Sound Design - Velvet Assassin
Velvet Assassin Sound :: Sound Design Audio Examples :: Life in sound :: Curriculum Vitae
Surround Ambiences
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This is a small collection of different ambiences for the game “Velvet Assassin” that I worked on as the sound designer.
All ambiences have been created as 6-channel surround files in Samplitude 10 Pro (as the final mix DAW). Source sounds came from various sources like my own field recordings, done with the Zoom-H2 in 4 channels and mixed into 5.1 surround sound using Samplitudes flexible surround panning tool. The small handy recorder has enough resolution to actually create a nice surround ambience field that can be used for games with a clear distinction between sound sources in the surround field.
Mixed into this more natural surround environment are musical or music-like textures in 5.1 configuration. I created them using Logic 8’s sculpture synthesizer. It is a wonderful plugin that creates the most unusual sounds I’ve ever heard. You can go really grunch with it or spacy if you want.
Closekill and Combat Sounds
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This video shows the interaction sounds of “Velvet Assassin”. The game features a lot of methods to eliminate the enemy in a close range kill. These were first designed and animated, then imported into the engine and captured to video again before they went into ProTools 8. There I added all needed cloth sound as well as the voice over of both interaction partners. The last step was adding compression to the files and normalizing them as they needed to be heard in every situation. As there was no ducking available in the engine, manual leveling was needed.
A special interaction is the grenade kill in the game. You will sneak behind an enemy, trigger his grenade, bound to his holster, he walks away - hopefully into a crowd of soldiers - and the grenade explodes, taking not only the owner away but the surrounding people as well.
For Violette to move as a silent killer, her sounds should be almost not audible while moving around. Footstep sounds are very quite except for special ground types like glass which is a special game play element and should alarm nearby enemy soldiers when walking over.
This hopefully gives you a small inside into the sound design of “Velvet Assassin”. If there are any questions, please don’t hesitate writing me about them. I will get back to you as soon as possible.
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