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Landline telephone ringing, used in adult office scenarios.
The Octavo, a classic sound of childhood memories.
The sound of a toy turning a clockwork. Can be applied to childhood scenes.
Wind chimes, which can be used as music during the first part of the flower growth
Printer sound, office scenes
Inspiration for the game’s sound design：
There is no blood and no time limit in the game Flower. Despite the simplicity of the gameplay and the lax rules, the game is not boring.
The peaceful and beautiful sounds of the first level instantly transport you to another world without the noise. There is also a tinkling sound effect as the petals fly over the flowers. Especially when flying along a row of flowers, the sound effects connect into a musical scale and it’s a wonderful experience. Depending on the level, the sound changes.
Hi all, for our final group project submission1, there are two parts we might require to finalise as soon as we could:
The three stages of human perspective: which idea does everyone prefer to design for our group project? There are some written idea on the discussion board. Please vote one you prefer or any new idea you expect to add on.
Modelling idea: there are also some idea on the inspiration board about the part1 scene design inspiration of our group project that the perspective is from a flower or plant, please vote one you prefer or any new idea you expect to add on. It would help our group project modelling stage to start.
The wind sounds heard in the realistic example are a combination of sounds I’d previously recorded myself. The main sound heard is a field recording of the coastline around BerwickUpon-Tweed on a windy day that I recorded last year. The low-frequency part of the wind sound was made using a close up recording of an air vent outside my hotel on the same trip. The final element that makes up the sound is a contact mic recording of my shower that I recorded in my old flat, and is one of about a dozen recordings I did over the course of a few days. All were EQ’d and had their volumes adjusted until I was happy with the result.
For the sounds of the plant growing, I used a combination of sounds from Audio Crafting; two of mine and four made by others on the module. On top of this, I recorded me crushing a paper bag and crushing a box of pills. These were EQ’d, blended together and placed until I had something I was happy with.
I made some sound design piece for seed growing from the soil and crackling, ambience sound for sunny day with insects and birds, ringing bell in the classroom.
The first sound is making with ice crackling sound and rustle in the soil sound. I used FabFilter ProQ3 to adjust their frequencies and try to blend them together. The third sound is using the virtual musical instrument glockenspiel playing in Logic Pro.
Amber Zhang: hi, I think these sound examples what you made and designed are nice.
There is a game called Fujii, which is a healing game. The theme is very similar to our flowers. It uses a lot of music and virtual sounds. I think we can learn somethings from this game.
This is a game that mixes outdoor adventure with creative gardening. Here players will explore three unique and magical biomes. Unlock new paths, collect seeds of novel plants, pots, magic stones and more to run your own magical garden. Based on VR technology and beautifully drawn settings, this game creates a fantastical mystery beyond reality. Players will experience a meditation-like immersive spiritual world from this musical garden adventure.
Highlights.
The game has no hard story line or strong sense of purpose and is generally very flexible.
The player’s hands can be elongated and can also suck and spray water The player will get realistic vibration feedback from the handle when touching the flowers and plants and crisp music will come to their ears.
The music is everywhere in this enchanted garden, a very immersive experience combining visual, auditory and VR-based human-computer interaction, FUJII manages to take the player out of the world, allowing them to relax and enjoy a sense of peace in this virtual reality and harmony.
Visual Style and Sound Design: Part 1 – Philosophy (s1850658)
At the time of writing, there is still a decision to be made on what the visual style of the project will be. When discussing this in the previous meeting (Thursday 2nd February), it got me thinking. Different visual styles would necessitate very different things in terms of the soundscape and sound effects.
The main two styles that came up in this meeting were LowPoly and something more realistic. Upon hearing this, it made me want to create some prototypes/mock-ups of what the world could sound when presented visually in these two styles. When considering what to specifically try and represent to get my ideas across, I settled on the flower: the soundscape surrounding it and the sound effects that accompany its growth. This setting would require sound design that is quite atmospheric, by virtue of the fact that the player is unable to move.
To represent the Low-Poly style, I felt as though the soundscape shouldn’t be a realistic representation of what these things would sound like in the real world. Instead, the soundscape and sound effects should aim to represent the visuals in a more indirect manner. I felt as though the soundscape should be an underlying drone, like a pleasant chord. The wind could be represented by some high notes, synthesized or otherwise (or perhaps even created using white noise), that fill the highs (that the sound of a realistic breeze would usually occupy). These sounds could whoosh in and out in response to the flower and its surroundings moving with the wind. This opened the possibility to have the stages of plant growth be represented by fluttering notes playing an arpeggio that fits with the chord of the underlying drone that accompanies the scene. I believe that the use of a low-poly visual style requires sound design that aims not to faithfully re-create sounds from the real world, but instead create something that represents the visuals in a more abstract manner.
When working with a more realistic visual style however, I felt as though an almost opposite approach was appropriate. The soundscape of the scene should reflect what a person would hear if they were standing in the scene as if it were a real place. Every sound in the scene would need to approximate its real-world counterpart. I say “approximate” because for example, plants don’t make any sound (audibly at least) when growing. Any sound effects for the plant growing would instead have to be a semi-realistic representation of what we would expect it to sound like if it did exist. When choosing a realistic style instead of low poly, many aspects of what we are trying to get across through the experience change. When working in low poly, I feel as though the aim is not necessarily to fully immerse the player in a realistic world, whereas in a more realistic visual style I feel as though the aim is to try and fully immerse the player in a believable reality close to our own. Low poly allows for more flexibility when it comes to representing what’s on screen. A realistic visual style however, demands much greater attention to detail in order to create a convincing world. Realistic requires emulation of the real world; low poly allows for the creation of a new one.
A question this discussion raises is “once a visual style is chosen, what happens to the audio work for the other”. I would argue that there could perhaps be a mix of these two sound design philosophies in the finished product. This could be because the visual style ends up being some blend of the two (such as a cel-shaded style), or perhaps more abstract sounds could be used to represent things that don’t have a real-world equivalent, even if the visual style is aiming to be more realistic.
The first one called FLOWER. Each petal flies with a mission, they control the wind and wake up each unawakened bud. Then they pick up the petal pups sent by the waking flower and together they make the next journey. Each petal is a musical note and their chord can be heard.
The second one called FUJII.
This is a game that mixes outdoor adventure with creative gardening. Here players will explore three unique and magical biomes. Unlock new paths, collect seeds of novel plants, pots, magic stones and more to run your own magical garden. Based on VR technology and beautifully drawn settings, this game creates a fantastical mystery beyond reality. Players will experience a meditation-like immersive spiritual world from this musical garden adventure.
Highlights.
The game has no hard story line or strong sense of purpose and is generally very flexible.
The player’s hands can be elongated and can also suck and spray water The player will get realistic vibration feedback from the handle when touching the flowers and plants and crisp music will come to their ears.
The music is everywhere in this enchanted garden, a very immersive experience combining visual, auditory and VR-based human-computer interaction, FUJII manages to take the player out of the world, allowing them to relax and enjoy a sense of peace in this virtual reality and harmony.
We have some update about the last part: Here are three funeral objects that mark the three stages of person, When the palyer click one object, the player can enter the room. These room about three stage of person.
Ideas about last part
From Amber Zhang
My brainstorming suggestions for the three stages of life span: my brainstorming idea would base on the group discussion result yesterday(Wednesday): the group project would only focus on one of the life span about the young age to explore, and pick up objects only for rest of ages(infant and old) , I think for the young age could represent via one scenario: the main character could display in lecture space: the scene exploration design could be: the sunlight could be warm outside and flash light shining from window, the leaves could drop from the tree, it could be the Autumn season. The main character would start the view from setting on the chair and books and notes on the table (the view angle displays the book pages on table). The main character enables to stand up and walk around the lecture room. There could be notes on whiteboard, but no other people would be in the lectures. The lecture might be a biology class; the whiteboard could display sketches drawing of flowers with key points and learning knowledge, and one reminder on whiteboard could display: a test on Thursday. The main character enables to walk towards whiteboard to check the contents of knowledge on whiteboard and explore the entire lecture room. The lecture room could be big with basic devices: computer, projector, big window, desks and chairs, whiteboard. The background voice: the main character could hear other people’s talking from outside of lecture room, the ring bell sound, the background noise sound.When the time duration approaches to time limits (for instance: 3 mins), the scene transection trigger would display. And the voice might appear as well to tell main character the guidance to move to next scene.
From Qiandai Sun
I think the classroom scene that Amber mentioned is pretty good, I was thinking about the transition, it could be like this, the bell rings, and then the broadcast says, “all of the students should sit in your seat and prepare to start the exam”, maybe add some inner monologues of the characters will be much better, for example, the inner monologue says”The alarm is ringing, it seems that the exam is about to start again, I should go back to my seat” to guide the player to the next step. When the player sits on the seat and looks down at the test paper, his inner monologue will say: “This question looks very familiar, but I can’t remember how to solve it.” Then he falls into a coma and time travels to middle age (next scene).
From Runyao Li
I was thinking about the scene of the baby stage. I think the perspective at this stage can be lying in a stroller. Your movement will be limited and you can only see things around you like the wind chimes above your head or the teddy bear around you. To move to another scene, I think we can use the sound of wind chimes and the character will see a cloud of white lights, then it can move to the next stage. For the young age stage, I also like the idea of exploring in the classroom. I am now trying to make some sound effects like the seed growing from the soil and some scenes ambience sound.
From Kunkun Wang
I think everyone’s proposal is very good. In the middle age stage, we can use the scenes of classrooms, work and some entertainment venues to match the sound of the corresponding venues. In these places, what we need to consider is whether to restore the authenticity of the scene or create a new sound to be used in this scene, so that players can have an innovative experience when exploring.In the old age stage, we can set up different scenes in China and the West. For example, we can set up square dances based on Chinese scenes. Then the west can set up some small pubs, because I can always see many old people here drinking beer and chatting in the pubs. There are some commonalities, such as crutches, children and grandchildren around their knees, accompanied by their children, and they often shuttle in the kitchen to make delicious food to enjoy their old age. Then you can set up a scene full of testing instruments around the hospital, implying that life is dying.
From Xinyue Lin
I think that if every scene is explored, the volume of the whole project will be too large, and I think that at the stage of children and the elderly, just changing the surrounding scenes can make the players feel present. Child stage: I think Runyao’s idea is very good, but I think we can have a smoother scene transition. For example, when a child is in a crib, his parents come in and turn off the light, the sound of turning off the light appears, and the perspective switches to adult view when the light is turned on again. Adult stage: The moment the light is turned on, this person is working in front of the computer, and the moment he turns off the computer behind him, the player’s perspective switches to the old man. Elderly stage: The moment you switch from adulthood to old age, you see the ceiling, the infusion tube, and then gradually fall into a coma and enter the darkness. Eventually back to the stage of a seed.
The concept of this project is to turn the viewer into a plant, such as a tree or a flower. Participants will have the opportunity to see and feel life from a plant’s perspective, rather than a human’s. For example, they can experience wind, rain and sunshine, watch bees gathering nectar, birds flying overhead, insects foraging and more. Viewers will also witness the growth stages and life cycle of the plants, such as the elongation, flourishing and withering of leaves. The project will also incorporate sound effects, for example, when an insect flies onto a flower, you can hear the sound of the insect as clearly as pedaling. You can hear the sound getting further and further away as the insect flies away from the flower.
The Second Meeting:
Amber Zhang:
Feedbacks from Lecture about group project(might not fully covered all feedback points)
Inspiration suggestions are from Dr. Jules Rawlinson: Presence vs absence? (How might the project achieve both concepts?)
Inspiration research area suggestions are from Dr. Jules Rawlinson: academic research key words: “death and digital presence”, “VR grief representation resolution”
Inspiration example is from Dr. Jules Rawlinson: looking back (Notes: the project’s name was not fully sure is correct)
Inspiration suggestions are from Mr. Leo Butt: “Death” could be repeatable in digital games; players could be reborn and learn from “death” in digital games?
Target audiences: will our project still aim at treatment of mental issue such as stress, grief?
Perspective idea of soul transition in our project? becoming a soul of Plants and humans?
What is presence, I thought of death, the antonym of presence, what is existence. The idea comes from coco. Although people are dead, they have existed before. If their memories are remembered by others, they are not really dead. If they are remembered by everyone, this is presence. Another conceptual inspiration comes from COCO. This is an animated movie about death. The real passing is not death, but being forgotten.
Purpose: To achieve a spiritual healing effect and heal the soul. Death is a part of life, people always ignore its existence and can’t believe it. But one thing is clear, we all have to face it and experience it.
I want to set up a memory palace scene, the overall space is clean and simple, and there is a part of the VR space in front of the player. For the time being, there are currently four rooms, and each room represents the memory of a dead person. Through the interactive experience with this room, players can feel what kind of person the owner of this room is. Let’s use sound to express the human state, visualize the sound and make it into a waveform.
Model style / Keywords: fantasy, simplicity, color, line
<soul>
After the third meeting, the professor questioned the idea of the theme of death. Compared with the theme of flowers, this idea seems to be not enough for users to participate in immersion. The antonym of presence is absence. It doesn’t make the player feel the presence, the player’s experience is absent, and we finally settled on another theme.
<soul>