Dereck De Abreu Coelho – Page 7

Video Game Research – Florence

Florence was one of the names given to use as a reference for gameplay. Not necessarily the music but I felt it was useful to start researching into other games to understand video game music. It’s a whole different ball game to normal conventional music.

I’ve been listening to the soundtrack and it’s very orchestral, perhaps wrong for the style of the game which they spoke about is 80s themes futuristic aesthetic. I did have ideas of recording my housemate Daniel playing his violin as he is grade eight on his instrument. He also plays the piano to a high level and I would simply ask him to improvise over some drums I would have made. But I feel this is perhaps the wrong way going forth into this design. I need to relook elsewhere.

The composer of the soundtrack is called Kevin Penkin, he has composed for a few anime cartoons and I felt this matched the art style perfectly. As well as the themes of the game which is around adulthood, relationships and finding yourself in this world. Very simple but evokes the emotions that the game wants to feel when playing. The music itself isn’t interactive but conveys the message of the game, which Is something I really wish to do with our group’s work. I need to spend time on synthesisers, as since our last session watching Will operate the Moog Matriarch has made me want to attempt it as well.

Visiting Practioner Series – Hannah Wallis

This is Hannah Wallis’s bio.

After completing a curatorial residency at Wysing Arts Centre as part of Future Curators Network; a programme supporting the career development of D/deaf and Disabled Curators, in partnership with DASH, Hannah now works full time within the Wysing team. Committed to the long-term application of accessibility practices within the arts and working rights of artists, Hannah has worked with Aural Diversity, Deafroots, The National Gallery, London, DASH and ZU-UK; and serves as associate board member for a-n Artists Information Company as well as trustee for Two Queens Gallery, Leicester. Having previously worked as part of the exhibitions team at Nottingham Contemporary, Hannah currently works in an associate capacity to lead on Caption-Conscious Ecology. Hannah is also one half of Dyad Creative, a Franco-British collaboration previously supported by a-n, East Street Arts, National Centre for Writing, Kettle’s Yard, and Arts Council England to lead and develop several temporary artist-led spaces and multiple public art projects.

Her bio shares information about her passions it seems in acessability. It also states in her bio that she finished a residency with the future curators’ network, a program supporting deaf/disabled curators.

I’m interested to see what her views are as a curator and how can we make art and spaces as accessible as possible.

Dr Annie Goh also sent us an email dictating the access requirements that Hannah needs for our visiting practitioner element. Where Hannah explains that she is deaf and requires a few sets of things to help her with the acessability of communication in this online environment. I find it interesting to understand perhaps if she wishes to, her feelings towards sound arts as a medium coming from the perspective of someone who is deaf. How does engaging with sound to hear operate?

The Art of Captioning

Still image from Seo Hye Lee’s artist film titled [sound of subtitles]. The image is split into three identical film frames. Different subtitles are overlaid on each frame. The subtitle on the left reads ‘shaping’, the subtitle on the middle frame reads 'sound of emptiness in the room’, the subtitle on the right reads 'mysterious string music'. In each individual frame, there is a close up of a pair of hands moulding a rotating brown clay clod on the potter’s wheel. All subtitles are white and inside square brackets.

Hannah is currently working on a research project into acessability for art centres across England. Since covid 19 many galleries and museums have had to shift and learn how to present their work online for others to consume and enjoy. Many have had to caption and include ways for the deaf and blind/disabled to enjoy these works just as much as others. This research project is into captioning work and how to do it best for each specific situation. To create a broad example of situations to present galleries and museums how to make their work more accessible for others.

I think this is a really important part of art and society in general. I do find in most aspects I am privileged and do forget sometimes about acessability issues with my work. I never write captions or include subtitles. Perhaps I should think about this, for both the sake of myself and the consumer.

Hannah also runs a company with her peer Théodora Lecrinier called Dyad Creative. This company is mainly focused on managing places and artists’ work and allowing artists the opportunity to present their works in new spaces. It seems like Hannah is mainly focused on curation than personally presenting her own work.

Post Lecture Reflection

Hannah begins by explaining her background, she did a degree in fine art and an MA in performance art. And since completing her MA she has been thinking about how we bring people into spaces.

She also mentions that she felt anxious and nervous about speaking on a sound art degree lecture as a visiting practitioner. She’s been deaf since she was 18 months old. And because of this since she was young she’s worn a cochlear implant.

She slowly lost her hearing in her twenties and found herself becoming full deaf once she got into her late twenties. When she lost the best of her hearing she underwent an operation to receive a cochlear implant. And it gave her access to sound she’s never heard before.

This access to the cochlear implant gave her a newfound experience with sound and changed her view of how we exist with sounds in our environments. How sound helps us relate to other people and habits.

One of the first projects Hannah show us wasn’t necessarily working with sonics but to her, this was the first project she was able to work with space. That didn’t just rely on one sense of the human body.

She begins to show a video with a hip hop beat and shows specific works in an environment. This wasn’t a specific sound exhibition.

This led her to start to think about how to present sounds in different ways in her curation. So the next project that has brought her to do this was a project she did with Ain Bailey Version. She was selected to take on the curation of this. It was about broadcasting as a communication tool, and she discovered Ain Bailey and began speaking about her work.

She then showed a video of Ain Bailey explaining her work.

Ain explains this was a love letter to her Jamaican heritage, There were three parts of this exhibition. She created and recorded herself making saltfish and used the sounds into a composition to play in the gallery space. Martha todd created the ackee sculptures and she originally wanted to fill the gallery with the ache plant but instead, she got someone to create sculptures of them.

Another element of her installation in a gallery space was to play linstead Markey a famous folk song she heard as a child in the entrance of the gallery.

Finally, in the small space in the garden of the gallery, it was a love letter to dub. She received some bass lines from Mathew Ritson, and she created her own dub song. Hannah mentions the main point of the exhibition was to give Ain space to speak about her sonic history in this space. And Ain had already been thinking about this already.

She goes on to speak about captioning, it’s to capture audio content into text onto the screen. This is something she says will be used more and more once we understand how to use captioning as a tool. Artists are now considering to do this to their sound work. This project for her was a real turning point for her practice as a curator.

She thinks and believes we need to change the way we approach accessibility and this needs to be integrated into daily practice and not seen as an add on and something that comes at the end of a project when you don’t have much budget or resources left. That’s what became the core of her work now. She now believes that sound is something that can be moved into the realm of those who are hard of hearing or deaf to experience this work.

Her idea is, how do we caption work that currently exists? How do we approach the accessibility of those works? How do we do that sensibly ? The people that enter these spaces may not enter on equal terms. How do we invest this in artwork, live work? Music nights, live events. performances, sound work? How do we experiment and play with these really useful tools? Which will add to the work not take any from it.

How do we visualise sounds, there is a lot of words that are connected to sonic understanding that might not be in a dictionary of someone that isn’t fully immersed in a sound world. How do we move beyond certain words that might not mean something to someone who is deaf? How do people understand these terms?

She explains it similar to being blind, and if you’ve always been blind how can you understand colours? She explains it’s the same with deafness there are certain terms that make it difficult to engage or understand the caption.

The physicality of sound she explains does go beyond listening, it can be experienced through touch and vibration, different translations of sound. The word translation is the word that comes up, time and time again as she develops this work. And so she’s going to end it there and bring It back to the concept of care. For her to work with sound is to take care of it in a different way and find ways of sharing sound with people that haven’t experienced it in different ways.

I found Hannah’s lecture to be captivating and informative without portraying a negative light to her issues. I do find perhaps sometimes Politically correct topics can make me feel overwhelmed as I usually do agree with what’s being said. But I find the way of resolving these issues to be immensely difficult and require a rebuilt attitude amongst our society. I did find her views on captioning work to completely make sense, I agree thoroughly with what she stands for. And I definitely will attempt to make my work more accessible to more people in the future. It was also interesting to see her perspective on sound arts from a deaf person that experiences sound differently than we do.

Second Meeting – 23rd February

Today we had our second meeting. I and Will came prepared with the sounds we had made the day before, ready to showcase and receive feedback on the audio we had made. Again at this point, we have been given very little towards what we should be doing in audio and left to our devices but we have taken it towards a synth-wave, vintage 1980s soundscape.

We showed our music and they enjoyed it thoroughly. Out of all pieces they enjoyed number four, number one and number seven the last one. They said perhaps the other songs were too loud and complex for a video game and had too much going on. But they loved the others and thought that they fitted perfectly for level one.

I and Will agreed, I felt the same but was happy to receive feedback. I have got the synth bench booked later this evening and plan to create a few ideas as well as teach myself synthesis on these machines as I am not comfortable entirely with the process.

Will also said he would create a few more things he had in mind at home, some piano sounds of him playing. We also agreed on some soundscapes to go along with the game. Even though it is a 2d minigame thing going on. It can have an ambience.

The MA games design team went on and explained what has happened since the last meeting. They showed us the updated interface and graphics sent from the MA animation and illustration degrees. We were happy to see the design fit in well with our music as well. They then showed a few mock-up ideas of the artwork and we further discussed a plan.

I attempted to ask about their schedule but they did insist they weren’t sure and had an idea to try to finish a few more levels and games. The leader of their group spoke on how they wanted to initially create five levels and now feel like they will only manage three for the hand in. I and Will felt it was important for us on our next step to know how many levels and the motifs and emotions or what is going on, on each level for sound design and music-making.

A loose idea was spoken as they hadn’t finalised any other level except the first one but as it stands it’s.

Level 1: Language, symbol language, a combination of the symbol. Feedback screen/ operation screen. Collect elements they think to unlock the brain feedback section.

Level 2: visual, the peak. Colours?

Level 3:

Level 4: high-speed bpm, tempo

Level 5: Listening, music & sound

This is the current rough ideas of each level and the sound behind it and how they wish to continue. I and Will found this valuable towards our music composition, as this is very similar to what we learnt the last term with our sound for screen module and these things overlap. We really wanted to use sound to convey motifs, themes and emotions rather than just have music playing. As our game isn’t very immersive, it’s not the first person or third person or VR it’s difficult to create that immersion as the others.

We decided that perhaps because of the nature of the game, the levels are about creating different parts of a robot’s brain and it’s slowly developing consciousness that perhaps the music should match what is happening throughout the game? The development of the brain and its emotions can reflect the soundtrack and sounds of each level. The music could start atonal and develops into more complex compositions as the character develops a more completed brain as the levels go on.

We thought this was a great idea and this has now become the premise of the sound design and score of the game. Jingya, unfortunately, couldn’t attend today as her train was cancelled but we will relay the information back to her. So we finished the meeting on a positive note, with more influences to create music and sounds. We were also given another reference for music with this film Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind which I will be watching to understand a little more. I also spoke on sound effects and when that would be the correct time to begin if we haven’t got a developed game yet that needs them? Will also spoke on Phonaesthetics which I hadn’t heard before but is the study of why sounds are satisfying and creating sound effects that give the listener a satisfying feeling when they click or move things around. I feel this will require further research as will making sounds and music for games. I will be reading a few books to inform myself further into this.

Before everyone left I asked the group to email us all the new artwork, new pdf they displayed and a screen recording of the demo of the game being played so we can attach music and see if our soundtracks are working for the game. And we planned to meet again next week same time.

Tuesday 22nd – First Production Session

I managed to get a hold of Will on Monday the 21st and I caught him up on the project, explained about the first initial meeting and what they had mentioned about the game. I sent him the PDF that the game designers showed us and the example for gameplay. Which was Florence. We then decided to meet up on the following day Tuesday the 22nd.

We booked out the composition room from 10-5pm on Tuesday and began discussing and playing around with sounds.

We loaded the Moog Matriarch and Prophet six in the composition lab and played with the arpeggiator. We looked again at the PDF and the artwork inspiration and decided the vintage 80s theme was kind of the idea presented here.

Will also brought his TR-08 and we MIDI synched the instruments together so it would all be in time. We then ended up recording long organic loops to showcase for the meeting the following day on Wednesday the 23rd. We ended up with a lot of tracks and lengthy performances to bounce and edit but it served more as a rough mood board of ideas.

We then selected around seven excerpts to bounce to WAV to showcase for our meeting the next day.

I have decided to as well learn synthesis for my own benefit. I have booked out the synth bench in the newly located space M113 Wednesday evening to continue with creating more sounds and ideas. At first, I was concerned with the sound not fitting but perhaps now as Walter Murch did with star wars, just make a lot of sounds and music.

Sound design for virtual reality | ZDNetURL – Reflection

Jacqueline B. is the Founder and CEO of Q Department. Which is a music and sound design studio since 2003. The story with how they got into VR was they ended up at Sundance festival and witnessed some VR pieces and since then they haven’t turned back.

She says it’s a new medium, she has been shown VR horror films. she spoke as if VR is something crazy and captivating. It’s a very compelling medium for sound.

The mars VR bus experience.

They were approached by a production company, the brief and idea were creating a new generation that would be interested in exploring space and science. So their role was to make and bring this alive. On the VR bus experience, you would get on a bus and after a while, the windows became a screen. A mars vehicle is transformed.

They used spatial audio in this experience, to create a deeper illusion of immersion.

Spatial audio simulates how you listen in real life, and when done properly your brain thinks you are somewhere you’re not. VR with good sound is almost indistinguishable. With the visuals and sound effects combined, it can create a new level of reality.

She goes on to speak that audio quality is important for immersion, and it’s not just an audiophile thing. Something I didn’t consider at first but now seems obvious.

Spatial sound is so powerful as a medium. She speculates a rise of spatial audio, specific content through spatial audio. This will be an interesting medium to work with. This came out in 2019 and now I would say it seems like her idea were correct, its in apple AirPods and pushed amongst Apple and their streaming platforms and OS. Apple usually pioneers and push other aspects into popularity. I can assume and imagine this to be a future thing, especially with the metaverse happening, sound is a key aspect of immersion into these digital realms.

Nailing storytelling is the future of VR and nailing new ways of telling stories and that’s where the content is compelling is enough everything will fall in place.

I do think perhaps how I can incorporate this into my games design audio I’m working on? Even if it isn’t VR what can I take from this to add to it?

Collins, K. (2013) How is Interacting WITH Sound Different to Listening TO sound? Reflection

I found this theoretical excerpt about sound in video games and interactivity to be captivating. I have read and reflected on a few points. Overall the interesting points it made around what makes a user interact with sound? The types of listening do that occur during interacting with audio?

The article begins by stating a hypothesis that interacting with sound is fundamentally different in terms of our experience from listening without interacting; that there is a distinction between listening to sound, evoking sound already made (by pressing a button for instance), and creating sounds ( making new sounds). I completely agree with this point, I do find interacting with sound lends to a whole different experience. Interacting means you are almost a co-author in what is about to happen in the interactivity. If you choose to press this button or perhaps button two. The spatialisation of the sound as well brings immersion.

The excerpt makes a reflection on sound effects and music in an interactive context. And gives us a quote from Walter Murch.

sound effects fall midway between music and noise.

Something I wanted to understand perhaps a little more and the excerpt continues by showing an interview with a games designer. It speaks on a game with bees and how the buzzing of the bees was made in time to the music, this made the whole world music and the sound effects to be part of the song. Every ambience in the game is rhythmic. Wood creaks and crickets and all the insects are making a beat. And everything is localised so it’s spatialised.

As well as this the excerpt makes notes on using pitch to showcase weight and size in characters. For example, in Mario Bros, the smaller enemies make a higher squeaking sound in contrast to an enemy the size of Bowser that has a deeper noise.

I have found the sound to be very similar for the screen as for video games. And the sound for screen module will come in very helpful when using sound and its motifs in the world.

Research Topic First Thoughts

After the lecture, I started thinking about the essay we have to write and the topic I should do. I have felt that since the first essay in the first year where I wrote about the history of bossa nova music and then the most recent audio document on noise pollution and the role a sound artist could play in sound designing cities and combating this issue. It’s given me a deeper understanding of my academic goals and what I intend to get out of writing this. Initially, I haven’t been too fond of academic writing, mainly for its difficulty amongst someone like myself who is dyslexic and ADHD as well as more of a creatively chaotic person. I have found enjoyment in seeking out topics I have a little or basic understanding of and writing or adding to the cannon.

Specifically, in my last audio document, I didn’t intend my audio document to just be for the hand in. I saw it as my contribution to the academic field in some way or another. The more I study the theoretical side of sound arts the more frustrated I do get, specifically towards what is considered sound arts and what can be sound arts. Whether it can be a mixture or does it have to be sound arts in its purest form. As well as who created and dictates the cannon? I don’t see many people like myself in this sound arts academic field, a working-class immigrant from Brazil who grew up in a council estate. And does this beg the question of there is room for someone like me to be respected In the field?

I have an idea of writing about the sound arts cannon and specifically what makes something sound arts? And what the predominant themes are. Why cant things from my culture such as rapping be seen as sound arts? Why is that?

Another idea I have coming from my audio document is deep listening. Using field recordings as a practice to engage with mental health. As well as this the hand in speaks on how it should be a contemporary issue in sound arts. I do find the relationship between escapism, field recordings VR and the meta verse to be something interesting. They are all intertwined in my opinion. For if the future will be mainly in the metaverse, how can we recreate these environments such as forests, lakes, The ocean? In this new digital environment. As well as if there is room for fake environments within these places. Can we create an even better world in the meta verse, in terms of sound?

I’m more leaning towards the second option. I have really been interested in field recordings and their effects on human psychology. Living in London and wanting to be noise pollution free is what has spurred these thoughts. I want to do more research into deep listening and into field recording practitioners and their thoughts and other essays as well.

How do we as sound artists/scholars deal with ocularcentrism?

I think the best way of dealing with ocularcentrism is perhaps to understand that ocularcentrism has some valid points. Also to consider whether it is a negative thing or positive? Or if that even matters in this sense. To understand how ocularcentrism affects our other senses and the reflection society takes from this being a thing in western society.

I do believe understanding is the first step towards losing a drilled belief. I find that we do live in a very visual society, where clothing and other things can showcase higher superiority and wealth status. I think creating pieces of work that showcase the powerful sense that is sound can allow ocularcentrism to not be a thing happening in our society.

If there were equal festivals, to celebrate sound pieces. If the sound was as recognised as the other medium when collaboration occurs. If film directors were as well respected as sound directors. Then perhaps others would agree with why ocularcentrism is a negative thing.

I do find that it’s also the modern society we live in that makes us this way, and our evolution. At least in my opinion other animals that have weaker vision have increased audible senses. For example dogs and other animals. The need for hearing and smell is more important than a vision for them. I believe it’s similar for humans, we have a limited spectrum of 20hz – 20khz that we can listen to for a reason. We have evolved to only need these. You also do find that the music industry values the artist’s looks and aesthetic as more important than the music. More is spent on jewellery and expensive clothing, music videos and other visual aspects of a release instead of the audio.

Constance Classen “Foundations for an Anthropology of the Senses” Reflection

I found this article to reach out towards my own beliefs of senses and our hierarchy this modern western society holds towards sight. I was having a conversation with my mum about this, after my trip to the British sound library in the previous term. I found it disappointing that a sound library is so much less used and available than a literature library. Books are more valued than sound. To archive, sounds is a strange not usually heard thing to do. Film is archived as well, much more than sound. You can find pictures of a Dodo and most people have seen a photo of one. Now if you ask someone if they’ve ever heard a sound of a Dodo? Whole different story.

This excerpt does speak on the theory of why this is a thing. For optical and visual is highly prioritised in our western society, much more than audio. This in turn led to a larger research enquiry into creating visual products and machines. The advancement of cameras and cinema came before the audio. recording a photo came before the audio.

This excerpt also speaks on the differences in other societies and the value that the senses hold. For example in our western societies, we assume and believe that other senses are lesser than others. We see touch and taste as a more primitive sense than for example sight and touch.

to associate the ‘lower’ senses with the ‘lower’ races. As sight and, to a lesser extent, hearing were deemed to be the predominant senses of ‘civilized’ Westerners, smell, taste and touch were assumed to predominate among ‘primitive’ non-Westerners

I find this to be accurate, since colonisation. The western world has had an obsession with believing they are the superior race or society. It’s an interesting reflection of my own perception that I received growing up in Brazil. Most people actually associate western values as something horrible, being on our phones, our technological advancements and even the way we treat our family members is seen as an undesirable way of living.

I do believe this article brings up great points I hadn’t thought about before. I think this does deserve some deeper research, especially towards the essay that we have to hand in in the coming weeks. I think I want to enhance my previous audio document from the last term and see what I can extract and amplify that perhaps I didn’t or couldn’t fit in the ten-minute window.

Games Design Document Version One (Rough)

Game-design-document-0.1 Download

I have completed as much of the document as possible right now. I don’t have enough information to complete the whole thing as I’m sure it’s not needed but I did fill out as much as I could. We don’t have a lot planned right now and I’m unsure about Will and where he is. At the moment it’s only music they have asked so I’m going to make five short demo loops to present next week. I will update the document every week.

A Narrative & Adventure Game Combined Mental Health/Human Body Theme Park

Dereck de Abreu Coelho.

Revision: 0.0.0

GDD Template Written by: Benjamin “HeadClot” Stanley

License

If you use this in any of your games. Give credit in the GDD (this document) to Alec Markarian and Benjamin Stanley. We did work so you don’t have to.

Feel free to Modify, redistribute but not sell this document.

TL;DR – Keep the credits section of this document intact and we are good and do not sell it.

Overview

What sets this project apart?

Story and Gameplay

Assets Needed

Schedule

– <Objective #1>

– <Objective #2>, <etc.>

Overview

Theme / Setting / Genre

The games current theme is around how the brain works. Educational and playful. To design the human body as a theme park and to show how the body works

Core Gameplay Mechanics Brief

The game is going to be similar to another called Florence. Mini games, that have an overall narrative as the player moves through different chapters of the game. Very easy and no winning or losing

–Targeted platforms

Desktop Computers Mac/PC / Mobile? Apple/Android?

Project Scope

– <Game Time Scale>

Four weeks until MA hand in, and crits for us.

– <Team Size>

Mingyi Liu- Games Design& Arts

Yunke Wang- Games Design& Engineering

Ziyu Yun- Games Design& Arts

Shih Kai Chuan- Narrative Design& Arts

Anlin Liu- Games Design& Arts

Peiwei Luo- Games Design

Dereck De Abreu Coelho- Music/Sound Supervisor

Will- Sound?

Jingya- Sound Effects

Influences (Brief)

– <Influence #1, #2, #3, etc>

The game is heavily influenced by a game called Florence which shares similar graphics and gameplay.

The elevator Pitch

This game allows the user to enjoy a laid back experience that is educational and captivating. Guide your character on screen and transform the human body while dictating what amount of chemicals are needed to achieve success.

Project Description (Brief):

Project Description (Detailed)

What sets this project apart?

– <Reason #1, #2, #3, etc.

Core Gameplay Mechanics (Detailed)

Game mechanics determine how the player interacts, the level of complexity, and even how easy or difficult the experience is.

– <Core Gameplay Mechanic #1, #2, #3, etc. >

– <Details>

/Describe in 2 Paragraphs or less/

– <How it works>

/Describe in 2 Paragraphs or less/

Story and Gameplay

Story (Brief)

Story (Detailed)

Gameplay (Brief)

Gameplay (Detailed)

Assets Needed

– 2D

– Textures

– Environment Textures

– Heightmap data (If applicable)

– List required data required – Example: DEM data of the entire UK.

– Etc.

– 3D

– Characters List

– Character #1, #2, #3, etc.

– Environmental Art Lists

– Example #1, #2, #3, etc.

– Sound

Music, Five tracks for each level

– Outside

– Scene 1

– Scene 2

– Scene 3

– etc.

– Inside

– Scene 1

– Scene 2

– Scene 3

– etc.

– Sound List (Player)

– Character Movement Sound List

– Example 1, Example 2, etc.

– Character Hit / Collision Sound list

– Example 1, Example 2, etc.

– Other sounds

– Example 1, Example 2, etc.

– Animation

– Environment Animations

– Example, etc.

– Character Animations

– Player

– Example, etc.

– NPC

– Example, etc.

– Code [optional]

– Character Scripts (Player Pawn/Player Controller)

– Ambient Scripts (Runs in the background)

– Example, etc.

– NPC Scripts

– Example, etc.

Schedule [You can add here your Trello board or similar]

– <Music>

– Time Scale

– Week 1 create demos – Week two receive feedback –

– <Objective #2>

– Time Scale

– Milestone 1, Milestone 2, Etc.

– <Objective #3>

– Time Scale

– Milestone 1, Milestone 2, Etc.