Video for Audio Project

Here is the recorded video file from the game Nexuix, with some of the original sounds replaced with my own sounds. Enjoy...

Analyzing sound effects

Its almost time to show my project, but before that here is a preview of the sound for my project. It was found from freesound.org. It is the sound of an uzi that will be used in the project. uzi_fire.wav

Analyzing the music from Nexuiz

Today I will be analyzing the song 'Broken Light' from Nexuiz, I got the song from extracting the sound from within the game itself (which is a pain if you have no idea how to do it at first). This song is the menu music, which means it is the first thing you hear when you boot up the game. The reason why it fits with the game, is that gives you the sense of an approaching battle around the horizon (even if you don't know why you're fighting...).

Here is the music in question....

Analyzing Cutscenes

Today I'll be analyzing a cutscene from Final Fantasy 13. It is the famous racing scene late in the game where our heroes crash the ceremony to take down the villain. First I will analyse the sound from cutscene, the sounds from the game is composed of mix of Foley and field recordings. This being a Final Fantasy game, the dialog is superb even though it has some cheesy lines but that's due to translation from Japanese to English. The voice is great, you can definitely from the desperate struggle of their plight. The music from this game was composed in-house by Square themselves. The reason why I chose the cutscene was because to the action, and how well the scene was setup.

Analyzing Developers: Bioware

Today I'm focusing on one of my favorite Developers of this console cycle, Bioware. The developers was founded on February 1995 by  Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk, and Augustine Yip in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. They are most known for the Baldur's Gate series, Dragon Age series, and the Mass Effect series. On October 11, 2007, however, it was announced that this new partnership (organized as VG Holding Corp) had been bought by EA Games BioWare therefore became a unit of EA, but retained its own branding. As of 2010, Bioware has eight hundred employees.

Analyzing Game Engines: Unreal Engine 3

 

Proceeded by: Unreal 1, 2
Succeeded by: Unreal 4
Developer: Epic Games
Release Date: 2004
Games used: DmC: Devil May Cry, Mass Effect series

The Unreal Engine 3 is the third and current generation of the engine. It is currently being used by the Xbox 360, PS3 and the Wii U.  Its renderer uses  many advanced techniques including HDRR, per-pixel lighting, and dynamic shadows. It also builds on the tools available in previous versions. In October 2011, the engine was ported to support Adobe Flash Player 11 through the Stage 3D hardware-accelerated APIs. Epic has used this version of the engine for their in-house games. Aggressive licensing of this iteration has garnered a great deal of support from many prominent licensees. Epic has announced that Unreal Engine 3 runs on both Windows 8 and Windows RT.

It will be succeeded by the Unreal Engine 4 that will target the eighth generation consoles (PS4, Xbox one). One of the major features of UE4 is real-time global illumination using voxel cone tracing, eliminating pre-computed lighting. UE4 also features new developer features to reduce iteration time and allow direct updating of C++ code. New features of the debugger for "Kismet" (a visual scripting engine that debuted in UE3) allow developers to directly visualize code while testing. The developer can then jump to the source code and edit it in Visual Studios. Elements in the game can be clicked on directly to more easily change the game world. This also ultimately results in less of a divide between technical artist, a designer, and a programmer. The result is a reduced time to compile code and allows game creators to tweak settings in real time
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Analyzing: Machinarium

I just got finished playing the demo of Machinarium on Amanita Design's website and came away with a strange feeling about the game. The game is a flash based hybrid of point and click adventure with a touch of platforming and puzzle solving. You play a little robot that landed into the little ravine and as soon you have control you have your first puzzle pulling the main character back together. You could pick up items around the level to help you with your goal and sometimes you have to combine them to get through.

Also be prepared to use the hint button a lot, as the game does not tell you what you need to do, and if want the answer you have to play a Gradius like shooting game to unlock the answers. The music is calm and gives the atmosphere whimsical feel to the game. Sound effects a limited to metal clanging and beeps and machine hums. It was challenging and somewhat fun, but I doubt I would play it again.