I wanted to create a dedicated Showreel, to focus on creating UI sounds, atmospheres, and music for three very different menus. I did this with the aim of demonstrating my ability to make menus immersive and exciting.
I chose the UNCHARTED 4 menu because I wanted to capture its organic and humid atmosphere. My goal was to create natural clicking sounds that blended seamlessly with the environment. To achieve this, I repurposed some of the recordings from my game ‘Ape Journey,’ which featured clicks produced by sticks hitting each other. I then layered these sounds with the resonance of thumping kicks. To maintain consistency, I processed all of these sounds through the same reverb bus, ensuring they matched the wet cave ambiance of the menu. Additionally, I incorporated subtle background elements, such as the distant rumble of a waterfall. To enhance the mysterious ambiance, I applied a lowpass filter to remove high frequencies from the waterfall sound.
I then selected the HITMAN 3 menu because I wanted to see if I could make the menu sound more raw, cool, and undercover, so I crafted a slightly offbeat sequence. This sequence featured a mysterious and unpredictable bass, accompanied by eerie drone pads and futuristic arpeggios. My aim was to mirror the badass and unpredictable gameplay that players can anticipate. The satisfying clicking sounds when pressing buttons inside the menu were created using recordings of old cassette tapes being manipulated and layered with resampled kicks. To combine all the various click sounds, I routed them to a bus where I applied processing techniques such as distortion and low-pass filtering. These techniques were employed to impart a distinct and boxy character to the sequence.
Lastly, I selected the menu from one of my all-time favorite games, NIER: AUTOMATA, not only because of its outstanding soundtrack but also due to its satisfying futuristic-retro wave-inspired UI and menu sounds. To recreate these sounds, I manipulated small snippets of white noise using glitch effects, and pitch modulation and added short hi-hat ticks. Additionally, I integrated sounds from my game Ape Journey, including shakers and percussion sticks, ensuring they contained ample high-frequency content. For the atmospheric and cinematic music, I crafted a dreamy ambiance with bright, high-frequency textures that conveyed an angelic and heavenly atmosphere. This included glitchy reverse-delayed sustained piano tones from Omnisphere, processed through various echo VSTs and delays within the Effect Rack vst.