Unit 73:P2 Understand the methods and principles of sound design and production

P2: Understand the methods and principles of sound design and production
Sound Formats

Exercise 1

People would use uncompressed files in order to get more quality however it takes up much more space which means it isn't a viable option for things such as Mp3 players or phones.

People use Lossy compression in order to reduce the file size which is has less quality but is a more viable option for Mp3 players or phones.

Audio Sampling
1)Resolution can constrain a file size by using more or less pixels to get varying levels of quality and file size. Bit Depth can constrain a file size by using more or less "bits" of information to increase or decrease the quality and file size.

2)Sample Rate: The number of audio samples carried per second by the audiofile.
   
Mono: Sound that is intended to be played through one speaker.
  
 Stereo: Sound that is intended to be played through two speakers which are usually for sounds that are supposed to be heard through either the left or right ear.

  Surround: When Sound is played through three or more speakers which can be used to make the sound seem more immersive for example in a film with surround sound you may hear a car that sounds like its behind you however its just due to the sound being played by speakers that are behind you.

Exercise 2:

Audio Limitations of Game Platforms

DSP(Digital Signal Processor):Can filter and compress the sound which limits the recording

RAM(Random Access Memory):RAM can limit the recording of sound by storing the info in a lossy format

File Format(Mp3, Wav, Aiff):This can limit the recording by using a lossy file format which has less quality

Audio Output(Mono,Stereo,Surround):This can limit the recording of sound if you use stereo or mono sound because it uses less channels.

PCM(Pulse Code Modulation): Can limit the recording of sound by compacting the information onto discs which compresses the information. takes a sample of an audio file which is higher quality
Audio Recording Systems

Multi Track Recording can be used to mix sounds and music tracks together.
Midi(Multi Instrument Digital Interface) can be used to replicate musical instruments digitally
DAT(Digital audio tape) can be used to record the sounds around you
Analogue is made from variations of air pressure
Software Plug-ins can be used to add a feature to a piece of software

Story Telling in Games

Task 1

Top 10 Games


8)Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare

This game's story isn't directly told to the player. It is fairly simple as the zombies are trying to invade and the plants have to stop them, this is the same as every other Plants vs Zombies game 

7)Pokemon Emerald

This game's story is a mixture of the stories in Pokemon ruby and sapphire which became something different enough to give it reason for being its own game. The two evil teams from the other two games both end up awakening their respective pokemon which causes complete chaos throughout the region
6)Team Fortress 2

TF2's story is revealed mainly through comics on their website instead of in the actual game however references to these comics can be heard in some of the characters quotes
5)Xenoblade Chronicles 3D

Xenoblade Chronicles follows a boy named Shulk as he sets out with his best friend Reyn to avenge the death of Fiora, Shulk's childhood friend, who was seemingly killed right in front of him by a Mechon, A species of living Machines who terrorize and kill Homs (Shulk's species). During Shulk's adventure aquires the Monado, a sword that can peirce Mechon armour and see visions of the future, usually warning him of a tragic event or death of a friend such as Fiora, he also meets many other people who have also had their lives changed by tragic events such as this who help him to get revenge on the Mechon usually after he saves their life due to the Monado's power.


4)The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD

Link's sister, Aryll, is kidnapped and Link has to save her and the world from Ganondorf with the help of the king of red lions, a talking boat that plays an important role later on.


3)Splatoon

Splatoon's story is simple, The Inkling's main source of power is stolen by the octarians and you have to get it back, because the game is mainly multiplayer the story isn't the focus
2)Sonic 3 & Knuckles

Sonic 3 & Knuckles tells the story of Dr Robotnik building the Death Egg  by using 7 Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald. To do this he tricks the Emerald's guardian, Knuckles, into thinking that Sonic is the villain. Eventually, Knuckles figures out who the real villain is and asks Sonic to help him get revenge

1)The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
The story of The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is based off of the bible story in which a man is told by God to sacrifice his son. In this game, Isaac lives a happy life with his mother until she is told to sacrifice him. Isaac sees his mother approach his room with a knife and tries to find a hiding place, he then uncovers a trapdoor under his rug which leads to the basement, then a network of caves and then the depths where he faces off against his mother. After this the games story gets darker and more messed up as Isaac goes into his mothers womb to kill his unborn self. After this the player is given two decisions, proceed to the cathedral in order to fight himself as a child and then fight his dead self inside of a chest in which he suffocates himself in order to escape his misery, or go to Sheol and fight Satan and then a demonic lamb, this branch of the story has Isaac accept his sins and become a demon. No matter which story you choose the game hints at Isaac taking his own life. The best part of this games story is that the more times you complete the game, the more endings you unlock, most of them are before you unlock the cathedral and Sheol and involve Isaac finding a new item that you can then find in-game. The endings for beating the final areas are very obscure and the creator of the game himself is unsure on the way the game ends and so left the storytelling to the community which is how this story became what it is.

Task 2

Games without stories
Tetris- a simple puzzle game that involves dropping shapes on top of each other
Minecraft- a sandbox game where you build what you want using the world's resources
Pong- a tennis simulator

These types of games(Usually mobile games) are played mainly by casual gamers who don't game often and just need something to pick up and play when bored

Task 3
The difference between game and film stories is that a game can have a more flexible story with multiple endings as opposed to films which have a fixed path. game stories are usually a lot more simple than film stories as there would be a focus on gameplay in most games.
Task 4
Linear stories are just composed of a beginning, middle and end in that order whilst non linear stories can use flashbacks or other techniques to switch up the order and also provide multiple paths for the story to take with good and bad endings

Music, FX and Legal consideration

Task 1: Music/FX Sources

1: Asset Store (https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/search/page=1/sortby=popularity/query=category:6)
2:Flash Kit
(http://www.flashkit.com/soundfx/)
3:FreeSound
(https://freesound.org/)
4: Produce your own
5: Youtube(Illegal)
6: Buy the rights to copyrighted music/ask permission

Task 2: Purpose of Gaming music
1:The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
The OST for this game makes the player feel adventurous along with the sailing aspect of the game which relates to pirates in particular as they are a major part of this game.

2:Splatoon
 Splatoon's music is mostly rock music with a bit of pop music too which has a very energetic feel to it which goes well with the fast paced chaos of the main game. The music is also muffled when the player is swimming in their ink as a squid to give the illusion of depth to the ink.

3: Sonic 3 & Knuckles
The music in this game is generally fast paced, linking it to the overall theme of Sonic games,with some tracks that clearly had some inspiration from Michael Jackson as he worked on the music but refused to be credited. Most of the tracks in the game have remixes that play in the second "act" in each level.

Task 3: Legal Considerations
When using music and FX in a game you can only use royalty free assets unless you pay the companies that copyrighted the music you want to use, however obtaining a contract can be very expensive. If you use copyrighted assets without permission you can get sued which will cost even more money. Of Com are the top organisation and can pull almost anything from the media if a valid complaint is issued. ASA- code of conduct

Music programs

Garage Band(Mac)

Logic Pro(Mac)

Audacity- consumer

QBase- Pro

Abelton- pay

Audition(Consumer)

 Sound Forge(Consumer)

Soundation

Blogging about a film

Title Survivor

Characters: Sam(learns of terrorists)
Kate Abbot:New Security at VISA office, trying to prevent terrorists from entering the country friends killed in 911
Bill: Letting terrorists in
Paul Anderson: Counter terrorist office
The Watchman: assassin
Plot:its in london, a bomb goes off

Beginning: A war, helicopter is shot down and two men are captured and one is burned alive. it then switches to people trying to cross the border, one man is sent away by kate who seems him as suspicious. Terrorist is making a bomb and puts it in a package.Kate gets in trouble for questioning so many things. People go to a restaurant to celebrate a party, they forget the gift so kate leaves, a bomb goes off and kate survives since she left at the most convenient time. this is when it transitions to the middle

Middle: a guy chases kate but is bad at it because he's too lazy to run and just slowly walks after her for dramatic effect. Unsurprisingly Kate gets away. Some people investigate and say kate is a suspect because she survived. Bill was the traitor and he  tried to shoot kate but shot himself, framing kate in the process. kate throws the gun in the bin which is a really bad hiding spot. a kid filmed the shooting and it apparently went viral in about 10 minutes. Someone took Bill's ID card and now people think Kate's evil even though she clearly isn't. some guy asked a man about dubai and got stabbed because of it. warrant issued for kate's arrest, theres a guy with a sniper on a roof, , he shoots a conventiently placed gas container which blows up, I have no idea what the point of that even is. sam is defending kate and he's starting to have an emotional speech. People are trying to track kate but her tracker keeps cutting out. kate got on a really crowded train at st pancras, she's being stalked by her friend. the police found kate and she escapes. She ran on the train tracks, , paul is shooting at her and he's really bad at aiming . The man threw a grenade and kate  survived, paul came and tried to kill her but failed again kate broke into someone's house and sam was waiting for her with a gun. Sam smashed kates ID so that she wont get tracked. paul saw light in the window and now he knows where kate is, he's walking up the stairs very slowly. kate and sam are watching a film and now they know why bill was being evil, his son was being held hostage by terrorists. just as they were about to leave paul shoots the door down. once again paul misses every shot and is so lazy he shoots doors down instead of opening them, he slides down a rope and keeps missing kate, sam is critically injured. kate broke a computer with a fire extinguisher and kate tries to escape. the giant group of soldiers dont notice kate through the window on the door, these guys must be blind. people are missing out on a terrorist attack because theyre trying to get kate instead, that was convenient for them. paul is doing a deal with a terrorist who just wants to make money. kate's using her laptop on a public plane.

End
people know its kate and are looking for her, she meets up with some random guy, he cant speak english very well. a convenient news story comes up on the taxi's TV. it looks like the attack is about to happen, someone is pumping gas into a giant ball, someone is attacking kate, shes pulls something sharp out of the ground, stabs the dude and grabs his gun. The terrorists have a box and kate is chasing after them. That terrorist noob from earlier has another sniper.he betrayed the first terrorist and stabs him, kate is comingt up the stairs the guy throws a knife at kate and missed the shot, she throws it back and they're fighting. the terrorist is hanging on the roof and he fell off.the police found kate and they  dont want to arrest her anymore then the credits roll.

Gaming Music

a) 1)Sonic Heroes: Egg Fleet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e-nLWLprWg
The Track that plays in the penultimate level of the game and is used to show the intensity of the situation as you leap from airship to airship destroying them one by one.

2)Xenoblade Chronicles: You Will Know Our Names
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooZyHLLQ5e8
This track is used when fighting Unique Monsters which is intended to make you feel pumped up for the battle that is about to ensue

3) The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker: Mini-boss Theme
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gigOz4vSJDU
This track plays during mini bosses and matches the overall theme of the game, which is a pirate theme due to the focus on sailing around an open sea and discovering new islands

4)Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd3-RXgoNAM)
This song plays during the intro of the game and the final boss and is used to convey the sadness of the main conflict.

5) Sonic The Hedgehog: Ring Collecting SFX
This sound is played when collecting rings which act as your health, they make a distinct chime which is very satisfying especially when running through a line of rings at a high speed


b) Sound in games is important as it helps make the game more immersive and can covey emotion to the player.

c)
Waveform is the shape of the sound wave. The amplitude is how loud the sound is. The louder the sound, the bigger the sound wave. The frequency is the amount of times the sound is played in an amount of time. Wavelength is how long the sound goes on for, The pitch is how high or low the sound is, a sound generator is a great way to play music out loud such as an ipod



d)
Foley is named after Jack Foley and is the recreation of real life sounds using other objects for example hitting a piece of meat with a roller can replicate the sound of someone being punched. It was Jack Foley who discovered most of the examples of Foley that are commonly used in films today



e)
Timbre is the tone of the song and is used to make the song more unique


Music Psychology in games


Example 1:Sonic. The Drowning theme, This theme conveys a feeling of urgency as the music speeds up to signal that you need to get out of the water as soon as possible otherwise you will drown.

Example 2:Mario. Death sound, the infamous death sound is recognised by many gamers

Example 3:COD(and various other shooters). Hitmarker. The hitmarker is a cross that appears in the centre of your screen when you shoot someone, it is accompanied by a satisfying tap sound effect that tells you that you're on target.