Original Thief 1/2 Sound Design

[saxmeister]

Hey guys,

 

I've been studying through some of the original Thief 1/2 sound sets (as well as Thief: DS) and have noticed a pattern in some of the ambient "swell" sounds.

 

It seems the sound designers would take a low synth sound in which the volume would slowly rise and very slowly fall and then render that sound to disk (maybe as a .WAV file). Then, and here's the Looking Glass Studios "magic", they would take some wave editing software and, taking the original stereo file of the sample, would reverse one of the channels to make it play backwards against the other normal playing channel. So, a swell + reverse swell effect is created. The files stayed in stereo but had a nice "swirly" effect.

 

Of course, using this would pretty much limit the use of any higher sibilant or formant sounds since they would be mangled by the reversal, although some neat effects could come out of that! Look below for an image demonstrating this process using Sound Forge. It should be very similar for any audio editor.

 

Just some discoveries on that.... thought I'd share.

 

cheers!

 

-sax

Edited January 14, 2005 by saxmeister

[mrDischarged]

Excellent find!

 

I'll try comparing such a stereo sound with a standard mono FORWARD version and a mono reversed stereo mixdown of the version ingame. But that's going to happen once I get home.

 

mrD

[sparhawk]

I guess that's a pretty good find. Whatever that means. I sure didn't understand much beyond the word "sound".

 

But you used a nice Thief font there.

[Darkness_Falls]

Thanks Saxmeister! I'll try this out.

 

PS:

I guess that's a pretty good find. Whatever that means. I sure didn't understand much beyond the word "sound". 

FINALLY! Something Sparhawk is not good at or doesn't understand!

 

 

PPS: Just created some sample files using this cool effect. See the following thread:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showt...indpost&p=14256

Edited January 23, 2005 by Darkness_Falls

[Domarius]

FINALLY! Something Sparhawk ADMITS he is not good at or doesn't understand!

 

Heh heh.

[sparhawk]

Guess I should start reading up on sound processing.