RE: Applying for: Sound design.

To the Game designers and Directors;

Hi Team!

I'm new to this game, but my background as a professional sound-designer is available to you if you want some help with new sounds.

Professional Background:

I've worked for over 20 years in professional sound design for all kinds of fields, such as; DJ'ing, Foley-work for Stage/Theatre, Television and Film. I've also worked on sound mods for video-games like; Call of Duty, the Splinter Cell series, Half-Life series, Doom & Quake series, etc, - and I would LOVE to help you guys out with your Nexuiz game!

I can provide professional samples of almost anything you want to hear, and it's all 100% original digital recording and editing done in my own professional home studio.

Any samples you would like - please let me know what specifically you want to hear, and which format you would prefer them recorded into; (.WAV, .MP3, .OGG are the most popular). I typically record using 24-bit at a rate of 96000 samples per second, and publish using 16-bit at 41000. I only use professional sound-recording / sampling equipment and software.

Below is a list of my equipment:

Computer: Alienware m9700 Notebook: AMD Turion 64 Mobile ML-44 Processor (2.41 GHz) / 1 Gig of RAM / NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS (8.4.7.4). / O.S: WinXp 32bit,Home Edition,SP2 / 17" WideScreen (Native) Resolution: 1440X900. Bluetooth High-Definition audio with Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound.
http://www.techwarelabs.com/reviews/not ... ex_3.shtml

Razer Diamondback Mouse: (Great for Sniping with the Nex)
http://www.razerzone.com/p-70-razer-dia ... mouse.aspx

Sound-system: (Fully Digital 5.1 Surround-Sound System)
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/speak ... 4&cl=us,en

Headphones: AKG 240 Professional Studio-Monitors.
http://www.akg.com/site/products/powers ... specs.html

Stereo Recording Device: Edirol R-09HR Portable Digital Audio Recorder.
http://www.edirol.net/products/en/R-09HR/

Synthesizer: Casio Privia PX-555R.
http://www.casio.com/products/archive/M ... s/PX-555R/

Sound-Editing Software:
Cool-Edit Pro/Adobe Audition.
http://www.adobe.com/products/audition/index.html

Ok, that's all for now, ...I'm looking forward to your reply!

~Michael 'Tenshihan' Quinn

PS: Anyone else who would like any modded sounds may contact me for them!

I've already redone the following for this game; shotgun-fire, hook_fire, lasergun_fire, laserimpact.

My thanks to Blub for the webspace to upload these sounds!

PS: I edit here often because the links I provide need to be updated regularily.

Tenshihan wrote:I've already redone the following for this game; shotgun-fire, hook_fire, lasergun_fire, laserimpact.

Hello Tenshihan and welcome to the forums. Your resume is quite appealing! Any chance you can you package these up? (intro to the pk3)

Sounds very interesting
So those sounds you already made, can you upload them somewhere so we can test them out? I'd even provide some space to upload to.

Content contributors are always welcome. Nexuiz is for sure lacking in certain areas when it comes to sound, so I'd assume there is plenty of room for your creativity.

So... welcome aboard


Given that we're releasing all content under the GPL license the only possible problem is usage of sound samples with GPL-incompatible licensing, so mostly only genuine sounds produced by oneself are for sure unproblematic (and apparently you are well equipped to record everything in your own studio). Given that you seem to have worked rather long in this business I guess you know such issues even better than I do

Hi '[-z-]', Thanks for the greeting! Yes, I can .zip these files for you, and I suppose I will be needing a place to upload them to - otherwise I will have to email them directly to each individual who wants them.

Which brings me to hello to 'Blµb'!
I would sincerely appreciate that! That's great - THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

To 'SavageX', thank you as well for your welcome!
Yes, I understand about GPL license & copyright, ...and if completely original material is what you need, then that's what I will provide. Everything I create & release is given with my full permission to be used in any way an individual wants, ...however, please just give me credit.

Since i'm new here, I wanted to ask; Does NEXUIZ have an official location for contributers to upload material such as sound mods? (Admittedly, I haven't seen or read everything on the forums yet).

I've thankfully seen a page of additional maps, but no webpage for mods such as 'Sound' ...YET. I'm just wondering if the ADMIN-Team plans on adding that aspect as well, maybe to the same area as the additional maps? (Eg: an "NEXUIZ Custom ADD-ONS" page for Sounds, Skins, Models, etc?) I hope so because I can then release several different sound-mods to suit different peoples tastes.

On a personal note, I will say that my sounds keep to the 'feel' of NEXUIZ, by combining my sounds with the original ones, so they will still feel familiar to the player.
However, if someone requests me to make a whole new sound for something - such as weapons like the Shotgun or the Hagar for instance, then I will go to the gun-club and record everything digitally myself. If it's an energy-based weapon, then I can do some plasma arc-welding in my garage and mix that up with some other cool effects that I'm sure you guys will like.

Thanks again everyone for making me feel welcome, it's a pleasure to help out!

Cheers!

~Michael Quinn

Hey Michael, do you think you can upload the files to www.mediafire.com so shy users can have a taste as well?

Ok guys, this is version 1, ...sound changes will be made according to what you want to hear.

BTW: These sounds are recorded in the same file-type that the game plays them in: (.OGG), so, hopefully you have a program like 'winamp' to preview them, otherwise, load up your game and try them out. (Add the Mutator 'Hook' so you can hear the new sound for that as well.)

I really hope that the installation of these sounds can work the same as the custom maps installation, ...going into the Nexiuz game system directory:

C:\Nexuiz\data\sound\weapons (hopefully that works?) Because I personally overwrote the originals by going into: Nexuiz\data\data20080511.pk3\

Please let me know if it works for you.

You were close. The package file will reside in the Nexuiz/data folder, thus paths inside the zip must be relative to it.

Your zip contains

Code: Select all

/Nexuiz/Data/sound/

It should be

Code: Select all

/sound/

After zipping, you must change the extension to .pk3 for it to load when Nexuiz starts up.


Great sounds by the way.

[-z-] wrote:You were close. The package file will reside in the Nexuiz/data folder, thus paths inside the zip must be relative to it.

Your zip contains

Code: Select all

/Nexuiz/Data/sound/

It should be

Code: Select all

/sound/

After zipping, you must change the extension to .pk3 for it to load when Nexuiz starts up.

Great sounds by the way.

___________________________

Ahhh, thanks for the tip! Thanks also for the compliment, hopefully others will feel the same.

So, the zip file only has to have the sound folder inside? No other path? I guess this means that everyone will know where to put the .pk3 when I change it then (I hope).

Ok, i've fixed the upload,

Thanks again for the advice guys!

I love the shotgun sound! It's way better than the current one.

[GF]HarryButt wrote:I love the shotgun sound! It's way better than the current one.

Thanks Harry!

I actually JUST redid the shotgun sound to drop the treble because it was too sharp in the ears when playing for a long time. The level are perfect now. Try downloading again, as I have also fixed up the following weapons sounds;

1) I fixed the "electro_bounce" so it isn't excessively loud anymore.

2) For the "hagar_fire" (I took the distortion out of it but haven't changed the sound, I also added a slight reverb).

3) The "hook_fire" now bangs out like a rope-shooting really fast (similar to spidermans web, but without the "Thwip" sound).

4) The "lasergun_fire" now is louder and has a nice electrical-arc sound to it.

5) The "laser_impact" has an electrical-sparking sound added to it.

6) My favourite, the Nex guns' "nexfire" sounds dangerous now!

7) The "shotgun_fire", as I mentioned, is now cleaned up nicely and doesn't hurt the ears, but still kicks HARD.

***) EXTRA FIX: The footsteps were by default originally in Stereo, which made it impossible to determine where the opponent was by listening - so I fixed them by making them mono. Now you CAN hear where your opponents are!

wow that's awesome

Thumbs up!

Fisume! wrote:wow that's awesome

Thumbs up!

Thanks Fisume! I'm glad you like them, please let me know if there is anything else you want to hear changed/altered or redone entirely.

Cheers!

I hate mediafire
I've PMd you the info about the upload space I provided

Currently there's a 32M limit per file, but I can change that.

Blµb wrote:I hate mediafire
I've PMd you the info about the upload space I provided

Currently there's a 32M limit per file, but I can change that.

Very cool, ...thanks again Blµb! I'm off to answer your PM now.

Cheers!

Darn, I am at work! Sounds good, Can't wait to try the new sounds out!

Tenshihan wrote:

[GF]HarryButt wrote:I love the shotgun sound! It's way better than the current one.

Thanks Harry!

I actually JUST redid the shotgun sound to drop the treble because it was too sharp in the ears when playing for a long time. The level are perfect now. Try downloading again, as I have also fixed up the following weapons sounds;

1) I fixed the "electro_bounce" so it isn't excessively loud anymore.

2) For the "hagar_fire" (I took the distortion out of it but haven't changed the sound, I also added a slight reverb).

3) The "hook_fire" now bangs out like a rope-shooting really fast (similar to spidermans web, but without the "Thwip" sound).

4) The "lasergun_fire" now is louder and has a nice electrical-arc sound to it.

5) The "laser_impact" has an electrical-sparking sound added to it.

6) My favourite, the Nex guns' "nexfire" sounds dangerous now!

7) Lastly (so far, until I get more requests) is the "shotgun_fire", and as I mentioned, it's now cleaned up nicely and doesn't hurt the ears, but still kicks HARD.

Here's the new URLs:

http://www.mediafire.com/?bmjx3jzwyn4

http://rear.endoftheinternet.org/~blub/ ... 817a8663e4

awsome!!11one!
Im not sure abt the nex one, iit could use a more electric feel imo. The shotty otoh is friggin awsome, clearly my favorite sound gun in nex now! The crylink would do well with a better sound so could the rocketlauncher (more stuff in the lines of the crispy shotty would be nice )

[quote="tZork"][/quote]
awsome!!11one!
Im not sure abt the nex one, iit could use a more electric feel imo. The shotty otoh is friggin awsome, clearly my favorite sound gun in nex now! The crylink would do well with a better sound so could the rocketlauncher (more stuff in the lines of the crispy shotty would be nice )
_____________________

Hi, tZork!

Thanks very much for your compliments and advice!

I'm working on re-doing all the soundfiles you mentioned, ...hopefully they will be done soon as i've been working all day so far!

I added the electrical sound to the Nex-snipergun as you requested, and WOW, it's sounds damn scary now! I was thinking the same exact thing about ALL of the electrical/plasma/cell based weapons actually - I also felt that they needed to sound more electrical, so I'm working my ass off now on all of them so they sound better but stay distinct from each other.

The trick for me is to still keeping some of the original sounds - so that seasoned players have a subconscious reminder of what they are using - and yet are not too distracted by my new sounds. Hopefully you guys will like the mix.

Ok, NEW WEAPON SOUNDS for; crylink_fire, electro_bounce, electro_fire, grenade_fire, hagar_fire, hook_fire, lasergun_fire, laserimpact, nexfire, rocket_fire, rocket_impact, shotgun_fire, and uzi_fire.

Peace,

~Tenshihan

Yeah, great sounds indeed. The shotgun sounds are by far the best. Shotgun has always been a great weapon actually and can do hella lot of damage, but the previews sound made it sound weak. Now it finally have something that actually represents just how dangerous that weapon is. Great job on that one.

I have my doubts about the impact sound of the rocket launcher, right now it sounds too much like Half-Life 2 rocket launcher. Now I love that sound don't get me wrong, I just don't think it fits Nexuiz.

And finally, the nexgun sounds cool, reminds me of a powerful weapon in Renegade ^_^
So it might be because of Renegade that I'm about to say this. The sound is cool and all, however, listening to the sound and looking at the model, to me there's something that is not right. That kind of weapon design I believe wouldn't have such sound, I would actually go as far as to say, keep the sound be redo the nexgun model (It is good looking, but also here I don't really think it fits the Nexuiz theme).
The Renegade weapon was a big gun that fired one powerful beam and could tear tanks (and buildings) apart with just a few shots. So my opinion might be biased.

It seems I am the only one not liking these sounds, but anyway...
I tested them now for 2 days ingame (the first pack) and think they are very distracting. First most of them are too long. All of them are somewhat overdone for my taste with the effects taking over the last part of the sounds.
To make my nagging complete, I must say the shotgun is the worst of all to me, it sounds like a gun in that 2D redneck shooters where one has to kill little praire dogs.
So my suggestion would be: keep it a bit simpler.

Your sounds are good standalone, but ingame they are just too much and therefor distracting. I do agree that Nexuiz could need some new sounds, so I really appreciate your work!

I dont know how far you wanna take this, but maybe it would be a worth a try to create completly new sounds, not based on the old ones. Than you would not have to rely on so much echo and the other effects to make them distinguishable from the current ones.

Just wanted to give another view here, keep up the good work!

ai wrote:Yeah, great sounds indeed. The shotgun sounds are by far the best. Shotgun has always been a great weapon actually and can do hella lot of damage, but the previews sound made it sound weak. Now it finally have something that actually represents just how dangerous that weapon is. Great job on that one.

I have my doubts about the impact sound of the rocket launcher, right now it sounds too much like Half-Life 2 rocket launcher. Now I love that sound don't get me wrong, I just don't think it fits Nexuiz.

And finally, the nexgun sounds cool, reminds me of a powerful weapon in Renegade ^_^
So it might be because of Renegade that I'm about to say this. The sound is cool and all, however, listening to the sound and looking at the model, to me there's something that is not right. That kind of weapon design I believe wouldn't have such sound, I would actually go as far as to say, keep the sound be redo the nexgun model (It is good looking, but also here I don't really think it fits the Nexuiz theme).
The Renegade weapon was a big gun that fired one powerful beam and could tear tanks (and buildings) apart with just a few shots. So my opinion might be biased.

Hello ai, nice to meet you!

Thanks for all the postive criticsm and compliments, that really does help me very much in determining what the players are looking for. Also, thank you for the great detail in your description without any negativity. More people online should follow your lead because it's always nice to be polite. (I found that it gets you further in life too.)

I agree that the NEX gun seems a bit TOO powerful sounding right now for the model. However, I was aiming to please the ADMIN who asked me to make it sound powerful and electrical, ...so I graced it with the background of lightning. But perhaps it IS a bit too much sound, so I will work on a V2 pack shortly after this first week of everyones input. Basically I want to get a general concensus so that I can please as many people as possible.

Also, I will be releasing different versions of sounds so that individuals can 'mix & match' to their taste. Hopefully that will please as many players as possible, (being able to customise their own sound-choices).

I will do my best to redo the 'rocket_impact' for you - because yes, I also feel that right now the explosion-sound is too sharp, with not quite enough "boom". Yup, gotta be fixed up.

__________

Now to dIM,

Hi there, ...I'm sorry I couldn't please you with my current versions, although I am glad that you tried the first pack. I hope you'll try the most recent one (See my signature for the download link). Hopefully soon I will be able to make a more simple pack for you with less reverb.

Cheers,

~Michael

Now for my part
1) The footsteps - I never hear any footsteps in game ^^ so I don't care about those
2) crylink
I do like the effect, but it may be a tiny bit too long. Maybe use a mix of the first and the last part as one short sound? Dunno, I'm a coder, I suck at designing
3) electro bounce - can't say anything about that one
4) electro fire - I really like that one
it's great. although the last part of it reminds me of the old sound, I think that part could just be removed, although I think it's good as it is now too.
5) grenade fire - Like that one too
6) hagar fire - I hate that weapon, and I don't want to see or hear anything from it
lol, I just don't know what to say here
7) hook - okay besides the fact that the hook is more than ridiculous in nex...
the sound gives me the feeling of ... a really old game. dunno. sorry :/
8) laser fire - :/ I don't like that strange new effect in there
9) laser impact - I can't hear it, probably cuz the firing sound interferes
10) nexfire - I didn't like it when its fire-effect was porlonged, although I changed my mind because it helps getting rid of railbitches. But now with this sound I think it's great. First there's the shot, then you hear it fading, I like it
11) rocket fire - good
12) rocket impact - bad sorry, sounds more like throwing a hammer really, I hate this one, a lot
13) shotgun fire - okay I guess
14) uzi fire - Can't you make it sound like somebody saying "FU MG BITCH!"?
I don't like that sound, it's odd, it reminds me of those ugly games like SOF2 or MOHAA (No, maybe their sounds are completely different, I have NFI, but it makes me THINK of those)
It's like popping -small- balloons

Oh, btw I take this quote from morfar:

morfar wrote:The sound I really want you to change is the Mortar grenade bounce, it sounds too weak at the moment.

Yeah, I totally agree on that one. Ever since the bounce for the mortar was changed to this kinda ridiculous fork on a can sound I tried and tried to make them get the old sounds back in Nexuiz but no one listened to me. So I gathered the old sounds myself and included them in a .pk3 and put it in my Nexuiz folder.
So if you could change the current ones for something else that would be awesome. The reason why I haven't mentioned this earlier is cause I forgot I forget that the new (current) sounds even exist as I use the old ones.

If you want to listen to the older grenade bounce and compare yourself here's a link. Just put it in Nexuiz/data and your set:
http://ai.planetnexuiz.de/Sounds/Z-aiGrenadeSounds.pk3

Btw, does any weapon in Nexuiz have debris?
Cause I'd like to hear the bullet rounds falling on the floor while firing that MG. Gives me that minigun-feeling, other shooters have

ai wrote:Oh, btw I take this quote from morfar:

morfar wrote:The sound I really want you to change is the Mortar grenade bounce, it sounds too weak at the moment.

Yeah, I totally agree on that one. Ever since the bounce for the mortar was changed to this kinda ridiculous fork on a can sound I tried and tried to make them get the old sounds back in Nexuiz but no one listened to me. So I gathered the old sounds myself and included them in a .pk3 and put it in my Nexuiz folder.
So if you could change the current ones for something else that would be awesome. The reason why I haven't mentioned this earlier is cause I forgot I forget that the new (current) sounds even exist as I use the old ones.

If you want to listen to the older grenade bounce and compare yourself here's a link. Just put it in Nexuiz/data and your set:
http://ai.planetnexuiz.de/Sounds/Z-aiGrenadeSounds.pk3

DAMN! Those sound WAY BETTER!!! Thanks ai!!

I just put those in the soundpack for you guys! Wicked find man!

Blµb wrote:Now for my part
1) The footsteps - I never hear any footsteps in game ^^ so I don't care about those
2) crylink
I do like the effect, but it may be a tiny bit too long. Maybe use a mix of the first and the last part as one short sound? Dunno, I'm a coder, I suck at designing
3) electro bounce - can't say anything about that one
4) electro fire - I really like that one
it's great. although the last part of it reminds me of the old sound, I think that part could just be removed, although I think it's good as it is now too.
5) grenade fire - Like that one too
6) hagar fire - I hate that weapon, and I don't want to see or hear anything from it
lol, I just don't know what to say here
7) hook - okay besides the fact that the hook is more than ridiculous in nex...
the sound gives me the feeling of ... a really old game. dunno. sorry :/
8) laser fire - :/ I don't like that strange new effect in there
9) laser impact - I can't hear it, probably cuz the firing sound interferes
10) nexfire - I didn't like it when its fire-effect was prolonged, although I changed my mind because it helps getting rid of railbitches. But now with this sound I think it's great. First there's the shot, then you hear it fading, I like it
11) rocket fire - good
12) rocket impact - bad sorry, sounds more like throwing a hammer really, I hate this one, a lot
13) shotgun fire - okay I guess
14) uzi fire - Can't you make it sound like somebody saying "FU MG BITCH!"?
I don't like that sound, it's odd, it reminds me of those ugly games like SOF2 or MOHAA (No, maybe their sounds are completely different, I have NFI, but it makes me THINK of those)
It's like popping -small- balloons

Whew! Thanks for the input! ...I went and fixed EVERYTHING you mentioned!

I want to remind everyone that if you DO or don't like a certain sound I've made, simply delete the ones you don't like and the default ones will still work.
You can choose to copy-paste certain ones I make - into the sound.pk3 located in your "nexuiz/data" folder.

Here you go guys, check my signature for my latest sound releases.

Okay, I have a few suggestions:
I don't know, if it's just me, but sometimes I get the feeling, that I can hear the old sounds through partially. Is that a bug or did you use them too while mixing your stuff?
- Electro primary sounds a little too much like a shotgun imo. If you could get a more electro-static buzz into that one, like you did for the Crylink it could become more "electro".
Imo the Crylink sounds are the best right now I'm using the Crylink more and more, just to hear that awesome sound.
- Please replace the electro bounce with some electro-humming stuff too. For I don't like these thingies to sound like glass marbles. They're goddamn balls of ectoplasma or something!
- Rocket Launcher impact is pretty cool right now. But imo the shot itself is weak in comparison to the impact. Would you mind to give it some "kick" at start, so that you can really feel that hooker being shot?

In general I have to say, that I couldn't ever imagine that sound is so important for a game. It gives a completely new gameplay feeling!
Keep it up!

Going through them again
okay
I like most of them now, I still don't like the MG though
rocket impact needs some getting used to I guess

thumbs up from me

EDIT:
for the laser fire
If it's not too much trouble, I dunno how to describe it...
make it more... "pulse"-like, currently it reminds me a BIT of sandpaper
more "tones" dunno

but I'm okay with it

[GF]HarryButt wrote:Okay, I have a few suggestions:
I don't know, if it's just me, but sometimes I get the feeling, that I can hear the old sounds through partially. Is that a bug or did you use them too while mixing your stuff?
- Electro primary sounds a little too much like a shotgun imo. If you could get a more electro-static buzz into that one, like you did for the Crylink it could become more "electro".
Imo the Crylink sounds are the best right now I'm using the Crylink more and more, just to hear that awesome sound.
- Please replace the electro bounce with some electro-humming stuff too. For I don't like these thingies to sound like glass marbles. They're goddamn balls of ectoplasma or something!
- Rocket Launcher impact is pretty cool right now. But imo the shot itself is weak in comparison to the impact. Would you mind to give it some "kick" at start, so that you can really feel that hooker being shot?

In general I have to say, that I couldn't ever imagine that sound is so important for a game. It gives a completely new gameplay feeling!
Keep it up!

Hi Harry,

To answer your question; Yes, I do keep some original material (I shall quote myself here now from an earlier post) "The trick for me is in still keeping some of the original sounds - so that seasoned players have a subconscious reminder of what they are using - and yet are not too distracted by my new sounds."

So basically my sounds are an enhancement and not a deliberate change. (I've found in the past when I completely change a sound, it really disturbs people.) It's human nature that when they are used to ONE thing - they don't want it changed - unless it somehow annoyed them to begin with. The old addage of "If it ain't broke, ...don't fix it" comes to mind.

Onto your next subjects;

"- Electro primary sounds a little too much like a shotgun imo. If you could get a more electro-static buzz into that one, like you did for the Crylink it could become more "electro".

...Yes, I tried a more electrical version of that - but it ended up sounding too much like the 'CryLink_fire'. However, I will TRY to get that one done for you soon.

"- Please replace the electro bounce with some electro-humming stuff too. For I don't like these thingies to sound like glass marbles. They're goddamn balls of ectoplasma or something!"

...Actually yeah - you're right! Definitely going to be part of my next release!

As for the 'rocket_fire' sound being weak, ...well, I tried a version that sounded like it exploded from the rocket, but it took so much away from other sound effects (like where your opponents are firing at you from) that it was just too much. However, if you send my a PM with your email-address, I can send you a copy of THAT kind of launch-sound and then you can see for yourself if you really like it.

I aim to please.