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[JLJac]

Haha yeah I can imagine! That qoute from me sort of exposes how incredibly little I know about sound design though - I just took what I myself do and changed "writing and deleting a single line of code that does very very little difference" for the knobs  So, it's sort of an awesome thing that I'm not the one doing the audio lol. Whatever wizardry he's up to - knobs or not - he probably needs a little time though, re-inventing stuff is always a biggie.

Yeah I'm super stoked too! But it might be a couple of days, James says he needs to re-invent the sound world somewhat to fit the new less low-res art style, and that sounds to me like sitting very very many hours with headphones turning knobs very very slightly. And also my blunder with the import stuff which stalled us for an entire day... I have no doubts it's going to be super sweet though!

But it might be a couple of days

You guys really are something else. The speed at which new and important features come through for this project is absolutely amazing.

Hopefully we'll see another Alpha with sound soon-ish as well.

Oh man now I totally set some sort of time frame for work that James, not I, will do  And I rarely even keep the time frames I set for myself... So haha, all promises withdrawn! Take that with several bath tubs of salt!

Another thing that got kind of lost in the audio trigger frustration is that James recently sent me a put-together version of the Sky Islands region! And it's sweeeeeeet! I haven't played it very much yet, but I've had a couple of good runs and first of all it looks amazing. Weird antennae and relay structures, a lot of vertigo and here and there serene (or would be serene if it wasn't for the lizards) little sky islands. Plus, cicadas moving around, which is frustrating and fun. Lots of cicada jumping! I have a few memorable moments already, such as entering a cicada hive that's currently raided by two vultures, and standing at the bottom of a pit with a green lizard getting closer and closer, desperately waiting for my captive cicada to stop being exhausted so I can jump out of there. I got out a split second before the green lizard got me! Really nice to see how the mechanics interact to create interesting situations.

[Christian]

Oh, so vultures hunt cicadas. I was wondering about that.

[JLJac]

Usually with a very lukewarm degree of passion - I actually don't think they'd come down from their sky patrol if it wasn't that they saw me in the general area. Cicadas are really small and notoriously difficult to catch, so I gave the vultures a pretty low interest modifier for that relationship.

[jamesprimate]

AUDIO STUFFF: THE RETURN. Day 1



YES, all the things that Joar said. I admit to being a little apprehensive about it, as conceptual changes will inevitably scrap a bit of the past couple of years of audio work. But it is necessary! The game has evolved significantly in the past year, and the audio needs to evolve with it.

Audio rant below, pls feel free to skip

One thing thats central to any self-respecting professional audio fascist is aesthetic consistency. For the lingo build, I had a pretty tight concept built around the idea of Rain World as more of a quick, "retro pixel platformer" (remember when people did that?), and so limited the tools used for the audio and SFX to what hardware would have been used for 16bit games. At this point "chiptune" is more of a buzzword and implies a genre more than anything else, so i'll avoid that and just say that the tools were simple chip-based additive/subtractive synthesis, 2 operator FM, basic wavetable / formant synthesis, and some basic sample / PCM stuff. Nothing that you wouldn't find in a classic SNES/Neo Geo/Sega CD game.

But that was 2 years ago! The game is now modern and sexy with shaders and dynamic lighting and who knows maybe particle effects, so limiting the audio toolkit to 90s tech just doesn't fit any more, and would be totally arbitrary. I had been anticipating this a bit the past few months and have been experimenting, filling out the sound profile with both hi-fi synthesis elements and manipulating junk audio sources (you might recall that track i posted built from a conversation Joar and I had at PAX), trying to extend the palette in both directions. Might still have to cut a bunch of that old stuff tho!

Now, the junk audio thing is funny, because the reason I started messing with that in the context of rain world was because of the SFX samples that Joar was using before I joined the project. As he tells it to me, he just made them with his laptop mic, recording moving papers around and slapping rulers to the table. The resulting sounds are a lot of messy distorted stuff, indistinct white noise elements and compression artifacts. AKA perfect for Rain World! I wouldn't want to use them raw, but if balanced, eq'd right, run through some nice filters and placed in the proper context, it sounds pretty cool. So I've moved to incorporating use of manipulated junk audio throughout the overall audio concept, and am pretty stoked with the results. Imagine you are being hunted through the deep darkness by some huge creature while something like this is playing in the background: https://clyp.it/jjn25egr Not all the music will be like this of course, but in the right context it creates a pretty amazing mood imho.

I dont think Joar was totally on board with this use of his samples initially, but audio is a really interesting medium. if you know what you are doing, you can basically make anything out of anything else. For instance, here is what a korg product rep can do with 1 sample on a cheap hardware sampler in 6 minutes:



So basically this entire post so far is me justifying that, yes, I, a "professional sound designer", will be using Joar's laptop mic recorded crumpled paper and ruler thwack sounds as audio source material, and its for the sake of aesthetic consistency, LOL

/AudioRant, it is now safe to continue reading

So on to implementation! Past day or so was spent familiarizing myself with Joar's audio language and establishing a new workflow. Like the rest of my life right now, it is a horrific mess of text files:



But as hellish as it looks, I am super happy with the results so far! My gameplan was to first do an updated version of the Lingo SFX implementation for some practice with the language and to get something to work from. I had expected that to take at least until the weekend, but managed to get a basic sound-set that already sounds significantly better than that in just the afternoon! Super encouraging results.

Anyway, I hope that wasn't TOO boring. The actual audio work itself is literally days of me moving knobs around, so that would be even worse to read! I'll post some video of this rough audio build tomorrow when I have all the bat sfx triggers sorted out, and post updates on how that evolves through to a more final version.

[tortoiseandcrow]

James, this sounds pretty incredible! Love the atmosphere in that track you linked.

Have you been considering the more "ecological" end of the spectrum in Rain World's thematic range? Since the game has that wonderful terrarium feel, I find myself thinking a lot about the immediacy and naturalism of composed field recording albums when looking at the gameplay footage. Stuff like Lawrence English and Werner Dalfedecker's Shadow of the Monolith, but more, y'know, organic. At the very least it seems like this might be an awesome opportunity to take the contact mic and hydrophone out for a spin!

I'm also delighted to see that you're using Reaper. For anyone not already in the know, Reaper is the best deal in the business as far as professional quality audio software goes. I honestly have no idea why it isn't industry standard.

[jamesprimate]

ty ty!

I agree with literally everything you said. Working with the junk audio stuff in this way definitely opens the door to incorporating field recording style soundscapes, and the way we are planning on doing the room->region->world environmental audio structure is already sort of set up for it. Would be a shame not to!

I probably wont do the actual wandering around with a mic bit, as i have become a vampire and sunlight would certainly burn my skin at this point, but i do have some field recording enthusiast acquaintances who's libraries i plan on thoroughly raiding 

And like you, I am highly suspicious of independent audio people who use DAWs like pro tools. reaper is leaps and bounds better than programs 20x its price

[Torchkas]

Holy shit that's a million times better than the track posted on the first page. It's really noticeable that you significantly improved your production values with that track.
I didn't want to be vocal about the track you posted on the first page because I knew somewhere that it wasn't final.
This is really good.

Are you going to do something with dynamically adjusting music with the environment?
Might be cool.

[oahda]

Sounds very nice. Wondering if it shouldn't be mixed with some very simple, non-intrusive "music"/instrument in the background sometimes as well or it might get tedious after a while. Thinking of something like

in Wind Waker, which is mostly ambient (just ignore the constant drums) but throws in some instruments here and there.

[Crispy75]

Are you going to do something with dynamically adjusting music with the environment?
Might be cool.

I really hope so. One of my all-time favorite game soundtracks is Fez. Not just because Disasterpeace is a great musician, but because the tunes meshed with the world and the gameplay, ie putting a low-pass filter on the music when the player was hidden behind scenery, and having different day/night versions of the same track that blended into each other.

[Christian]

Imagine you are being hunted through the deep darkness by some huge creature while something like this is playing in the background:
https://clyp.it/jjn25egr

So good...the soundtrack is going to be amazing
This was another distorted junk audio piece, right? What was the original audio? The way you manipulated that PAX audio into such an atmospheric track was really cool

Also, "huge creature"...hmm, just an example or a hint of things to come?

[jamesprimate]

ahh thanks so much for the kind words! im really heartened that example wasn't considered "too out there", as that was a definite concern. we're both doing this as an art project and exploring some pretty weird techniques, but its equally important to have that not get in the way of communicating the mood of the game to a person experiencing it. like, sure its clever that i did that track from a 3 second junk audio clip, but... it also has to actually "work".

Holy shit that's a million times better than the track posted on the first page. It's really noticeable that you significantly improved your production values with that track.
I didn't want to be vocal about the track you posted on the first page because I knew somewhere that it wasn't final.
This is really good.

Are you going to do something with dynamically adjusting music with the environment?
Might be cool.

Totally 100% agreed. Its been a strange experience, since most of the tracks associated with the game were done years ago on a lark for what I assumed would be just a little free game. Things have progressed considerably since then, but also I have a lot of comments from people / backers who really like the original tunes, so I'd feel guilty completely scrapping them. They don't really fit the narrative aspect of the current game so i dont think i'd want them in the single player, but what I might do is have them as tracks available in multiplayer? Then they would be there for people who like them, but it doesn't derail the atmosphere.

Wondering if it shouldn't be mixed with some very simple, non-intrusive "music"/instrument in the background sometimes as well or it might get tedious after a while.

Yep, totally. This relates to the dynamic audio question as well. The way I have it organized is that there are 3 layers of non-sfx audio, each specific to an individual region: one layer to set the ambiance of a room/sub-region/etc, such as dripping water or machines rumbling softly; another layer that relates dynamically to the weather, so wind, light rain, atmospheric stuff; and the third is tied to narrative elements, game objects or specific moods we want to convey, and that is generally "music" but can also be "music-ish".

the idea is that as you move through the environment, regions, rooms, etc., there is a kind of constantly shifting, blending soundscape around you, and you would rarely (or potentially never) hear the same blend of sounds again. thats the idea at least! all the pieces are there, we just have yet to implement it.

Also, "huge creature"...hmm, just an example or a hint of things to come?

 

Anyway, audio stuff is on pause for a day while poor Joar sorts through some bat audio triggers and wraps up the FINAL editor update (fingers crossed!), so I've been putting together concepts for the next region: Garbage Wastes! Home to my favorite creature: Garbage Worms!!! I've been looking forward to this one for a loooooooong time, so its great to get down to business.





This region was also, if i remember correctly, one of the major reasons for Joar building the prop editor, so I'm starting to play with that a bit in context and DAMN it is going to add so much! There is serious potential for over use of it to ruin or at lest significantly change the already established aesthetic, so I'm starting slow. In the above room for instance, the boxes and some sticking up curved beams are the only prop additions.

[Cakeprediction]

holy crap, this looks like the best area yet D:

[Teod]

Is the water swimmable? My platformer instinct kinda tells me that green = poison, but I remember some other areas with green-ish water where it was safe and where I didn't get this feeling. Maybe you need a different shade of green...

[jamesprimate]

holy crap, this looks like the best area yet D:

thx, i have high hopes for it!

Is the water swimmable? My platformer instinct kinda tells me that green = poison, but I remember some other areas with green-ish water where it was safe and where I didn't get this feeling. Maybe you need a different shade of green...

this palette is just temporary as i sketch out a few levels so that will def get fixed, but in general were not going to have any poison or acid pits or lava or anything like that. early on we decided that the creatures and the rain are going to be what kills you (and sometimes fall damage and drowning, ofc), so no spikes or lasers turrets. every trap it will be *possible* to escape. though that said, these specific pools will probably be full of leeches and other nasty stuff

[Christian]

I've probably said it before, but it is just so impressive how each region has such a unique atmosphere - the terrifying open spaces of Canopy, the dank claustrophobic passages of Drainage,  etc. - and yet they all feel like a part of the same world. Distinct yet consistent.

One question: the plan is that this'll be one seamless interconnected world, right? Will there be rooms that transition between regions? For example, moving from Heavy Industrial to Garbage Wastes, leaving the dilapidated structures behind and gradually seeing more garbage and then reaching the rolling hills of the Wastes

[JLJac]

Deeep in an extensive level editor upgrade, and making new art assets. I'll probably do an update when I'm through. In the mean time, here's some rust textures:

[oahda]

Guys, guys! Lay down your arms. Take the weekend off and go do Ludum Dare to freshen up your minds!

[jamesprimate]

Guys, guys! Lay down your arms. Take the weekend off and go do Ludum Dare to freshen up your minds!

well, since you mention it... Lydia and I are doing a kind of music party this weekend, so we're offering to write tracks for LD games. youre right, its good to mix things up a bit

[jamesprimate]

but... we dont take breaks for very long Joar whipped up a properly poisonous looking palette for the Garbage Wastes region:





Were working on a solution to the blockiness of the tile boarder, but otherwise lookin pretty nice

He has also, apparently, finished with what we hope to be the final level editor update!  I'm not sure if the editor has been his arch nemesis for this project but its certainly a main antagonist at least, so i hope he went out for a beer or something after closing that window  . I'll let him tell you all about the decals and props and draped cables, but suffice to say, it its going to add a ton of polish visually and should take us through to the end.

It's an insanely huge addition to my level toolkit because previously any visual concepts I wanted to have in a room, "the look", had to be completely done within the 3 layers of playable geometry, and MAAAAAAAn is that limiting! Now I can say "hey I want a fan tile here" and not have to make it work with the physical/spatial orientation of the room. Also, whereas the physical tiles can only be placed in 3 layers of groupings (0-10, 10-20, 20-30), the prop tiles can be placed at any depth from 0-30, meaning I have much more control of the perception of depth, which will make for a more nuanced look and expanded Three-dimensionality.

Anyway enough blurb, Imma get to it!

[JLJac]

Yeah not quiiiite done, I need to add yet another type of prop, which will be used for more organic shapes. But we're totally getting there! Then I'm making a few art assets when I'm at it (new garbage tiles!) and after that working on the level editor can hopefully be put behind us. Except I'll have to return now and then to add assets. Haha. Anyway, it's Sunday so I'm taking a little time off, see ya soon!