Sound Designer

When creating a plan for recording the speech samples, I did a lot of research into how games like Animal Crossing and Celeste did their speech simulation. Both of those titles use a text-to-sound algorithm, using some variation of mapping a pool of sounds onto specific characters. Combined with some pitch modulation to create emotional tones/variance in the speech, and the resulting product is a fun virtual blabbering.

However, since we don’t have any text elements and don’t want the player to know exactly what the speaker is saying. This means a text mapping algorithm is off the table. Instead, we generated unique syllables and then built an algorithm to stitch them together on a semi-predictable cadence. I used my voice for the speaking samples then did some post-processing to give them a deeper tone.

Outside of the speech simulation, I also worked with the team’s programmers to implement a variety of audience applause sounds. We had each audience member emit a clapping sound that scaled with a certain level of enthusiasm. This helps create a more natural sounding applause sound. It did require some additional volume balancing for the loudest of the five clap volumes, creating a ducking effect that mimics the way the ear drum blunts sharp noise spikes.

I used Ableton Live 11 to do all of the audio for this project. The integration was done using Godot’s built in audio engine.