Ambient sounds for celestial view.

It could be great if game could use these as ambient sounds for celestial view. Go to 37s into video.

I agree, the sounds are great and would add immersion to the game. But they would need to be used carefully since there would be music in the celestial view as well. (Probably something like the Sins soundtrack) So maybe if you zoom in on dead space you would get the background noise etc and then get the music when fully zoomed out or close up on a planet. That's my $.02 anyway

I see it in similar way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_lUYyGVtZY

28:14

That is an example of the music while selecting planets (celestial view)

Too much choir for me.

I voted "I don't care" even if I think that kind of ambient music is a nice possibility.

What's most important for me is that we want to spend very little time in the celestial view, ten or twenty seconds at most each time, so the actual sounds in that view are much less important that the fading in and out from the other views. If those ambient sounds are completely unrelated with the symphonic music composed for the planetary view than it may sound odd (oh, and don't forget the dubstep!). And if you are just using that view to give orders to a transport before diving back into the fight again, than a sudden change in the music may be distracting. So, in the end I don't care what music is used, or even if a dedicated music is used at all. Whatever fits well is fine.

It's funny. When Howard first started working on the music for the game I had a long talk with him discussing possible inspiration sources I mentioned this kind of music specifically. I grew up listening to this via the Hearts of Space radio show. He's aware of it.

I think we will have sound effects in space anyway. It makes no sense for a video game to be realistic in that specific part of space^^

We still can explain that with the commander having a system to generate the sounds artificially to have more information about the battlefield

But the sounds in the original post have some real space-feeling

I'm dubious of ambient noises in this vein, SupCom2 had something similar for stratzoom and it was pretty annoying.

Mike

Agreed. All of the stylization they did to stratzoom in Supcom 2, both graphical and aural, were distracting and cumbersome to work around. Supcom's method was simple and effective.

I don't want ambient sound. I don't want music like in Total Annihilation (build music sucked) or Supreme Commander 2 (again, only the combat music was nice). I want a nice orchestral soundtrack playing the whole time.

Really, in literally all games that I have played with a dynamic soundtrack, the combat music is the best, and yet the least played. I think such dynamic soundtracks suck. Just give me a nice playlist and I'm happy.

I think part of the reason combat music is so appealing is because it accompanies combat. I like the idea of ambient sounds as long as they're quiet enough to ignore or have some tasteful music with them. Luckily music is simple to implement, so it's a decision that doesn't have to be made yet.

Nah, nowadays, I turn the music of in game, download the game's music, and play the nice parts of it with Windows Media Player or such. Just listen to the Total Annihilation soundtrack. Whether there is combat or not is irrelevant.

In that case why do you care about the music at all? It doesn't seem like it applies to you.

The best thing would probably be to ask Howard. I trust in his judgment on all things audio.

music will be getting turned off or down really low if it's good when i get into game.

Music will be getting turned up high or up really high if it's good when I get into game... especially when I see an asteroid coming. I want my whole house to shake with the sound from my Subwoofer.

Howard will have to work very hard to replace this as the "music of space" in my mind.

But those ambient sounds are very cool. I'm imagining those layered over the normal soundtrack when you're in the celestial view, kind of like in SupCom2 when you zoom out it starts playing a windy effect.

... Huh? I don't think you understand me.

Take, for example, Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander 2. Both have a dynamic soundtrack; music for building, and music for combat. The building music was bland and boring (Total Annihilation) or non-existent (Supreme Commander 2). The combat music was awesome - or at least, better.

I want to hear nice music. I don't want to hear boring build music. Or ambient noise. Or whatever. I want an orchestra of epicness and awesomeness.

Nlspeed911: It sounds like you just want a big epic piece of music you can play on your standalone media player. If that's the case, I imagine you've already got lots of choices even before the PA soundtrack comes out. I'm confused why you're against ambient sounds in the planetary view. Or are you saying that you personally don't like them, in which case I don't follow your reasoning for bringing it up?