for completing SHMUP: Orbital Combat .

 In my attempt to capture the epic feeling of X-wing/Star Wars fighter combat, I've been listening to "The Planets" by Gustav Holst...especially Mars: Bringer of War. 

It's really grown my abilities as a composer.  Holst was a genius of using texture and chords correctly.  The thing about writing anything even similar to Holst is that to sound similar, you really have to get the texture of each instrument, know how it works, understand how it meshes with the other delicate textures in your piece.

Being myself an unofficial composer, and only having taken Music classes as my Minor, I never got to orchestration or any advanced music.  I was given this link, once , which contains a great deal of information on instrumentation.

The moral of this blog?  I guess, try something radically different from what you start off attempting, once in a while.   My rock-y intro theme was a good enough work (I still need real guitars...), and I think this more classic chart will do wonders for the game as a whole.

 And the next time there's an Austin hang, gimme a shout!

So, my last couple of Blog posts were about my triumphs and travails concerning my casual project, SHMUP: Orbital Combat.  While the game is, in many ways, FAR from complete, I have an alpha build to show what's been done!

 This uses the Unity Webplayer; if you do not have it installed, the page will allow you to install the 'player.

 Play the Alpha Build Here

Controls:

Mouse: Turn | A: Speed Up | S: Slow Down | Space: Fire Blaster | Escape: Title Screen

Have fun - and the music and sound is coming along!

S.H.M.U.P.: Orbital Combat has really come along since my last blog post.

I primarily use rendered MIDI for my music, and I'm learning more and more that when I use MIDI it's safe to use the synthesizer voices (Synth Bass, Synth Brass, etc.)  After all, even though I do have the awesome Florestan Horn and String soundfonts (which are amazing), the truth is that no matter how beautiful a rendered MIDI can be made to sound, it is unnatural.  Unless you use it in a natural way.

 Enter SHMUP.  I'm using a mixture of the Distortion Guitar voices heard in my posted tunes from the now-abandoned Jaegen's Treasure project, Synth Brass, Synth Bass, Aah Choir (I think it's another Florestan soundfont, but I'm unsure...) and the Florestan Strings.  Since SHMUP is a space-based Shmup (you should applaud my creative naming.  Next time I'll leave it to the professionals...) a synthetic, unreal sound fits well.  I can officially call my music problem with the game "solved."

 Now I just have to figure out how to get Audacity to make the kinds ofsound effects I feel the game needs...

 (Oh - and I'll have a demo version up soon, and I'm uploading an MP3 of "Orbiting Nous ~ Title" here.  Hurrah!) 

I've recently began work on a new project - an as-yet unnamed Shoot 'em Up, to be created with Unity, and released as a free game.  Good newbie-indie goal.

 Writing music and creating custom SFX for a space-themed game thus far has been harder than I've expected.  My background is RPGs, and let's face it, hearing a full brass ensemble scored in perfect 5ths as a song does not jive well with blasters, ships, and planets (unless I become more talented in at least ten other fields...but that's a different story for a different time...so to speak.)

 I've considered all my normal SFX sources - my keys, pencils, (hopefully not) my voice...and yet, when I pop in my Star Wars Episode III DVD, those simple (and, as I understand, rather common) means of creating sounds fall short of the epic space dogfights I see in my mind when I think of the SHMUP project.

This may make a good forum post, and that's something I may move this to in the future.  However, being an amateur in the audio field and the games field...it's my first, incomplete impression that the Space theme is not the easiest theme in the world.  What you lack in gravity and friction you more than make up for with needing to create top-of-the-line sound.

 Can I do it?  Oh, yeah.  It'll take work.  Can I do it within days?

 ...BAHAHAHAAHAHAHAA...

 We'll see.

(P.S.: Some comments from some who have done past projects would go a long way toward giving me some guidance on this one, actually.  I guess this really does have the makings of an epic forum post, dosen't it?)

...So I got bored yesterday and started playing around with sounds I've heard used in some game soundtracks, but never moved myself to actually use.  These evil aural experiments didn't yield anything helpful but a list of notes on some fun instrument combinations I found:

-Harpsichord + Percussion = Party like it's 1699!

-Xylophone + Electric Guitars = I understand a little bit more of what's going on in One-Winged Angel.   It's a pretty cool effect.

-I have discovered that I do not know how to properly use the Clarinet, at all.

-Speaking of guitars: they can have a rather percussive nature.  I wrote a little "SATB" excersize for four guitars (three acoustic, one acoustic bass.)  I pretty much wound up using the Alto- and Tenor-part as a way of driving the rhythm, even though when I write for guitars I typically write melodic material in those ranges.

-General MIDI Oboe sounds like crap. :(  I play Oboe in real life, I know how it's possible for an Oboe to sound.  Ditto for Cor Anglais.  The Bassoon is far more accurate.  I still like my soundfonts better, though.

-Shamisen.  This is the most interesting instrument I still don't have a full grasp of.  While living a few years in Japan could ideally remedy that, a Wikipedia search told me it is in essence a traditional Japanese guitar (inaccurate synopsis, bu, this is a blog, not research paper. :P  We'll all live.)

-I resolve to stop using String Ensemble synthesizers so much.  A properly written string quintet (Vio.1 & 2, Viola, Violoncello, Contrabass) can work wonders.  Sadly, Contrabass and Violin/Viola sound really wierd in General MIDI.  They render well in my soundfont set, though.

-My soundfont's Trumpet samples are Flat, enough to warrant an uppercase "F".

 -Synth Drums sound like my neighbors stomping.  Not really a musical observation, but if I ever decide I need soundeffects based on a stomp...the answer is no further than a wall either up or in front of me.

 ...I need to play with MIDI/Synthesizers more often, and not write stuff programming code  as often as I have been! :D

Before I  explain why I titled my first blog as that, first things first: my name is Andrew, and I'm new to the GANG guild!  It's an honor to be in community with game industry professionals from around the world, and an honor I take seriously (well...as seriously as I can be, anyways.)

 So why do I claim the mine?  Good question.

Mines are either two things: sources of resources, or battlefield explosives.  It's obvious why I would claim the first.  I claim the second because it breaks holes in things...like the ground.

I view the Games industry in the same way.  To be honest, recent games (with some exceptions, like Half-Minute Hero, Zelda: Twilight Princess, LittleBigPlanet) have fallen into a phase where things are similar!  Art styles are fairly common across the board.  Sound styles, not so much - I guess we musicians are just more creative, sometimes (no offense, good artists!)   Programmers...well, I am a programmer, and while upon close inspection we have our quirks and individual differences, let's face it: we're the guys who sit down and "negotiate" with the machine.

So why am I here?  What's with the gold or C4?

Simply, to contribute what I can, when I can, and see what changes that "little ol' me" can cause to coalesce.  There is gold in the ground, and a mine over it.  But somebody's gotta throw that pebble that makes the first crater to the gold...

 And maybe something more valuable than mere gold, still.