www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYbPihUU6PM

Feel free to comment on them!

Jungle jingle

The Woodpecker

The Pirate

Well. Here’s my thoughts on that. Keep in mind this is only my own opinion.

If you’re gonna do it, do it right!

First of all. Panning isn’t all that usual in 2D games. All objects that are visible on the screen should be heard equally as loud, and should be panned very carefully, or not at all.

In a sidescroller like Super Mario Bros or a top-down like Legend of Zelda, you are the listener (the player), not Mario or Link (the avatars), and because of this, you shouldn’t hear the sound effects from their perspective. If you ask me, due to the camera not following the player in Zelda, I would pan those sounds, and by the same logic not pan the sounds in Super Mario.

A sidescroller or top-down is viewed from a third person perspective, and therefore, you shouldn’t hear from a first person perspective.

But if I want to mix the third person view with a first person audio experience?

OK, then do that. But keep in mind. In the Mario example, Mario is always facing left or right, placing his ears behind each other (in the Z-axis), and not left to right (X-axis), which renders panning useless once more. And in the example with Zelda, Links ears are constantly changing direction, making panning really confusing for the player. For more explanation, see the picture below.

So, is there any situation where I would want to pan the sound in a 2D game?

Yes, there is! In any game where it’s important for the player to know (by sound) where his enemies are (like a multiplayer game or such), you might want to pan the audio. Keep in mind to do it from the players perspective and not the avatars perspective.

Conclusion

It’s OK to pan the sound in any game, as long as you do it from the right perspective. Don’t mix third person with first person. It makes no sense, and will probably confuse more than it adds to the gaming experience.

For quick updates on this project, check out our project page at DigitalStudent.se (it’s in swedish)

At this moment I don’t have any audio content for you, so I’ll just leave you with this concept art drawn by Anton Wikström, our graphics guy.

First time I’m using WordPress. I don’t know why I haven’t tried it before., but I really like it . Here I’ll (hopefully) post some updates about what I’m doing, what projects I’m working with, and so forth. Maybe the blog part of this site is heading for a massive fail, but hey, at least I’ll update the portfolio once in a while.

Who am I then? Well. My name is Ola, I’m studying Digital Sound Production at Blekinge Institute of Technology in Karlshamn, Sweden (where the hell is that?).

My job is producing Sound and Music for Games, and on this site I’ll show some of the stuff I produce.

…. I think that pretty much sums it up .

Have a good one! /Ola

• It has 6 recordable channel, each with its own controls.
• The length of the phrases are controlled by the BPM.
• Fully functional metronome.
• 2-channel input mixer.

Bomberloop was made by Ola Blissing and Hampus Henningsson the fall of 2009.

The game was made in 3 weeks in the spring of 2009.

The Factory was made by the following students at Digital Media, Blekinge Institute of Technology.

Designers

Amanda Bruze
Markus Kellner
Stefan Gökstorp

Graphic artist
Fredrik Brundin

Sound & Music

Ola Blissing
Kalle Sjöqvist

About this clip

This is a sample of a level in the game. The music in this clip is made by Ola Blissing.

Please note that the music isn’t in it’s right context. Although it’s in-game pictures, the music in the clip is the intro/menu-music and the credits music.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGQHo5HORIs

It was written and produced by Ola Blissing and Joakim Forslund in the fall of 2008.

All sound effects are recorded in Karlshamn, Sweden, exclusively for this project.

Click here to listen