Welcome to the latest installment of bootcamp updates! I have been learning how to add sound and light to my project -- crucial additions that make the objects in the scene come to life. I’ve decided that the player will arrive at the house in the early evening so it feels all warm and pretty when they get there but you know it will soon be dark. That is the theme of the project, the vibe I’m trying to create throughout - at first it’s pleasant but there’s something looming, some mysterious threat of darkness. I’ve moved the sun to a low position near the horizon but I’m still thinking about which is the best side to make west and where I was the shadows to fall in the house. The lighting within the house is fairly conventional although I’ve deliberately lowered the brightness so that the protection the light offers feels weak and the shadows start to creep in.
As for sound, I’ve started by adding birdsong out in the street to create that ‘everything is OK’ background at the starting point. Later I plan to add a neighbour NPC gardening with some aggressive digging noises. I’ve been experimenting with sound inside the house. I like the idea of a ticking clock, a bothersome little noise that turns the tension up a degree. In my WIP demo you'll hear that I’ve also added some horror noises in the Creepy Room. What will eventually end up in the Creepy Room is unclear, but I was delighted to find that if I added the sound of a cake mixer on top of a sound of shaky gasping it makes you feel like something really horrible is happening. There is also a glowing red cube in the Creepy Room because the last thing I learnt before recording was how to create emissive materials, so there it is, my emissive material. The Creepy Room will need a light of some kind, so perhaps a glowing object will help create the disconnect from the normalness of the rest of the setting.
