Progress Report 8

1.      What exactly you accomplished since the last progress report.  Be detailed.

Last week, I made some new weapon sounds. One was a beam rifle shot that I made out of synths and my hard drive. It turns out, that when a hard drive starts up and shuts down, it has this great bendy pitch effect which I used to make the tail. The attack was simple enough, I just used a bass drum and some white noise. I also captured some sounds for what I call, “Robo gore.” Basically, I just beat up a bunch of pots and pans with various tools. These sounds will be used for various impact effects, for example, when the robots are shot/attacked by the humans. Moving on, I decided to beef up and edit some of my older effects that I wasn’t happy with.

2.      What you plan to get done the next week.

Next week is all about the presentation. I plan on putting together a demo to demonstrate how I’ve been/will be working in the Unreal Engine with the sounds I’ve been creating. This includes the way that audio “nodes” and “cues” are dropped and positioned in engine.

3.      What needs to be done yet before the project is complete.

More guns. More explosions. More movement. More dialogue. More Music. Just more.

For now, though, I must focus on the presentation.

4.      How well you kept to your planned schedule and what can be done to maximize your work time.

I did more work last week than I expected. In other words, I did better than I would have if I’d kept to my planned schedule.

5.      Any outstanding difficulties you encountered.

Nothing unexpected.

Progress Report 7

1.      What exactly you accomplished since the last progress report.  Be detailed.

Last week, I polished up the song I was working on and began writing a new one. This time though, I’m beginning with the live instrument version and basing the chip version from that, the opposite of what I did on the first one. This week, I edited a few sounds that I still wasn’t happy with and made some new ones. I’m almost done with the weapon sounds for two characters, focusing on the female character I was talking about last week. One of her weapons can open and close, in several places, so I decided to work on some metallic sounding noises to accommodate. I used a microwave door opening and closing (with some heavy edits) for the main part of the arm opening / closing, while I used knives for the thinner scraping metal sounds.

2.      What you plan to get done the next week.

I’m pretty excited about the song I started working on so I hope to finish that. Either way, though, I plan to keep on grinding away at the other sound effects in the meantime.

3.      What needs to be done yet before the project is complete.

More guns. More explosions. More movement. More dialogue. More Music. Just more.

4.      How well you kept to your planned schedule and what can be done to maximize your work time.

I ended up not working on the days I planned to work, but made up for it on other days. The Labor Day weekend had me in a different state of mind that put working on the end of my to do list. Oops.

5.      Any outstanding difficulties you encountered.

Nothing unexpected.

Progress Report 6

1.      What exactly you accomplished since the last progress report.  Be detailed.

Last week, I spent a lot of time cutting up and editing my existing sound effects. I had a lot of recorded material that needed to be sliced up, normalized, and exported. It’s tedious stuff, but it’s also necessary stuff, so… I did it. That is not to say that I didn’t also get a few good new sounds. I did this sort-of “pulse ball” sound using a rubber worm toy. This gave the attack a cool rubbery snap. For the sound of the ball floating through the air, I used a pulsating tremolo effect on a low sine wave with some electric undertones that I captured with an inductor coil mic.

2.      What you plan to get done the next week.

I’m starting to hone in on what we’ll need soonest, so I aim to work on those sounds. Specifically, these sounds belong to a female character, so I’ll need to start writing bits of dialogue for her, as well as find a female voice actor. Also, her weapons, like the pulse gun I’d mentioned above, need to be completed. For stuff like footsteps, I’m not sure whether or not to use the generic ones I’ve already captured. She is human, after all, so I couldn’t imagine them being much different from the other human characters.

3.      What needs to be done yet before the project is complete.

More guns. More explosions. More movement. More dialogue. More Music. Just more.

4.      How well you kept to your planned schedule and what can be done to maximize your work time.

I’ve been a lot better at avoiding my procrastination habits, lately, however, I still can get hung up on simple parts of the project that I don’t need to. For instance, I’ll have a sound where I want it, but I’ll keep tweaking and trying different effects anyway, which doesn’t need to be done.

5.      Any outstanding difficulties you encountered.

Nothing unexpected.