Image credits: https://otlibrary.com/blobfish/
The development of my Sonification project has both progressed and slowed down in certain regards. Some issues have arisen and decisions have been made yet some decisions are still standing. I knew issues would occur at some point as they usually do with most projects and overcoming these will help my decision making in the future.
My main question to you, the reader, is: Do you know what a Blob Fish (Psychrolutes marcidus) would sound like? Of course, on land and out of the water the very name, or nickname in this case, would suggest a gelatinous jelly texture and all the sounds associated with that. But underwater that might not be the case. This is the main issue I am currently facing. Mainly mammals are known to make sounds underwater, a popular example being a Humpback Whale. Given that the vocalisations of a whale are the most well known 'sounds of the ocean' it is easy to assume that they will be the focal point of my project. However, I am trying to document different types of sea life (including the types that make no noted sound) as well as signifying significant depths.
The main idea of my project is to display the different sounds it could be possible to hear on the journey to the deepest depth of the ocean. Being in a submarine making the journey to the bottom of the Mariana Trench could be very interesting to some and certainly frightening to others. I would like to display all aspects of this journey whilst letting the audience know when they have reached certain depths. Therefore, I have made a list of some of those significant depths. That list includes the depths of certain sea life, the different zones (such as the Midnight and the Abyssal zones) the deepest shipwrecks such as Titanic and the USS Johnston and more.
Image credits: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/worlds-deepest-shipwreck-wwii-destroyer-philippine-sea-180973474/
I have made progress in creating sounds to be played at certain depths. Using sample recordings as well as some of my own I have managed to recreate what it might sound like when travelling past the deepest scuba diver, Sperm whales and nuclear submarines. My absolute favourite so far has been using recordings of creaking and scraping underwater metal with Varispeed warp stretching to represent the sound of a huge shipwreck either crashing or moving around on the ocean floor. Adding reverb and low pass filters really give the impression of them being underwater as well as enormous, quite creepy to listen to, giving me shivers down my spine on playback!
Coming back to the main issue at hand, some sea life and the representation of reaching a certain depth is very difficult to create and convey through sounds. Even using as much creativity as I currently can, some of the sea life I have noted just wouldn't believably make a sound. Therefore, I have made the decision that for some, if not all, of the noted depths on this journey will have added narration done by either myself or synthetically to suggest the submarine the audience is travelling in has a computer system, reading out information about certain depths. This is not what I had originally planned however I knew from the beginning that I could not sonically convey all the information on this journey that I wanted to.
Another issue that has been halting progression of this project is the understanding of how it will be made and in what medium. I had thought that the project could be in the form of a video that includes different audio tracks and shows the journey to the bottom with different cues played at the depths noted. However, I decided that the project should be more interactive and the audience should be able to change the depth they are at, giving them control of travelling up or down but at a certain speed defined by me.
Furthermore, to include the interactive sonar feature I mentioned in my previous post, the project will have to be interactive. Therefore, I decided that the easiest way to include these would be through the Unreal Engine but with the added use of the middleware FMOD. Through having a rough test of what would be possible within FMOD, I found that the use of a depth parameter will easily allow for basic triggering of different audio tracks at different depths. With further parameter automation, the sonar feature will be able to relate to the depth of the user through getting quieter and more reverberant the deeper the user is. I will refine these further so not to be so basic and also to truly express a believable experience to the user.
My FMOD test project showing the depth parameter
Currently I have been trying to make tracks of what the noted depths might sound like and have been doing a few each day. From here on I need to plan the recordings that I will use for the narration and I need to start implementing some of the sounds I have into the FMOD project to test out features further. Once I have reached a comfortable position with this I will start upon the creation of an Unreal Engine project with the interactive features I am looking for. So, I am happy with my progress so far and know what I need to do next. I'll make another update on this project once I have the Unreal project working and linked to FMOD.
Thanks for reading through this project update. Let me know if you have any thoughts on the project or how you think you might do it.
Nick
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