A journey to 2.x audio
Some of you might have noticed... since several months I have the developer tag on the hub. I'm not a VaM developer per say, but I've discussed a lot with meshed and offered to work with him on the audio for 2.x on the side of my own projects in VaM.
As we were chatting the other night, I proposed to discuss about the stuff going on on the side of the actual core code of VaM 2.x. So I'm gonna start by the most exciting stuff for you all since it's gonna bring some new content even before 2.x releases.
VAMMoan 2.x
Yes. Here we are, the new version of VAMMoan. I'm planning this since a while now, thought a lot of the potential improvements and how to bring an even more awesome audio experience to the plugin.
The version 2 of VAMM will feature legacy voices (from the first version), and all new voices with several layers of complexity that will bring the moaning experience to a whole new level. Here is a breakdown of the way VAMM 2 will evolve.
The original system was made of a single "layer" : the moans. With several intensities still, but only moans. It works great, but is limiting to give more emotion to a scene even with a LOT of samples. Now, with version 2, the system will have a lot more possibilities :
But that's not all. This is the core content of VAMM. The rest will still be available ( Squishes, blowjob, pelvic slap sounds... ). But following a discussion with @Acid Bubbles , VAMM might feature new character sounds in the future. Skin sounds, clothes sounds, footsteps... and potentially anything that might bring more immersion and life to the sound of a character.
So, you might be thinking, "yeah, that's cool and all, but still... it's gonna be in a long long time this 2.x thing".
Well, rejoy fellow players and creators : we're gonna bring a teaser version of VAMMoan 2.x on VaM 1. The teaser version is not gonna be as complete as the final version thought for 2.x. But it will feature the multi-layer system and give you an idea of the quality we're aiming for. Like everything I do, or everything meshed does about 2.x, there is no ETA. But I will try my best to release that as fast as I can.
We're working with Pixie for the first character, but I hope that we can find talented voice actors and actresses to bring a great and varied experience when 2.x is released.
The teaser version for 1.x will work hand in hand with VAMM 1. Which means you can have the teaser version AND the version 1 in the same scene. I can't wait to see what you come up with in your scenes.
Arousal and interactive system
For VAMM and 2.x, the interactive system will completely go away. NO. Don't yell right now. It's gonna vanish "as it is" in VAMM 1. A new arousal plugin will be created to drive the overall arousal system of a character as a standalone plugin.
Which means that this arousal plugin by itself will not do anything besides showing an arousal value between 0 and 100.
The goal is to have a single plugin controlling anything else. VAMM 2 will have several options so that it can be controlled by the arousal plugin, but any creator, will be able to connect his own plugin and read the values to control his own features : emotion plugins, morph plugins, anything.
We want to bring this type of plugin as soon as possible to ensure a good connectivity between all plugins created by the community. On 1.x, several plugins have their own arousal system built in, and it's hard to connect all of them due to the way the scripts and plugins work.
If a single plugin controls the arousal of the characters, it makes the life easier of the creators, coders and players!
Ambience, audio library and tools
Another aspect of the audio is also the generic sounds. Ambience, details for the scenes etc... I plan on bringing VAMAtmosphere to 2.x, with new content and new tools. For instance a scatterer system to produce random sounds around the player. This is useful to create randomness and make an overall feeling of life in a scene with a couple of clicks.
The other aspect I'm working on is to use the mixer system of Unity 202x. I'm currently trying several systems which could be implemented at some point inside VaM 2.x. We'll see with meshed what we can do, but the idea is to be able to remove the old ReverbZone system that I did in VAMAtmosphere, and make the reverb, echo, and all fancy audio effects into the settings of a scene.
For instance, it might be possible to send an audio source or a character head audio to a specific effect channel to produce custom effects. Notice that this is a "might"... I'm still trying to figure out the best way to achieve this, and I need to discuss with meshed how far we go on this aspect.
I have some other possibilities in mind like having an "audio player" atom which will remove all the knowledge you have to learn to simply play a basic ogg on an audio source. I think it's important to bring tools that are easy to use out of the box. And the simple concept of an audio source is already a complex system for newcomers and people who are not familiar with game development.
We are also interested in what you think. If you have ideas, about sound, to improve VaM. Do not hesitate to suggest ideas. It does not mean we will do everything you suggest, but brainstorming together is also a way to improve the overall experience.
Conclusion
Yes! Even tho we might not communicate a lot around 2.x. We are working. We are trying to bring the best experience possible for 2.x. Don't be sad or upset if we don't talk too much about it... we're here, hard at work... just in the shadows.
Some of you might have noticed... since several months I have the developer tag on the hub. I'm not a VaM developer per say, but I've discussed a lot with meshed and offered to work with him on the audio for 2.x on the side of my own projects in VaM.
As we were chatting the other night, I proposed to discuss about the stuff going on on the side of the actual core code of VaM 2.x. So I'm gonna start by the most exciting stuff for you all since it's gonna bring some new content even before 2.x releases.
VAMMoan 2.x
Yes. Here we are, the new version of VAMMoan. I'm planning this since a while now, thought a lot of the potential improvements and how to bring an even more awesome audio experience to the plugin.
The version 2 of VAMM will feature legacy voices (from the first version), and all new voices with several layers of complexity that will bring the moaning experience to a whole new level. Here is a breakdown of the way VAMM 2 will evolve.
The original system was made of a single "layer" : the moans. With several intensities still, but only moans. It works great, but is limiting to give more emotion to a scene even with a LOT of samples. Now, with version 2, the system will have a lot more possibilities :
- Still based on 5 intensities, from 0 to 4. ALL pools described below will have the sample variations for each intensity :
- Breathing layer : only breathing.
- Moaning layer : only moaning.
- Reaction events : moan / voice gasps triggered on penetration at the beginning of an interaction or manually.
- Short sentences : quick tiny "dialogs" triggered at will ( harder!... deeper!... etc )
- With all these samples and pools new controls and options will allow you to drive the voice of the character :
- Breathing/moaning ratio: by default the voice will be configured to change between moan and breathing. During a scene, you will be able to control a slider from 0 to 1 which will result in the character either breathing or moaning more. At 0.25 for instance, the character will moan 1 time out of four breath.
- Manually control and plan intensities, reactions and sentences: in manual mode, you will be able to plan and send one, or multiple times in a row another intensity, reaction or sentence than the one currently active. Which means you can introduce more variations depending on how your scene evolve.
- Additional random options: Just like in version 1, you will have several settings to control randomness for creators who are happy with the procedural system and don't want to add too much triggers into a scene. New options will appear to control the randomness. For instance, the breathing/moaning ratio will be able to change overtime by itself.
But that's not all. This is the core content of VAMM. The rest will still be available ( Squishes, blowjob, pelvic slap sounds... ). But following a discussion with @Acid Bubbles , VAMM might feature new character sounds in the future. Skin sounds, clothes sounds, footsteps... and potentially anything that might bring more immersion and life to the sound of a character.
So, you might be thinking, "yeah, that's cool and all, but still... it's gonna be in a long long time this 2.x thing".
Well, rejoy fellow players and creators : we're gonna bring a teaser version of VAMMoan 2.x on VaM 1. The teaser version is not gonna be as complete as the final version thought for 2.x. But it will feature the multi-layer system and give you an idea of the quality we're aiming for. Like everything I do, or everything meshed does about 2.x, there is no ETA. But I will try my best to release that as fast as I can.
We're working with Pixie for the first character, but I hope that we can find talented voice actors and actresses to bring a great and varied experience when 2.x is released.
The teaser version for 1.x will work hand in hand with VAMM 1. Which means you can have the teaser version AND the version 1 in the same scene. I can't wait to see what you come up with in your scenes.
Arousal and interactive system
For VAMM and 2.x, the interactive system will completely go away. NO. Don't yell right now. It's gonna vanish "as it is" in VAMM 1. A new arousal plugin will be created to drive the overall arousal system of a character as a standalone plugin.
Which means that this arousal plugin by itself will not do anything besides showing an arousal value between 0 and 100.
The goal is to have a single plugin controlling anything else. VAMM 2 will have several options so that it can be controlled by the arousal plugin, but any creator, will be able to connect his own plugin and read the values to control his own features : emotion plugins, morph plugins, anything.
We want to bring this type of plugin as soon as possible to ensure a good connectivity between all plugins created by the community. On 1.x, several plugins have their own arousal system built in, and it's hard to connect all of them due to the way the scripts and plugins work.
If a single plugin controls the arousal of the characters, it makes the life easier of the creators, coders and players!
Ambience, audio library and tools
Another aspect of the audio is also the generic sounds. Ambience, details for the scenes etc... I plan on bringing VAMAtmosphere to 2.x, with new content and new tools. For instance a scatterer system to produce random sounds around the player. This is useful to create randomness and make an overall feeling of life in a scene with a couple of clicks.
The other aspect I'm working on is to use the mixer system of Unity 202x. I'm currently trying several systems which could be implemented at some point inside VaM 2.x. We'll see with meshed what we can do, but the idea is to be able to remove the old ReverbZone system that I did in VAMAtmosphere, and make the reverb, echo, and all fancy audio effects into the settings of a scene.
For instance, it might be possible to send an audio source or a character head audio to a specific effect channel to produce custom effects. Notice that this is a "might"... I'm still trying to figure out the best way to achieve this, and I need to discuss with meshed how far we go on this aspect.
I have some other possibilities in mind like having an "audio player" atom which will remove all the knowledge you have to learn to simply play a basic ogg on an audio source. I think it's important to bring tools that are easy to use out of the box. And the simple concept of an audio source is already a complex system for newcomers and people who are not familiar with game development.
We are also interested in what you think. If you have ideas, about sound, to improve VaM. Do not hesitate to suggest ideas. It does not mean we will do everything you suggest, but brainstorming together is also a way to improve the overall experience.
Conclusion
Yes! Even tho we might not communicate a lot around 2.x. We are working. We are trying to bring the best experience possible for 2.x. Don't be sad or upset if we don't talk too much about it... we're here, hard at work... just in the shadows.
