A little animation a lot of post sound stuff now back to games
Once I got back from GDC I started on and completed the 9th episode of my comedy series Badassery- that was 174 shots animated and all that in 6 days- then I took a day off- it was a Sunday I believe-
That Monday which was a week ago- I started post sound work on my friend Jimmy Screamerclauz's new film "When Black Birds Fly" I cleaned up the dialog and polished it up, added a bunch of sound design stuff and mixed everything- I just finished that tonight- so that was a weeks work on that- I did that for free as Jimmy is my friend and if I can help with a friends project I'm more than happy too-
So Jimmy gave me the dialogue tracks, music tracks, and some sound fx tracks- my job was to polish it all up, fill things out with sound design, and make all the different audio sources like actors recorded on different mics in different places and make it all sound like it was in the same place-
I like using convolution reverbs for that- so I define a reverb for a particular set than apply it to all fx/dialogue tracks for that set as a send effect- I also added wind to all the sets as I like to do that with my films as well- So I used all the tricks I've learned making music and doing the sound work for my films on his- here's a sample of the sound from from "Where Black Birds Fly" by Jimmy Screamerclauz
I must say- this movie that Jimmy made IS PRETTY FUCKING CRAZY! It was fun adding all the crazy sounds to match all the stuff on screen ^_^
So that stuff combined with GDC was 3 weeks away from my game- it feels kinda weird to be away from it for so long but it has allowed me to step away from it and view it a little more objectively-
I realized that I'm at the point where I have enough stuff built out to start creating the playable prototype- I was kinda working for awhile at making/building all the mechanics I need for the whole game BUT I need to be honest with myself- it might suck so I should stop with that and create the playable prototype to see if something there is good-
So tomorrow I start back on my game with a fresher perspective- so I can be all "lets start making a fucking game already to see if we have a fucking game in here?!"
Big projects are a mixture of excitement a dread for me- excited at the possibility of creating something awesome- dread from feeling like the good stuff is lost and you don't know what you're doing-
I'm still shifting my mind/imagination over to the game space- I get confused sometimes as to what the proper approach for me to take is as I've very much about building mental frameworks from which to work from- if I don't have or know what the framework is I have a hard time building things- so I'm still wrestling with how to or what the proper framework is- but once I find it for this game I'll take off like a bolt of lighting-
I guess when I say framework I'm really talking the purpose- once I know what the purpose of the project is then I know how to approach it and execute- If I keep changing my thoughts on the purpose its hard to settle down and move forward- so I really just need to make some decisions this week and move forward with them-
Since its the first game I have high hopes for I'm putting extra pressure on myself and the project which usually causes one to get anxious- so maybe I should just approach it like anything else and just cut to the chase and stop being so precious with it-
Thats a problem I have sometimes with projects I care too much about- I get all precious- I get too careful- this can really slow you down and take the fun away- so yeh this week I'll take a new approach on the project- a less precious one-
Now I should say its not like I've been spinning my wheels- I've got a lot of work done on the game- I've just been avoiding answering some big questions with the games mechanics- and you can't answer those by talking or writing or planning you've got to prototype them and play them and really see for yourself- so thats what I've got to do-
One thing I've got to do this week for the game is start working with the dialog system- I had checked out a bunch of assets for that and even made my own but I wasn't really happy with any solutions- then I stumbled across this youtube video made my another artist turned game developer named Harlequin XD- he has a couple really nice tutorials for Unity/Playmaker and his horror game in progress looks suite-
I really liked the dialog system he was using in the video/test which he listed in the video info as this one - It looks really artist friendly and something I could have fun with as well as being really well designed- I've been paypal poor since I discovered that asset but I sold a few trilogy dvd sets last week so now I can get it! I'll buy it tomorrow and use it in my prototype-
So making that Badassery ep and doin the sound stuff for Jimmy was a nice break from the game stuff but I must face my fears(the game sucks and I have nothing but a big mess of wasted time) I have to build the prototype and see what I have- this I will do-
Even if it does suck I learned a ton- and now I know how to grow dem behavior trees
Brought to you by professional weirdo M dot Strange.