作者：Gina Zdanowicz

随着时间的推移，游戏音频逐渐从由音效芯片产生的配有简单音乐旋律的哔哔声演变成带有史诗般声轨的立体SFX。过去，游戏音频往往被视为游戏视觉效果的背景。但是，近期的游戏音频提升的现象显示，音效不再是游戏体验中微不足道的组成部分。事实上，音效是促使玩家融入3D虚拟环境的关键元素。互动音境是形成玩家与游戏间互动关系的媒介。游戏音频设计师的任务是促使玩家沉浸入这些3D世界中，通过为游戏中的线性和互动性元素创造综合音境来持续吸引玩家。

随着突发性游戏玩法逐渐成为游戏设计中的主流技术，玩家互动的规则和界线（而不是脚本化路径和事件）开始组成全球化设计的游戏系统。玩家可以使用故事或策略移动等游戏基本元素来玩游戏，玩法可能与游戏设计师设计或执行的预设玩法有所差异。这对游戏音频设计师意味着什么呢？简单地说，游戏音频设计师需要创造技术来适应这种突发性和高用户互动媒介。

突发性游戏设计可提升游戏的再玩性，因为玩家每次在游戏中都会做出不同的决定，这可能会导致游戏整体发生改变以及产生不同的动作和结局。这些不同选择所产生的不同动作就需要各种不同的音效和配乐。比如在游戏《涂鸦冒险家》中，玩家可以从上万个预编程的词语中做出选择，通过写出词汇来创造完成游戏任务所需的物品。比如，如果玩家想要锯子，他们只需要输入“锯子”，所需的东西就会在游戏中出现。随后，玩家可以自由地使用和移动这个锯子。从音频的角度来看，这种系统的有趣之处在于玩家所创造出的物品会带来许多独特的音效。在更大更为开放的游戏世界中也会有音效，但《涂鸦冒险家》的吸引力在于创造物品以及看到和听到它们在屏幕上做出动作的双重效果。

涂鸦冒险家(from joystiq.com)

随着游戏玩法选择和游戏本质上变得更为电影化和现实主义化，游戏音频设计师也开始采用电影音频技术来为游戏环境营造史诗般的音效。在过去，SFX不断重复以及音乐片段在游戏过程中不断循环且从未改变，这是游戏音频面临的重大问题之一。

随着现代主机可用内存的不断增加，游戏音频设计师可以在游戏的音境中加入各种能够显著提升游戏质量的音效：

1、嘈杂声中的清晰对话：《神秘海域2：纵横四海》在录制所有对话的同时融合了游戏的场景效果。让所有的配音演员在同一个舞台上阅读台词，让游戏场景更加逼真。

2、使用交替SFX来使重复最小化：如果只有几种音效的话，那么脚步声和装甲移动等游戏动画的音效重复性会很高，因为这些动画在游戏中经常会出现。增加游戏中脚步声的多样性很快便能够改变这种重复性过高的现象，让玩家更喜欢在游戏世界中四处走动。在《Good Foley》中，音效循环随环境发生微妙的改变，同时保持游戏内和过场动画中音效风格的一致性，注重小细节，这些都使游戏音频得到提升，促使玩家完全沉浸在游戏世界中。它还能给用户提供更多或许没有注意到的有关环境的信息。

3、在音境中融入足够的动态：《战神3》是动态音境的绝妙例证。精心设置的融合使音效元素可以随奎托斯在世界中的移动而发生微妙的改变。动作音效可以呈现出其与玩家的距离。再融合上环绕音轨，使得音轨为场景增添更多的情感深度。

4、灵活而有“弹性”的乐谱：弹性乐谱会根据游戏玩法随玩家选择的改变而进行“可适应”调整。使用分支音乐系统使得音乐或敲击层次可以覆盖于核心层次上，加强紧张感或产生积极的情感共鸣。层次可以用来在玩家需要向前移动时构建紧张感，随着敌人靠近和包围玩家的角色，可以添加更具紧张感的旋律和层次。当玩家角色生命值较低时，也可以用音乐层次来构建紧张感。即时DSP效果可以用来协助这些音乐层次，过滤音效产生生命值逐渐丧失的效果。通过移除特定音轨，便可以剥离之前附加的层次，在玩家重新获得生命值、杀死包围自己的敌人、回到游戏的探索中并进入下个阶段时让游戏的紧张感消失。《黑色洛城》使用的便是能够随游戏玩法变更的音乐暗示，引导玩家在游戏中做出下个动作。在首个任务或教程阶段，游戏引导玩家去搜索线索。屏幕上的文字告诉玩家，当该地点中的所有线索都被发现时音乐便会淡出，音乐旋律也会暗示场景中可以检查的物品。一段小旋律显示物品需要进一步调查。教程阶段结束后，玩家在游戏中就需要根据音乐暗示来收集线索。

游戏中音效设计的技术层面也随游戏音频的演变而改变。音频设计师可以通过使用Fmod或Wwise等中间件来执行音频设计，无需程序员过多地参与其中，这样便可以加大对音境效果的控制。为互动性游戏成分设计音频充满挑战性，因为玩家的动作可能在游戏过程中不断改变，所以音效也同样需要做出改变。FMOD之类的音频中间件可以帮助音频设计师克服游戏音频中的重复性问题，最优化使用游戏平台资源来创造出动态音效环境。它还能够让音频执行者察觉到在游戏中的情境发展时音乐层次发生何种改变。这使音频执行者可以确保音乐无缝地从简单流向综合和复杂再回到简单，中间不会出现断层或差错，从而迅速地让玩家沉浸入游戏世界中。

游戏邦注：本文发稿于2011年5月26日，所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Emergence in Game Audio

Gina Zdanowicz

It’s no secret that over the years game audio has evolved from sound chip generated blips and beeps with simple musical melodies to three-dimensional SFX with epic sound tracks. In the past, game audio has been viewed as a backdrop to the game’s visuals. However, more recent advances in game audio demonstrates that sound is no longer a subtle component of the game experience. In fact, sound is one of the key factors for total player immersion into to 3D virtual environment. Interactive soundscapes are the vehicle that forms the interactive partnership between the player and the game. Game audio designers are tasked with immersing the player into these 3D worlds and keeping them there by creating a unified soundscape made up diegetic (actual) and non-diegetic (commentary) sounds for both linear and interactive segments of the game.

As emergent game play becomes the more desired technique in game design, the outcome is a globally designed game system comprised of rules and boundaries for player interactions, rather than scripted paths and events. Players can use basic elements of the game such as the story or strategic moves to play the game in a way that was not specifically designed or implemented by the game designer. What does this mean for game audio designers? Simply put, game audio designers need to create techniques to adapt to this emergent and highly user interactive medium.

Emergent game design encourages replayability as each time the player plays the game they make different decisions, which changes the game as a whole and results in different possibilities for action and endings. Additional sounds and music are needed for the action brought on by these different choices. For example in the game Scribblenauts, the player can choose from over 10,000 pre-programmed words to create objects that will be needed to complete tasks in the game by writing it out. For instance, if a player wants a saw, they simply type or write, “saw” and it will appear in the game. The player then has the freedom to use and move the saw around in any strategic manner possible. What’s interesting about this from an audio perspective is the fact that there are so many unique sound effects associated with the magnitude of objects that can be created by the player. The same magnitude of sounds can be found in larger more open-ended game worlds but the draw in Scribblenauts is both the ability to create objects and to see and hear them in action on screen.

As game play choices and games become more filmic and realistic by nature, game audio designers adapt film audio techniques to achieve an epic and adaptive sound for their game environments. In the past, one of the biggest problems facing game audio has been the endless repetition of SFX that are triggered constantly along with short pieces of music which loop endlessly through the game without changing.

With increased memory available on modern consoles, game audio designers are filling their games’ soundscape with a variety of sounds that greatly improve the quality of this new generation of games:

Crisp dialog that cuts through the mix: Drake’s Fortune Uncharted 2 Among Thieves recorded all dialog while capturing the physical performance for the game on the Mo-Cap stage. Having all of the actors read their lines together on a single stage added a more definitive spontaneity to the scenes that you just can’t capture when recording lines separately in a sound booth.

Minimizing repetition using alternate SFX: Game animations such as footsteps, effort noises or armor movement can become very repetitive if there are only a couple of sounds, which are constantly triggered for each of those animations. Adding subtle variety to footsteps in a game can break up that repetition quickly and make walking around the game world more enjoyable for the player. Good Foley, ambient loops that change subtly with the environment as well as flow consistently between in-game and cut scenes and attention to the little details enhance the games audio and immerse the player fully into the world. It can also provide more information to the user about their environment that they may not have been aware of.

Mixing the soundscape with enough dynamics: God of War 3 is a great example of a dynamic soundscape. The carefully mastered mix allows the sound elements to change subtly as Kratos moves through the world. Action in the distance sound closer as the action moves into what was the foreground. Ambient tracks mixed in a way that allows action in the foreground to supersede while allowing the music track to add emotional depth to the scene.

Adaptive musical score: Adaptive Musical scores “adapt” as the game play changes and evolves based on the player’s choices. The use of branching music systems or stems allows the layering of musical or percussive tracks layers that can be flown in over the core layer to add enhanced tension or a positive vibe to the over all mood. Layers are used to build intensity as the player needs to be directed to move forward and additional layers with more tension and maybe more rhythm will be added as enemies approach and surround the players’ character. Layers of music can also build intensity, as the player’s character health is low. Real time DSP effects can be used in conjunction with these musical layers to filter the sound to give the effect of a dizzying loss of life. Layers can then be stripped away to lighten up the mood a bit by removing some of the rhythmic tracks and pulling back on the intensity as your player regains health or kills off the surrounding enemies and gets back to exploring the game and moving onto the next stage. L.A. Noire is a great example of using musical cues that adapt to changing game play or to lead the player to the next action in the game. During the first mission or tutorial phase the player is instructed to search for clues. On-screen text informs the player that the music will fade down when all clues in that location have been discovered and musical chimes will indicate objects that can be examined. A small chime indicates objects that need to be inspected further. Once the tutorial phase is over, it is up to the player to follow the musical cues through the game.

As game audio evolves, so does the technical aspect of sound design in games. Audio designers have the ability to handle implementation of audio by using middle ware such as Fmod or Wwise with little to no programmer involvement therefore generating more control over the soundscape. Creating audio for interactive game segments can be a challenge as the players’ actions are able to alter the course of the game constantly and the sound needs to evolve along with those changes. Audio middleware such as FMOD helps the audio designer overcome the issue of repetition in game audio by enabling the creation of a dynamic sound environment while optimizing resources of the game’s platform. It also allows the audio implementer to see what is happening to the layers of music as situations develop in the game. It unveils a sort of behind the scenes look at the process from the viewpoint of the middleware. This allows the audio implementer to be sure the music flows seamlessly from simple to percussive and complex and back to simple again with out any hiccups or a break in the sonic soundscape, which would quickly draw the deeply immersed player out of the game world. (Source: Game Design Aspect)