Singing Lessons (1/8/2013)

As of today I have started singing lessons in order to feel more confident about my singing ability for drama and also to learn how to improve my voice work and range, as I am still interested in possibly taking voice acting as a future career. Therefore having a range of voices I feel confident with and are distinct, would be worth having.

During my first session I learnt to control my breathing and where to breath in between lines. I was also showed how to correctly project my voice without shouting by projecting from my diaphragm rather than my throat.

I also practiced using both my bass singing voice and a higher one as my teacher found it odd that I have a high regular voice, and yet only sing in a bass, which is the lowest of all his students. He also reckons that I have a good range and that, if I can perfect my higher voice and not slip constantly into bass when singing then I will have a wide range to work with. 

I hope from doing these sessions I not only get more confident when talking and singing in general, but also learn more about the things I practiced today. I also hope to use these skills for future drama work (including my drama trip next week) and maybe even voice acting opportunities.

My Soundcloud Account (6/6/2013)

Asked to put our recorded sounds onto 'Soundcloud' for our final assessment I decided to make one during this session.
You can find the links to each of my recorded areas below.

• Voice Acting for the Cutscene: https://soundcloud.com/robin-foale/sets/cutscene-voice-acting

• Voice Acting for the Demo: https://soundcloud.com/robin-foale/sets/demo-voice-acting

• Foley I didn't use: https://soundcloud.com/robin-foale/sets/foley-recorded

Putting my recorded sounds into my Demo 2 (30/5/2013)

For today's session I concentrated on adding my recorded sounds to my demo thus I was able to successfully add my recorded voice acting.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to include my foley as the sounds decided to be awkward and not loop their tracks. Further more, after listening to them when playing the demo I felt that actually they got in the way of my intended atmosphere so I decided to remove them as they were a distraction and did not fit the games intended film noir genre which tends to use music rather than foley.

Speaking of the above, I also tried to import Film Noir music into the demo in order to create the genre's feel only to be unsuccessful due to a wrong file type and other technical issues. So, my voice acting will be the main audio in the game which I feel is fine as a monologue is always heard in the background in this kind of genre.

Putting my recorded sounds into my Demo 1 (23/5/2013)

Today I concentrated on completing the editing of both my voice acting and the sounds I wanted to include in my demo.

Having struggled to get rid of some of the background noise last week I was told by a colleague today that an easier method to do so was by 'Capture Noise Print' as before, but then selecting 'Adaptive Noise Reduction' in order to remove the majority of the unwanted background noise. Thus I was able to fully edit both my voice acting and foley today which I was pleased with. 

The foley I have decided to include in my demo from last week is as follows.

• Traffic. 
• Tree rustling. 
• Air conditioning.
• Banging metal.
• Water running.

And if I find the time I will also try and include foot steps for the pavement and grass.

Putting our own sound into UDK (16/5/2013)

Having gathered a number of sounds we were told today how to put them into UDK in the form of triggers e.g. the sounds that play when a  player crosses a certain point.

You can read my notes on how to do this below.

1. Right click on 'UDK' and select 'Add Actor' before selecting 'Add Trigger'. 
2. Once the trigger has been added left click it twice in order to bring up its options. Here it is best to change the triggers 'Collision Height' and 'Collision Radius' in order to make sure the player definitely activates it. 
3. Clicking on the small green K at the top of  the screen whilst having the trigger selected will bring up the 'UnrealKismet'. 
4. Right clicking on the screen you then need to select 'New Event Using Trigger_0' before selecting 'Touch'. This will make sure that the sound plays when the player literally touches the trigger. 
5. Here you then right click the screen in order to select 'New Action', 'Sound' and then 'Play Sound'. 
6. Dragging the 'Touched' point of the trigger to the 'Play' point of the 'Play Sound' will make sure whatever sound you select plays when the player encounters the trigger.
7. Selecting the 'Play Sound' box with a left click then brings up the proprieties. Before continuing bring up the content browser and find a sound you want to incorporate under 'Sound Cues', select that sound. Going back into the 'Seq Act Play Sound' section on the 'UnrealKismet' you then need to select the small green arrow next to the 'Play Sound' line which stands for 'Use Selected Object In Content Browser'. 
8. Now the sound will play successfully! 

Luckily I was told by my friends how to incorporate my own sounds into UDK using the following steps.

1. Going into the 'Content Browser' I then had to select the bottom left 'Import' button in order to select the sound I want to use and fill in the details (making sure there are no spaces).
2. Right clicking the 'Content Browser' you then select 'New SoundCue' and fill in the details as before.
3. Having done this a box should appear named the 'Sound Cue Editor'. Right clicking the 'SoundCue' created from the previous action you then select the option 'Edit Using Sound Cue Editor' to bring up the box.
4. Now selecting the 'SoundNode Wave' that was made before you right clicked the 'Sound Cue Editor' box brought up on the screen just now select the imported sound under the file type 'SoundNode Wave' using the title you gave it. With a box now included you drag the two black boxes next to the two boxes on the screen together in order to link them. 
5. Now your own sounds will play in UDK!

Once I knew how to do the above I then started to place my triggers ready for when I incorporate my own sounds in the 3D demo I have yet to fully edit.

Going out and recording sounds (16/5/2013)

Today we went through the criteria needed to pass this module. Therefore I made the following notes.

• Explain on our blogs why we enjoy the sounds we made and why we wanted to make them in the first place, how will they be used to create atmosphere etc. The sounds don't need to be included in the game, but they should all be given in on a CD or memory disk with our name on it, thus the grader will be able to recognise what they are listening to, or in my case what I will say during certain lines.
• Look over my 3D demo and decide what sounds could be included in order to make it stand out more. Remember I have started this slightly already with the storyboard I created. 
• Create a audio design document made up of 1500 words. Talk further about the equipment used during this process and whether or not it went well or not.
• Perhaps use the website Sound Cloud in order to upload my own sounds onto it. Thus being able to open them up on my blogs.
• As long as we show an understanding on how sounds are made and have produced a fair few of any sort then it doesn't matter if some of them were not suitable for the demo or were chosen over others.

Afterwards myself, Adam, Jim and Bonnie made a list of sounds we wanted to record before going around the city for a couple of hours in order to record these sound effects which included the following.

• Ambient background noises of people talking and area interactions both within and outside the city.
• Seagulls flocking.
• Walking at different paces on pebbles, sand, metal, concrete and grass.
• Shaking of tree branches and bushes. 
• Water flowing and splashing.
• Sliding ones hand against metal bars. 
• Fiddling with a metal lock and banging it on other metal surfaces.
• Air conditioning.

Editing my voice recordings (13/5/2013)

Deciding to crack on with some work outside of lectures I went over my recorded voice acting and edited them appropriately. Thus removing any background sounds and cutting out stutters, bad lines and long pauses.  

Overall I was very pleased with the results as I was worried that I would sound different when recorded particularly since I had to put on a deeper voice. However, for my first time at voice acting I feel I did pretty well. Not only did the dying man's voice convey pain, I thought it sounded natural. Also, the deeper voice I had to use for my main character ended up sounding good and not forced. So I am pleased to hear I was able to use two decent voices.
My only complaint is that you can sometimes tell that both voices are done by the same person which is a shame, otherwise I think they are different enough for those listening to know they are separate characters, plus its early days for my attempts at voice acting and this should become less obvious in the future (I hope).

I was also able to help Ryan by lending my voice acting for his 3D demo. For his game I had to voice a confident thief which was slightly difficult to do as I used a similar deep voice to my main character's voice. I then had to incorporate elements of confidence in order to make the voice match the personality Ryan wanted. This was difficult at first, but Ryan said that he was more than happy with the results and therefore I trust he was pleased with my work. Plus, it gave him experience in directing voice acting so it was beneficially for both of us. 

Finally I was able to add all my cut scene audio to my presentation and edited it so it would play automatically. Overall I am happy to hear my voice play alongside the illustrations I drew.