keskiviikko 28. joulukuuta 2016

Odd piece of mind text written during a flight very tired

Ah back to using this blogspot thingie, it's been awhile hasn't it? Hahahahah.... I wrote a odd piece of text in a very tired mindset on my return flight from Japan back to Finland, it's kinda amusing how aggressive it is in a sense and how I drift around the point but hey, fuck it, here it is all unedited, my tired stream of mind with little to no sleep under it! I thought it would be good to just get this out of my system and no one reads my posts so that's even better :D OK, here we go:

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As I am flying back to Finland after a interesting and inspiring trip in Japan due to the awarding of Downwell for PlayStation, I though to write about sound design from another perspective other than the basics or the usual technical approach.
During the trip I got to chat with people from different circles be it game design or visual art or music and I was shown around Japan by Ojiro Fumoto (the creator of Downwell) and accompanied by Eirik Suhrke (great composer and game designer). While having all these chats about design and ways of creating and meaning of things it struck a chord of realisation in me,
usually when I read about sound design it's about the technical or very specific audio mumbling that atleast to me, is very boring and uninspiring if not even verging of being outdated every few years?
I realised that I would like to read about sound design in a very personal manner, about the meanings and ideas, thoughts behind the scenes. So I thought I would start briefly with writing down my routines and random thought processes behind my designs and see where that
leads us.
The start of a project, to me the most important part of jumping into a game.
This is where we get to talk about the game, what's the world like, what's in the game, how does it work, what's the core idea? Important step with bouncing around ideas and jamming on possibilities, realising what everyone wants and how to achieve it. Usually when I start on a game I take a good solid chunk of time, maybe a few weeks or a month or so just figuring out what we want based on our initial chats and I start writing down my "world-guide" in which I write down all of these questions.
As a example with Nuclear Throne, a game by Vlambeer in which I was the sound designer in, I started by writing down the feel I wanted:
A C-Grade Sci-Fi movie sound from the 70/80/90's with a hot overdriven feel, unclean and mean, punchy and organic. As always, with the games I work on I want the world to feel consistent and believable, to me just making single sound effects and chugging them into a game without thought of how they work together coherently is just not interesting and rarely very original. So with Nuclear Throne
as I wondered about how to make all the inhabitants feel believable and make them all tie into a believable mutant world I decided to take some extra time designing the world and I came up with a all original written and spoken language for them with some forms of dialect
to separate friendly characters from mean characters. I didn't stop there, I also decided during these phases to separate different vocal qualities from the player characters and enemies by using different microphones, pre-amplifiers and settings.
This was a fun way to get to know the characters, to get a proper feel of who they are and what the world is like to both them and for the player. I feel like, if you get that chance to get so familiar with the details like that it's easy to build the sound scape around it and just know what belongs where and why. If you get this far with the planning phases alone, you're most probably in for a good time.
Another game I worked on called Bleed 2 by Ian Campbell (Bootdisk Rev), I wanted the world to feel oddly two sided with two forms of physicality.
First form of physics was "real life"-like with more organic materials for stuff like the players (a human character) actions, cars, ceiling crumbling and earth shattering and what have you, to give the player a sense of familiarity of the world.
Second form was for the enemies, being robotic invaders and other beings, for these I made sounds out of musical instruments such as electric guitars, synthesisers and resampled sounds to make them feel different and un-familiar, a bit provoking and intimidating at times. Like this the game already started feeling like its own unique entity and giving me a palette that I could work out of quite freely.
I made myself a rule set where I decided that each enemy, each boss, each weapon and animation would have its own sounds just to make everything sound as detailed as the delicate animation was. Like this the simplest of attack already oozed of "oh it's this fellas laser!!!"-like familiarity which I personally think is pretty interesting and makes discoveries feel fresh.
On the BADLAND game series by Frogmind Games the idea was to have a freely breathing full blown physics based organic realistic world where the small feel small and the huge feel huge. This game I approached by planning what objects to record and how to make single objects work as multiple sound sources just by pitch shifting them or using various parts of sounds
in a more 'inside the game' layer based thinking. So I would record a bunch of sewing machines, fans, doors, electric toothbrushes and what not that could be placed and layered together by me and the level designers inside the games level editor to make the world alive with its physics systems.
As you can probably see, all these games were kind of different in terms of how they were approached both artistically and by straight up work. These weren't "just make these sounds effects" instead these were their own unique pieces which brings me to another topic.
As a sound designer who works on mid sized games mostly, I have noticed the start of a project to be very important in another aspect that I think affects our "artistic-status" in the industry, that aspect being budget. A lot of studios seem to seek a person to do sounds just so that there is sound to make the game feel somewhat complete. This is the very basics of the deal, sure, but a lot of companies seem to be oblivious to the fact that this is one crucial step of making the game feel original, unique, better than just ok, this is a step that can make that "just ok" into a award winning masterpiece.
I feel like this is also a byproduct of something that people seem to be afraid of, asking for money, and that hinders us in many ways, especially in artistic ways.
This is a topic I would like to be a part of in a larger panel or a interview but I don't think this is the right one for that, instead, I'll just write down a few thoughts over the matter:
Our salary does not come from "the effect costs two euros in a catalog, here's two euros, just edit that", our salary comes from our professional guarantee to see the games sounds from planning the sound scape into a finished sonic world, or to as long as our deal is set. We all also work differently, just like visual artists or game designers I feel like we should be considered in a similar manner.
Some of us go out and record, there's wear and tear on equipment, some of us use libraries there's licensing and purchasing costs, these are the nuts and bolts of ours, tools to make our artistic visions come true, this is why there should be budget, then count your daily/weekly/monthly rates on top however you value your time and effort. Don't feel ashamed of it, I wouldn't clean apartments for free either. Having a decent budget laid out gives you more ease to create your best instead of worrying about costs and cutting corners.
Now this is where I feel like the chats at the start of the project come into play, I never price myself before I know what the game is, what does it require sound-wise both artistically and by sheer amount of work. Having a chat and some planning, a list of the currently known needed sounds and so on help on coming up with a realistic and reasonable price that should look and feel fair to all.
Mid project working, now to me this is mostly execution of the already laid out plans.
This is when you know what to paint and it's a matter of choosing colours and getting single elements done. This is also where I have noticed that it's not always the best idea to dwell on effects for too long, instead of immediately iterating I leave sounds in until everything is done to see whether they actually need iterating or not. I prefer to work in chunks and then send a good amount of sounds to immediately get a feel of the game as a whole. I see no real point in putting in a sound or two and then calling a meeting to see how they feel and analyse them, they aren't necessarily meant to sound like anything alone, they need the surrounding elements to place them in the designed world.
Sound is hard for most people to explain, it is something you can not take a picture of and say "that's what I want!" you rely on expressing feelings of past experiences that might differ from person to person. This all said I usually start with the player characters sounds first as I feel like
the extension of the player is the most important aspect be it controls or sounds or visuals and it acts as a good base to sort the rest out of. Then I would progress into what the player is interacting with as in enemies?, a football?, roadside fences?. From there I progress to what the player and X interact with, where are they placed? and so on until the world and game feels alive.
There is something to be said with getting a sound designer, or any designer, if their first few iterations and designs aren't the ones working for you, well, maybe they are wrong for this particular project? I have worked on games for which I have been the wrong choice clearly either by
the studio telling me they want me to work with them and then it turns out they want me to do something totally different than planned or by the game just changing into something I do not want to be a part of. There is nothing wrong of both deciding "ok, maybe we aren't the right match"
and changing plans. That doesn't mean either one is bad or unprofessional, I think it's quite the reverse. Knowing when something doesn't work it's good to then analyse why it doesn't work and discuss on how to proceed. That is professional and sane.
Communicating through out the project is very important to me, that is, to also know your client and how they prefer to interact with co-workers. Make sure what you are about to make is the right direction from the get go, knowing what the current plans are and if that feature is even going to be in anymore?
Some of the traps I have experienced is that a client has ordered a sound from me and then during making the sound it has been cut out and when I've finished it I receive a "oh, we didn't need that, surely we ain't paying that!" which sure enough is breaching a settled contract but it's not always as simple as that. It's a weird situation and something that should be in most cases preventable, also things like that happening affect my artistic output a lot, what if other stuff is being cut while I'm pouring my creative soul into it? Just something to keep in mind I guess.
Nearing the end of a project, this is where I go through everything and play the game a bunch and write down notes of my current feelings. My notes might be "this sound is too loud" "this sound could be raised up" "tone down the reload sound" "birds sound just right but the badger is too loud!"
and so on, I prefer to play the game from start to finish just like the players would, instead of getting stuck on perfecting something. Then I would play the game again and write down new notes and compare the runs I have done to see if I felt the same and then I would collect
the notes and send them onwards for fixing unless it's something that I can fix myself.
It is not always about sounding perfect and sterile, sometimes you need some feel-guides, just rely on your gut feeling is what I tell myself and having something interesting is just, interesting. Figuring out what is important to tell the player the necessary things and accentuating them
is key to having a game serve it's purpose, which I guess to me is, to have fun.
I hope my odd little thought piece was of any use to anyone, long flights tend to bring out random thoughts so yeah, hope I kept on track enough to give out a text piece that might help or interest you!
Thanks,
-Joonas Turner
A video game sound designer and voice actor
now doubling as a game designer with his own commercial game, Tormentor X Punisher.
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Heh I love how I even made a citation thingie :D I fell asleep immediately after writing this and I kinda uncovered this "by accident" vaguely remembering that I wrote this, what a odd thing, well, hope it brings joy or discovery to anyone in any form :D

maanantai 7. huhtikuuta 2014

Gamasutra interview

Hi ya'll !!!!

Sorry for not writing for ages, lets just say it has been a HECTIC 2014 and there are some insanely big things to announce :) but for now i'll give you folks a link to my interview I did with the ever wonderful Mike Rose from Gamasutra:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/214622/Meet_Joonas_Turner_Vlambeers_sound_guy.php

It was a fun interview and I am so glad to receive such nice comments!

I'll post about current affairs later and also I want to share some cool techniques and ideas with all you readers! I've been pretty lazy with this although to be honest haven't had any free time yet in 2014...!

Have a good one :)

tiistai 31. joulukuuta 2013

Review of 2013 wheeeeew

EDIT: this is more of a thought process vent for me than a proper review of the year, but try to enjoy!

Wow, how to even start, hmmm, let's see...

Quick review:

This year has been probably my most important year.
Worked on so many amazing projects and with so many incredible people
and got a lot of games and other projects finished and released.
Got to go to so many video game events and video game jams,
went and taught at schools and did plenty of interviews for every kind of medium.
Got to meet so many friends, old and new, feel so lucky to have all you in my life.

This year also brought a lot of stress and hard decisions in work terms but here I am,
pretty happy about the year and more than ready for the coming year :)

Not so quick review where i'll go through mostly my thoughts with Badland to finally get these things processed and wrapped:

Badland

The year started with me continuing on Badland, creating sounds and mixing it, lots of back and forth bouncing trying out new ideas and mechanics. This game has a special place in my mind as this was the first commercial game that I got to work on as a sound designer. After winning 2012's Game Connection Europe Best Project + Sony Europe Best Project awards I felt so proud and relieved, atleast people didn't hate the game or my designs, quite the contrary it seemed.

On april in about two or three (I think) days before the release we had to create the trailer in a semi-rush and got it done just in time, if I recall right it was a matter of hours heh, but we got it out!
The release...I was so nervous, I was super happy to have the game out but oh so nervous. I think New Zealand had the game before others did for some timezone difference stuff? Didn't really hear that much about it though if i'm not mistaken, then the hour struck for us too, checked the app-store did we get the Apple feature, didn't see Badland there.

After not seeing it there I just thought "well, okay, no biggie :) got the game done and feel good about it!" and left to play a practice round with my band until my phone rang, it was Juhana, the visual artist 1/2 founder of Frogmind. "well that's odd" I thought, as he didn't really call me that often if ever really...he was in a good mood and told me that we had Editors' Choice for our region and the UK if I recall right, I was so happy to hear this, I was so excited about this. Then during practice I got a text message saying that we're Editors' Choice in the rest of europe, then another text telling Editors' Choice in the USA, then another text saying "scrap the previous messages, we're Editors' Choice around the globe" and wow, I was speechless, after practice I just sat down at home and went "wow, what just happened?".

Badland was a nominee at Nordic Game 2013 for the Indie Sensation award so I went there, I had a lovely time there and met some friends and a ton of new friends. I also met Juhana from Frogmind and I helped him out presenting the game at our Badland booth. After a few days it was the award ceremony for which I wasn't present as my flight left just before it, but I got a soothing message before my plane left: "We won!".

On summer I did sounds for the new update levels more than happy as people seemed to like the soundscape of the game a lot and during summer we got huge news... we were nominees for the Apple Design Awards 2013...which we won.

The summer also saw a few events for which I went to hold my 'The Sounds of Badland' programme in which I go through the sound design process of Badland from start to finish in a quick and informative manner where I showed and opened up my sessions and ideas for the game along the production. The events were Illusion 2013 and Assembly 2013.

Badland got invited to be showcased in the Beatbuddy release party at Hamburg, Germany and no one could make it except me and I was more than happy to go, I got to meet good friends of mine and showcase the game I was so proud and happy about.

Badland also got chosen for the PAX10 section at PAX Prime and as no one else could make it I got to go there too and lucky me that I did as I had so much fun presenting the game and had the most fun ever talking about my experiences as a game developer and sharing advice for aspiring game developers during the PAX10 talk panel. Got to meet so many new and old friends there that it was insane...insane fun!!

In the fall of 2013 I had my 'The Sounds of Badland' talk at Northern Game Summit 2013 and Game City 8 (of which I've written about on a earlier blogpost, check that!)


During the fall we won a Tabby award and then, probably the most historic, iconic moment in my career to date, Game Of The Year award from Apple.

I'm speechless about receiving all this...it's seriously like a dream come true how ever corny that sounds, something I never would have anticipated to happen to me just happened, so happy about that.

Badland has had atleast around 8 million downloads for iOS devices and I don't even know the figures for Android and Blackberry, oh and we won some Android Game Of The Year 'awards' too :)

The story for Badland isn't quite over yet, as we're waiting to hear from IGF 2014, so stay tuned!







During 2013 I also got to work with so many other interesting games as in The Swapper by Facepalm games, Crayon Physics Deluxe by Kloonigames, Mushy Rooms by OYOs Games, Turbo Dismount by Secret Exit and a few others that i'm not allowed to talk about yet sadly.
EDIT: I would love to expand on these games but I feel like it could potentially be breaking a worker->client bond if you know what I mean, so i'd rather be on the safe here, hope you understand!


                                         Crayon Physics Deluxe
                                         Mushy Rooms
                                         The Swapper
                                         Turbo Dismount



2013 was also the year of game jams for me, I participated in Nordic Game Jam (3:15 AM, Feed the Toad, KARZ, Cart Lyfe), Global Game Jam (Someone needs you !, Heartbeat Challenge, Awake in the dark, Ninja Princess, Observe Worm Falling), MOJAM (Wasteland Kings), GameBoy Jam (STEEL STOMPER), Ludum Dare (Tsuba). I think there were other jams too but i'm just forgetting them now! Also had a lot of mini jams with my friend and neighbour Jukio "Kozilek" Kallio!!

                                         3:15 AM
                                         STEEL STOMPER
                                            TSUBA




At the moment, i'm working on Nuclear Throne and I don't think i've ever had this much fun working on anything. I will write a talk for events about the process and a blogpost when the game is done and released! I even wrote a language for the game which the characters talk in the game with dialects, words, cyllable systems and so forth! Can't wait to get this game done although it's one of these projects which you wish never ended 'cause it's so much fun creating it.
Hope to see Nuclear Throne in IGF aswell.


                                         Nuclear Throne




Oh man i've learned so much this year and have had the privilidge to share my methods of working to others, I feel so lucky and happy. It has been hard work but really fun work at the same time, I hope that 2014 brings me even more games to work on :)

Happy new year!

                                         Apple Game Of The Year winners photo
                                         Badland & Ridiculous Fishing

torstai 19. joulukuuta 2013

Minecon 2013

Phew hi people!!

Last blog post was aeons ago, sorry for that, I also "forgot" or didn't really have time to write about Minecon so i'll get that out of the way now as a separate post to my coming fall 2013/a review of the past year post :)

Right after GameCity I got a call from Rami from Vlambeer that I need to go to Minecon to present Nuclear Throne at the indie section, so with a few hours warning I packed my stuff and had a rummage through accomodations until Adriel helped me find a hotel, then I headed to Orlando, Florida, USA.

Arriving to Orlando I was tired and seemingly jetlagged beyond recognition also very disorientated 'cause I wasn't a 100% of what's up but eventually I managed to get to the venue and got to set up all the required stuff (oh yeah, I also bought speakers with me and the game on a usb stick, heh, true indie stuff here!).


 <--- whooo setting up minecon at the same time!










After setting up I decided to head to the hotel 'cause I couldn't find the other indies as they were eating somewhere and I was reaaaally tired so yeah, sleep felt like the best idea so I tried to find a taxi...wow that was quite something I tell you, I found some super sleazy super unofficial looking taxi which I decided to skip, erggghhh, luckily I found an more official looking taxi and then realized just how far the hotel was, it was around 7-10 km distance away but yeah, not really an issue as such luckily :)

The hotel was HUUUUUGE, it was actually an five star hotel (if I remember right) and it looked so posh and high class, I love staying at places like that 'cause i'm everything but posh and high class hahah...

<--- the hotel view wasn't that posh tho, but I actually liked the view, oddly relaxing!











Okay, first day of minecon was really fun, the whole event started overly epic as Notch lit some "redstone" that then "exploded" a wall that rose up to let all the crazy attendees to the exhibition venue itself. I don't really know what to write about the demoing of the game, almost everyone who played it liked it and a lot of people bought it right away on steam with their mobile phones which seemed crazy to me, it's a new world I tell you!!



Oh and then there was this one over excited kid that still makes me smile:
https://vine.co/v/hjXFW0AtJTO

The first evening of Minecon itself was really fun, i'm kind of used to the usualy beer evenings at the pubs but this time it was an (jetlagged) adventure at the universal studios theme park which was a fun change of pace, also I got to meet up and chat with the other devs more over there :) made some good friends there too! Oh and Robin Arnott was there too with SoundSelf so got to meet him again! OH and met ofcourse C418 again as you might know he's kinda involved with Minecraft ;)


 <--- RAWR! Me and Jon Tunnell who's making Contraption Maker

















<--- I met superman "...."

















Cool, so, day 2 was much of the same as day 1 so yeah, it was SUPER fun :) also before the event started I had a duel with BaraBariBall creator Noah Sasso on Super Pole Riders as he was holding the Sportsfriends booth over at Minecon! I swear I lost 'cause i'm not used to playing it with ps3 controllers ;) heh

The evening of day 2 brought us the VIP Club party with....MR.OIZO AND BOYSNOIZE playing sets, now....WHAT?!?! I was supposed to get mega pissed and dance around naked but then the jetlag kicked in like a Slugger in Nuclear Throne, I just couldn't drink or do anything, I kept on bobbing my head as I was falling asleep all the time, hell disapointed in me but hey, I can't tour and party like crazy all of time it seems :(



 <--- mr.oizo and boysnoize !!


Okay so I had one random wonder around day before heading back home to Finland, didn't really have much to do and I hung out with Stéphanie Yath who was presenting their game Dungeon of the Endless at Minecon indies until she had to leave to the airport, then I battled against my will of what to do, should I head to town to find shops or what should I do, all this worrying about food and stuff until I realized by accident...there's a gigantic shopping mall attached to the hotel...seriously probably the biggest shopping mall i've been to...so that kinda took a few hours of wondering around and I ended up buying Dragons Crown for the PSVITA. Also had some weird chinese food that was way over priced for what I got...hmphth....oh and on the way to Target food shop I bumped into two cats and I tried to pet them but they ran away :(





<--- traditional healthy hotel food






I guess that was pretty much my weird non-sound related OH WAIT A SECOND, on the very first night I actually made a sound for Badland purely 100% on the iPad 'cause there was a patch in a rush to get released, so that was my first from start to finish recorded edited and mixed sound all with the iPad, it wasn't easy I tell you but it was possible so yay, now I can say i've done that for a released product :P

Oh and I watched a lot of Adventure Time in the hotel, I actually miss lying on a hotel bed watching the telly and eating garbage, that's probably me in my happiest and most relaxed mindset for some reason...i'm weird... Cheetos are pretty good!

Okay, so, yeah, I really have nothing to add here other than a picture of my packing, hope this was even slightly amusing to read, just wanted to get this out of my system :D until next time :)


torstai 31. lokakuuta 2013

Game City 8

PHEW, that's the first thought, sad sigh is the second, feeling happy is the third.

Game City was insanely fun and a good experience which I recomend for everyone. You get to meet people and hang out with them for a week playing games and talking about stuff wondering around the city of Nottingham (which actually is quite nice in my opinion).


I had three talks over there, my 'The Sounds of Badland' talk, a lecture about 'Video Game Sound Design' and then was part of the 'Nuclear Throne' panel where most of the NT team went through design concepts and other features.


                                     so, here I had my Badland talk...!!
          <---setting up and then people started arriving ^                  



 The Q/A in the Badland talk was insanely good, there were clearly people interested in video game sound design and had a lot of good questions and discussions, video game audio is going towards a bright future I tell you :)

There's a few things that kinda bugged me on that talk, first off I had an hour more than intended which was actually super good BUT for some reason I got stuck in showing the impact sounds, weird glitch in my brain I think :D and in the Q/A we were talking about ear fatigue and I pointed out this popular game by name (which you shouldn't really do, very unprofessional of me) which in my opinion really fatigues your ears with the sound being so squashed and I personally know the sound guy behind the game, I really wasn't trying to slag him off or anything honestly, he is a solid professional aswell and i'm sure that the sound side must have been pushed to the squashed direction.
Phew now that's out of my chest :) time to carry on!

 


<-- people arriving to the
      Nuclear Throne panel


     Rami submitting
     Nuclear Throne to IGF ->




The Video Game Sound Design lecture was a bit funny, I wrote the whole thing with either starting sound designers to already professional sound designers in mind. I think there were two sound designers present and rest were just generally interested in the topic. Well, instead of just catering to two people I winged the chat with entry level stuff with my more advanced points in mind for the two sound designers. I think the lecture went pretty well and we went slightly overtime aswell and I enjoyed it :) the idea was to get sound people engaged in a open lecture/conversation/speculation rather than me just babbling about and I think we got this going pretty well, can't wait to do this lecture with the intended audience in mind though, going to be craaaazyyyyyyy!

The Nuclear Throne panel was suuuuuuuper fun to do, pretty much it was Rami Ismail from Vlambeer asking me (sound designer), Paul Veer (visual artist) and Jukio Kallio (composer)
about our design ideas and how we see the game, we also had Jukio performing the starting song
of the game and the ending credits song, it was so so so so so so so nice, we also had a Q/A from the
audience. I think people new to the game didn't really get that much out of this panel as people who already knew the game and I think that was more in our mind aswell, to cater to people who just wanted a more deeper insight of what we're doing instead of advertising in a panel form.

OKAY talks aside i'll just type in some random stuff from Game City.

I got to meet old friends and got to bump into new friends, I met Ed Key who made PROTEUS, seriously, if you don't know the game CHECK IT OUT!

I finally met JMICKLE, the dude who makes cool beats and cool games (Coffee Mafia anyone?!)

I caught Robin Arnott doing good pranks:

I met Jesse Hurtado who's a sound designer/composer, a nice fellow, we had scone pizzas while listening to Britney Spears megamix........the shop had it on!!




Also met composer David Fenn, we were pretty much always at the same place, I think sound people are drawn towards the same places or something, or maybe...maybe it's because....you're a wizard 'arry!

I met a BUNCH of super nice developers aswell, just realized if I type everyone here this blogpost will be probably longer than the lord of the rings book set! Everyone I met were really nice and i'm glad that I met all of you!


I had a lot of good interviews aswell during GameCity :) some with some really big magazines/productions, so be sure to check your local magazine stores for Hunks monthly...errrr... videogame magazines that is!!



I was saddened that our most favourite game of all time, Frogdude, disappeared after a few days, oh the joy we had observing it go at the market square!














Oh and my hotel room...
My hotel room also saw some work, I do work a little too much from time to time...

I actually enjoyed my hotel room view aswell!

I miss all the people who I met and the general atmosphere, both Daniels, Brrrap, ohhh you people know yourselves, pretty much everyone who hung at the Pit & Pendulum!!

Being at Nottingham just solified my decision that i'm moving to the UK when I can.
Laters!

torstai 17. lokakuuta 2013

Eyeing you up!

Yo yo yoooo!

Okay, this quick post is about me seeing (no pun) a lot of players not understanding how Eyes special power 'mindcontrol' works in Nuclear Throne. So here's a quick video showing what this mutant can do and also showing why it's a good idea to be careful with 'mindcontrol' :)

Also if you're being creative, why not try a melee build on this character, i'm sure you'll get the hang of it fast enough ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHraA-_XTjo&feature=youtu.be


Awrite, in 28hours i'm off to the airport to go to GameCity in Nottingham, UK!!
Mega excited and phew there's so much to do! I think i've got two seminar/talks over there and a two hour lecture i'm holding about videogame sound design, so if you're over there come and check 'em out! Plenty of interviews too which is super nice! And hanging out with friends in this magical video game town!! YESSSSSS!

Oh god, I have to wake up soon and do intense amounts of work towards a videogame i'm working on before leaving... Also mixed a metal bands EP today at my workplace, something reminiscent of Slayer/Megadeth/Testament/Anthrax, that was pretty fun but I seriously am not a fan of Dynaudio speakers as my mixes tend to be super flabby with them, too much excess low middle mud :/ must repair that mix ASAP after GameCity, otherwise fine!

Tip of the day: Get used to a certain pair of headphones and learn them like no other, buy a thousand of them so if they ever go out sale you'll have plenty for backup, this is probably the only way to be 80% sure of your mixes where ever you are! REFERENCE MONITORING!

Ooooooh GameCity, can't wait!!

maanantai 14. lokakuuta 2013

Stream of Consciousness

Woooo there's an interview with me up on the Stream of Consciousness podcast :)
 http://www.lividhatter.com/?p=353

Wow, I still can't believe it's Game City this week, I have soooo much to do before that and lots of playing with FMOD Designer :) I like using FMOD Designer although now my Pro Tools has been creating random silences in front of loops...which kinda makes loops pop badly, argh, have to figure out why... maybe delay compensation is affecting bounces somehows? I think I have to export regions as wavefiles instead of bouncing, hmmm.