Dia Nueve: Luz, Sonido y Effectos

No Mas Silencio

I had forgotten to stop by my studio and transfer some sound design I'd thought to use for Arroyo Seco, but I liked a couple of the RRGTS tracks I had onhand and used them to good effect in the level. Given that sound is my 'real' job, I'll definitely be remxing all of my game before releasing it but as working mixer, I'm not concerned whether the source is mine or someone else's. It'll sound like me in the end anyway...

I had planned to try a new track I'm writing but after hearing it while playing the level, decided one of my earlier tracks for TolTech/TGE was cooler. Tribal drums, flute and cello. Perfect. Indigenous sounding to fit the theme but a strong, dark beat driving the player's pulse up as he gets bashed by a mech or few. If there's one thing I've learned as a mixer, it's never to get too attached to a track or a sound. If it doesn't work with the visuals, it doesn't matter how awesome it is by itself. I have compression/optimization tricks I'll wield before I deliver the demo, but for the sake of the level, the goal is to draw the player into the game, making it more immersive. Here's one of the collection of apps I use:

Effectos

I am a little bit ahead of myself with the level, as I have a number of AFX effects that I plan to merge into the game itself. For now I'm just using a few placeholders I change via script later. One of the features of the game is that the goals are representations of planets, so I place a team-colored one above the base pyaramids, and bright white ones in various places, mostly pyramids in the level. The 'Sun Pyramids' now overlook the main play area, and will thwart the players with random comet-fire. If certain game conditions are met, they'll turn into spaceships and be even nastier. For now all of these effects are in SimGroups which I access via AFX later.





The triggers on the second floor of the base temple are teleporters - one takes you to random positions in the level and the other drops you in a jetfighter and you VTOL away. Here's a clip of some of the effects:






While I was at it, I added the chrome from the FPS demo. I have a big chunk of my gui in the works, but wanted something cool to show people for now...


Day 8