A local animator has created a short clip of a knight walking through a cave and wanted to collaborate to create the associated audio. Check out my process as I design foley for the moving knight, and a complimentary atmosphere...
Will Smith is another local animator on the rise, and has recently finished a short sequence following a knight in armour walking through a cave. The brief he showed me was a knight investigating the cave, before being startled by a monster.
Fortunately, I have recently come across a medieval sample pack that I was excited to put to use. After a couple of hours digging through the GB's of sounds, I had shortlisted a bunch of audio that could be appropriate: including footsteps, sword hits, dragon roars, and chainmail.
Initially I got to work on the knight's footstep. Originally, after finding what I thought was the perfect sound of appropriate length and syncing it up, I realised that a simple sound would not suffice in tricking the viewer's brain to believing it was real. With some basic prior knowledge of stacking samples to create ambience, I tried overlaying multiple samples to fill out the sound. In the end I ended up using (six?) different samples, offset them, played with their velocities, attack times, and a little EQ so they would sit together as a cohesive 'step'. This seemed much more realistic, and I was excited to place them in time with each grounding of his foot.
That is when I found my second stumble. Since your brain is extremely capable of recognising repetition, it seemed odd that the knight would step the exact same way each time. Consequently I got to work changing the aforementioned parameters differently for each step. Some footsteps I matched the samples' transients, creating a "heavier" step. Others I spread out when it appeared he was walking more cautiously. When the knight walked backwards I left only three samples, left a much slower attack time, and decreased the associated velocities. Eventually after much tinkering, I summed each of the tracks to a 'footstep' bus, and also sent this signal to a reverb track. The reverb track I designed to provide a large space around the knight, with a long pre-delay and 4-5 second reverb tail.
After the footsteps I got to work creating an ambient atmosphere for the cave, layering howling wind sounds with heavy EQ and sending them to an 'ambience' bus. In addition, automating a low-pass filter to come steadily into effect as the knight walked into the cave provided the impression that the knight had entered the space. Similarly, the level of reverb was automated to increase on everything as the cave is entered.
I continued in a similar fashion with sounds of rustling cloth and clinking armour for the knight, swishing sounds for the movement of the sword, dragon steps for the monster, and cut out an appropriate sample for the monster's roar. Finally I added some very low frequency rumble for the beginning and end of the video for effect, and placed it subtly underneath the monster steps for additional 'feeling'.
In the end after syncing up the timing for everything, arranging my session appropriately, creating group buses, and sending them to a reverb, it was time to gain some feedback from Will. Below is my first edit:
Consultation with Will over Facebook Messenger informed me that he was very happy with the foley sounds for the knight. Though he explained at this point that this was actually a part of a bigger project, and for consistency needed some small changes. Firstly he needed specific monster steps which he sent me the audio files for. He also explained that he would prefer the knight to be screaming at the end of the animation: "the scream is my punchline". Consequently he sent me an audio clip to be used instead. I also obtained a great sample for the cave ambience which Will was in favour of, and with some small changes I was ready to give him my second edit:
It was a quick response from Will which for professional reasons I will abbreviate to "perfect". Satisfied colab. Here at The Co-Lab ;)
Stay Tuned
- TA
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