Nah, it feels stalkerish.

I feel it may be derailing because I really want to ask what you do? You seem rather in the know. I'm assuming you're in the industry? =][/quote]

You could just look at his sig, and follow the link in his sig...[/quote]

Nah, it feels stalkerish.

Not at all. He put the link in his sig so that people would click it and find out more about him. It's actually kinder to follow his link and find out who he is than it is to ask him to explain who he is.

I feel it may be derailing because I really want to ask what you do? You seem rather in the know. I'm assuming you're in the industry? =]

You could just look at his sig, and follow the link in his sig...

Nah, it feels stalkerish.

Not at all. He put the link in his sig so that people would click it and find out more about him. It's actually kinder to follow his link and find out who he is than it is to ask him to explain who he is.

It was a joke! My way of saying "Oops, I should have looked in the first place".

Anyway, I really need to steer this back to the point, because we've established that it's not a bad idea, Does anyone feel confident enough to give a rough overview of the potentially complicated process of replacing game sounds?

Lol! Parts of this really crack me up! :)

No problem Olliepm. I'm a composer-sound designer who first started in 2005 (professionally) but has been doing digital music composition since 2000. But I assume you found all of that out by clicking on my sig. I also like the color blue, long walks on the beach and Tex Mex. :P

But back to your original topic:

Does anyone feel confident enough to give a rough overview of the potentially complicated process of replacing game sounds?[/quote]

It really depends on what system the game used. For example I've done this where all I had to do was locate the files, change all of the original assets to a file_name_old naming convention and then make sure whatever new sounds were named and located in the right spot. The easiest way to check is to find a really unique sound and test it out. I used a "boing" sound for the first pistol you get in the game. But if you're wanting to reverse engineer FMOD files... well, that's something I've not done. I've used FMOD in several of the projects I've worked on officially so I can certainly explain how FMOD works but I've never tried to reverse engineer it, honestly.

Hope that helps... somewhat.

Nate

Hope that helps... somewhat.

I did check out your link actually, and this does help because now I'm assuming that if there'something that someone like you,(with that behemoth list of achievements!) hasn't done, it's probably not all that easy to do =/ The person who recommended UDK has also helped because it's a fair bit easier to get started altering the sound in the sample project than I thought it'd be for a beginner. I appreciate when professionals take the time to help students, so thank you for replying.

So, what I'm now thinking is it'd be worth while to locate a list of games that use common file types for audio, and just be content with what's available. If anyone's interested, I have one already. X3:Terran Conflict. God, I hate that game.

Also, a thank you to all who've replied: It's always greatly appreciated to be responded to =]

It's like summoning minions who've heard their masters call mahaha

Why not try an open source game like Battle for Wesnoth or Lincity?

And hey, if you create better sounds for it, why not contribute it back to that open source project?

You could ask for your name in the credits, and give them non-exclusive permission to use those sounds and music (depending on the project's licensing requirements), while also not giving everyone permission (just that project). The game itself could be a subtle billboard ad which you might get one or two future contracts or contacts through.

Or, make a sound mod for a popular game like Minecraft, which encourages mods. Make sure to name the mod something that leads people to google about you like, if you were nsmadsen, "Minecraft Madsen Mod" or "Minecraft Madsen Music Mod", so people would be curious what the "Madsen" part of the mod refers to, and also so people wanting to download this uber-popular mod would google the mod, and find the mod hosted on your studio's website and next time they need music or sound, they'll have your studio name stuck in their head.

Bethesda is also supportive of mods for their Elder Scrolls series. A mod that is high quality and popular in their community, like the (fictional) "Madsen Skyrim Music" mod might reach the attention of developers of the Skyrim game itself, and next time they are rushed for deadlines and need to outsource some musical work they might give Nathan a call.

I think this would be a better idea than modding a commercial game from a studio or publisher that has twitchy-fingered lawyers, plus mod-friendly games usually have better modding documentation and modding communities that would be very mentally supportive and practically helpful in what you are doing.

Great advice! Does anyone know of list of open source games worth looking at? Out of the three named above, I have only played the Elder Scrolls series (on Xbox360). Part of the reason I was attempting change the sounds in Bioshock for example was because It's a game I know, and love, and could really be motivated to give the project my all. I do really like Skyrim, but I thought it was probably a bit too huge a game and I'd be out of my depth trying to make an impact with it. Hopefully there is a game I'm more familiar/comfortable with that is open source, and I just don't know it yet

This thread has inspired me to start by modding Minecraft, which I already own.

If you don't want to play online, you can download the basic game for free. My brother mods it to make his own textures, change the color of certain ores, add glow effects, things like that.

This thread has inspired me to start by modding Minecraft, which I already own.

If you don't want to play online, you can download the basic game for free. My brother mods it to make his own textures, change the color of certain ores, add glow effects, things like that.

When I googled 'Audio mod' just to see if there was such a genre of mods that only affected the audio, all I could really find was Minecraft related stuff. Is it easy to mod the audio?

Not sure about Minecraft.

Starcraft 2 has a pretty powerful editor, and I believe you can add custom sounds to that. Not sure how interested you're in that genre though. If you don't want to pay $40, there's also Warcraft 3. Pretty old, but also has a map editor. Not sure if it supports sounds or not. You should research before buying.