Ben K.6238 Posted November 28, 2018 Share Posted November 28, 2018 There appears to be some combination of voice-acted and non-human sound effects in many of the sound effects for charr, so I'm curious about how these were created. - How much work is required to build these effects, by comparison to other races? - Is there a kind of balancing act regarding just how much of each effect is the voice actor, or is this pretty free-form? - There's one particular sound effect (seems to be an ambush spawn, when a character drops/pounces/etc into the world) that does not appear to have a voice-acted component, so it has a very distinct sound when you hear it. Is there any unusual story behind this effect? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArenaNet Staff Jason Wolford.7841 Posted November 29, 2018 ArenaNet Staff Share Posted November 29, 2018 Hi Ben, good questions, the team is busy making sounds right now, this work was done before I came on board, so I'll let one of the other team members reply. Hang in there, we'll get you details soon... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArenaNet Staff DrewCady.8902 Posted November 29, 2018 ArenaNet Staff Share Posted November 29, 2018 Hello Ben, thanks for the good questions. I can answer a few of them and will have to dig a little for the last question. There are several layers of sounds for each creature; voice, voice processing, Foley movement sounds and skills. You are correct that we use voice acting along with other sounds to fill out these unusual creatures. Our goal is to contrast creatures sounds to help the player understand who they are talking to or battling against. Let me dig a little into the voice process. Because of the large amount of voiced lines we needed to find a procedural solution so all the lines feel hand crafted. Since the Charr is a player race we spent quite a few months iterating with the recorded content and creating new technologies. Some other races like the Norn only need a beef up pass. Srkitt are like the Charr, they require some pitching and extra sounds. The first layer of the Charr is the original recorded line of dialog. This is pitch down a little to help increase their size. We also add a lion impulse to expand their large chest sound. Impulses can be very short recordings like a tick that is applied as a filter. We then add sound effects like the back of the throat growls and jowl smacks. This ended up being my own mouth recordings. I tried using other content and it was not stitching in as smooth as I would have liked. This is one nice thing about recording Foley as you can get the very detail you need so you do not have to process as much. To answer the second question, because the process is procedural we have a very precise balance. Yes we are free form in finding the right process but after we have the final preset the process is stable and repeatable for years. It is always fun to see what new creatures are being created. We are continually creating new voice processes to match the art to make them come to life. Thank you for listening! Drew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben K.6238 Posted December 1, 2018 Author Share Posted December 1, 2018 Very fascinating, and you've done quite a good job with the procedural generation when the untrained ear wouldn't notice it's procedural at all! The odd one out that I mentioned may normally play on NPCs, but there are some circumstances in which player characters trigger the effect, e.g. emerging from the skritt tunnels in the Silverwastes. Speculating here, but maybe as a NPC effect it was generated differently? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jzaku.9765 Posted December 3, 2018 Share Posted December 3, 2018 > @"DrewCady.8902" said: > Hello Ben, thanks for the good questions. I can answer a few of them and will have to dig a little for the last question. > > There are several layers of sounds for each creature; voice, voice processing, Foley movement sounds and skills. You are correct that we use voice acting along with other sounds to fill out these unusual creatures. Our goal is to contrast creatures sounds to help the player understand who they are talking to or battling against. > > Let me dig a little into the voice process. > Because of the large amount of voiced lines we needed to find a procedural solution so all the lines feel hand crafted. > Since the Charr is a player race we spent quite a few months iterating with the recorded content and creating new technologies. Some other races like the Norn only need a beef up pass. Srkitt are like the Charr, they require some pitching and extra sounds. > > The first layer of the Charr is the original recorded line of dialog. This is pitch down a little to help increase their size. We also add a lion impulse to expand their large chest sound. Impulses can be very short recordings like a tick that is applied as a filter. > We then add sound effects like the back of the throat growls and jowl smacks. This ended up being my own mouth recordings. I tried using other content and it was not stitching in as smooth as I would have liked. This is one nice thing about recording Foley as you can get the very detail you need so you do not have to process as much. > To answer the second question, because the process is procedural we have a very precise balance. Yes we are free form in finding the right process but after we have the final preset the process is stable and repeatable for years. > > It is always fun to see what new creatures are being created. We are continually creating new voice processes to match the art to make them come to life. > > Thank you for listening! > Drew Thank you for explaining the process! I would like to know though, did this process undergo a change, together with the VA for the player-character male charr? I have found the post-processing effect _significantly_ more noticeable since then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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