New Flar and Ingarv SFX Submissions

All aspects of music, audio and sound effects development for all The Mana World projects.


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Ledmitz
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New Flar and Ingarv SFX Submissions

Post by Ledmitz »

Hi everyone. I should be editing what I have instead of creating new things, but I thought I'd give a go at SFX production.
Here are two firsts for me. I am aware of the volume changing from one to the other, but not sure which is closer to game volume, so I did not edit it. Theye are composed of mixing different soundfiles with different effects.... I figure a fireball(Flar) should sound like a burst of flames with some buildup. I reversed a big bass drum sound, edited length and tinkered with volume, compression and normalization. I EQ'd it slightly too, then overlayed with a big fire sound... fading in fast with thump and fading off.

I figured lightning should sound like thunder, but smaller, so I added an electric current sound and of course you need some resonance, so I used the thunders own echo to do this.

Give a listen and tell me what you think, please. I still have the project files for editing, as well.
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Ingrav-01-Ledmitz.ogg
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Flar-01-Ledmitz.ogg
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Re: New Flar and Ingarv SFX Submissions

Post by Kage »

flar sfx sounds great.

Ingarv sfx is maybe half a second too long, and IMO should sound more like thunder then electricity crackling.

If you want do make it sound like electricity, the sound is too consistence as it is, sounds more like gears spinning. Try adding a bit more chaos into it, ie adjust the volume and frequencies and duration just a bit randomly.
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Re: New Flar and Ingarv SFX Submissions

Post by Ledmitz »

I agree with you on both. I thought Flar was good as is, maybe a little bassy before the flames come, but it grew on me.
The Ingrav, I found, was a little tin-y sounding, so I thought, I might EQ the whole Track after using your volume dynamics idea on the electricity track. The Ingrav, again though, was made from real thunder and electricity sounds and the reason I chose to go with an electric sound mixed in was so make the blast 'less powerful' sounding, as real thunder and lightning is of a much larger magnitude than magical lightning and a smaller lightning bolt would sound more like a current than a crackle. Also, it's hard to find up close Thunder samples that have a big 'crack' sound. Most are just background thunder, but I just had to add real thunder for better 'fun' effect.
I like those ideas kage and I will implement them. Thank you for being constructive.

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Re: New Flar and Ingarv SFX Submissions

Post by Kage »

Ledmitz wrote:The Ingrav, again though, was made from real thunder and electricity sounds
....
it's hard to find up close Thunder samples that have a big 'crack' sound
Where did you get the electricity sound from? It it was from a man made machine like a transformer or something, it will sound repetitive, and more like a hum.

The "crack" from lightning in storms are made by lots of popping noises in a short time, and each pop will differ a bit in frequency, volume, and duration.

You might be able to produce the sound manually if you used the method stated above. Though I don't know a lot about sound production.

If anything, it might be easier to record the sound of milk poured over http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_Krispies
Ledmitz wrote:Smaller lightning bolt would sound more like a current than a crackle
Perhaps. But its more important to make it sound cool and look right then favor realism.
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Re: New Flar and Ingarv SFX Submissions

Post by yourmistakes »

i would much prefer a lightning crack sound than anything else for ingrav
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Re: New Flar and Ingarv SFX Submissions

Post by Ledmitz »

OK, so I edited the Ingrav a bit. On the electric pulse, I pulsed the volume at irregular intervals, added bass to the track and faded off more at the end and lowered the volume to be more background. Then I took the second thunder sample (echo of the first sample) and EQ'd in the lower end and lowered the higher bands. I left the first track as it were, but I did a bit more trimming to give more punch at the beginning. I also turned the track into stereo as I noticed it was mono, which meant copying the tracks and panning them individually. I feel it is an improvement, at least.

8) I got the original samples from open source online libraries. I can get the addresses if you want them, but it's just thunder sounds. I'd post the source files for my samples here, but they are wav format and not accepted to upload. Maybe a simple thunder crack is better in this case, but a full force lightning bolt from nature, must be more powerful sounding than a piddly mage bolt, no? I kind of liked just the electric charge sound. Reminds me of skywalker taking his just deserts from the almighty Emperor... Mwahahahahaa! Then again.. Lightning = Thunder (on a big scale anyway, but I'll leave that alone) :wink:

:twisted: What do you guys think?
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Ingrav-02-Ledmitz.ogg
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Re: New Flar and Ingarv SFX Submissions

Post by ChefChelios »

I would prefer to use a chicken-sound cuz mages have to run away all the time like these! (not a joke)
):-p
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Re: New Flar and Ingarv SFX Submissions

Post by Kage »

The crackle isn't the right pitch, needs to be higher I think, also, make the crackle softer and the thunder louder. The thunder should over power at first then die down and you only then hear the crackle. Its a lot to put into just a few hundred milliseconds, you might have better luck with just the thunder.

Another thing that you might try, if you want to forego the thunder and crackle sound all together is a zapping noise.

Here are some references (shouldn't use these directly, but for comparison):

Thunder then crackle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki4a4d7wJRQ

Ice crackling but maybe usable:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18069W2TbUI

Zapping noise:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkh5RvUjukg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asLCF0cQ0_g

White noise (probably not useful, but maybe if you play around with it):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZrH00YfiXU
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Re: New Flar and Ingarv SFX Submissions

Post by Ledmitz »

Well I have to apologize as the original thunder samples I had were in 8000Hz and I hadn't checked or noticed. No wonder it didn't sound right, no matter how much tinkering was done. I downloaded a new 44100Hz sample after finally finding one with a nice crack sound. Bear in mind, in order to keep the sample short, I had to remove the echo. When I did this, I ended up with more of a gunshot sound. I turned back to my original 11,025Hz electric current sample as I could not find another that sounded even remotely powerful enough for Ingrav. Most were bug zappers and poor synthetic renditions.
I once again, made the electric track into stereo... 60% in each speaker, but lowered 3db in the right speaker for effect and shaved and faded. I added no EQ this time or any other effect.

I ended up with something short and sweet... at least I think so. It's hard for even thunder to sound like itself without an echo. I also have uploaded the 2 tracks that were combined to make the one sound for comparison. Maybe letting the sound ring out longer would be good, if it works in practice.
Here they are:
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Ingrav-03-Ledmitz.ogg
(53.92 KiB) Downloaded 185 times
ThunderOnly-Ledmitz.ogg
(53.53 KiB) Downloaded 193 times
ElecCurrentOnly-Ledmitz.ogg
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Re: New Flar and Ingarv SFX Submissions

Post by yourmistakes »

ChefChelios wrote:I would prefer to use a chicken-sound cuz mages have to run away all the time like these! (not a joke)
):-p
any reason why you pm'd me this 4 times?
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Re: New Flar and Ingarv SFX Submissions

Post by Kage »

Ledmitz wrote:lowered 3db in the right speaker for effect and shaved and faded. I added no EQ this time or any other effect.
I would keep it the same in both speakers, the reason being with it in one speaker it will make it sound like its coming from one direction more so then the other, and won't look right on the screen if the ingrav spell happens to the left of the player, but sounds like it coming from the right.

Future clients might be able to adjust sound based on where the effect happened, and if that is happens, the effect will be worst.
Ledmitz wrote: I ended up with something short and sweet... at least I think so.
Yes the ingrav-03 is wonderful, big improvement from the previous versions.
Ledmitz wrote: Maybe letting the sound ring out longer would be good, if it works in practice.
The biggest problem with longer sounds, is that they take up more of the users.... attention... something to keep in mind is to play the sound over and over. If its annoying, then it needs to be changed. If you have 5 mages each one is ingraving, and the sound is too long, repetitive, or what ever, it might force some players to disable sound completely.

The other issue with longer sounds, is that I believe the sound system of some clients can't mix two (of the same) sounds at the same time, partly because of the way sounds are cached in memory. So if two lightning strikes happen in a row, the first one will get cut off by the second. Having shorter sounds reduces both the chance and the effect of this happening.
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Re: New Flar and Ingarv SFX Submissions

Post by Ledmitz »

I would keep it the same in both speakers, the reason being with it in one speaker it will make it sound like its coming from one direction more so then the other
Nah, That's just regular stereo effect. Watch your meters on a professional cd sometime and you'll notice that almost always, the left is slightly louder than the right, though you won't hear the difference. I forget the initial reason for doing this, I think it's more of a standard than a rule, but it does give a little more panorama. I think the ideal thing is too have bassy sounds leak more from the left and higher sounds more to the right. I think it came from how our brain deciphers sound, but all pro stereo recordings are a little more loud on one side than the other and usually, the left side. Also most individual instruments are recorded with 2 mics, not one so as to duplicate our own ears, otherwise we would have a bunch of mono tracks to combine and make 1 stereo track. Whew, what a mouthful.
Yes the ingrav-03 is wonderful, big improvement from the previous versions.
Whew!, am I glad to hear that.
I believe the sound system of some clients can't mix two (of the same) sounds at the same time
That is what I was afraid of, otherwise, I'd let the echo ring out.

Thanks for everything so far. I will keep making new sounds. Player sounds seem to need the most attention atm and spells. At least there is some audible action in the game that way, until more monster sounds come out. :twisted:

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Re: New Flar and Ingarv SFX Submissions

Post by Kage »

Ledmitz wrote: Nah, That's just regular stereo effect. Watch your meters on a professional cd sometime and you'll notice that almost always, the left is slightly louder than the right, though you won't hear the difference. I forget the initial reason for doing this, I think it's more of a standard than a rule, but it does give a little more panorama. I think the ideal thing is too have bassy sounds leak more from the left and higher sounds more to the right. I think it came from how our brain deciphers sound, but all pro stereo recordings are a little more loud on one side than the other and usually, the left side. Also most individual instruments are recorded with 2 mics, not one so as to duplicate our own ears, otherwise we would have a bunch of mono tracks to combine and make 1 stereo track. Whew, what a mouthful.
Maybe music is done that way, and if this was a ambient music track that would playing I wouldn't have a issue. But this is a sound effect, that relates to a action in a spatial region, so it is quite important that the sound be positional agnostic.
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Re: New Flar and Ingarv SFX Submissions

Post by Ledmitz »

Okay, no prob, will do.

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Re: New Flar and Ingarv SFX Submissions

Post by Ledmitz »

Well, I made the electric mono again as requested. Bet you can't hear the difference though. :D
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Ingrav-04-(CenterPan)Ledmitz.ogg
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