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Weekly Content Blog #6: Tyler’s Tunes – The Compositional Process (Curtis’ Theme)

Weekly Content Blog #6: Tyler’s Tunes – The Compositional Process (Curtis’ Theme)

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Hi there!

Tyler here! Today’s post will discuss the process I used to compose music for this project. I will specifically focus on the character theme for Curtis, who is a main protagonist in “Shadows of Adam”. I will show how I went from email threads with Luke (our writer/level designer), to sheet music sketches, to Finale and finally to Logic to sample and mix all the instruments. Well, let’s begin shall we?

In the past when I’ve composed location or general purpose (battle, inn, victory) music I can go off what I already know and/or use tropes that help establish those areas. When Luke and I decided it might be good to explore some character themes I knew I would need to pick his brain on how he saw the character and how the music should illuminate those qualities. Here are a few snippets of our emails

Email 1

Email 2

(Note 1: I’ve censored anything that could spoil the plot)
(Note 2: This was back when Kellan was named Josel. A fun tidbit that I’m sure Josh can talk about as he explains the progression of this project.)
(Note 3: Luke references lines of the scripts. This gives me context on where this theme will be used.)

Now that I had some ideas from Luke I could begin sketching some ideas. Generally I like to start a new piece by listening to music that will have the same spirit as the composition I’m about to write. In this case Luke shared with me several pieces that had more of a cinematic quality – a huge point of departure from the usual music I had been writing for this project. We discussed using this piece in specific scenes, so it wouldn’t necessarily need to loop. This was exciting to me, because it meant I could give the piece a more dynamic arch. The interesting result of having to write music that needs to loop and potentially repeat hundreds of times on the same map is that the dynamic arch tends to remain fairly flat in order to have evenness.

After doing a lot of listening I went to the piano and started to work on some preliminary ideas. In this stage I generally write down all the ideas I have and worry about editing later.

Sketch #1
Sketch
As you see, this is an extremely rough sketch. I came up with some basic motifs and had a few suggested chord harmonies. (Also of note is the other rough sketches above Curtis’ Theme. As of today, I’ve used every page of this sketch book for misc. compositions! But I digress.) I then decided to make a second pass after spending some more time on it.

Sketch #2
Sketch 2

My second pass was a lot more fleshed out. I had a better idea of the form and arch of the piece. I even wrote a few basic orchestration notes that I’d integrate later. After this step, I’ll generally play through it more on the piano and start trying to imagine the instrumentation I would like to use. I knew that I wanted to use a large string section to give the piece weight and drama. I also imagined I could add some misc. orchestral instruments such as trumpets, trombones, french horns, crash cymbal and timpani to give it more strength and character. I then decided to add a piano as well, in case I saw the need to use it. I ended up using it for the very last bar. Now that I had this it was off to start writing the parts in Finale!

Finale is a professional music software used to compose music and create sheet music for live musicians. This is an unusual choice to use for a video game soundtrack which will be sampled and mixed in a DAW (digital audio workstation), but considering most of the music I do is for real instruments I have come to prefer using it. Most digital composers will go straight from their midi keyboards and record/program into their DAWs but I’ve always enjoyed seeing the parts on a score. As I began taking the sketch into Finale I tweak things I don’t like and make edits. The great benefit to Finale is it can now play all the parts at the same time with a decent midi representation. This gets me closer to hearing the final product then when I’m just playing on the piano.

Score 1
Score 1
This shot shows off some the string counter-point and orchestration. Seeing it on paper helps me since I’m such a visual person.

Score 2
Score 2
You can see some of the brass in this shot. I used each track as a section; the trumpets are in two part and the trombones are in three part harmony. Also at the bottom you can see the timpani and crash cymbal. They aren’t doing much, but their presence helps give some moments a bit more ‘umph’.

You may notice that I have very little in the way of dynamics in this piece. That’s because I will add that later as midi data in Logic. Once I was happy with the composition itself, I exported the score as a midi (with all instruments on their own tracks) and imported it into Logic (my DAW).

Now it’s time to set up our instruments in Logic. Knowing that I’d need a full string section I divided my string ensemble into 4 midi tracks:

-Violins (Melodic)
-Viola/Cello (Melodic)
-Viola/Cello (Sustained)
-Low Strings (Sustained)

Dealing with string patches, you must account for several different types of samples. Some are made for melodic and articulated passages, while others are best served for sustained passages. After setting all my instruments in the template I then begin mixing the piece. This involves using the volume fader and automation to set levels (dynamics), EQ, compression, reverb, and panning instruments so they all have their sonic space. For string panning I imagined that I was looking at a symphony orchestra from the audiences’ perspective. Where would they sit? The violins are usually to the listeners’ left while the violas and celli are to the right. Despite the fact that the basses usually sit to the right of the listener, I generally prefer to pan bass instruments dead center. I then decide where I want the instrument to sit in the mix as Finale sends the data with all the parts at equal volume. Once I comb through that, I then find spots where there will be louder and softer moments. Near the end there is a dramatic crescendo to a big chord, I knew I would need to automate the parts to have them get louder. The last part is adding EQ to highlight different frequencies of the instruments, compression, and reverb to give it a more cohesive sound.

The instrument template, set up with my samples:
Instrument Setup

Panning Knobs – these knobs pan the instrument to different sides of the speaker from left to right:
Panning

Automation lines – the lines represent how much DB the instrument is producing at that moment in the piece. The higher the line the louder the instrument is:
Automation

Once I was happy with the mix, instrument samples, panning, dynamics, etc… I export the file as an mp3 as we are left with our final product!

Here is the PDF of the Finale score for those interested:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11838521/Curtis%27%20Theme.pdf

I hope you enjoyed this. Stay tuned for the next post!

-Tyler

Weekly Content Blog #5: Budgeting the Art Costs of an RPG Pt. 1

Weekly Content Blog #5: Budgeting the Art Costs of an RPG Pt. 1

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This is part one of a three part series.
Part 2: Budgeting the Art Costs of an RPG Pt. 2

Hey everybody, I’m Tim Wendorf, the lead artist and art director for Shadows of Adam. I first joined the project by happenstance when Tyler (composer for Shadows of Adam) and I were both looking for an obscure, unpublished project I had made. Miraculously, we both posted in some forums we hadn’t frequented in nearly a decade on the same day and at close to the same time. After catching up with him, I learned that he was working on an indie RPG. The scale and scope of the project was really small, and though I was busy at the time, I committed to helping out with some art assets to get the project going. In this series I will document my involvement in the project, and explain how the aesthetics have scaled from a no-budget game without a name to the full-fledged AAA indie title it has become.

The Beginning

Originally my involvement in the project was meant to be a one time deal where I’d provide a few tile sets, establish a style, and maybe create a few other assets throughout the project’s life. The project did not have an experienced artist and had no funds to hire one. I had to create a look and feel that could easily be replicated by an amateur artist. RPGs require an ENOURMOUS amount of artwork, and if you’re not thinking about that from the get-go, it is very easy to find that your project goals have become either unattainable or unsustainable. This is true in all costs of a project, but it is especially true when it comes to the art costs of an RPG. Below is a before and after shot from my initial involvement in the project. The goal was to reasonably improve the art while still maintaining the overall aesthetic of the original concept. In all it only took me a few hours to get to this spot.

before/after world map
First Update to the World Map and Character Sprites

Courting of the Courtyard

In addition to the world map, I wanted to help establish the look of the locations and battle system in the game. Enter the courtyard; which served both as an intro to the game and the first dungeon. The game was so early in development at this point that there really wasn’t much art for me to go off of. I created the courtyard tile set with the same sort of mindfulness I went into the world map with. Simplicity and consistency were top priorities. Below are shots of the courtyard tile set and battle system in action. Again, it only took me a few hours to reach the state of each screen. Note that the battle background makes use of the same tile set. Dedicating time to unique battle backgrounds was simply not in the budget at this time.

Boss Courtyard

 

While working on the courtyard I became a lot more involved in the game design side of the project. I helped figure out dungeon and battle system mechanics, did the mapping, and worked on finessing what story was there. By the time I finished my work on the courtyard I was fully involved in the project, and it looked like I would be for the foreseeable future.

Adam and Beyond

Upon being fully committed to the project, I still had some reservations regarding that commitment. For one, our art budget strictly correlated to the amount of hours I was willing to put into the project. For two, if I was going to be involved to this extent,  I wanted to produce a product that I could take pride in when all was said and done. Adam is the first town in the game, and where you end up directly after the intro. My goals in creating Adam were to maintain the established style of the world map and courtyard while building a more professional standard for any future maps. I reworked the palette a bit, took more care in sprite work, and chose assets that would lend themselves well to future areas. This is what I came up with.

Adam Misty Woods 3

 

The second shot is from a completely separate area called Misty Woods, but you can clearly see that it is using the same tile set while having a much different feel. I had spent maybe 20 art hours on the project at this point. Which includes some not pictured enemy sprites as well as a building interior tile set. We had a little under 40 minutes of game play at this junction. Our final product goal was a game that lasted 8-12 hours. At minimum, my commitment to this project looked like it would take at least 250 man hours to finish all of the necessary art assets. No small task considering I contract full-time and have maybe 5-10 hours to commit each week. On top of that, my new dedication to the project really inspired the rest of the team members, and they were consuming the content I generated as quick as it came. In order to keep the fervor of the project alive we sought to contract out some tile set work in order to free me up for other content creation.

Outsourcing comes with its own slew of problems, and my next update will outline some of those issues and explain how outsourcing shaped Shadows of Adam. If you made it this far, thanks for reading, and stay tuned for part 2!

Budgeting the Art Costs of an RPG Pt. 2