I haven't seen the audio aspect of the game discussed much. I think it was decided that we would use OpenAL but I'm not sure.

I'd like to help work on the audio as well as code (If I get the damn thing running properly lol). I have taken a couple digital recording/processing courses. I dont know much in the way of music theory (I cant play any instruments) but I can still put together some catchy music.

So lets get some discussion going so I can find samples/instruments for songs and create sound fx for the... well.. sounds

- Are we going to use OpenAL or FMOD or something else?
Also is anyone working on the audio engine or should I slap something together?

- What kind of music are we going to have: Trance/Dance, HipHop/RnB, Rock, etc, a little bit of everything?
I suppose we could mix it up. Maybe the different locations that the player visits can have their own style of music. Then there can be fast music during combat and slow music when theres peace. Tense music when out in wild/unknown/dangerous areas and calm/relaxing music when in a safe area such as the players base/home.

Do we want full songs or just some short stuff that we can loop? Maybe a combination of both?
Heres a quick loop I put together. Its fast paced, good for combat or adventuring into the unknown.
:: Download The Loop! ::
I think its a standard drum pattern, its sped up with a lil effects on it (trying to go for something a lil futuristic but familiar, nothing weird or out there).

- What about sound FX?
I'll start getting together some weapon sounds for combat (gun shots, explosions, knives stabbing/slashing).
I'll make some 'cool' sounds for the powers/skills.

- Do we want voice overs for the dialog? If someone wants to record themselves talking I can process it and make it sound funky, like a robot or something Or we can use a text-to-speech engine to create voices for characters, not sure how good artificial/robotic voices would go over though.

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OpenAL was pretty much decided on since it has support for both regular and 3D sound.

The loop was pretty cool. Think you could make another with the effects a little "darker" sounding? Not lower, necessarily, but maybe with a little more horror-like sound.

I'd open to pretty much any style except rap/hip hop and country. Some trance might be cool and rock is a definite yes from me.

I would work on effects first though. Music we can fit in easily and any time, but sound effects will be tied to the weapons so to test them out I'd like to see them in as soon as the items are working.

As for voice-overs - if we could do it, great, but I'm not going to be hurt if we can't get it in. Once we have dialog, I could do a couple lines and see how it works. For communications, I'd love to see a little window with the model's face and do lip-synching, but that would be difficult if Ogre doesn't support it (which I don't believe it does).

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Either metal or techno (Like the techno in HL2).

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The music in HL2 must have been done well because I don't specifically remember it.

I think that style might fit since the worlds are similar.

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I personally think that we should have a set of tracks for each location (combat, and regular), and then choose randomly between them.
This was discussed a long time ago on IRC, I listed some independant musicians I know that I can contact and either get permission to use their existing songs, or get them to do some custom tracks (hopefully). I was waiting until we have something extremely basic to show them and say: "make music like this", but perhaps with the concept art and whatnot, we're ready for that. I was having difficulty finding any combat-oriented tracks that Machaira would like though.

- This was the first guy I mentioned, electronic instrumental glitch and hiphop influenced crazy awesomeness. I proposed to perhaps use his music for all the big city locations, but the general consensus seemed only to perhaps do it for the interiors of nightclubs (unfortunately):
http://www.project168.co.uk/music/proje ... u_Know.mp3
http://www.project168.co.uk/music/proje ... _Upset.mp3
http://www.project168.co.uk/music/proje ... _Theme.mp3

- I proposed this fellow for combat music, Machaira liked it, but I may be have some slight difficulty contacting as I don't know him, but I may be able to do it anyway.
http://www.project168.co.uk/music/proje ... _Wreck.mp3
http://www.project168.co.uk/music/proje ... _Wreck.mp3
http://www.project168.co.uk/music/proje ... _Wreck.mp3
http://www.project168.co.uk/music/proje ... herapy.mp3

- This guy is more ambient and stuff. What people said (which I agree with), is to not have any of these vocal samples, but that's easy enough to do if we get his help:
http://www.project168.co.uk/music/proje ... ontact.mp3
http://www.project168.co.uk/music/proje ... sarray.mp3
http://www.project168.co.uk/music/proje ... r_beam.mp3


- This the another guy I mentioned.
http://www.project168.co.uk/music/proje ... dtriqp.mp3
http://retropublik.com/music/fieldtriqp ... _mle17.mp3
This track would be perfect for how I imagine the world being bizarrely altered by the Perception Crash:
http://www.archive.org/download/exp032/ ... be_vbr.mp3
My avatar is actually the "cover image" (not physically, but you get the point) of one of this guy's EPs.

I mentioned one or two others, but those weren't really liked.

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It doesn't have to be just what I like. If we get a bunch of tracks and the group likes them, I have no problem with using them. Getting the group to give feedback needs to be done in order to determing what they like. If the group doesn't want to make a decision I will however.

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Those sound files would have to be edited... but some of them have good beats.

For the main menu any of them in the middle would be good. However the symbols and some of the harsh "noises" might get annoying after a while.

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/\/////////// \\\\\\\\\\\/\S
/\/////////\\ //\\\\\\\\\/\I - Assault Wars
/\///////\\//|\\//\\\\\\\/\R - - Work in Progress
/\/////\\////|\\\\//\\\\\/\I
/\///\\/////\|/\\\\\//\\\/\S

Symbols and harsh "noises"?

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Well, should I go ahead and contact these people?

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I listened to the last track for the last guy and it was pretty cool. It went on a little too long at the start IMO, but that's easily fixed. If he can do some stuff that's a little "darker" it would be great. It can't hurt to contact him and see if he'll do something.

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Ok, I sent him a message, what about the other people?

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here's Fieldtriqp's response (the only thing altered was the name "T-1" for clarity).


Yay! This means that we can use anything from http://fieldtriqp.experimedia.net/ . It's unfortunate that he can't do custom tracks, but hopefully we can get some other people also.

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I could try writing some stuff. I'm not much for fast-paced music, I'm much better at writing more poingiant stuff. But I can try, I've come up with some stuff before.

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Well, I can make attempts, but they're just attempts. I can't do the atmosphere that's right for this game.

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Not sure if it's any interesting, but I got this link a while ago:

http://www.imageafter.com

It's all about textures though, but seams to be an incredible resource.

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I only looked at the wall textures and they wouldn't be very useful. They're not made to be used as textures for games it seems.

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Hmm I don't know if I should have anything with this part of the game to do, but I made a simple tune at the studio. thought you might wanna hear it.

http://web.comhem.se/~u22205900/gpwiki_Community_Project.mp3

it has a quick pace and is quite dark.

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Pretty cool. It loops pretty nicely. I think we can use it somewhere if you're ok with it. If you want to do more feel free. Could you do something slow and heavy? Think, exploring an abandoned mine type feel. Something along the lines of wandering through dark corridors in Doom III maybe.

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You can make textures out of em . They are pretty high q.

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I'm not going to be involved in the project, sorry.... Maybe I'll edit it after you guys are done.

But I don't want the game to go from nice peacful music to combat music constantly. It gets annoying! Remember pokemon?