Post news Report RSS L.U.R.K. 1.2 Sound Design Dev Diary 7

Daemonion's white noise creates a romantic ambiance in The Zone!

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Yes, damn it, I know this is posted out of order. Dev Diary 6 is still a WIP <3

This dev diary can be summarized by the following question and picture: what does this sound like?

Hm, like this, me thinks.

Ah, enter our old friend - white noise.

As I mentioned in an earlier video, white noise is needed in Shadow of Chernobyl to make the game world seem more alive and believable. Through the use of space restrictors and my ridiculous code to make them work properly, I can now designate any area of the game as a home to a specific sound once the player enters it.

My primary use for this feature is to give each building (but I will also be using it outside of buildings) audible character that exists in the background to create a carefully constructed atmosphere. This serves two purposes - it prevents the game from ever being completely silent (as in complete digital silence), and it adds an incredible sense of immersion for the player. In other words, what you see is what you hear.

The code I wrote and mentioned above not only allows me to have buildings, bunkers, tunnels, caves, etc exhibit their own audible character (in sunny weather and stormy weather), but it also allows me to give each particular level a background ambiance (in sunny and stormy weather as well as day and night). So, each building will have two versions - a calm weather and a bad weather version (like I show with the bunker in this video) and each map will have a calm weather, bad weather, daytime and nighttime version. The Red Forest will sound completely different than Cordon, which will sound completely different than the Chernobyl NPP, and so on.

Honestly, this is the fun bit I have been trying to get to for over half a year. The old and Slavic X-Ray engine is cruel mistress, but I have almost all of my kinks worked out. The last big kink in my glorious master plan is writing a script to cross-fade (or at least fade) audio in Lua. If anyone can help with that, please contact me!



My DAW, Reason 6.5, back in action after hiatus

What does this all mean? In one sentence: dynamic and immersive audio not seen in any STALKER mod to date, Shadow of Chernobyl, Clear Sky, Call of Pripyat or otherwise. This has never been done before, and you'll only see (hear?) it in LURK 1.2.

You know what also hasn't been done before? A complete, proprietary overhaul of STALKER's weapon audio using field recording. Guess who I got to spend time with last week? A full-auto AKS-74U.


Expect three more dev diaries by the end of October. Consider it my apology for being so damn busy these last few months.

Daemonion

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Trooper425
Trooper425 - - 412 comments

The MISERY team (a CoP mod) has some phenomenal visuals and features. They could certainly use an audio package like the one you are putting together. Have you, and the LURK team overall, thought about joining forces with another mod group?

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Lоnerboner
Lоnerboner - - 8,303 comments

I wanted to contact them already but holden doesn't seem to react on messages like these :(

Plus, adding this to CoP would result in starting from the bottom up again. Idk if it will work like it does here, maybe better, but that's just an assumption.

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Kelevera
Kelevera - - 87 comments

Maybe it'd be best to finish this SoC mod before they start taking on too many other projects. They seem to have a lot on their plate already :D.

Nice work btw Daemonion, sounds great!

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Lоnerboner
Lоnerboner - - 8,303 comments

Indeed,

Also, daem, this is looking and sounding great! kinda pronnounced, but i know you'll be fixing that :)

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Daemonion Author
Daemonion - - 529 comments

I unfortunately do not have the time resources to work on two mods; currently, at least.

Although the CoP engine does allow for stereo sound ...enticing!

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Lacedaemonius
Lacedaemonius - - 510 comments

: O

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DarkMajor21
DarkMajor21 - - 651 comments

Great Job I really like the idea of white noise.

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Resev
Resev - - 202 comments

Very nice, perhaps a little too loud.
That static on the light bulbs on the other hand is definitely way overpowered. Needs to be lowered by quite a bit. Right now it's teeth grinding loud and nearly omnipresent.
10% lower volume on the white noise, and 25% on the static would do wonders for the effect.

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Daemonion Author
Daemonion - - 529 comments

Thanks for the feedback! I agree with your assessment, though I probably wouldn't use the phrase "teeth grinding loud" :)

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Clear_strelok - - 378 comments

God, i think i hadn't seen so much sophistication in the sound design since the last DICE games. You're really doing a great job !

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Lоnerboner
Lоnerboner - - 8,303 comments

The funny thing is, he took inspiration from them ;)

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Daemonion Author
Daemonion - - 529 comments

This is probably the greatest comment you could give me.

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baassbooster
baassbooster - - 11 comments

Great ur using Reason.Im also a Reason user although i use it for music creating. 10 years of usig it hehe.Great job here with that sound. Which synth did you use? Malsstrom or Subtractor? Personally i would choose Subtractor or maybe Thor.

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Daemonion Author
Daemonion - - 529 comments

Well, hello, fellow Reason user!

I don't use any synths as the base for audio; I always use real sounds if it is for a real thing.

For example, all of my bullet cracks come from me shooting actual guns. Youtube.com

I will always use real sound whenever possible.

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baassbooster
baassbooster - - 11 comments

Well i meant for the white noize sound because i already had success creating it for my mod for crysis.In subtractor ist fairly easy to create it,and since sample is only that long u avoid so called loop holes.ECF-42 is multipurpose filter and i use it constantly

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ChielScape
ChielScape - - 182 comments

Sounds like there's a giant fan running.
I dont think room noises are a good source for underground bunkers and facilities. I think you might want to use anomaly sounds instead or whatever else is down there, buzzing of a distant transformer.

Leaking is a good idea, but it seems a bit much to me.

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