We are making good progress on getting my new rig together. The motherboard arrived, and the graphics card is on the way. I still have to make some decisions about RAM, storage, and fans. (Budget? Go all out? Should I get shiny ones with rainbow LEDs?) I’m getting more excited about jumping into Unreal 5 and trying things out — just putting objects together and adding sound to it. For example, you walk up to a sphere and as you get closer the sound is louder. Or the sound changes.

Here’s Thor Hall encouraging beginners like me to give it a try. Someone called him the Mister Rogers of game design and that seems so fitting.

Another thing I’m looking forward to with the new rig is downloading some music software. I’m especially looking forward to this plugin, called “Noctua”. Cameron had the idea to put together a collection of samples, including ones he recorded using a microphone that can “hear” electromagnetic fields (called an EMF microphone). With help from folks at UVI and after a year of work, this collection of samples became an actual software instrument, with ways to modify the sounds and layer them. Cameron’s project is free, and the plugin from UVI required to play it (called UVI Workstation) is free also.

Noctua
https://www.uvi.net/noctua

Workstation
https://www.uvi.net/uvi-workstation.html