Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Gee1337 on September 08, 2014, 03:23:47 pm
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Erm... I was not really sure where to put this but hey... here goes!
Coding and FREDding is not something that I can do very well, if at all. I gave it a try a while ago.. but was not very successful.
So, audio has been more of my thing over recent years and I wouldn't mind giving it a try to create weapon sounds. I'm looking at starting with maybe a beam weapon sound. So, if anyone is in need of a new beam weapons sound then please let me know.
Also, if anyone has any tips on weapon sounds that they have created then post 'em here! :)
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Sound designers are a pretty rare breed around here, I think when most of us need a new sound we just take an old one and speed it up or slow it down. Nothing too fancy there! ;)
I think modders around here could definitely use completely new sounds, do you have some examples of what you've made before? It might not be a bad idea to just make a bunch of sounds and let people at them. I think in general modders would be looking for lasers firing, missile launches, engines running, a set of beams in warmup/warmdown/looping... and probably other things too!
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Unfortunately, I do not have any sounds I've made before. This was more of a spur of the moment thought. However, I use to produce some dnb a few years ago (nothing that ever made it to a proper release), so I feel as though I would be able to manipulate synthesisers or samplers which could emulate a beam weapon spooling up then spinning down.
The main problem would be the format that FS2 would require, as beam blasts can vary in length. When I have some time at the weekend, I will see if I can create a new beam weapon sound for about a five second discharge.
Lasers shouldn't be too much trouble to reproduce.
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Well FreeSpace uses wav format for sound files, though FSOpen can also use ogg now. There's a bit of simple table editing to get the game to use them, it just needs some info about attenuation distances which you can just copy them from another entry without a problem.
A full beam sound set has 4 sounds, a warm up, a firing sound (plays once when the beam starts), a loop (starts when the beam starts), and a warm down. If you can grab a VP viewer you can open up the retail VPs and see how Volition did it.
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After I made my last post, I suddenly thought that what you said would be the way to do it. Originally I was thinking of manipulating a synth for one wav file. But using Reason, I could make the sounds on separate tracks then export them individually for mods, and export one as a full example.
I think it is a bit strange that four sounds are needed, as the warm up and initial fire could be implemented in one wav file. I might have a play around with this today and see what I can come up with today.
Thanks for the info! :yes:
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Well some beams have 1 warmup but multiple firings (like those pain-in-the-butt 3 shot AAA beams), so that's one reason why they're split up I guess. But it could be left blank too if it isn't required.
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It's a lot easier to tweak warmup times if you don't have to recreate your beam's warmup sound every time. Also, I don't think time compression affects sound playback speed...
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Ok... here we go. Here is my first ever beam weapon audio. This is the full sound... I just need to break it down into its component parts for use in mods.
Feedback would be good. :)
http://www.mediafire.com/listen/v55gjjmigx7k2ui/beam_weapon_full.wav
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Woah :yes:
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My God...
Can I use it in my mod? I must have it :D
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Lovely! I love the warm up sound especially! Breath of fresh air there!
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Wow... I didn't expect that kind of reponse lol...
Of course you can use it in your mod Betrayal. I just need to export the sound into it's component parts and I'll zip/rar it up for you to play around with. I'll see if I can get that done later for you! :)
Oh... and if you could make a vid showing a ship firing a beam with the new weapon sound... that would be awesome (I would do it myself but I'm no where near as clever as you guys)! :cool:
Pre-warning... I have not checked the actual sound timings in relation to a visual point of reference showing a beam weapon firing, so when using the sound you might need to play with the timings when FREDding it up!
Does anyone have any requests?
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Well... Not soon. I need this to second chapter of my project, when something that use this beam appear :P.
If you want some request, You can make a heavy railgun sound for me.
And you can always make a soundpacks as a modding resources. I remember some from pre-HTL modding era, but they are pretty old today. Most of mods here use the same sounds for years, and they are mostly exports from other games. Only a few projects like Earth Defence had sound artists and they are gone long time ago.
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Ok, here is the sound split down into its components. Also, I have made a slight change to the warmup to it is now the length of the game's beam warmup.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/hc1b9h9ko73bd2a/Gee_Beam.zip
Thanks Axem for you help in this as well. I managed to find the VP containing the vanilla sounds, and I was able to alter my beam timings accordingly! :)
I reckon I can do that for you Betrayal... I could do with some spec such as... do you want it as one whole wav file, which I suspect you would given the characteristics of a railgun, or would you like the sound split up into beam weapon "like" components... such as I have done for you for my beam weapon sound.
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I reckon I can do that for you Betrayal... I could do with some spec such as... do you want it as one whole wav file, which I suspect you would given the characteristics of a railgun, or would you like the sound split up into beam weapon "like" components... such as I have done for you for my beam weapon sound.
It requires only one wav or ogg file. I recommend OGG as it's more recent.
As for characteristics, well... That explains everything.
Welcome to Poland :D
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That beam sounds very Shivan, very nice Shivan!
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Ok... here we go. Here is my first ever beam weapon audio. This is the full sound... I just need to break it down into its component parts for use in mods.
Feedback would be good. :)
http://www.mediafire.com/listen/v55gjjmigx7k2ui/beam_weapon_full.wav
Okay so I closed my eyes and I imagined a low energy beam when I heard that. For high energy beams what I would do is increase the length of the ramp up, increase the pitch of the grinding element by an octave or so and add a countertone to the end - something which fills out the ramp down sound.
The ramp up sound is good. The middle bit just needs a bit of sound tuning. The end needs would be nice if it was filled out a bit.
However, as with all my critique, it's just my opinion :)
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Thanks for the feedback Rheyah. With the beam I was trying to go for something of high power... something that would sound like it causes a shed load of damage. I thought it was successful myself (but I would... I made it haha), but I guess people have different opinions on what a high powered beam weapon would sound. Yes, I had thought that the end could do with a bit of fleshing out and I might well re-visit this at some point.
I played with the octaves and only one octave up for the beam loop would actually sound half-tidy, but for me it didn't have the same kind of presence as the lower octave, but again... an opinion. Perhaps I could play around with the actual semitones more, but to actually make a significant difference the notes would need to be quite a few tones higher or lower.
EDIT:- I could play with the mix down of the sound in its current state and increase the amplitude... that could give it more power and potentially the higher energy that you are thinking of.
Anywayz... for Betrayal... sorry it's been a few days coming but had a funny little thing called "life" that got in the way... (I almost forget what that is at times). So, as promised... here is my railgun. I hope it fits in with what you expected. :)
http://www.mediafire.com/listen/hmmx55xk1qc4mbq/railgun.wav
I think I will need put this wav through soundforge to smooth the end off.
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I'm listening with one ear at the moment (other is clogged up with earwax :blah:) but it seems that both sounds are too loud and are being clipped on playback. Although it'll sound good when played individually, it gets quite annoying in game/movie to listen to clipped sounds. (But in some instances, such as radio dialog, clipping can be a good dramatic queue).
Something to keep in mind about the beams is that there are different colors for them, the current beam sounds are played across all beam types and makes it kind of bland. The one you have now has a low octave with a heavy feel to it, perfect for Lucifer or Sathanas class beams. If you're up to it, try a higher pitch per beam, I suggest either a minor third, or minor fourth difference between each beam color.
z64555 dreams of a beam orchestra
All in all, Good Stuff. :yes:
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z64555 dreams of a beam orchestra
I lolled when I read that and immediately thought of...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075860/?ref_=nv_sr_1
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z64555
I think you could be right about the clipping. I'm going to revisit these existing sounds over the weekend to see if I can fix them a bit. I'm gonna leave the architecture of the first beam sound as it is, but I'm going to see about creating a few more beam sounds over the weekend including some AAA beams as well. I'm not going to make them specific to a particular race, as that will be something I would want the modders to decide.
But if anyone has any ideas for any new sounds that they would like (more weapons than anything else), then i'll be willing to give it a shot (no pun intended... was poor anyway).
Also, if anyone is interested and wants me to play around with voices and out them through a sample to effect them, then let me know and I'll see what i can do! :)
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Anywayz... for Betrayal... sorry it's been a few days coming but had a funny little thing called "life" that got in the way... (I almost forget what that is at times). So, as promised... here is my railgun. I hope it fits in with what you expected. :)
http://www.mediafire.com/listen/hmmx55xk1qc4mbq/railgun.wav
I think I will need put this wav through soundforge to smooth the end off.
I love this :D. Thank You.
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No worries Betrayal.
Admittedly, I did cheat a little bit to create that sound. Trying to get the initial fire is extremely difficult to recreate from scratch using just synthesisers. So what i did was to take the firing sound of an AWM, put it through a sampler and effected it up and post-processed it with some reverb. There is also a completely synthentic sound underneath to try and give it some extra energy, make it more interesting and generally take the sound away from the sample's original state.
As I said earlier, I am going to have to treat the sound a bit more as I am intrigued at the challenge of creating the symphony beams. If you need anything else though, let me know! :)
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New sounds are easier and more fun to do with a foley start. :yes:
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I completely agree there Dekker. But it is nice to build something completely from the ground up, like I did with the first beam weapon sound I posted on here. In fact, all the beam weapon sounds I make will probably be built from the ground up. Single shot weapons are tough, as you have try and get the sound interesting enough in such a short space of time, and make sure it sounds good for multiple repeats.
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Mm.. You know repeating weapons can and often do sound different (slightly), right?
At least, as the weapon heats up, the ROF can change, some rounds may not perform exactly the same, the acoustics of the environment can change, ricochets, etc, etc. Not all of those apply to energy weapons, but the components will heat, the cooling mechanisms will strain, energy transfer systems may be strained if the situation requires more juice than can normally be handled, etc.
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Hi jr2,
That effect would be reasonably easy to replicate as with a synthesiser, I would be able to play around with the release on the amp envelope. The only issue is whether or not FS2 allows for different mechanisms of a single shot weapon like the beams for instance. I shall have to go back into the FS2 sound repository to see what it has in there!
z64555 was right about the sounds clipping. That was my fault for not mastering them properly, which I have now done. So I will be re-uploading the new sounds later on.
Betrayal, I've made some adjustments to the railgun sound, so I hope you will like the new one which will be uploaded along with the re-mastered beam weapon. I'll see if I can get a couple more beam weapons done today as well.
I will also say if I can make some single shot weapon sounds for lasers and stuff! So with a little bit of luck either later on today, or maybe tomorrow, I will have a new sound weapon pack for people to have a listen too, as Axem suggested that I do.
All I hope is that everyone likes them and appreciates having some new effects to play with! :nervous:
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Betrayal, I've made some adjustments to the railgun sound, so I hope you will like the new one which will be uploaded along with the re-mastered beam weapon. I'll see if I can get a couple more beam weapons done today as well.
If the difference is significant, I have usage for both sounds. This sound is going to be standard, heavy railgun for my faction, used by multiple ships, but we have also a artillery frigate with oversided heavy railgun as it's main weapon. I can use new version as firing sound for artillery variant.
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It's not massively different, but there is an extra layer in there to help with the environment.
As promise earlier here is a small weapons pack to have a look at.
https://www.mediafire.com/?h33tfgrjcvvpgdi
In here you should find the:-
- railgun sound
- re-mastered beam weapon
- new AA beam weapon
- new slash beam weapon
I hope you modders enjoy them. I'm gonna give it a rest for a while until someone lets me know that they want something new!
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These are great!
Think you could make an antimatter explosion?
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Cheers DahBlount.
I'm not sure if it would be worth doing an anti-matter explosion, as the sound, in theory, would be pretty much the same as the existing atomic explosion that the game uses... except I suppose, with greater amplitude.
However, I will give it a go! I think for this the best way to go would be use the existing atomic sound from FS2 and add some additional bass and effects... I'll see what I can do! :)
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Indeed, the exact difference between anti-matter and atomic weaponry explosions probably aren't that large, but you never know. I don't see us making any anti-matter weaponry in the near future, too expensive.
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Maybe it should sound like a fuel air bomb or something. (BLU-82 aka Daisycutter or GBU-43/B aka MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Blast)
You would have to check audio samples but maybe. Those are some mean weapons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLU-82
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-43/B_Massive_Ordnance_Air_Blast
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Ok... here is my attempt at an anti-matter explosion
https://www.mediafire.com/?p98u83qi32ij23z
EDIT:- My idea of this was to try and still have an explosive sound, but also to try and create an emphasis on the power of such an explosion so it feels as though everything is shaking.
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Nice! The way the reverberations fade is perfect. This is a good explosion sound for almost any megaton warhead in FSO.
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Glad you like it!
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I think there is too much vibrations here.
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What kind of speakers you have?
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Creative t3200, It's not fault of my speakers, but a specificity of the sound itself. This is my personal opinion, just there are too much vibrating sounds.
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I've got a Creative HS950 USB gaming headset.
I'm willing to try and tone down the "vibration" or even the reverberations... but the point was that an antimatter explosion is meant to be something of supreme power which far surpasses an atomic shockwave, therefore there would be a lot more energy in a shockwave which would cause all sorts of materials to resonate and vibrate. It's meant to want you to say, "Wow... that was one massively destructive explosion!" For basic torps like a small anti-matter warhead, no the sound itself would be no good. This is meant for 6 to 7 figure megaton warheads.
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The very low frequency already achieves this, but there's too much constructive interference that creates the recognizable audible beats. Experiment with adjusting the phase of the various component waves so that the beats are more random, instead of a clear sine-wave reverberation.
I think there was some super-sonic related effects for large explosions, but I can't remember where I got that information from. :confused:
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I'll change the LFO waveform.. that my might achieve the random effect!
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Okay, so i've changed the LFO to a more random waveform and it has had a noticeable effect. Here is the second version of the anti-matter explosion. This one shakres a bit more and has a rumblier effect, but the elements are still essentially the same.
https://www.mediafire.com/?xa550qeanlnt1w8
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Ok, the decaying part of the explosion sounds good to me, now just experiment with cross-fading the ignition and reverberations. :)
(BTW, this is still your work, so feel free to tell me off whenever you disagree with something) :P
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All input/feedback is welcome, as it is you guys "The Modders" who are the intended users of these sounds, so if you feel as though something isn't right then I need to know so I can change it to maintain the quality to the mod that they are going to be used in.
So... here is anti-matter explosion number 3! I was initially trying for a multiple explosion feel by using a delay machine. I've swapped the delay machine with a reverb and shifted the pitch of the explosion. Personally, I don't think anything else should be needed for this sound now... but that is not for me to judge.
https://www.mediafire.com/?ti8ltvbqrgr7770
Also, is there any other feedback on the beam weapons? In particular, I am interested in feedback after they have been included in a mod or even tested in replacing the vanilla sounds. I would do it myself, but I'm afraid I don't know how too (although I'm guessing it would be to replace the wav in vp)!
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:yes:
For quick test mods, you should be able to rename the .wav (or .ogg) to one of the existing explosion sounds and just toss it in /data/sounds. VPVIEW32 is a good tool to look around the .vp's.
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Yes, the way FSO handles hierarchy, anything in the actual data structure of the mod directories overrides the equivalent in the .vp one.
So, if you had sounds.vp and inside was /data/sounds/bigexpl.wav , but you had an actual file in the actual FS2dir\data\sounds\bigexpl.wav, FSO would use that as it has higher priority than the .vp version. See this Wiki page (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/FreeSpace_2_directory_structure).
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Well as a bit of an update, I've tried the first beam weapon sound that I created and it seemed to work okay on the mission that the Psamtik first appears on (first mission after training I believe). I will try the slash and AAA over the weekend, but I believe that timings might need to be double checked and possibly some alterations to the sounds themselves... however, second opinions would be useful!
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I was wondering... Did You see Iron Sky movie? Earth vessels from this movie use cannons with cool sounds that You may recreate.
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LMAO.. Iron Sky... that film was hilarious!
It's been a while since I watched it, but yeah I have seen it! I need to revisit a few of the other beam weapons still, it's just time being an issue atm! I will try and set some time aside at some point to watch the film again. But in the meantime I will find a tube vid of it and have a look!
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I might need gauss cannon sounds of american "science ship" and particle cannon of M.I.R. Those are very cool weapon sounds and would be very useful.
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"Okay, did anyone here *not* violate the space weapons treaty?"
(Finland's ambassador slowly, sheepishly raises his hand)
:lol:
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"Yeah, beautiful..."
Or something like that. I was wondering about Iron Sky FS mod one day :p.
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I think I could replicate the sound, but I would be thinking of something a bit beefier than what is used in Iron Sky. I'm yet to suss out the MIR particle cannon, as I'm just trying to find out which sound it is!
Edit:- Just found it now... reminds me a bit of the Death Star in terms of the shape of the sound. I reckon I could do something similar!
The gauss cannon will be relatively simple to recreate in terms of its architecture and being a single shot weapon. However, the particle cannon will be tricker as it will depend on if you want a sound constructed in the style of beam weapons, or if it is just going to be one whole sound for a weapon that only fires occasionally at massive targets to cause total destruction. So, please could you give me some specs on how dynamic you would like the sound in terms of whether the sound needs to vary its discharges or not?
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Weapon with sound of MIR cannons will be triple beam cannon mounted on multipart turrets. It's going to have very short warmup and warmdown times. Looped part of the sounds will be played a little bit longer than GTVA beams. Actually it's not going to have warmup and warmdown sounds like MIR cannon, so only firing sound and loop are required.
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I would recommend that you have a warm down sound for it. If you just rely on the end of the loop, I believe that the sound won't feel right. It would need some kind of release or the sound would just "cut" out and it would not feel organic enough.
EDIT:- I've just had an idea of the architecture of the sound you require. Going on the MIR beam, it would be loop first, then the shot!, but I believe you would still need some sort of release.
Are the beam lengths for this weapon going to vary? If not, then this would be all achieveable in one waveform. All I would need to know is how long you want the sound and when you want the shot to fire. I will do the separates for you though! :)
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You refreshed my memory :P
As I said. About beam sounds based on MIR cannon, I need it separate into 3-4 files like all beam sounds are and warmdown sound should be very short.
As for gauss cannon sound of american "science ship" it need to be just one, single file.
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I just spotted this now Betrayal. I will see if I can set aside some time at the weekend to work on this for you... that is of course if my fiance doesn't try to dominate me too much with Valentine's Day.... stoopid Valentined grrr!
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So f**k valentine's day. Get drunk like a real man! Even if I had a girlfriend, I would not celebrate this. Modding is better :D
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I've recorded the sound of MIR firing and after listening and watching a few times there could be a fundamental problem for using it as a beam weapon.
The sound used in Iron Sky has quite a different structure to beam weapons in FS2. I can recreate the sound for you, but I don't think it could be used for a beam weapon as there is no "beam loop" for continuous fire, but if you want me to create a beam loop for the weapon out of my own creativity (please don't laugh) then I can do that for you.
The sound itself I will use samples for. To me, the build up of the cannon firing is similar to that of a jet engine spooling up, and the actual shot sounds like the Maxim cannon or the turret_t1.wav in sparky_fs2 vp.
Let me know what you want!