#could be a sci-fi thing with radio waves from a spaceship

[marlynnofmany]

My tired brain an Alien pointing a ready at my head "Where does the imagination come from? And where from it go?"

The only response I can think of is "it comes from the brain and goes onto the paper" but I know it also goes to the computer

Yes, it comes from the brain and goes to the paper, and the computer, and the art supplies, and the willing ear of anyone who will listen!

(Where it comes from in the first place is literally everywhere, like a kid with their first camera, taking snapshots of everything.)

[connorcarter32]

Sci-Fi Sound Design for Final Film RAD004

MusicTech.net, 2013,  Sci-Fi Sound Design Tutorial, MusicTech.net, accessed 11/10/19, <https://www.musictech.net/tutorials/sci-fi-sound-design/>

Traditionally a lot of otherworldly sci-fi is done through the editing of readily available sounds. “ Even though you may re-pitch and process these recordings to soundless recognisable or more suitable for their purpose, they will hold the essence of something the listener perceives as real. ” Through my experiments I’ve come to agree with this as I could take such things as

a washing machine on a cycle, and pitch it down for an eerie computerised humming ambience. 

White noise or generated tones have so much use, like a highly manipulable instrument for scoring, ambience that can be played at any cent level to change its tone. 

Space ships are generally large and powerful, therefore equal sounds such as the rumble of a ferry would be a good source. “The typical rumble we’re referring to would be from a spaceship that’s usually the size of a city; in general, these will also be slow-moving. A real-world equivalent would be a large ferry. Taking a cue from this comparison, you can imagine it will have a low, consistent tone, so you’re looking for something along these lines, with a decent duration to avoid looping and editing, but slight variation so it doesn’t sound too static. “

Considering the space craft:

Due to its dumbbell design, I’d imagine the ship to make very rattly metallic noises as the 3 piece layout would be fairly fragile. Furthermore I believe that it would have a light sounding engine, perhaps even two engine sounds at once, due to the two compartments. Sounds would be pitched up (I.E. washing machine) for the smaller craft, however I think rattling inconsistencies may be more realistic. Perhaps I could put some nuts and bolts in the drum when recording.

Voice sampling is a great way to produce alien sounding noise. ‘Avox throat’ is a decent software for such a thing. Can also be synthesised by sounds less natural. “ Similar tones to the Tie Fighter can be created from scratch with some FM synthesis coupled with pitch-bending to get a rise-and-fall whining sound ” 

Down or up pitching something that sounds similar to your source is an option for it seeming bigger or smaller. 

“ For movement on metallic surfaces or ruins, add recordings of a chain dropping on a hard surface, or fill a can with loose metallic objects and walk with them. Layering these kinds of sounds with impact noises can be very convincing. “

Mechanical movement noises “ Take the opening and closing of a DVD player’s tray, for instance. It has a consistent motor noise that gives a good thud at the end of its travel when it closes. Other sources include an electric toothbrush, beard shaver or toy car.” This is a good example to encourage me to think of sounds and their easily accessible equivalencies. Other sources that could be beneficial for a sci-fi film would by a soundscape of different devices disk trays opening / closing, the roar of computers fans when they’re strained or even a pond pump. These would all be applicable for sort of motorised sound to convey the movement and power of the space craft. 

Sounds to record and/or edit:

Washing machine (pitched down , flanged)

Computer fans (pitched down, flanged, stuttered)

Pond pump 

Train sounds (from afar and up close)

Edited examples:

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Synthwave in sci-fi:

Iron Skullet, 2018, What is synthwave?, Ironskullet, accessed 15/10/19, <https://ironskullet.com/2018/03/01/what-is-synthwave-2018-edition/>

Electronic music based on the music of the 1980′s, which tends to have some coinciding aestheticism. This is relevant to sci-fi, due to both genres of media being chronologically popular, which has given them given them a resemblance to one another. Furthermore the electronic synthesised style of music has many connotations of sci-fi, such as computers and technology. Genre and styling is used in an array of ‘Marvel’ movies. “ few songs from the genre could pass for vintage creations, and very little music from the past sounds precisely like synthwave. Instead, it is a retrofuturistic evolution of elements from the past, amalgamated and taken into an alternative timeline with suitably distinct musical and visual aspects.” This demonstrates how not just the musical style is relevant, but a visual synthwave style is applicable to the film, however the main focus is on the fusion of elements form the past (I.E. Electonic keyboard, guitars, violins and wind instruments.) and modernising it. In order to work in a film setting I must remember to create the score with very long drawn out notes at a low BPM so that it does not distract form the image. The goal is to barley notice it’s there and to gently set a mood. 

Depending on the tone of the script or what the director wished to do with it then investigating the sub-genres would be required. I believe that we will end up with a more lighthearted film due to the team we have, therefore I will preemptively study ‘retro electro’ and ‘dream wave’ since they would be the most applicable. I find that the former genre would be best suited for heightened scenes of drama whereas the latter would be better for scenes that explore the human condition, or that focus on beauty or emotion. 

‘Metroid’ as a sources of dreamwave inspiration -�� Usually has an inspiration from videogame music, trying to be relaxing while still being euphoric. 

Retro Electro considers: Electronic drums, gated reverb and analogue synthesised bass and lead. Music reminiscent of the 80′s. 

Equipment considerations

AKG C400B - very good for dialogue in post with cardioid and hypercardioid settings.

Sennheiser sk100 radio mics. A sub microphone just in case boom is insufficient.

Sennheiser mkh70 for location sound and dialogue when applicable.

Sony c74 supercardioid shotgun mic for low noise recording. Recommended for collecting sound effects.

Sony ecm-ms907 good for panoramic sound with 2 channels.

STC 4037 Old timey mic that would be good for the robot voices.

Zoom r24 looks like it has more recording options.

[abelothe]

The Static Screams

( FF - AO3 )

Summary: Pidge says that you can hear the electromagnetic waves emitted by stars. All Shiro hears is static. (He is not thinking of the people he left behind.)

Subject matter includes: Swearing, existentialism

Rating: K+/T

Note: Written for The InterGalactic Big Bang on AO3! Go check it out. Many thanks to @animationfanatic / @intergalacticbigbang for giving me the opportunity to write this!

Shiro knows enough about space. As a leading graduate from Galaxy Garrison and one of their best explorers, he has enough astrophysics and astronomy under his belt to have a decent discussion on relativity and correct a civilian's misinterpretation of black holes. Textbook shit. Answers on a stiffly pragmatic exam. And, so, he knows, that the illusion of a static, silent void is just that.

But. He also knows enough about space to scrub the shine from the eyes of a new recruit. He's seen the younger students with doe-eyes dedicated to science and extraterrestrial exploration - too much Star Trek, he thinks. They see the aesthetically pleasing photos of nebulas and far-off galaxies coming in on the telescopes and imagine themselves as some sort of sci-fi hero. (Some of them, he suspects, see him as a figure on the cover of a gaudy pulp novel. They are wrong. He is no hero.)

The universe is pretty, a twinkle in the eye of a seducer whose single objective is to mess with your head.

The universe is also completely and utterly terrifying.

Shiro likes to pretend that he is intimate with the universe beyond a mere understanding of physics - he, of all humans (not an accomplishment, the greatest of humankind is pathetic compared to the weakest of many other species) knows the harshness of space; the coldness that you suddenly feel with the realization that the beautiful night sky you've loved your whole life, that you've looked up to and dreamt of since you were a child, does less than love you back. It does nothing at all.

(Shiro has not decided whether he would rather the universe hate him than to be solemnly indifferent.)

The thing is that while, yes, space is a vacuum (a cold, desolate place, Shiro knows this more than his education can supplement), sound can travel through a vacuum in the form of electromagnetic vibrations that pulsate in similar wavelengths.

For all his knowledge, Shiro will never understand this as well as Pidge and Allura do. Pidge, because they're a radio astronomy nerd (although more for the fancy tech than the ~stars~), and Allura because apparently these kinds of things are foundations of Altean education.

It's Pidge who can fall asleep with headphones hooked to their long-distance radio, soothed by the sounds of space. It's the stars, Pidge explains. They find it as comforting as any nature sounds. And, technically, Pidge argues, it is nature, and Shiro can't argue with that. But, still, he rather nap to the ocean waves of earth than the electromagnetic waves of burning gas.

He's tried to appreciate it - and he does appreciate the technical aspect of it, as a member and graduate of Galaxy Garrison. But he puts on the headphones and hears static.

"Isn't it amazing?" Pidge had asked.

The thing is, Shiro has heard space. Space does not sound like pure static. Space sounds like screams turned static. Space sounds like Samuel and Matt and he doesn't have the heart to tell Pidge that.

He doesn't hear the stars. How can he?

"Yes," he had responded, because as far as he knows, Pidge still likes Star Trek.

"The equipment's here if you ever want to use it - I tried to show it off to Lance and Hunk, but they didn't appreciate how precise the calibrations need to be."

Shiro can't remember what he said next, only how the static still rang in his ears.

Pidge would have been delighted to discover that Shiro had found a use and appreciation for their radio astronomy equipment. He found himself returning to the little station that Pidge had set up next to a clear window and as distant as possible from any conflicting electromagnetic signals.

He puts on the headphones.

The static is as suffocating as it was before. (There is no air for you out there. The universe does not prioritize your survival.) He hears the entire universe screaming at him, and at the same time, he hears nothing at all. (It's chilling how these noises are coming from dead, inanimate things.)

If he listens, he can hear things. Living things. Trees rustling in the wind (specifically, maple trees, native to the planet Earth and only the planet Earth). A terrible song that he adored as a youth. The loud and cheerful mess hall of Galaxy Garrison. His family. His friends. Samuel and Matt Holt.

Shiro's heard of sea madness, how sailors long ago would go stir crazy after drifting at sea for months with every direction a blank stare of ocean blue. He doesn't believe there have been any cases of space madness (so far) and wonders if this is what it's like. He can see his legacy - Takashi "Shiro" Shirgane: First Person Driven to Insanity by Space Madness. All in all, not a particularly uninteresting way to be remembered (not that it's particularly likely that anyone on earth will know of this marvelous achievement given that he is currently on a fucking alien spaceship trying to bring down an evil galactic empire with a bunch of fucking teenagers and their fucking pet robot lions.)

He wonders how long it will take him to start hallucinating space mermaids before remembering, oh right, those actually exist, because of course they fucking do.

Matt would find it hilarious. Samuel would find it intriguing. But what they would hypothetically make of a situation doesn't matter, because they're both probably dead.

The universe hates him, but at the same time, he was spared and he can't for the life of him wrap his head around - oh, right. It's not that the universe doesn't care; it can't care.

After two semesters of classes on chaos theory, Shiro finally figures out the true meaning of random chaos in his own guilty existence. He shouldn't be here at all.

"I really shouldn't be here at all," he thinks, but he stays rooted to Pidge's spot next to the window and stares at what looks like a binary system. He doesn't tell them about his discrete visits to their radio astronomy set-up; it feels somewhat perverse. Sure, he's using the equipment as intended and as carefully as one should, but his heart's not in it. It feels like a betrayal to Pidge, to be brooding over their family. If anyone should be more distraught, it should be Pidge; Shiro considers (considered, past tense, they are most likely dead) himself friends with Samuel and Matthew, even beyond amiable colleagues, but he never knew them as family, not like Pidge.

(It bothers him a bit that Pidge doesn't seem to be grieving as hard as he expected. He makes a note to try to talk to them in the future - no, that wouldn't work. He's not sure he could do something like that - he can't - )

Shiro takes the headphones off once the binary system is a speck in the distance. The twin suns dance together until they fuse as one. It should be beautiful - poetic, even. There's gotta be a metaphor or allegory in there, somewhere, because that's what pretty space shit is there for. It should mean something, but for the life of him, Shiro can't fucking figure what.

He puts the equipment back as he found it. His ears are ringing. The stars pass by.

[entergamingxp]

10 years later, Mass Effect 2’s Suicide Mission is BioWare at the top of its game • Eurogamer.net

Mass Effect 2’s final location – the Collector Base sat beyond its Omega-4 Relay – sits on screen from the moment you first fire up the game. In the distance, burnt debris circles a black hole’s accretion disc: a graveyard of spaceship wrecks slowly being drawn toward their final deaths. It’s an ominous sight – and a signpost to where you will also be drawn, pulled towards this place just as inevitably for the game’s beautifully designed final moments – its Suicide Mission.

A decade on from Mass Effect 2’s release, its finale stands up as some of BioWare’s best ever work – and while the game’s follow-up certainly competed in its emotional stakes, the Suicide Mission remains unparalleled in terms of its labyrinthine choice complexity. Not that much of this is visible to the player, of course. The best thing about the Suicide Mission is you can go into it blind, hoping you’ve done everything you can to protect your ship and crew – and still feel a gnawing doubt not everyone will make it out alive. But while this opaqueness makes for a nailbiting ride, it also hides some of BioWare’s best decision-made gameplay, as choices here and from throughout your path through the rest of the game converge. It’s why this mission fascinates me – long before I saw flowcharts being made to expose its inner workings.

Omega-4. Not to be confused with Omega-3, good for healthy joints.

Mass Effect 2 is a game about assembling your crew and earning their trust in readiness for this final mission. And what a crew – a rogues’ gallery of aliens, former enemies and thinly-forged alliances, which makes for the trilogy’s largest and most diverse cast. As the mission begins, it’s a thrill to see this family you have spent dozens of hours with come together as the Normandy is plunged into danger – and as you realise any one of them can bite it.

Element Hear-o

Much of the tension behind the Suicide Mission comes from its thumping music. Here it is:

This is swiftly shown in the mission’s introduction sequence, which sees the Normandy jump through the Omega-4 Relay and into battle with the Collector Ship – the same one which took down the original Normandy in Mass Effect 2’s opening moments. Here, sandwiched in-between sequences where Shepard fights off Collector invaders in the cargo bay, the deaths begin.

Three squadmates can die if you failed to heed your crew’s earlier warnings about going into battle under-prepared – specifically, if you did not unlock and complete upgrades to the Normandy itself. The game will make a straightforward check to see if you’ve upgraded the ship’s armour to determine whether Normandy comes through unscathed – or not, which immediately kills off Jack via an explosion in her below-deck hidey hole. Later checks depend on Normandy having upgraded shielding and cannon, and can see a further two deaths from an explosion in the engine room and from a falling bulkhead. One of these will be picked from a character in your squad at the time, the other from the rest of your team.

This is all before you touch down at the Collector Base itself. If you’re under-prepared, it can feel a brutal introduction – one which sets the stage for the potential massacre that can follow. Even losing a single squadmate acts a sombre warning.

After a crash landing at the base, Shepard rounds up the remaining squadmates and you are given your first set of role options. You must choose (wisely) who on your team will be given certain jobs – the first time this mechanic has come into play – suited to their particular skills. It’s something which becomes progressively harder as the mechanic recurs throughout the mission if you have already lost people: the more you lose, the narrower your chances are of success.

Team talk.

Here, the options are relatively straightforward. You must pick a specialist to sneak through a series of vents, as well as a team captain to lead a separate set of squadmates as backup. As a tech expert, Tali is the obvious choice for the ducts – though if you’ve failed to get to know her, you may not know this. Other options here include Legion and Kasumi – although both can be missed as squadmates entirely, and the latter was only available as post-launch DLC. Anyone else will die, but the mission will take a while to actually play this out.

As you fight your way through the Collector base, waves of enemies appearing and being upgraded by the Collector General (“ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL”), you get constant radio chatter from those you have assigned to roles. While largely off-screen, their presence is felt – and it adds to the overall sense everyone is at risk. Your vent specialist, in particular, feels constantly in peril – you’ll need to unblock their progress numerous times as they get stuck – but it is something of an illusion.

When you finally rendezvous with your vent specialist again, a door sticks and your secondary team must lay down fire to ensure everyone gets through. And it is now your choices actually come into play. Did you pick the right person (Tali/Legion/Kasumi? Then OK.) and did you earn their loyalty in the game already (If yes? Then OK.) and did you pick a good leadership candidate for the support team (Miranda/Jacob/Garrus? Then OK.) and finally was that candidate also loyal (If Yes, then OK.). All four of these checks must be passed for the vent specialist to live – otherwise they get shot at the last second, having completed their mission.

With this section complete, the action subsides and the genre changes. In a moment straight out of a sci-fi horror film, you find your previously-kidnapped ship crew encased in pods, ready to be liquefied. To be clear, these are your non-squadmate personnel – people like Doctor Chakwas, and Kelly Chambers your glorified space secretary – who were snatched when Collectors previously climbed aboard the Normandy.

Whether these people live has already been decided. It depends on how soon you headed here after they were taken – how many missions you completed in the interim. Did you storm into the Omega-4 Relay as soon as you could, or did you mess around the galaxy, ignoring their fate? This is something of a sneaky choice, as while their kidnapping counts as a soft point of no return for their survival, the game only warns you there is no going back when you ready up for the Omega-4 Relay mission itself. It’s easy to get distracted from this, and instead spend time making sure you have everything else you need, everyone else’s loyalty missions complete. It is the only point in the game where your urgency getting somewhere actually matters, instead of letting you indulge in side-quests without consequence. If you headed to their rescue as soon as possible then all crew will survive, otherwise some or all of them (bar Chakwas) will be liquefied in front of your eyes. (If you do save them all, you’ll see one of the colonists from Horizon turned into goo instead.)

With the horror show over, the action begins to build to the middle round of choices. Here, you need to pick a biotic specialist to protect you inside a bubble forcefield while you move forward through a Seeker Swarm, with an additional team leader also needing to be chosen to head up a backup squad. Finally, you can choose a third squadmate to escort any/all remaining crew back from the pods to the Normandy – an option which sounds risky, since you’re sending them off on their own and none of the crew are in any shape to fight.

You’ll just have to feed your own fish now.

For your biotic specialist, just as with the vents, you’ll want someone with the right skills. Here, it’s a job for top biotics users Jack or Samara/Morinth only, with either Miranda, Jacob or Garrus your picks for a backup team leader. Miranda would seem a good pick for biotics also, but is by now so experienced a leader – and over the course of the game has hopefully warmed up to Shepard enough – that the game seems to want you to pick her for leadership tasks instead.

This all plays out in a section of combat where your biotic specialist follows you, casting a moving area of effect bubble in a radius around you and your two squadmates. Again, you rendezvous with your backup team at a doorway, with your biotic choice failing here if chosen poorly – their body picked up by Seeker Swarm flies, and lifted off into the darkness. (Did you pick Jack or Samara/Morinth? OK. Were they also loyal? OK. If not, they’re dead.) As your backup team arrives, a poor choice of leader will see them also take a bullet. (Did you pick Miranda or a loyal Jacob/Garrus? OK, they will survive. If not, they’re also dead.)

As you take stock on these latest potential casualties, you’ll also get a check-in from Joker and EDI aboard Normandy on the status of your surviving crew. Did you send a loyal squad member back with your wounded ship personnel? If you risked compassion and did, all will survive. (This is a great place to send back a weaker squadmate such as Mordin ahead of the final section to ensure his survival.) A non-loyal squadmate, however (or no escort at all, if you were feeling particularly evil) will result in all of the escort party’s deaths – which leads to a very empty-feeling Normandy afterwards even if you do still pull through.

The Suicide Mission’s final section feels its most straightforward: you must simply pick, as you have done throughout the game, two squadmates to join you for one last battle, knowing that everyone else will stay back to cover your advance. But the calculations here for who survives are the most complicated in the entire series. Before all that, however, Shepard makes their big final speech – and it’s worth pointing out the other type of choice available throughout this mission – the more flavourful decisions you make about whether to inspire your squad through Paragon-like heroism, or Renegade-like arrogance.

Who you pick to remain behind may now be limited by dwindling numbers, but those who stay back will need to be beefy defenders you can risk leaving to fend for themselves. These squadmates – termed by fans as those left to Hold The Line – should therefore not include weaker options such as scientist Mordin and techie Tali, but favour beefcakes such as Grunt and Zaeed who will almost always muscle through. And with that choice made, the mission’s final hidden mechanics will be in place – your team and your own survival is now set in stone.

One final combat section, with floating platforms of Collectors slotting together like tessellating tiles, leads into the big reveal of the mission’s er, low-point – the Human Reaper. It is the only Reaper in the series not to look like, well, a Reaper. Dialogue later in the series attempted to explain/retcon its shape as some kind of internal larvae, but its presence here still opens up more contradictions than necessary for the gain of having something big and enemy-shaped to shoot.

The less said about all this the better.

As the boss battle begins – shoot the glowing tubes! – you get a quick check-in with those left Holding The Line which will indicate whether you chose well or not (a poor, panicked Mordin telling you his position isn’t safe is not a good sign) before a seemingly big plot decision to save or destroy the Collector base when all is said and done. The consequences of this were left to Mass Effect 3 to fully play out (such that they do), though it will change the dialogue between Shepard (if they survive) and The Illusive Man after the mission wraps up.

Regardless of your choice, after the human Reaper is finally offed, the consequences of your last squad decision will play out. Amongst those you took with you, the calculation is simple. If they were loyal, they live. If not then, not. As for those Holding The Line? The calculation made to determine this relies on a hidden survivability weighting of individual squadmates, boosted by their loyalty, held up against the number of squadmates left surviving at that point. This makes my head ache a little, so I’ll let the right-hand column in the flowchart below show the exact maths.

My very first run through the Suicide Mission I remember getting to this point with no casualties, only to find that Tali – who I’d left Holding The Line – had perished. It was my only squad death – and one I soon ruled non-canon as I went back to an earlier save and redid the entire mission again.

With your squad’s fate now sealed, the mission wraps up as the Normandy swoops in and picks up the survivors. Shepard, of course, is the last one to leave and must perform a running leap onto the ship as Joker lays down fire. (Who’s driving?) It’s here the game’s final death can take place – startlingly, of Shepard themselves. An automatic check here will doom Shep if any fewer than two squadmates remain – causing them to fall to their death. (Yikes. Trilogy over.)

Image credit: speedemon92

You can go into Mass Effect 2’s Suicide Mission with Shepard leading a team of 12 squadmates – some of them established characters from the first game in the trilogy, others new faces you’ve come to love over the long road to the Omega-4 Relay. It is still incredible to me that any of them – all of them, even – can perish here, mid-trilogy.

Only Shepard’s death is ruled non-canon, their survival a prerequisite for your save transferring into Mass Effect 3. It’s like BioWare making its own version of Empire Strikes Back which kills off Han, Leia and Chewie and still leads into Return of the Jedi. It’s utterly audacious – and it’s something BioWare itself later admitted had caused real headaches when planning how to pick up the pieces for the trilogy’s final chapter.

But that’s a different story. When it comes to Mass Effect 2, a decade on, I am still in awe at this mission, and all its variables behind the scenes. To make something this complex involving characters you care about shows a studio at the top of its game – and something I’m still hoping will one day be bettered.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/01/10-years-later-mass-effect-2s-suicide-mission-is-bioware-at-the-top-of-its-game-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=10-years-later-mass-effect-2s-suicide-mission-is-bioware-at-the-top-of-its-game-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net