Sound production!
Hello! As you may all be aware, we're very much in need of replacing all the sounds in the game. Hopefully, this thread should give an idea of what needs to be done, and you can also declare what you'd like to work on and comment on the work of others. As sounds are approved and included into the game, this post will be updated to reflect that. Both me and Ishq can make the final decisions on what gets included. After submitting a batch of approved sounds, you'll be added to our credits.
The best way to get a feel for the game would be to play through a few matches of it, either against other players or the bots on one of our servers. As you listen to the sounds, try to pay attention to ones that you feel can be altered or improved in some way. Then, show us your replacements and we'll give you feedback and ultimately approval.
Ideally, the same person should do the set of sounds for a single group, such as one of the player models or a type of weapon. That way, the sounds will be consistent. With that being said, we have several broad categories of sounds to be done. These can be divided into organic, mechanical, and ambient sounds.
Organic sounds encompass all things made by living creatures. Thus, the alien team would be the primary recipient of this work, as they're entirely biological in contrast to the humans, although the human player model himself will also need organic sounds. In general, all living creatures will need several levels of pain sounds, as well as death, and in the case of alien structures, they'll need to make sounds as they come to life after being successfully constructed.
For the alien player models, which include the dretch, basilisk, marauder, dragoon, tyrant, and granger:
All: pain, death, jump, taunt, primary attack.
Basilisk: grab, gas.
Marauder: electric shock.
Dragoon: long-range barb and barb shattering.
Tyrant: trample.
Granger: spit.
Alien buildings, which include the acid tube, barricade, overmind, egg, booster, trapper, and hive:
All: damage, construction, death.
Acid tube: acid gas emission.
Barricade: raising and lowering.
Overmind: tentacle attack.
Trapper: blob emission.
Hive: buzzing aliens.
The human model is different from his alien counterparts. While he will need pain, jump, and death sounds, his attacks are all based off weapons he uses. Instead, he will need to be voiced for various things. He'll need a taunt, as well as various voice commands. The human must be voiced by the same person, so if you would like to volunteer for doing his voice, keep in mind that you'll have quite a bit of work ahead of you.
Mechanical sounds are another diverse group. These include all the human weapon sounds, as well as those of human base structures and the human battlesuit model. Human weapons make a variety of noises, from assorted firing sounds to an empty ammunition click and in some cases, reloading. The battlesuit stomps around and gives off machine-like noises as it jumps. Human base structures are all machines as well, although not all of them make sounds on a regular basis.
Equipment sounds to be done:
Blaster: fire.
Rifle: fire, reload, empty.
Painsaw: idle hum, attack.
Shotgun: fire, reload, empty.
Lasgun: fire, empty.
Mass driver: fire, reload, empty.
Chaingun: fire, empty.
Pulse rifle: fire, reload, empty.
Flamer: fire, empty.
Lucifer cannon: primary blast, secondary blast, empty, charge, overcharge.
Grenade: ground impact, explosion.
Jetpack: ascent, descent, stationary.
Battlesuit: walking, running, jump.
Human base sounds:
All: damage, explosion.
Turret: tracking, firing.
Telenode: idle hum, warp.
Medistation: idle hum, heal.
Reactor: power generation, shock attack.
Tesla generator: idle electric hum, zap.
Ambient sounds are map-dependent. As such, it will mostly be our mappers requesting ambient sounds to be done. However, a few sounds are universal and will see usage on a wide variety of maps. For instance, distant mechanical hums, steam vents, atmospheric sounds such as harsh wind, or futuristic doors opening and closing.
Which format do sounds need to be in?
Files should be in the Ogg Vorbis format, with a sampling frequency of 44 Hz. Mono should be used in place of stereo, as directional audio is handled by the engine.
Which license do sounds need to be in?
Ideally, the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license, which is the Attribution and Share-Alike one. Basically, the license states that the author must be attributed for the work, and that if anyone uses the work or alters it, the same license must be used. In some cases the CC-BY-NC-SA license is used by those whose media creation programs have strict licenses. It is the same as the previous license, but with the added condition that the work may not be used for commercial purposes. While our project is entirely non-commercial and will permanently remain so, there are some free software advocates that state the non-commercial clause is non-free.
Where can I upload sounds?
For this, the best choice is probably either Dropbox or Soundcloud, as you can simply share the link in the thread and everyone can listen to your sound. An alternative could be Mediafire or some other file-sharing service, although that would be less optimal as you'd have to download the file to listen to it. If you want to show a specific example, you could overlay your sound(s) on top of video footage of the game and upload it to YouTube, but that's entirely optional and would take quite a bit of work.