[DISC][PLAYER] Sound effects for new objects

[namida]

Current sound effects are placeholders. Let's talk about what might be suitable to replace them with.

[WillLem]

A lot of this will depend on the appearance of the objects. The portal in particular lends itself to quite a wide variety of design concepts.

Maybe it will be easier to find a sound once a visual design has been more or less decided upon for each object. Here's what I'd suggest for each:

Assigner/de-assigner: archway with a circular emblem at the top, upon which the relevant skill appears. This could have any number of electronic-style sounds, but I definitely like namida's idea of the sounds being equal and opposite, so that the de-assigner's sound is essentially a reverse of the assigner's.

De-neutraliser: an egg-shaped pod big enough for a lemming to step into. I imagine this having a "scanner" sound followed by a microwave-like "ding" - I'd suggest that both of these sounds be fairly soft and un-intrusive, since multiple lems are meant to be able to use the pod and it could get quite noisy.

Portal: my own preference for portal design is some sort of swirling vortex. This sound could be a soft "swoosh" or similar, I'm thinking unpitched white noise essentially. Again though, the sound here depends so much on what is decided upon to be the appearance of the default portal.

Having said all this, maybe the sounds could come first and the visual appearance be decided upon second. This may result in some interesting designs!

[namida]

In order to reduce the burden of having to make the perfect decision now, I'm going to make a decision about reviewing these. Specifically - whatever sound effects are picked now, we'll review them and possibly change them in NL 12.16.X (or if for any reason the skills get brought forward / delayed to a version other than 12.14.X, then two major versions after they're introduced).

[WillLem]

In order to reduce the burden of having to make the perfect decision now ... whatever sound effects are picked now, we'll review them

Good shout

I'd like to get some other input from people before I do anything sound-wise. I do have a few ideas (detailed above), but maybe someone already has something ready-to-go, or has other ideas which might be more suitable as a starting point?

In any case, discussion around this is a good idea since people do seem to have quite strong views about the sounds. I'm guessing most people will be happy with pretty much anything as long as it's not too loud, harsh or otherwise obtrusive.

With most (all?) of the new objects being "multiple-lem-compatible," there is the potential for whatever sound effect is used to play again and again in quick succession, which can cause a bit of a sonic mess. This is also worth considering.

[The Tomato Watcher]

For the portal in particular, I think either one of the teleporter sounds from PS3 Lemmings could work pretty well. I've attached them below. I think I'm leaning more toward number two, since it's more of a swoosh sound like WillLem mentioned, and I could see #1 being a bit annoying/grating. But I could see either one working.

[namida]

^ I tried using teleporter2 and it's a good fit, but the timing didn't quite feel right. I sped it up, and... much better!

Still need sounds (or ideas, at least) for the (de)assigners and (de)neutralizers.

[kaywhyn]

I just remembered, how about the Lemmings 3D sound effect for teleporters? IMO I like the alternative, i.e, the second one, better.

Where in the game would you hear the first one? I'm guessing on some other port of Lemmings 3D besides Dos?

Also here's a LP video of me playing the teleporter practice level of Lemmings 3D for Dos:

https://youtu.be/eZmaUYc-88c?t=2916

I totally forgot about the blue swirling graphic that is displayed when a Lemming is using the teleporter, which IMO is pretty cool! In addition, they work exactly the way portals currently do for NL: They are bi-directional. They also look pretty cool when in the ground like that, though I can't remember if there are any NL styles that have teleporters like that.

[namida]

They're the same sounds; one is just 2x as fast. Presumably this was from ripping the same sound data twice, at different frequencies.

At any rate, I'm quite happy with the earlier suggestion for the portal. Any ideas for the other ones? I'm thinking that it'd be good if we could find pairs of sounds that are the inverse of each other (eg. if the assigner has something that increases in pitch, the deassigner should have a sound that decreases, with both otherwise being similar).

[kaywhyn]

They're the same sounds; one is just 2x as fast. Presumably this was from ripping the same sound data twice, at different frequencies.

Ah, thanks for the explanation

At any rate, I'm quite happy with the earlier suggestion for the portal.

All good. Just thought I put it out there with the Lemmings 3D sound effect in case anyone wants to use that instead. If one knows how, it's easy to specify what sound effect to use for objects anyway

As for the others, no idea yet. I'm still of the belief that I initially thought the assigners/deassigners were great ideas, but I'm not sure if I'll even use them, if at all. I kind of always liked the challenge of figuring out how to stop lemmings with permanent skills from getting into danger or being stuck in an endless loop even after getting much of the level figured out. Needless to say, I could honestly live without them, and it's not like anyone is forced to make levels with them anyway, if they don't want to. Who knows, though? My stance might change if I ever start playing around with these objects, in the same way me making just one level using the laserer was enough for me to like and be in full support of it being in stable NL even though I had previously played Armani's Uncharted pack featuring it and not yet having convinced me of its puzzle potential and how I wasn't initially in favor of the skill

[jkapp76]

Here's all seven samples I made with Audition.

The Teleport sounds are longer, the beam sounds are very quick. I think they're usable for portals.
The De-neutralizer sample is based on WillLem's suggestion.

I made assign and de-assign opposites.

[namida]

The teleporter sound doesn't seem useful for these objects to me. I like the assign and deassign ones. I also think the beam ones could work for the neutralizer.

I think I'll go ahead with using those for now, but the subject remains open for discussion throughout the experimental and RC phases.