Sound Update news

Hello Everyone,

This week we are breaking the mold, not only does this update arrive on a wednesday, but its not written by me. For this update, sound production takes the center stage as qdog explains the recording process a little bit. I think you will find what he has to say rather interesting. In other news, we are still looking for skinners and a few experienced voice actors, so don't hesitate to check out the join the team page for instructions. Take it away Marc:

Sound and music are usually in the background of movies and also video games. Over the years sound became more and more important, as we now have 7.1 surround systems in every second household. Since the new episodes of Star Wars, sound has been taken to a new level and creating new organic sound has become a challenge, as the directors and producers of movies and video games want to extend the look and feel of their work. Eternal-Silence takes part in that process. As a know fact, every single detail in graphics and sound counts. We are developing at least one sound for every object, even if the it seems to be as little as a lose cable on the engine of an UTF Interceptor, that dangles back and forth and creates a small noise in the cockpit. All those little details take alot of time to develop, but we know that
exactly those details add to the Eternal-Silence Experience.

While we have been creating sounds and the music for the last two years, we would like to share with you a recording session we had last weekend. We call this process "foley sounds". For those of you who are used to watching the "making of movies" have probably heard this term before. It basically means to "go out with a mic and recorder and capture sounds".

For our vessels we had to come up with a sound system that works with our Newtonian physics and is believable due to the nature of science fiction. Sounds like this have to be organic because the audience naturally relates the sounds they hear with something they have heard in their life before. For instance, squishing half an orange with your hands usually reminds you of nasty sounds, like stepping on a bug or stabbing somebody with a knife.

The basic sound of our spaceship engines are machines and engines that are around us everyday. For all the fast vessels, like the interceptors, we have been capturing race car and muscle cars sounds, which we edit, mix with jet engine sounds and add different effects to re-create a believable space ship engine sound. The two pictures show some of the cars we have recorded last weekend. As unique as those cars are, so are the sounds of the engines which we borrow from them for the game. Car #1 is a 1967 rebuilt Ford Mustang Mark 1, with a 500 HP engine, which created a blasting soundscape, almost too much for our mics to handle. The other car is a 1969 Mustang Shelby, which is very rare and gave us a very accurate sound to work with.

We are incorporating the different characters of the cars into the game. For the NGM side all sounds are taken from cars that run a little "weak". Those cars usually have older engines that have seen better days.

While NGM is more "Handcrafted" and "Alternative", the UTF engines run more precisely, more accurately. The cars we picked for the UTF vessels are running more smoothly and are usually a newer models. Once they are in game, you can feel the difference when you sit in one of those exciting spaceships.

I have uploaded for you guys one "pure" sound of a mustang, and one sound of a "Work In Progress" version of the in game sound. Have a listen and use headphones, if possible, because none of those sounds are mixed down and final version. Although it gives you an idea how the spaceships will sound later in game.

Pure Car Sound
Ingame Engine Sound

Enjoy this little update from the sound department. I hope we will be able to post some of our work sometime soon!

Rock N Roll!

Marc aka Qdog
- the Chainsaw Project