Blog for Jon Jorajuria at GarageGames.com

SMX Goes Live...and a Thank You

Jon Jorajuria — 2007-03-05T17:57:19+00:00

SMX Goes Live
I am pleased to announce that Sound Media Xtreme is now officially in business. There is a lot of polish work to be done with the website and EPK, but the important information is now available. A lot of people worked very hard to get things done in time for GDC and we appreciate the efforts of everybody. Here are two important links, and I encourage everybody to take a look.

The first link is to the EPK (Electronic Press Kit) which is being passed out at GDC this week. While everybody who downloads the EPK will not get the pamphlet associated with it, it contains all the information about SMX as well as demos and bios. To view the EPK, extract the zip file and double click the Launch.exe

Electronic Press Kit

The second link is to the website. There is still work to be done but it does have most of the information about SMX on it. The website will be completed from a content perspective within the next few days.

www.soundmediaxtreme.com
or
www.smxtreme.com

Thank You
As I said earlier there are a lot of people that worked hard on getting this up and running. I would like to thank the following people:

Michelle Jorajuria and Phyllis Luccketta for their untiring work on SMX's content.

Todd Pickens, Jay Moore, Tim Aste, Jeff Tunnell, Sean Sullivan, Joe Maruschak, Chris Calef, and the entire GG staff for their support and constant encouragement.

Matt Damon and Stephan Lollis for all the long hours they put in.

Ultra Entertainment for performing a miracle on such short notice.

Last but not least I want to thank the GG community, without you this company would never have gotten off the ground.

We have several projects we are working on for the community, stay tuned for more info.

See you at GDC...

Contact Information:
info@smxtreme.com

A New Business Venture

Jon Jorajuria — 2007-02-12T23:49:56+00:00

Over the past couple of months I have been busy juggling about 100 different things. With GDC 2007 coming up in a couple of weeks, I thought I would share what has been going on.

Sound Media Xtreme
I am proud to announce the formation of Sound Media Xtreme, the parent company to SMXAudio and SMX Video. The company was founded by Troy Luccketta and me. We have been working very hard to bring everything together in time for GDC 2007.

Our goal as a company is to form a partnership between the music and game development industries in an endeavor to take both to the next level of entertainment standards.

We have a coming soon web page and a demo. The website art is still in rough format, but the real site will be up in time for GDC. The most important part of the site is the demo. We made a collage of different styles of music which shows our diversity. Here is the link:

www.smxtreme.com

Direct link to the demo:

Demo Reel

The company has been built around the talents of five individuals. In addition to the core individuals, we have a huge talent pool and can take on any size project and any style of music. Here is the break down of the main team and our job functions:

Jon Jorajuria - Business Director/Executive Producer
Troy Luccketta - Project Director/Producer
Marc Bonilla - Music Director
Ryan Greene - Recording Engineer
Brad White - Video Production Director

We have two production facilities and work with digital, analog, and midi recordings. We have a bunch of projects we are working on, unfortunately they are under NDA. We are also working on a couple of projects that we think will appeal to the GarageGames community.

Scottsdale Production Facility

To contact us, please send us an e-mail at:
info@smxtreme.com

Conclusion
I am really excited about all the projects that are in the works. Over the next 30 - 60 days more information about these projects will be released. Please take the time to check out the SMX demo.

It's Weird to be Me

Jon Jorajuria — 2007-01-08T06:43:14+00:00

It has been a while since I posted a blog about anything to the community, mostly because I have a lot going on. I thought I would share what is on my plate and hopefully generate some interest in some of the things myself and others are working on.

Sound Design and Music
GarageGames has been kind enough to involve me in sound design work and music for both current projects and upcoming items. I had a ton of fun helping on the Tank Buster project's sound and music. There are a lot of people working hard on this and future projects, so please check out their work.

The music for various game producers will be stepping up several notches. I am now working with a multi-platinum record selling drummer/producer as well as other distinguished musicians and composers. This is where the title of this blog comes in...
Over the past few months my music career has gone into overdrive and I am trying to keep not only a level head, but also keep up with my day job. I will be hitting the big boy studio the second week of February to start recording songs for games, and my demo for commercial work. I am also in the process of writing material for my regular band; we plan to start recording an album later this year.

Pre-Production Pictures (Obligatory Blog Pictures):

Ninjas vs. Pirates
The production of Ninjas vs. Pirates has slowed down a bit due to music and my day job. The game will be reevaluated in February and may eventually be moved to TGEA. The game is not dead, just on the back burner while myself and the other team members work on their side projects.

Super Secret TGB Game
In our copious amounts of spare time, Todd Pickens and I have started a TGB project which we hope to port to Torque X. Preliminary tests have been successful, but we are still focused on TGB. I am amazed at the ease and power behind TGB, and I can't wait for the GG community to see this project.

Conclusion
I have a lot of things going on, more than I care to. Whenever I think my life is crazy and I need perspective on things, I just have to talk to any employee at GG to get a grip. They are really working hard for the community, so please check out their work and support them.

If you are interested in sound FXs or music for your game, please feel free to contact me at:

jon.jorajuria@dceaudio.net

New Sounds in TGE 1.5's starter.fps Kit

Jon Jorajuria — 2006-10-25T21:45:29+00:00

First off I want to thank everybody at GG who gave me the opportunity to do a bit of sound work on TGE 1.5, I am glad it is out. A lot of talented associates and employees worked hard to bring the community the newest version of TGE.

Sound Design
I had the opportunity to work on the updated Stronghold map. The sound design approach was very similar to the approach that was taken with the FPS Environment Pack. The only difference was due to scheduling and tight deadlines, the process was sped up considerably and some shortcuts had to be taken. I wish I could have devoted more time to the design process, but I do think the level accomplishes the goal of giving the developer a good basic starting point around sound design. I encourage the community to take a look at the starter.fps scripts and data, there are some new things going on in there that are worth checking out.

New Sounds
There are a lot of sounds that have been added to the starter.fps kit. Some are new and some are borrowed from other content packs. Some of the new sounds are not even used in starter.fps, a good example of this is a few of the player movement sounds. I think that the sounds that were used add depth to the visual art. The following are a list of sounds that I used in the audio work for the updated Stronghold map:

Ambient/Environment
Ambient_Stereo_01.ogg/wav - Ambient Audio
Lakeshore_mono_01.ogg/wav - Lakeshore
Fire_Mono_01.ogg/wav - Fire Pit
tree_mono_01.ogg/wav - Single Tree
treegrove_mono_01.ogg/wav - Multiple Trees

Weapon
ammo_mono_01.ogg/wav - Ammo Pickup
explosion_mono_01.ogg/wav - Crossbow Bolt Explosion
relbow_mono_01.ogg/wav - Crossbow Fire

Item
health_mono_01.ogg/wav - Health Pot Pickup

Player Movement
hvystep_ mono_01.ogg/wav - Heavy Step
lgtStep_mono_01.ogg/wav - Light Step
metalstep_mono_01.ogg/wav - Metal Step
snowstep_mono_01.ogg/wav - Snow Step
waterstep_mono_01.ogg - Water Step

Garage Games has given me permission to release the sounds to the community. They are all in *.ogg and *.wav format, I hope you can put them to good use:

New TGE 1.5 Sounds

Conclusion
The updated Stronghold map that comes with the starter.fps kit gives the developer a good basic starting point around sound design. For a more advanced sound design approach and implementation example, please check out the FPS Environment Pack.

Sound Design 101

Jon Jorajuria — 2006-09-08T17:47:10+00:00

Now that the FPS Environment Pack has been released, I will go into a bit more detail about sound design using specific examples from the pack. For those of you who have been living under a rock, here is a bit of info on the FPS Environment Pack:

Here is the link to the Snapshot of the Day.
www.garagegames.com/mg/snapshot/view.php?qid=1276

Here is a link to the product page for the pack.
www.garagegames.com/products/104

And here is one direct to the screen shots.
www.garagegames.com/products/104/images/

Sound Desiger:
The job of a sound designer is very much appreciated by producers and people involved in a particular project, but tend to go unnoticed by the end user. If the sounds were done well and they fit the environment, most end users will never mention how great a particular game sounded. As a sound designer this the biggest compliment we can get.

Obtaining and Creating Sounds:
I see a lot of game developers in the community obtaining their sound effects from free sources online. Most of these sounds are low quality and have not been optimized to work with torque. This is fine for prototyping, however I can not stress enough how important good quality sounds are to a game. There is a huge difference between what you can get on a free site and sounds the have been produced specifically for Torque and/or your project. Remember at least 50% of your game's atmospheric feel will be created through sound effects and quality sound design.

Sound can be obtained through a variety of sources. Foley work, real life recordings, sound fonts, and synthesized sources all work very well. Do not be afraid to experiment with different sound combinations, in fact most sound effects are created using a combination of sounds.

As I stated in the previous paragraph most sound effects are created using a combination of sounds. A perfect example of this is the windmill in the second map of the FPS environment pack. The following is a list of sounds and final mixes used for that windmill:

Main Sound:
Rolling Pin on Cement (Pitch Shifted)
Squeaky Hinge (Pitch Shifted 2 Layers)
Stone Scraped by a Screwdriver (Pitch Shifted)

Windmill Sound Effect

Blade Whoosh:
Stick Swing (Pitch Shifted)
Wind Noise (Pitch Shifted)

Blade Sound Effect

My advice is build a catalog of sounds and experiment mixing them together with and without effects applied. There is a ton of different ways to mix the audio recordings together. Solutions range from software to hardware within a variety of price ranges.

Getting Your Sound in Game:
I am not going to get into the scripting aspects of the sound design process for torque. There are some things you should know when exporting your sound effects. The following are the default settings used by Torque for all audio:

Sample Rate: 44100
Bit Depth: 16
Channel Format: Mono or Stereo

There are a couple general rules for setting up channel format. There are some exceptions but here they are:

If the sound is a 3D sound in should have the channel format set to Mono. For all other sounds the channel format should be set to Stereo.

Once the final sounds have been mixed, you will need to decide which audio format to use. Currently Torque supports wav and ogg audio formats. Wav tends to take up a lot of space with excellent sound quality. Ogg is compressed audio and there is a slight degradation to the sound quality.

Conclusion
Audio is just as important to a user's gaming experience as artwork. Game developers have a plethora of free sounds available to them, however nothing can compare to quality sounds that have been created specifically for Torque or your project.

Todd Pickens' Environment Pack: Sound Design

Jon Jorajuria — 2006-08-24T07:10:53+00:00

I was very fortunate to be given the opportunity to work with Todd Pickens on his upcoming environment pack. Thanks Todd for giving me the shot to show off my artistic capabilities. The following plan will detail how Todd and I approached sound design for his environment pack and hopefully give the community some audio ideas for their projects.

Sound Design Approach:
Sound is an integral part of any environment design and comprises approximately 50% of the atmospheric mood. In some cases the audio of a scene will supersede the art in creating the mood for a specific environmental element(s). Regardless of the environmental goals, a sound designer must work closely with both the artists and producer of the material presented.

The first step of the sound design for Todd Pickens' environment pack was to meet and understand what Todd, both the artist and the producer, wanted to accomplish with the environment. Once the initial meeting was completed, the conceptual work began. Todd did an excellent job of providing visual concepts that set the mood of the environment pack. I can not stress enough how important reference art is to sound design. Constant communication was critical throughout the entire artistic process, and any concept art was followed up with rough mixes of the sound effects. Just like placement art, placement sounds were used to help both Todd and I map out the overall direction of the project.

As the conceptual process continued, we faced some technical challenges. Those technical challenges were identified and a punch list was created in order to address the technical issues. Once the technical challenges were addressed, the real design work began.

Environment:
When Todd delivered the first rough map and art assets, I started my work. Since the brain filters out low level or "unimportant" sounds, kind of like your eyes ignoring your nose, the first environment sound I addressed was the "what you don't hear" audio. This became the foundation or anchor for the remaining sounds in the environment. The rest of audio was layered upon the perceived "what you don't hear" sounds. Each audio layer was placed so that pitch and volume was relevant to the previous audio layer or enhanced the base audio layer. An example of this is the corn field audio in relation to the ambient storm audio.

Models:
Todd had some very specific plans for a few of the models in the pack. Designing sound for models, such as the windmill and watermill, can be a tedious undertaking. Starting from rough models with animations, Todd and I worked together to obtain the "desired" effect. Animation timing and sound synch were the keys to setting the mood for the animated object. Refinements on both Todd's and my part were necessary to create both a visual and audio effect that worked.

Rough Watermill with Animation:

Final Watermill with Animation:

Final Watermill Sound
Watermill Sound Effect

Final Steps
As the environment progressed and refinements were implemented, new sounds were produced to round out the environment. Todd and I had to be flexible as things came together. Sometimes this would require Todd to make model and animation adjustments and me to remix some of the audio effects. I think the end result was well worth all the hard work.

Conclusion
Most of the sounds in the pack consisted of multiple audio recordings/tracks mixed together. Since I am a perfectionist around audio, I will continue to adjust the mixes until release. I hope everybody who purchases Todd's new environment pack has as much fun working with it as I did. Feel free to shoot me an e-mail if you have any questions regarding sound design. Thanks again Todd for letting me help out.

Ninjas vs. Pirates: Pushing TGE to the Limits

Jon Jorajuria — 2006-07-25T03:33:18+00:00

Update
Ninjas vs. Pirates is moving along and the team has been growing. We have been scrutinizing the game and making changes both visually and programmatically. For the most part the project has remained within scope. However due the unexpected popularity of Ninjas vs. Pirates, based on the amount of hits on the myspace.com page and our website, we have been concentrating on upgrading the capabilities of TGE.

CG shaders is something that has been around the community for a while now. Like several games that are currently in production, Ninjas vs. Pirates has also incorporated shader technology in the engine. The NvP team decided to use GLSL and allow the user to configure their shader options. By doing this not only do we have cross platform compatibility, but it will not exclude potential players from running the game based on how good their video card is. In other words a player will be able to configure their graphics to run from base TGE mode all the way up "I have an SLI configured system running dual nVidia 7200s" mode.

The shader rendering is the most obvious update to Ninjas vs. Pirates. The key to its successful implementation really has to do with the rendering optimization. Alex "Delerium" Scarborough has been hard at work optimizing and expanding the shader capabilities for Ninjas vs. Pirates, his work is amazing.

In addition to all the shader work, there has been a lot of work done to the magic system. Jeff Faust was kind enough to allow us into the pre-release of his Arcane-FX pack. We have been tailoring the Arcane-FX pack to suit the needs of the game.

The following are a few screen shots taken of Ninjas vs. Pirates Beta 2 level. All artwork is placeholder art and the screen shots were taken with a nVidia 7200 graphics card.

Bump Mapping

Refractive Water

DRL with Bloom and GLSL Ocean

Ninja Cloak

Ninja Fire

Future of the Game
As I stated earlier, the team is scrutinizing the game and making adjustments. Again keep in mind that the previous screen shots all contain placeholder art. The art team is working hard to finalize the art assets that will be present in polished beta 2 build.

Conclusion
We are on the threshold of making the next push that will eventually lead to a released game. We are still holding back on a lot of the surprises that the game contains. If we are lucky we will get the "nice to haves" in the game and really knock your socks off.

Contact
Game Website: ninjasvspirates.darkcombat.net
My Space: www.myspace.com/ninjasverpirates
E-mail: info@darkcombat.net

Ninjas vs. Pirates: Ninja Magic

Jon Jorajuria — 2006-06-03T05:02:46+00:00

Update
The team has just completed a series of updates to key components of the game. This was all done in an effort spruce up game play for beta 2. The big changes included modifications to the following game components:

Melee
Particle Engine
Ninja Magic

Melee was pretty straight forward as to what updates we wanted to accomplish, but the other two posed a tougher challenge. We had rewritten most of the particle engine for NvP, but it lacked a lot. Same thing with Ninja Magic, it was ok but there was no flare to it.

When players and developers approach us about NvP the first question we usually get is, "What kind of magic do the Ninjas get?" Since we knew this was going to be an important part of the game we thought to get some help. Jeff Faust and the guys at Faust Logic were kind enough to allow us to incorporate their Arcane FX code into NvP and turn the ninja magic and particles into something very special.

So here it is, the one piece of Ninja Magic that everybody suggests the minute they start talking about the subject. Ninja Cloaking...yes there is even smoke

Window Media Player

Quicktime

Future of the Game and Beta
Beta 2 is a week or two out from having an internal release version. We will look at each part of the game, evaluate every component, and then refine the game. Once we go through that process a couple more times, we will release beta 2. Beta 2 will be a completely polished version of the game and you can almost look at it like a demo. Only this will be on a larger scale.

We will be expanding the beta testing to Mac and Linux users. In addition to including Mac and Linux testers, beta 2 will be open to the press. Members who actively participate in the Ninjas vs. Pirates beta testing program will receive a free copy of the game as well as in game credit. If you are interested in beta testing Ninjas vs. Pirates, please send an email to beta@darkcombat.net with the following information:

Your first and last name
Your email address
Whether or not you are a member of the press and who you work for*
Your system specifications (processor, mobo, vid card, RAM, etc.)
Connection speed

*Members of the press will be receiving a press release about the game as well as direct contact information.

Beta 2 will be released in approximately 2-3 months, we will announce the location of the download server 24 hours prior to testing.

Conclusion
We are on the threshold of making the next push that will eventually lead to a released game. We have had a lot of support, and we have been dying to give you all more info. While it has been hard to control ourselves, we know it will be worth it in the long run.

Contact
Game Website: ninjasvspirates.darkcombat.net
Company Website: www.darkcombat.net
E-mail: info@darkcombat.net

Ninjas vs. Pirates: Beta 2 Update

Jon Jorajuria — 2006-05-19T05:55:13+00:00

Update
The beta 2 build is moving along and a lot of progress has been made. However due to the work that is needed to create a completely polished build, we will be delaying the beta 2 release for approximately 2-3 months. Theoretically, this will expedite the final release as little work will be left to due after beta 2.

Future of the Game and Beta
While I will not go into detail as to what will be released for beta 2, I will say that the environment is shaping up to be nothing less than amazing. Todd Pickens has been instrumental in pushing the environment and the team beyond their limits in an effort to guide us towards producing a high quality game. While I single out Todd, the entire team has really been going above and beyond.

Melee has been revamped and is in its testing stages. The original melee system was really simple and we felt like it needed a change. We believe we have found the right balance between the ability to deliver fast paced melee combat while allowing the player better control over offensive and defensive moves.

While enabling certain features that were not in beta 1 we started to realize that the cool factor was held by the Ninjas. We've decided to give the Pirates a little something special beyond the standard canons, muskets, and swords. Testing on that on that "special item" is scheduled for this weekend.

Again we are putting out a polished build during beta 2. This build will be a fully functioning game with final art, sound, and character models. The team has decided to postpone the beta 2 release in order to do Ninjas vs. Pirates justice.

We will be expanding the beta testing to Mac and Linux users. In addition to including Mac and Linux testers, beta 2 will be open to the press. Members who actively participate in the Ninjas vs. Pirates beta testing program will receive a free copy of the game. If you are interested in beta testing Ninjas vs. Pirates, please send an email to beta@darkcombat.net with the following information:

Your first and last name
Your email address
Whether or not you are a member of the press and who you work for*
Your system specifications (processor, mobo, vid card, RAM, etc.)
Connection speed

*Members of the press will be receiving a press release about the game as well as direct contact information.

Beta 2 will be released in approximately 2-3 months, we will announce the location of the download server 24 hours prior to testing.

Game Goodies
I posted a voice over the last time I wrote a blog, so I figured I would put up more audio. We are officially releasing the teaser theme song/audio spot tomorrow, but I thought I would give the GG community a sneak peak. Teaser Trailer coming soon!

Teaser Theme

**Note: This audio track was written, produced, performed, and recorded by Jon Jorajuria. The material presented is copywritten and may not be used without the expressed written consent of Jon Jorajuria and DarkCombat Entertainment.

For those of you who like pictures I thought I would send you a mock up of the playgui by N. R. Bharathae of Exile Graphics. Yes this is a mock up, but I only have the beta 2 map in game and I can't show you the new level yet. At least you can see one of the new models.

**Note: This image is preliminary concept art and should be treated as such. Concept art presented here does not necessarily represent the final product. The material presented is copywritten and may not be used without the expressed written consent of Exile Graphics.

Conclusion
A lot of work has been completed on beta 2, but there is still a ways to go. The entire team is working hard to produce you a quality product and we are looking forward to the game's release. As we run the gauntlet, more information about beta 2 will be released. If you would like to contribute, please e-mail me at the address in my profile.

Contact
Game Website: ninjasvspirates.darkcombat.net
Company Website: www.darkcombat.net
E-mail: info@darkcombat.net

Ninjas vs. Pirates: Beta 2 Build is in Polish Mode

Jon Jorajuria — 2006-04-28T02:15:53+00:00

Update
The primary goal of beta 1 was never to showcase the game, but rather to test the backend servers and netcode. Both have passed their tests and we are focusing on beta 2. No further enhancements to the beta 1 build will be implemented unless some of the improvements going into beta 2 need a large scale test. We will be continuing with kill the dev team night however we are limiting it to 1 night per week.

Future of the Game and Beta
The dev team has been hard at work putting together beta 2. We are being very hush hush on what we are doing, what I can tell you is that it is not the same game that was presented in beta 1. There is a reason to having a three phased beta approach most of which is to control what is being tested.

We will be expanding the beta testing to Mac and Linux users. In addition to including Mac and Linux testers, beta 2 will be open to the press. Members who actively participate in the Ninjas vs. Pirates beta testing program will receive a free copy of the game. If you are interested in beta testing Ninjas vs. Pirates, please send an email to beta@darkcombat.net with the following information:

Your first and last name
Your email address
Whether or not you are a member of the press and who you work for*
Your system specifications (processor, mobo, vid card, RAM, etc.)
Connection speed

*Members of the press will be receiving a press release about the game as well as direct contact information.

Beta 2 will be released in approximately 30 days, we will announce the location of the download server 24 hours prior to testing.

Game Goodies
Last weeks blog caused a bit of controversy and I thought I would follow up last weeks post with more gratuitous cleavage by N. R. Bharathae of Exile Graphics:

**Note: This image is preliminary concept art and should be treated as such. Concept art presented here does not necessarily represent the final product. The material presented is copywritten and may not be used without the expressed written consent of Exile Graphics.

I also thought I would let you listen to something that will be in the beta 2 map:

Voiceover
**Note: This voiceover was produced, performed, and recorded by DarkCombat Entertainment. The material presented is copywritten and may not be used without the expressed written consent of DarkCombat Entertainment.

Conclusion
There is a lot of exciting things happening with Ninjas vs. Pirates. The development team is working hard and we are looking forward to the release of this game. If you are interested in participating, please feel free to contact me via the e-mail in my profile. The new game website will be released in a few days. News will be updated on both sites for the next few weeks, so please check often.

Contact
Game Website: ninjasvspirates.darkcombat.net
Company Website: www.darkcombat.net
E-mail: info@darkcombat.net