This update is brought to you by our sound designer Thomas Couchard.
The Sound Design in Dark Storm 01
The grenade Launcher Sound : As I started to work on the game a few weeks ago I was told to begin with an assets list that was already prepared which included mostly foley and weapons. I decided to start with the weapons and the grenade launcher sound was probably the most interesting one. Indeed, Dark Storm is a game that, while having some sci-fi elements to it is not so far in the future that I could make up a sound completely and be ok with it, I have to make mostly realistic weapons. The problem with grenade launchers attached to rifles in real life is that their sound kinda sucks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzvdRO9mgzc
And as such, sound designers for video games and movies decided to change it a bit and since this is going on for a while now, people kinda expect the sound of a grenade launcher to be as it is in games/movies rather than as it is in real life. The goal is to have a good attack with a sensation that the thing is already ready to shoot again without reloading. Closer to this sound (see at 6.35):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZYvCUSusQI&t=6m35s
To achieve a special grenade launcher effect, I did not use any real grenade launcher sound effects that I had in my weapons library. Instead I used a mix of 4 sounds that I will show here. I did the sound without any big reverb or anything on it so it is easier to add that as a separate thing later in the game :
First sound : The first sound is a car trunk being closed which is used as a low end boost near the end of the final sound.
Second and third sounds : The second and third sounds are guns being fired with a silencer on. One of these two sounds is used twice, one of them with a bit of a pitch shift near the end of the sounds.
Fourth sound : The last sound used is a shotgun being fired. I cut everything beside the very beginning of the sound to have a strong attack.
And here is the final sound : See if you can spot the sounds I just gave you : (sound effect posted above) This sound is achieved with very minimal effects, only a pitch shift on one sound and that's it, the rest is just basic cutting. Thank you for reading this short article, I hope you liked it as well as the sound.
-Thomas