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Devstream 102
Special Sound Design Stream!
Posted On 2017-12-01 06:15:00
Devstream 102

Time to crank those speakers, Tenno! This week’s Devstream was sound-focused, and our Sound Department really turned it up to 11 when picking the content to reveal and discuss for this episode. Since this Devstream was so heavy on the audio, we really recommend watching the full broadcast on our YouTube channel.

If you left your headphones at home, or simply want the TL;DW version, keep reading below!


House Keeping

· The For Fans by Fans T-Shirt Contest is still live. Enter now!

· The Tenno’s Greatest Trailer Contest winners were announced. See them in full here

· We asked Twitter what Octavia Mandachord Sound Pack they wanted next, and the EDM pack won! https://twitter.com/PlayWarframe/status/936671344158298118

· Share your thoughts with us in The Great Plains of Eidolon Feedback Survey: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/888235-the-great-plains-of-eidolon-feedback-survey/

· Hydroid Prime Access is ending on December 12!

· Vote for Warframe as the Best Ongoing Game.

Plains of Eidolon Weather

Rain clouds are coming to the Plains of Eidolon! Unlike the Grineer Shipyard Tileset, the weather on the Plains will be dynamic and will gradually appear as real storms do. Currently, rain is planned to have a set fishing bonus, but that might change when the system officially gets rolled out.


In this clip, you can hear how the ambient insect sounds disappear as the rain rolls in, as well as the increase in wind. Below is a longer clip of the storm with less chatter over top of it. You can also see pictures of our Sound Team recording the audio that let this system happen: https://imgur.com/a/v3x61


Tenno Pump Action Shotgun

Our Sound Team also brought with them the sounds of the coming Tenno Pump Action Shotgun! For those unaware, weapon sounds are broken into 3 layers: the punch, the mech, and the shot. These layers get triggered randomly, which makes each shot dynamic and different.

Below is a showcase of each of these layers, and then the final product:



Can you hear the lion roar at the end of the shot?

Low Health Audio Design

The team has been looking into employing real-time parameter control (RTPC) to help the game sound communicate to players that their health is being depleted. RTPC lets us boost certain sounds at certain times, which lets us accomplish the following:

- Sounds get muffled when you get to low health.

- Bullet getting louder when low health.

- Ambient sounds get quieter as you move closer to an enemy.

Here is what all of these elements would sound like (although exaggerated) at the same time:


A full demonstration of these different segments can be found at this YouTube timestamp. Rebecca also mentioned the possibility of adding this feature as a toggleable ability upon its release.

Gara

With Gara’s release, a lot of discussion surrounded her sound design, so George and team brought a behind-the-scenes view of what went into it:


You can watch the full video an explanation at this YouTube timestamp

At its core, Gara’s sound design is a mix of glass and musical elements – something we’ve never really done before! That’s why we’ve included both voice and the glass harp instead of relying on shattering glass sounds. Her powers are in a musical scale, so they synergize together.

Teralyst Vocals

When designing the cry of the Teralyst, we needed to ensure that it sounded bigger than anything we’ve done before. The goal was to make players be both afraid and sympathetic of it.

So, we used whale vocalizations as the starting point for this Sentient cry. In the clip below, you can hear the different layers used to accomplish the final product:


Erich gave us a live demo of how these whale vocalizations were altered using the Revitron 9001 MK2, which you can watch at this YouTube timestamp.

Other Tidbits

  • Jukeboxes might be coming to the game soon!
  • The team is open to taking another look at Melee weapon sounds to give them more oomph.
  • CLEM!
  • The Kuva Jester jingles as they run around, and their punches have the potential to squeak like a dog toy when they jump on your shoulders.
  • Sentients’ sounds are comprised of tin foil and choirs.
  • We use voices.com to source our voice talent. George recommends diversifying the types and styles of voice work you can do as a general tip to get into the industry!
  • Nidus’ sounds are made from mutilated veggies (RIP green peppers), using plungers in dog food, and the screeches of our employees (aka Willem on the Sound Team).
  • Here’s one of the Grineer Ghouls revealed in Devstream 101 in-action:



The Remote Observer – Vol 18.5

We’re back again with highlights from this week’s deployments on PC and Console. Take a look at what important changes slipped into these updates below:

PC – WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED

Volt Changes

· Added a minimum Duration for enemies affected by Discharge under the 'coil' CC effect.

· Removed the passive 5 Energy per second drain from Volt’s Electric Shield when moving with it. The 1 Energy per meter drain remains.

· Increased the base DPS of Discharge (from 450 at max rank to 750).

· Discharge is now castable in the air.

Other

· Fixed the Mission Results screen locking up on return to Cetus when playing with a controller.

CONSOLES – WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED

Plains of Eidolon

· Changed the ways Bounty Rewards function. You now get a reward for every stage of the Bounty completed! Yup. Pretty simple. A full breakdown of how this works can be found here: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/887268-plains-of-eidolon-update-2235/

· Increased the Standing awarded from redeeming Azurite, Devar, and Veridos Gems to Old Man Suumbaat.

· Reduced the cost of Fish components in certain crafting recipes: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/887268-plains-of-eidolon-update-2235/

· Fixed two particularly nasty crashes that could occur on return to Cetus.

· Fixes towards Bounties insta failing if an ability to teleport (Nova’s Wormhole, Itzal’s Blink, etc) was used to enter the Bounty area.

· Fixed a Host migration during an Incursion resulting in no rewards for Client.

· Fixed Bounties not progressing after Host migration if migration occurs during the middle of an active Bounty stage.

· Added 3 new achievements: Champion Of The People, Marathoner, and Sharpshooter

Zaws

· Fixed Zaw Rivens having unintentionally lower stats than their Disposition indicated. This results in an overall Zaw Riven buff by 50%.

· Kwath additional damage increased from 9 to 14.

· Kroostra additional damage increased from 9 to 14.

· Mewan base damage increased froma 81 to 86.

· Kronsh base damage increased from 81 to 86.

· Ruhang additional damage increased from 9 to 14.

· Ruhang II additional damage increased from 18 to 28.

Assassination Targets

  • Fixed not being able to defeat the Raptor due to the bombs not exploding when falling into the tubes, and because the Raptor refuses to fly away from the tubes.
  • Fixed not being able to defeat Lephantis due to his many heads not opening up to display his more vulnerable side.

Mirage Sleight of Hand

In addition to booby trapping nearby objects, Mirage’s Sleight of Hand now spawns a jewel that attracts nearby enemies! If Sleight of Hand is used with Hall of Mirrors, each of her clones will also place a smaller jewel with a smaller enemy attraction.

  • If the jewel is placed in the light, it will deliver a radial explosion to nearby enemies.
  • If the jewel is placed in the dark, it will deliver a radial blind to nearby enemies.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading, Tenno!