Sound FX:s for STK

[sisainenaani]

Hello,
i am interested to making some sound fx:s for SuperTuxKart.
I have behind me 3 years in Helsinki City College of Technology / Department of Audiovisual Communication, i just graduated from "audio line".

SuperTuxKart is good game and i like it, but soundscape is littlebit poor. I can make a bundle of new sounds. There is missing sound of nitro, banana, suction cap etc. When you crash with other kart, that sounds very lame. And there is no any atmospheres, only music in background. And if it not have to be realistic, i can also make new kart sounds.

I have a portfolio, http://www.sisainenaani.com - which is in Finnish, but you can listen some my works there. I also own good microphones, preamps and big box of children toys and etc. stuff to make sounds.
So let me know if there is use of sound effects.

...and forgive my poor English language skills...

[Auria]

Hi,

I fully agree, finding free open sources is very difficult. We very much welcome any help in that regard!! the sounds you mentioned would all be good places to start

Just a caveat though, SuperTuxKart is open source, so there is a need to be careful : if you just take a sound samples CD, chances are at the license of these sounds forbids using them in an open-source context. I guess this is one of the reasons getting good free sounds is so difficult, they need to be made either from original recordings, or by mixing existing other free sounds.

So if you feel like making improved versions of the sounds you mentionned, definitely go for it! I would also add to this the sound of the karts' engines, those we have at this time are perhaps a little annoying and you can spot the repetition a bit easily

[sisainenaani]

Dont worry about open source and lisences, i make all sounds by my self. I dont use sample-CD:s.

How your game engine play sound fx:s? How long these effects should be?
Example: if i press nitro button = nitro sound start. But if i release nitro button, can game engine still keep playing that effect?
Or should one effect be divided to 3 different part: start - middle - end? When middle part can be looping.

Anyway, i start to think and desing sounds, let see what happens !

[RaceAce]

I'd suggest a wet-sounding "splorp" for the plunger, a "fwoosh" for nitro and maybe a "splat" or "shlip" for banana.

[sisainenaani]

Yeah, very generic sounds.

What i think, there have to be more than "splorp" sound. When you shoot plunger, sound would be like "woosh" and when plunger stucks on other player, then sound would be "splorp".
Sounds for movements.

i started to work with nitrosound. Next step is record some aerosol cans and mix them with some "flamethrower" sounds.
Maybaye weekend first samples are ready.

[ctdabomb]

I make all sounds by my self.

some "flamethrower" sounds.

[sisainenaani]

I make all sounds by my self.

some "flamethrower" sounds.

Yep. Earlier recorded our cottage wood oven, wood and paper burning high flame. Sounds like flamethrower

[Auria]

Dont worry about open source and lisences, i make all sounds by my self. I dont use sample-CD:s.

How your game engine play sound fx:s? How long these effects should be?
Example: if i press nitro button = nitro sound start. But if i release nitro button, can game engine still keep playing that effect?
Or should one effect be divided to 3 different part: start - middle - end? When middle part can be looping.

Anyway, i start to think and desing sounds, let see what happens !

this sounds good and there is usually no need to split sounds in 3, usually we have sounds that loop and sounds that don't loop.

If we start getting better sounds we could consider possibly adding fade-in and fade-out over looped sounds to make the transition in and out better. Possibly you could have a "start" sound and a "loop" sound, we could play the "start" one and at the same time start fading in the "loop" one, and when we're done fade out the "loop" portion. I hope I'm making sense.

Note that the fade in/out part is not currently implemented but I don't think it would be very difficult

[sisainenaani]

Hello,
I've been busy because of work but here is some nitrosound ready for listen.
Tell me what you like about this sound, is there something too much, something what you want more etc..

stereo:
start sound: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7367381/nitro_pt1_stereo.wav
loop sound: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7367381/nitro_pt2_stereo.wav

mono:
start sound: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7367381/nitro_pt1_mono.wav
loop sound: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7367381/nitro_pt2_mono.wav

Edit:
New versio !

stereo:
start sound: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7367381/nitro_ ... stereo.wav
loop sound: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7367381/nitro_ ... stereo.wav

mono:
start sound: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7367381/nitro_new_pt1_mono.wav
loop sound: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7367381/nitro_new_pt2_mono.wav

[sisainenaani]

Hmmh,
new versio is better, at least first four seconds. End of it i have to fix and tweak. Sound goes too high frequency = end of it sounds wrong and not fit in game.

[Arthur]

Agreed. Also, never mind uploading stereo versions. Positional sounds need to be mono in order for OpenAL to position it in 3D space.

[Auria]

Hi,

I think it's very good, but it's perhaps a bit slow. Don't forget STK is quite high-paced, and it's not uncommon to use nitro in small bursts for 1 or 2 seconds. So maybe making a faster-paced version of the sound would help suit better?

[qubodup]

First of all, these sound good and I'm curious how they'd sound in-game!

When playing, I usually "tap" the nitro, thinking it's more economic. Also I think it's easier to steer this way (not getting too fast = better control)

This means that - depending on implementation - I would probably only hear the start sound (which might not be bad).

The start sound should probably be in synch with how much it takes for the nitro effect to reach 100%? Perhaps the coders could tell something about the delays in the nitro game mechanics?

@sisainenaani if you'd like to back up your files on a site where they would be accessible to other game proejcts as well, I'd recommend http://opengameart.org

[sisainenaani]

I kind returned back to square one, and now i have new base of nitro sound.
It need some high freq accent sound or something, i have not yet figured what kind of...
I also added "comic" whistle in to start.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7367381/nitro_new.wav

[Auria]

it's quite good but you could make the "whee" sound at the start quieter compared to the rest of the nitro? then I think it would be good. nitro can be used quite often so I don't think we want to play a loud "whee" everytime the user presses the key

sorry to sound so picky ^^

[sisainenaani]

Yes you are right. That "whee" is too loud, i must mix it better.
I think it need something more but i dont know what..