Hey team since finishing Project Wild Machine I've been working on a few different jobs mainly my new game project 'From the Trenches'. From the Trenches is a educational walking simulator based inside a WW1 trench. My role was to source audio assets and music as well as implement them within the game itself. I haven't really done anything like this before and I was really excited to get started but before I got stuck into it I started by doing a pre production plan as per below
Making table like this and setting out a plan is the first step to any major project. Timelines and risk management is a crucial step in keeping a project on track and something I have learned (mostly by error) about during this semester at SAE. Risk management is something I never even stopped to think about but it's helped me visualise potential mistakes and help resolve them before they ever happen.
After doing the nerdy pre production stuff I got into the equally nerdy fun stuff of finding out about WW1 and some of the sound that are actually in that kind of game. I started with footsteps because whats a walking simulator without footsteps? So I hired a hand held recorder (Zoom H6), grabbed my boots and headed to find some mud. I ended up near the botanical gardens in Brisbane where I knew of some mangroves which were particularly muddy.
Unfortunately I didn't end up recording any footsteps at all...
On the day there were quite a lot of people walking along the path that you can see me set to record on. I didn't record any because I was too afraid of what people would think of me when I was doing that. The only reason I even mentioned this fiasco in the first place is that I hope to improve myself my writing about it. If I ended up recording a few sample or going with someone else to help my anxiety I believe I couldn't gotten a much more realistic muddy footstep sound for FTT (From the Trenches). So next time I go to do any off site recording I'll make another blog about how I overcame my public anxiety. Anywho it didn't hurt the project too badly as I found a bunch of free sample footsteps from the School's sample library and online and mashed a bunch together to make a wet and dirty sounding footstep. Also to add the the immersion I added a bit of reverb to simulate that footsteps bouncing off the walls of the trench around you. All in all I was happy with the resulting footsteps which you will see in the video walkthrough of the game later in the blog or you can see it in my portfolio section of the website.
The best and also what ended up being one of the worst parts of this project was the amount of proposed intractable objects within the game. At the start of the project I got a list of potential assets I had to make for the game, things like letters that read a script when you picked them up, medals, a canteen and other kind of items that would generate sound when picked up. As the weeks went by and the project was being put together I made all these audio assets for these in game items and more but as projects go usually something goes wrong. Quite a few of these assets didn't even make it in the game things like the canteen and even the letters weren't interactable so I had nowhere to put my sound. This problem all came down to communication.
One major thing I learned from this project is how essential communication is within a project team. As well as the above example of not letting me know these assets weren't going to make it into the final cut another major communication breakdown happened during the project. Just as I was putting my assets together I asked the team when they were free to give some feedback on how I was going so far and when they were free to help me put them in the game itself. So we met up later in the week and I told them I was keen to get to work and show them what I had already come up with, but it's never that simple. I was told that the game should be finished in the next few days and that they had no time to help me put those sounds and I should do it myself. This sounds pretty mean but it wasn't malicious they were busy with their own things and the fact that I only had a few days to work with software I'm not that familiar with as well as finish off my assets was a real shock to me. To it's safe to say this was a panic moment for me. Luckily the other audio student I was working with had some free time and tried to help me get the game running and add sound but we couldn't get it to launch. After some help from a games teacher on campus I was adding all the sound I could think of before the deadline in 2 days. The first attempt went pretty well but I still didn't have a way to add footsteps or many of the other sounds I had created for the project. It was pretty bare-bones but ultimately I was pretty proud because I've never done a project liek this and working within Fmod and Unity was really exciting as it's basically what I want to do when I finish my course.
As you can see in the video we did end up adding a lot more sound after the deadline as it adds a lot more to the level. The muddy footsteps, distant explosion and the gramophone are my favourites. Overall I think the project went well from my perspective, there were a lot of things that didn't work as they were meant to originally but in the end I think the whole thing was very beneficial for my learning. Having barely touched Unity and Fmod in a extra curricular class to adding sound to an entire game level was a big deal for me and I look forward to next year so I can work on many different styles of games. Mostly because using these new programs is definitely why I started studying at SAE, I want to make video games audio for a few reasons.
Mostly I learned that I want to focus on game sound because I'm a huge fan of the discipline. Being able to integrate audio that blends in so well with the game level adding to the games immersion is what I love about games. I play games to immerse myself in another world. If I could ever get a job in the games industry doing sound design I'd be over the moon. Working on this project finally allowed me to get a chance to start practicing and I found out just how much I have to learn... A lot! There is so much to game sound design like picking the right assets, editing those samples, integrating them within Fmod allowing the use of loops, effects, scattering sound and so many things that I haven't even touched on yet. It boggles my mind how much I have to learn and I'm nervous and ecstatic at the same time. Next trimester I get to learn more post production skills with my new teacher and I'm looking forward to learning Fmod in my spare time and helping other game students be more immersive. I think I just need to focus on picking the right groups or at the very least know how to work better inside a team dynamic like this one.
I had a pretty rough time within the group for From the Trenches with all of the communication breakdowns and problems that arose I don't think I handled them very well at all. I need to be more proactive in groups and get a head of my workload earlier. Not to mention spend more time perfecting my assets, which also comes with spending more time on the actual project. I feel I was far too content to just use whatever I found instead of try and find the perfect samples. Using the right sample and editing properly in a DAW before it goes into Fmod is something I need to focus on as well. I added a lot of my effects post Pro tools inside of Fmod with takes up a lot more data in the game and also has fewer options when it comes to things like EQ, reverb and all the simply necessary effects. Fmod wasn't really built for that so spending a little more time getting things right before it goes into the game is something I need to focus on next year.
All in all (yes I realise I say that a lot) this project, well this trimester has really opened my eyes to post production and what I want to focus on. Learning to work effectively inside a group dynamic and spend more time focused on my projects are just two of the things I learned I need to focus on. If I apply myself more and really start to push myself to learn more I believe I'll be well on my way to entering the video game industry. Thank you for giving me chance to talk about what I've learned it means a lot to me.
*Shout out to all my teachers who helped me get this far and have invested more in my learning than I probably did, I appreciate it!*
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