(Posted Oct 14th, 2020)
I'm absolutely thrilled to announce that our stunning artbook will be sent out to all eligible backers today (Asstronomer Tier - £50 pledges or more), so check your Kickstarter messages to download it! (Please note it may take a few days to show up!)
Everyone involved did such an amazing job on this monstrous 160-page experience, and it really helps to set the tone of Subverse and give people a good idea of what they can expect from this project. There are no major story spoilers in the book so you can read it at your leisure and enjoy it now if you wish.
The book has some interesting lore and some tongue-in-cheek references alongside the usual lineup of concept art, doodles, and other neat stuff. Obviously the book is very NSFW so I wouldn't put this on your coffee table!
The Sounds of Subverse
And finally, I'd like to step aside and welcome our casting director Singing Samine to discuss some of the finer points of Subverse's audio with you!
"It’s time to talk about our lovely audio pipeline! I know, I know...the fun of audio is listening to it, not reading about it! But...if you have some patience, there may just be a reward for you at the end of this update!
First we have FOW-Chan bully our basement-dwelling writers incessantly until they form a half-decent script. When their paperwork is deemed good enough by her standards, it is safe to hand off to our voice cast. The various vocal talent across the world then submits their work to me, and I get the privilege of pulling selects! That’s fancy film industry talk for deciding which takes are the ones that will make it into the game.
Once we have our best selects exported into individual files, we still have to do a few things before we can import them into the engine.
1. Basic Clean Up
The easiest but most vital step: All voice files must go through some basic processing, such as normalizing the volume if it is too quiet or too loud, cleaning up ambient background noise, and EQing out any unwanted puffs or clicks.
2. Special Effects (Optional)
For some characters, be they androids like DEMI, or senus wearing a suit of armor like Azzorion, they require additional mastering and effects before being game-ready. We have our very creative sound designer specialist Shah to thank for bringing our imaginations to life. A lot of work goes into making sure each character has their own unique “sound,” while also ensuring the original performance shines through.
3. FMOD Studio
We can finally import these freshened-up voice files into FMOD Studio, an audio tool which integrates into Unreal Engine. This is where our audio engineer HungryJJ can build a timeline for conversations between multiple characters, mix and match EQ to ensure all VO sounds similar despite everyone having different recording equipment, apply scene-specific effects like reverb, and very importantly, make sure the VO is still crystal clear even when the music tracks get laid down. If things are sounding muddy and the voice is getting lost in the shuffle, then extra fine-tuning is needed, but it all happens inside FMOD’s DAW-like interface."
Sincerely,
Mr. Kristoff
- Senior Producer