MUSIC WRITING, SOUND DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION IN UNREAL ENGINE
About this game
«The fairy tales our parents told us are sometimes true, but they are not so bright and with a happy ending. Our heroes will be convinced of this and they will have to confront the mega-corporation for the seizure of world domination. In this not easy way our heroes will help new friends and new abilities.
Thrilling plot and fascinating puzzles are waiting for you. Let’s plunge together into incredible adventures with our heroes and save the world from evil».
Thrilling plot and fascinating puzzles are waiting for you. Let’s plunge together into incredible adventures with our heroes and save the world from evil».
The initial stage of my work was the study of the structure of the first act of the game and the creation of the soundtrack concept. This stage was one of the most artistic. I created quite a lot of compositions taking into account the mechanics of using them in the game engine. Later, some of them were reworked and included in completely new arrangements in the soundtrack to the game.
After creating the soundtrack concept for each of the stages of the game, I voiced all the cutscenes and animations. There are quite a lot of them, because this game, first of all, is an interesting and exciting story. In addition, I created a large number of event sounds and interface, voiced characters.
1. Max takes the sword 2. Legend 3. Fairy Rescue
Some work has been done using digital audio workstation and the necessary audio processing tools. I also took into account the set of sound events that will be played in the game, since the final mix is built much later.
The next stage consisted in the direct implementation of the created material into the Unreal Game Engine. Here I created a system of mixing channels within the project with a certain hierarchy and dependence of dynamic priorities. Plus, implemented various game mechanics that allows to play sounds in the game and organize whole systems from them.
1. Step change system 2. Using different reverberation settings to transmit acoustics to each of the locations 3. Compliance with the conditions for reproducing sound events depending on the type of surface
1 & 2. PC step change system 3. Sound debagging is the main tool in troubleshooting 4. Mixing system 5. Debugging the attenuation of a 3D sound object
Together with the current programmer of the project, we found solutions for a large number of tasks related to the technical capabilities of the Unreal Engine.
So, for example, one of the many was the placement of sound events with a duration exceeding the length of cut scene sequences. We had to look for ways to start them synchronously, and subsequently pause them. This allowed the compositions to be placed in such a way that they continued their playback when necessary, enhancing the effect of perception and a smoother transition to new events.
The ease of gameplay hides a large and time-consuming work of the development team.
At the moment, «Beyond Dark Tales» is available on the Android platform, but it will soon appear on iOS devices. You can try to plunge into the world of adventures together with the main characters right now by clicking on this link.
