篇目1，举实例说明当代游戏音效制作的三种方法

作者：Damian Kastbauer

游戏邦注：本文发布于2010年1月28日，文中所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。

近期游戏音效发展领域得很不错。随着我们逐渐在当前控制器时代中前进，许多新兴音效的最佳范例通过文章、展示和视频被展现出来。

即便从某种程度上来说，游戏进入下个时代的比赛才刚刚开始，但自4年前Xbox 360发布这个发令枪响时，发展迅速的技术音效设计中某些有超前意识的领军人物已经研发出新型技术，并成功开发出极具灵感的音效。

现在还有人想着给玩家在游戏中带来最丰富的音效体验，这种感觉真得很棒。从某种程度上来说，每个致力于游戏音效的人都在尝试解决许多相同的问题。

无论你从事的是动态混合系统、互动音乐或逼真的呼吸系统，同行业者也在尝试解决与你相同的问题，为他们自己的游戏提供支持。

为解开音效制作的谜团，我将细致分析当代的游戏音效，列举出某些先驱者和优秀人物。本文将主要关注今日的多平台竞争中的技术音效设计师。

混响

自早期PC平台的EAX诞生以来，混响这个领域获得进展，它近期的进步得益于其在音效中间件工具中的普及。

将混响用于某个游戏层面中，并在混音子集中运用单个预设的运算法则，已经成为标准的做法。许多开发者将这个步骤再次深化，以当前玩家所处位置为基础，制作可产生不同混响效果的混响区域。

而且，这些预设已经被延伸至玩家所处区域外的其他地区，这样来自不同区域的声音便可以使用原本的区域和设定，以获得混响信息。这是游戏行业必不可少的要素，你必须细致平衡所有资源，用来加强游戏设计。

尽管预设混响和混响区域已成为标准，也颇受音效设计师喜爱，但仍然可以再次发展至即时音效。计算游戏运行中某个声音的混响既可以通过在声音播放时计算其几何体，也可以利用混响卷积。

2007年随着《Crackdown》的面世，Realtime Worlds首倡即时卷积式混响的想法。

Raymond Usher对Xbox团队说道：“当我们听说复杂的混响/反射/卷积或‘音效阴影’系统在《Crackdown》中的表现后，便意识到可以如此制作即时枪战声。由于我们可以模拟游戏中每个3D声音的真实反射，在配以合适的内容，就可以为玩家创造前所未有的听觉体验。”

那么，什么是以每个声音为背景实行的光线跟踪和卷积即时混响呢？

“在物理学中，光线追迹可以用来计算光束在介质中传播的情况。在介质中传播时，光束可能会被介质吸收，改变传播方向或者射出介质表面等。我们通过计算理想化的窄光束（光线）通过介质中的情形来解决这种复杂的情况。”（游戏邦注：此解释源自维基百科）

卷积的概念解释如下：“在音效信号过程中，卷积混响指数字模拟物理或虚拟领域混响的过程。这个过程以数学混响运转为基础，使用预录音效范例的脉冲响应。为产生这种混响效果，脉冲响应首先储存在数字化信号处理系统中。随后，用进入的音效信号环绕以产生这个过程。”（游戏邦注：此解释源自维基百科）

最终你获得的是预录的脉冲响应，空间通过对环绕物理空间的光线追踪来修饰。这使得声音能够即时交流，更容易识别3D空间某点触发声音的位置和力度变化，声音通过当前环绕区域的几何体进行反射。

当你驾车驶于《Crackdown》中的Pacific City时，可以在枪击声、爆炸声、物理物体和车载广播中听出上述做法的效果。值得注意的是，出自Ruffian Games之手的《Crackdown 2》将于近期内畅销于各大商店，Realtime Worlds的新MMO游戏《全面通缉》也将如此。

近期关于Audiokinetic的Wwise toolset的新闻暗示了卷积混响未来的使用效果，希望即时混响的想法能够进一步整合至运行的三维空间中。

环境音效

我们可以听到屋外正在下雪，除此之外，还有计算机的嗡嗡声、车流声、小鸟间歇的鸣叫声，还有敲击键盘的声音。生活中处处充满声音。

无论是随机性的声音还是手机响起时有规律的响声，声音世界总在你的日常生活中占一定空间，帮助提示所处的环境。

我们已经经历过各个控制器时代中的真实自然随机音效、基于位置的音效和弦乐及动态环境音效。在此过程中学到了许多经验，以及某些帮助声音设计师做出将这些声音融入游戏环境技术世界中的艺术选择。

我们在尝试模拟周遭世界或仅存于脑中的世界，而且在正在这条无尽之路上不断进步。

根据不同情形，遗忘的世界可以充满动作和生命。这种“充满活力”的感觉大部分通过丰富的动态环境质感表达出来，Bethesda Softworks的音效团队细致地完成了这项工作。音效设计师Marc Lambert在发布前起在开发者日记上提供了环境系统的某些背景，具体内容如下：

“团队构建起真正出色的场景，有完整的昼夜循环和动态天气。这些环境的全音效细节需要系统化的方法，这点上我获得了程序员和Elder Scrolls Construction Set的帮助，基于游戏中的地理区域配上一整套声音，给予时间限制和天气参数。”

在玩家花无数个小时升级角色并收集草药和在森林或地下城中配备毒药的游戏中，扩大体验的关键在于非重复性行为的想法。我们可以从音效上实现这种做法，通过引进动态环境音效来补偿玩家在解决某些重复性和无可避免的任务时产生的游戏体验。

Bethesda Softworks音效设计师Marc Lamber还说道：“我认为环境音效强调是游戏音效中另一个强势点。相对从地下城入口处走出看到日光时带来的那种空间和新鲜感，令人毛骨悚然的寂静、遥远的呻吟声和隆隆声能产生恐怖的体验。游戏中无数地下空间的声音通过手工来处理，使用的并非系统性的方法。”

毫无疑问，环境音效可妥善用于空间交流中。当你将分离音境和基于等级的工具结合起来，恰当使用这些声音想法，动态和相互作用可以用来创造不断改变的音效，根据环境和参数自然发生改变。

同样，在《神鬼寓言2》中，音效设计师可以直接在地图中加入环境音效层。在视频开发日志中，Lionhead音效总监Russel Shaw解释道：“我设计了一个系统，可以将环境音效层加载真实的《神鬼寓言2》地图中。这样当你跑过森林时，我们可以播放丛林主题音乐。从一个环境切换到另一个环境很关键，因而必须首先确保技术。”

这可以视作当代控制器圈中的另一种趋势，音效设计师可以处理每个方面的音效，其在游戏中使用的方法现在已很普及。

过去，制作声音素材并附上说明后发给程序员的做法并不常见。音效并非原始内容设计的部分，需要手动编码至关卡合适的位置中，任何参数或转变信息深度编码至引擎中。

很显然，这种无需部门间传递就可以制作、执行来完成任务确实有好处。我觉得以这种做法可以从音效制作和整合的过程中获得收益，将创意性工具交到心存互动的音效设计师和专业制作人员手中，让他们为这些流线型工作流程铺平道路。

随着我们不断深化在游戏中呈现现实的方式，我们在这些世界中的音效也应当有所改变。在《孤岛危机》中，开发商Crytek取得了巨大的飞跃，他们向玩家提供了现实化的沙盘，以使玩家与周围的模拟世界互动。在2008年游戏开发者大会上，Tomas Neumann和Christian Schilling讲述了他们的思考方法：“环境音效通过在地图上标注各音效区域来实现，某些区域可能与其他重叠或位于其他区域中。Schilling认为自然环境应该根据玩家发生改变，但环境也要求动态行为，比如枪响后鸟叫声停止。”

在游戏中，所有的设置都想让玩家沉浸在充满生气的世界中。上述做法实属团队的妙举，带来玩家此前从未体验过的互动行为。

总音效师Christian Schilling在受媒体采访时继续解释基本概念，并提供其他背景：

“在自然中探索意味着你会听到鸟、昆虫、动物、风、水及其他物质的声音。这些玩家远近的所有声音都属于环境。用枪开火意味着你会听到鸟飞走的声音，随后便是寂静。”

“当然，我认为关键在于这里的寂静不仅指代风、水和其他物质的声音，还意指远处的声音（游戏邦注：比如远处动物的叫声和其他声音）。但是我们在游戏中并没去除近处蚊子的声音，时时刻刻在玩家耳畔飞来飞去，因为我们觉得他们对枪响并不在意。”

“那么在开枪之后，你依然可以听到的是近处的声响，如微风拂过树叶或附近树皮坠落（游戏邦注：这些都是离玩家较近的环境）。而且还有远处的环境音效，可能是远处的风、海洋和动物。无论是什么动物，只要声音足够远使玩家分辨不出即可。还加上其他远处的声响，预示着某些事件即将到来。”

“在《孤岛危机》的各个关卡中，我们零星地设置了许多敌营，因而你可能听到某些人在远处摔平底锅或关门的声音。玩家可以根据声音大致判断敌营的位置，这样就能够循声找到敌营。”

“这无疑需要大量的工作，但我们觉得如果玩家选择以睿智的方式来玩这个游戏，也就是细心观察并在攻击前制定计划，他可以从这种设计中获得好处。”

以这种方式设计音效，他们可通过环境音效让玩家融入游戏环境中。他们实现的关卡细节设计值得赞赏，已证实是某种前卫的尝试，进一步通过音效设计来模拟显示。

参数

如果我们真正想要在视频游戏中呈现现实世界，那么就必须考虑逼真呈现环境的行为和尝试的每个方面，以传达游戏想告诉玩家的信息。当我们可以有效塑造和传达屏幕上动作的现实声音时，就可以进一步完善与玩家互动的过程。

现在我们逐渐在音效制作中看到的是，尝试利用潜在模拟的价值令声音更为精致和逼真话，之前受CPU限制非常难或根本无法实现。

游戏音效从业人员评论和讲解“小细节”是常有的事，他们用声音来以极不明显的方式来增加游戏的可玩性。尽管之前受到RAM配给限制无法实现，现在我们可以积极地最大化利用每个平台的额外资源。利用这些资源的部分内容就是使用运行特征和参数来更改内容，使用自定义工具和音效中间件来与游戏引擎产生联系。

在《Ghostbusters》的Wii版本中，Gl33k音效团队负责内容创作和执行。他们影响即时参数控制功能改变各种混合方式。

在Namco Bandai的《Cook or Be Cooked》中，负责人Barker通过邮件说道：“我尝试在烹饪中加入音效，当牛排发出滋滋声时，这种效果确实比牛排随着时间变焦更具现实性。这让我改变了游戏中需要的音效，提供更具现实性的烹饪。这种设计很微妙，而且多数人从未注意到，但做起来确实很复杂。”

“我大致将烹饪分为4个阶段，从开始直至烧焦。每个阶段演化至下个阶段都有衔接。这些都只通过简单的步骤来修饰，比如轻抛某种事物或将其转移至烤箱中。我们尝试在游戏中融入尽可能多的变量，而且几乎每个声音都有个随机的容器与之相配。”

同样，使用FMOD Designer工具包设计Nihilistic Software的《Conan》时，开发商也可以基于物体接近玩家来使用远距参数来调整DSP设定。

尽管参数值时常出现在屏幕中，但是通常不能直接用于音效上。我们可以用互动声音设计艺术来基于游戏改变音效，让玩家更投入游戏中，当代音效引擎和工具展示出来的特征已可以实现上述目的。

在2008年的《蜘蛛侠：影之网》中，Shaba Games首席音效设计师Brad Meyer可以玩家角色的优良或邪恶本性以及每个关卡的动态情感来决定使用的声音和音效，使用的是Wwise工具包。

从《蜘蛛侠》过渡到《Venom》，Wwise可以使用DSP触发音效。这种改变可以通过Wwise工具来试听，能够做出比较。这种仿制功能是当代音效设计的关键组成部分，反复试听和精致可用于开发健全的音效系统和高度专业的声音设计。

Brad Meyer在邮件中写道：“我在音效执行层面上的做法是在蜘蛛侠转为黑装时降下音调，同时还加入某些参数EQ。这两种效果的结合让黑装听起来更强，而红装听起来更欢快和祥和。这种效果很微妙，部分原因在于我不想让玩家老是听到同一个音乐，但我认为这种效果是潜意识的。”

强大的工具包确实能给设计师带来帮助，可以在无需完善游戏引擎的帮助下实时尝试多种概念是很棒的事情。

在开发过程中我们可以便捷使用音效想法和技术，我们可以继续在问题中寻找最佳的可能解决方案，我们能通过努力来确保呈现的声音能符合游戏中的行动。

在技术音效设计领域中，现在游戏工作室的工作人员有很多机会。设计师可以直接通过工具包让基于范例的音效更贴近互动行为。

对于这些将想法实现的伟人，我们确实有很多可借鉴之处。我希望通过列举这些互动音效的样例，这样可以继续创新，将游戏音效推动至下个时代。

篇目2，关于游戏音频制作和整合的10个技巧

作者：Tristan Donovan

音效对任何游戏都至关重要，但是专注于哪些方面才能让你到达电子游戏媒介的巅峰呢？Gamasutra采访了多个音频总监，他们分享了10个音效建议和想法。

1、专注于关键的音效

THQ旗下工作室Volition的音频总监Ariel Gross说道：“在《黑道圣徒3》开发期间，我们时常提出‘这个音效对玩家是否有意义？’这样的问题。”

“有些音效只需要添加并恰当呈现即可。如果你击中一个垃圾桶，那么就需要播放类似于垃圾桶的音效，但这种音效对玩家是否有意义呢？通常情况下并没有什么意义。它们只是需要存在于游戏中。所以，我们花在这处对象冲击音效上的声音要少于在任务重要时刻中的独特音效。”

“我们必须不断询问自己‘这个音效有多重要？’和‘玩家是否会在意这段音效？’如果确实是玩家可能在意的音效，我们便会投入时间、金钱和资源，但是如果答案是‘这并不十分重要’，那么我们便会花较少的时间来设计这些音效。”

2、模糊化音效和音乐间的界限

在为Playdead的《Limbo》制作音频时，Martin Stig Andersen使用了电声作曲。他说道：“我有电声作曲的背景，在这种方法中，并非编写管弦乐曲谱，而是记录音效，然后将音效拼接成音乐。为实现目标，我使用了与音效设计师相同的工具，但是我认为自己的做法更贴近于音乐和作曲。”

他说道，《Limbo》中小男孩靠近蜘蛛的时刻便是这种方法有效的绝妙例证。“我没有采用添加传统音乐的方法，而是使用来自环境的音效来营造出相同的效果。所以，当你靠近蜘蛛时，风声依然会存在，因为这种音效产生的紧张感不亚于小提琴之类的乐器。但是，我在游戏中没有使用抽象的管弦乐音效，而是利用来自游戏空间的音效。”

3、成为出色的管家

EA旗下《FIFA》系列游戏音频总监Jeff MacPherson说道：“维护音效库并不是件有趣的工作，但却是最重要的工作之一，如果做不好可能会出现最糟糕的情况。”

“我在与他人合作或雇佣员工时，最看重的就是良好的管理技能。如果你不会管理有着5万个范例的数据库，那么你可能在今后的工作中犯错误，导致很严重的事情发生。有些未经许可的东西被添加到游戏中，于是你会被起诉。或者，如果将脏话等不良内容添加到游戏中，会导致作品的评分很低。”

“你还可能丢失内容或没有添加合适的内容。我们花了大量资金来获得不同的音频内容，所以如果你无法恰当地管理数据库和备份系统，你就会陷入麻烦之中。”

4、大世界需要小音效

与其他类型游戏相比，开放世界游戏更依赖于流动音效，所以Volition的Gross认为控制音频文件大小很重要。

他说道：“如果玩家正在驾驶汽车，那么环境就处在流动中，我们必须确保游戏中的音效与现实世界相似。所以，我们将音效文件制作得尽可能小一些。”

但是，尽早感受和测试音频也很重要。他说道：“你需要尽早使用DVD模拟器在PS3上感受音频的效果，而不是等到其被运用到游戏中。”

“在制作《黑道圣徒3》时，我们随后惊恐地发现，当我们开始在DVD模拟和蓝光上播放时，多数音效无法正常播放。我们不得不回头对所有的音效进行优化处理，对其进行进一步压缩。这个过程对团队来说简直是噩梦。”

5、音效应当服务于游戏设计

PopCap采用的方法是，让音效为游戏设计提供支持，公司音频总监Guy Whitmore如是说。他说道：“音效的作用是向玩家传达对游戏过程至关重要的内容。”

PopCap音频制作人Becky Allen说道，公司近期发布的Facebook游戏《Solitaire Blitz》中的音乐便是例证。“在游戏中，玩家共拿到10张牌。当玩家一次性出7张牌时，游戏就会播放钟琴声。出第8张牌时，又会播放不同的音乐，第9张牌的音乐也有所不同，这种音乐设计与游戏设计相配合。这种进展性的声调告知玩家他们朝着正确的方向发展。”

6、探索音效心理学

自由音效设计师Alistair Lindsay说道，我们听到的不只是音效产品，还是我们的思维状态。他提出问题：“你或许在游戏中见到过大爆炸，但它们是否反映出你作为参战士兵的感觉？”

“我曾经同参加过战争的士兵交谈过，有人说你的同伴在你附近开火，声音听起来就像他与你相隔200码，但是对于那些向你开火的人，你会觉得他就在你身边。音效不是简单的层叠，它会受人类感知的影响。”

Lindsay希望能够利用人类的感知来强化自己的作品。在《Prison Architect》中，游戏在凶杀案的过场动画中恰当地呈现了手枪的音效。

他说道：“在随后的过场动画中，我们使用了同样的音效，是为了让玩家回想起之前的那样情感状态。”

7、让同行评论正在设计中的音效

Gross说道：“我们在Volition提倡同辈评论。我们在设计音效时，完成前我们会让所有参与者发表看法。在你的工作期间，可以将半成品呈现给同样从事音频行业的人，让他们发表看法，这样我们就可以在真正将其执行到游戏中之前加以润色。”

“所以，在音效被运用到游戏中之前，我们已经重复改良了2到3遍。营造可在开发过程中安全分享音效的环境，这确实帮了我们很大的忙，因为我们知道重复制作的时间并不多。”

8、展开PR活动

EA的MacPherson说道：“音频处在竞争激烈的领域，所以我们需要通过PR活动来获得资源。”

“传播音频重要性对游戏和行业来说很重要，因为它不像图像或游戏玩法那样有形。对于图像来说，你可以在任意时间暂停，任何人都可以寻找其中是否存在瑕疵，但是音效并非如此。除非你特意指出，否则人们很可能遗忘音效部分。他们只会注意到音频的不良状况。”

为获得支持，《FIFA》的音频团队使用AV对比来展示音频的重要性，解释在音频中投入更多资源能够改善用户的游戏体验。

9、不遵从逻辑

Playdead的Andersen说道：“在游戏中，人们往往采取更富逻辑性的方法，比如某个对象在这个地方，那么它就应当发出这种音效。这就像机器一般：你向对象添加音效，然后它们将其融合。”

“我更偏爱主观融合。我融合了部分总是能够取悦玩家的音效，只要对象对玩家不再重要，我就会将其删除。我发现，让《Limbo》中的男孩时刻处在音效伴奏中很重要，即便他从屏幕的中心移出。我觉得这有很重要的意义，因为玩家在《地狱边缘》中扮演的就是这个男孩，所以音效应当跟随男孩而不是环境。”

10、参与到开发过程中

Volition的Gross认为，音频团队需要尽早融入到开发过程中。他说道：“许多人认为大量音频工作都是在项目末期开展，所以我们只需要在项目末期融入开发进程即可。但是，如果我们从项目一开始就进入，我们就可以为其他人的潜在计划提供帮助，有时可以修改这些计划。”

音频不仅要融入开发，还要有开放性。Gross说道：“人们可能不喜欢同音频制作者交谈，因为他们不了解我们使用的术语，这是毫无必要的顾忌。我们不能再独立工作，需要参与到整个计划中。我们需要同其他团队成员交谈，邀请他们进入我们的工作室。我们也需要走出工作室，进入他们的工作区域内。我们需要告诉人们，我们是团队的一份子，我们能够为你们的作品赋予听觉上的享受。”

篇目3，阐述音频对游戏的作用以及处理方法

作者：Jefferson Hobbs

可能阅读这篇文章的有两类人：一类是在游戏行业网站的文章标题中看到“音频”这个词而兴奋不已的人，因为这种情况并不多见；另一类才是这篇文章真正的目标受众。

但无论你属于哪一种类型，我想这篇文章都值得一看，其中的内容不会令你失望。

当前发展状态

音频可能是游戏中最不受重视的元素。诚然，有些公司认为音频很有价值，但是通常而言业界对其的看法仍然不甚恰当。

往往，音频并不被当成是游戏发布前应当校验的元素，人们并不愿意投入大量精力将这个部分做好。

不过情况正在发生改变，精确统计行业中音频巨作的数量较为困难，但越来越多的人开始逐渐重视这个方面。

希望这篇文章能够让你明白为何音频对游戏而言很重要，文章将会简要地列举可以用来改善游戏的做法。

音频的影响力

音频能够对游戏产生很大的影响。出于某些原因，人们遗忘了听觉感受。这确实让我感到很为难。怎么会有人认为人类某种感知能力不会影响玩家的体验呢？这是毫无缘由的想法。对于游戏开发者而言，真正需要做的是退一步看看音频究竟能够产生多大作用。

以下这些有关音频的事情可能你并不知晓。希望你能够通过以下内容了解到音频是游戏中的重要成分。

听觉很难被欺骗：如果你的音频做得不好，玩家很容易便会察觉。他们可能并不会意识到究竟是哪方面除了问题，但是他们知道肯定有什么地方不对。Alan Kraemer（游戏邦注：SRS Labs首席技术官）曾经跟我说过一个理论，与视觉等感知方式相比，音频有着相对较低的带宽。因而，大脑可以对音效做更加彻底的分析。这使得人们很难受到欺骗。

音频让事物看起来更棒：在消费电子行业中有个极为著名的研究，科研人员通过单纯改变音效质量就影响到测试者对电视画面的感受。他们选取了两个完全相同的电视片段，只是麦克风效果不同而已。当测试者被问及对视频质量的感想时，较多的人认为有着音频更好的电视更加好看。我确信这个测试也可以应用到游戏中。知道可以单纯通过改善音效来提升游戏图像这种做法的人并不多。

电影行业：长久以来，电影行业一直都很认同音频的价值。许多的情感都通过音效来表达。恐怖电影中总是在忽然呈现画面时播放骇人的音效。如果没有精美卓绝的音频，《星球大战》或许并不能成为如此优秀的影片。电影行业在音效中投入了大量的时间和精力，因为他们知道这么做能够帮助他们赚钱。

动用整个大脑：音乐可以激活整个大脑，甚至能够触发某些化学物质的产生。如果音频不重要的话，那么大脑显然会将其过滤。

即便有时并不一定是必备要素，但音频也是某些人们需要的东西：正如心理学中的其他误解一般，人们或许并不知道自己对音频的需求。人们不要求某些东西并不意味着这件东西不重要。

散弹枪：所有人都很喜欢散弹枪。为什么呢？因为音效确实很震撼。

如何使用音频

首先，使用音频并不困难。制成优秀音频所需耗费的人力和精力远比优秀图像、游戏玩法或实体要少得多。通常情况下，在游戏中添加音频会遇到的最大障碍是意识到需要添加不同的音频而不是一直重复播放。

以下我列举了某些公司可以使用的步骤，帮助其在游戏中添加音频：

1、获得优秀的音效资产。添加音频前必须先做好准备。

2、至少雇佣1名通晓音频知识的工程师。这个工程师无需将100%的精力全部投入到音频中，但是他们必须对音效、音乐或互动音频较为熟悉。

3、尽量雇佣专门的内部音效设计师。这或许会让公司付出大量资金，但是如果你能够负担得起这笔费用，花这笔钱是值得的。这会使得音频与游戏的整合加速，提供新音频特征想法。

4、倾听游戏音效，然后像检验新游戏机制那样提出意见和评论。如果音频不佳，那么就重新制作。

5、优先注重音乐，其次才是音效。音乐总是存在于游戏中，而且需要表达情感。确保音乐能够与游戏相匹配。实现这个目标之后，你可以将注意力转移到音效上。

需要考虑的音频效果

在博文结束之前，我想提供某些简单的音效措施，这可以提升你的游戏质量。这些东西可能你之前没有考虑过，但是可以通过OpenSL ES之类的API来实现。

1、死亡的EQ——当玩家生命值较少时，降低3D效果，应用低层次的过滤器。这会产生一种清晰度下降，玩家的界面变得模糊的效果。

2、电影立体扩展——在电影点时扩展音效。比如，假设玩家走过一条小过道进入某个有BOSS或者会播放过场动画的大房间，你可以在刚开始使用较为低沉的音效，然后在房门打开时将其扩展。

3、大爆炸——使用低沉音效来提升爆炸效果。

4、包围音效——在音效上使用立体扩展，呈现玩家被火、雨或蜜蜂包围的场景。

篇目4，音频设计师Van den Wijngaarden谈工作经历及经验

作者：Vlad Micu/Javier Sancho

在音频设计师兼作曲师Jonathan van den Wijngaarden的职业生涯中，幻象不时破灭，有些美好开局的故事最后却没有圆满收场。他曾经在荷兰两个最有前景的工作室工作过，却都因树立过高的目标而失败，但是他仍然保持着乐观心态，吸取自己此前失败的经验教训，转变成为独立音频设计师和作曲师。

远距离顾问

在VCR属于最高端科技的年代里，Van den Wijngaarden是少数接触到家用PC的幸运孩子之一。他的父亲在IT部门工作，这使他及其家人成为荷兰首批接触PC的人。“他以前给我买过《吃豆人》和《Dig Dug》等游戏的软盘，不久之后我拥有了属于自己的PC，因此体验过众多共享件游戏。”

玩过一段时间的PC后，14岁的Van den Wijngaarden开始自行制作《命令与征服》的脚本和模型。他回忆道：“我过去常常将自己的磁带录音机放在PC旁边，录下《命令与征服》的音乐，这样我不玩游戏的时候也可以听到这些音乐。”通过《命令与征服》mod制作社区，他通过电子邮件联系了负责该游戏音乐制作的天才设计师Frank Klepacki。接下来的4年时间里，他们经常互发邮件，Klepacki在此期间为Van den Wijngaarden制作的音乐提出自己的建议。当时，他还参加了钢琴教授课程，但这并无法满足他自行制作音乐的愿望。“我放弃了钢琴课程，这样我就能全心全意地投入到音乐作曲中。Frank Klepacki成了我的正式顾问，在游戏音频设计方面给了我全面的指导。”

Van den Wijngaarden试水游戏行业是进入Coded Illusions工作。他接触了公司的创始人Richard Stitselaar。Stitselaar刚刚离开Guerrilla Games，创办了自己的游戏公司。他们两人都对游戏很感兴趣，尤其是《命令与征服》，当Stitselaar得知他曾师从Klepacki学习游戏音频制作后，觉得他对自己的公司会有帮助。

他们的首个合作想法《Nomos》（游戏邦注：项目早期称为《Haven》）未完成便已夭折，这是款带有宗教元素、《银翼杀手》风格的科幻游戏。他回忆道：“我们挤在一间小型办公室内，我常常戴着耳机制作音频，数米之外的其他员工用播放器大声放着猫王的歌曲。当时，我们显得并不专业。”当Coded Illusions获得首次投资后，事情有所改观。相对首批雇员的行为，工作室显得更为专业，许多新员工来自于Guerrilla。但是在工作室中，Van den Wijngaarden仍然需要负责多项事务，不仅要进行音频的设计，还要负责管理、关卡设计、挑选游戏设计想法和编写故事以及对话。

Coded Illusions的失败

2004年，Coded Illusions的未来似乎很光明。在随后的4年半中，团队极有抱负地工作着，Van den Wijngaarden亲切地说道：“我们像朋友般合作，制作很棒的东西。虽然我们的经验尚有欠缺，但是我们充满了激情。”不幸的是，团队的激情并没有挽救公司的失败局面。2008年末，Coded Illusion在短时间内便倒闭了，这群人还没反应过来就发现自己已经失业了。到底是哪里出了问题呢？Van den Wijngaarden说道：“刚开始事情进展得很顺利，我们自行为游戏构建引擎。但是在2004年夏天，某些公司管理人员参加了GDC，首次见识了虚幻引擎3。当时，Xbox360刚刚发布，因此开始采用新引擎制作游戏似乎显得格外诱人。”他解释道：“行业正处在转折点，我们认为应当为下一代主机游戏的开发做好准备。”于是，虚幻引擎3成了工作室新的倚重工具。他回忆道：“它确实非常吸引人。但虚幻引擎3却并没有让项目的成长受益，因为我们在项目中添加了过多超过我们开发能力的新想法。《Nomos》不再是个小型游戏，而是让开发团队精疲力竭的虚幻引擎3游戏。”团队的激情使他们想要通过该引擎来实现各种新功能，在游戏中添加RPG元素、更多的动作和更多的故事，而这个面向射击类游戏的引擎根本无法承载如此多的内容。换句话说，代码已经无法处理团队编织的过高幻想。

令人感到讽刺的是，团队的激情和创意反倒开始成为负担。“我们无法将游戏出售给发行商，因为游戏的完成度还不够，而且没有人愿意削减游戏的内容。”

现在，较小的游戏，包括内容被削减后的较大项目，可以很容易地利用数字化销售渠道，获得广大的休闲玩家市场。Van den Wijngaarden解释道：“但是在当时，数字化独立游戏市场还未受到重视。”所以，整个团队不知道要如何继续发展这个抱负过高的想法，而资金上的问题进一步加重了公司的困境。Van den Wijngaarden承认：“如果公司从小型项目开始做起，应该算是更为睿智的选择。从预算较低的项目做起，然后逐渐加大前进的步伐。作为公司，我们不可能在短时间内就突飞猛进，当时付出的许多精力现在看来都是徒劳。”

为童话故事而奋斗

2008年秋，Coded Illusions整个团队的梦想彻底破灭了。创始人Richard Stitselaar成功保住了IP，创办了新公司Vertigo Games。他雇佣了旧公司的部分团队成员，开始开发《Adam’s Venture》。和许多前团队成员一样，Van den Wijngaarden选择前往Playlogic Game Factory，这个工作室全力开发其首款跨平台游戏《Fairytale Fights》。“我很容易便进入了工作室。在Coded Illusion的工作中，我获得了丰富的虚幻引擎和音频方面的经验，因此我几乎无需面试就进入了公司。”当时，他在Playlogic的工作并不轻松。他在休假的时候进入公司，而《Fairytale Fights》必须在夏季发布。Van den Wijngaarden对此很担心。“在计划还未完善和没有音频设计文件的前提下，我怎样才能在8个月的时间内完成这个项目呢？与新的团队合作会遇到什么问题呢？我决定先放下这些想法和忧虑，尽全力完成项目。”Van den Wijngaarden花了很长时间才回想起这段经历。“这个阶段的工作确实很紧张，几乎形成了我记忆中的黑洞。”

他回忆道：“最主要的方面是，它已经不再是‘我自己’的项目，这也是我必须习惯的地方。其他人已经规划出了《Fairytale Fights》的概念，而且该项目的原型已经塑造了很长时间。”游戏离上架只有8个月的时间，而且现在还没有任何音频成分，Van den Wijngaarden只能挖掘程序说明书来寻找游戏的潜在想法和感觉。“对于这个项目，我的主要专注点在于培养自己同项目间的联系，让它感觉起来像是自己的项目，同时在音频上展示出游戏的特色和个性。”《Fairytale Fights》的独特艺术风格已经成形，看起来就像是塑像黏土版的《Happy Tree Friends》。“《疯狂世界》这款游戏给了我最多的灵感。我努力借鉴其场景方面的多样化设置，在音效上体现出《Fairytale Fights》角色间的差异。为所有武器设置独特的射击和携带移动音效，尽管这个方面的工作量很大，但却是游戏特色中至关重要的环节。”这也是Van den Wijngaarden从其顾问和导师Klepacki身上学到的经验，他说道：“Klepacki曾告诉我，努力在音乐和音效上体现出自己的风格。这也是我崇拜Klepacki的原因，他总是知道如何在设计中坚持贯彻自己的风格。即便我不知道游戏的制作人，我也可以通过游戏的音频识别出这款游戏是由他制作的。”

那么，这次又出了什么问题呢？问题还是出在抱负这把双刃剑上。“我们在时间上有很大的压力，最后我们不得不削减25%已经制作完成的内容。否则，我们无法在规定时间内完成游戏的制作。削减的内容中包括游戏的最后一个章节，共有4个关卡。这意味着我们必须制作新的终极BOSS。起初，我们还想要在游戏中添加某些RPG元素和NPC间的对话。但是，制作NPC对话就意味着我们还必须将这些内容本土化，我们根本没有足够的时间。游戏在短时间内被削减了大量的内容，使《Fairytale Fights》最终成为单纯的打架游戏。”至少，这次团队实现了游戏的削减，而且游戏成功上架了。游戏得以成功地准时面世，主要归功于主管Olivier Lhermite。“他的表现堪称奇迹。不仅制定出合适的工作流程，而且让团队将注意力放在最重要的方面：游戏设计。”Van den Wijngaarden承认，项目的游戏设计启动得太迟了。在之前的时间里，项目的主要侧重点和精力都放在美术风格和场景上，却忽略了游戏最本质的内容。“Olivier确保所有团队成员都理解了游戏玩法，而且全天候工作，保证所有开发进程正常运转。”

在这段充满艰辛的职业生涯中，Van den Wijngaarden时刻铭记Klepacki的另一条经验。“作为创意工作者，在艺术创造和娱乐产品制作间取得平衡是件很困难的事情。作为艺术人员，你的主要注意力应当放在制作出最高质量的作品上，但同时依然要确保有足够的数量。因而，你必须在质量和数量间找到平衡点，确保每个音效都同样卓越。你无法将所有的事情都做到完美，重要的是，你制作出的所有成分间应当和谐一致。这便是我在制作《Fairytale Fights》过程中获得的经验教训。”

篇目5，探讨科幻射击游戏的武器声音设计过程

作者：Michael Bross

我们可以在科幻射击游戏的武器音频中发现一些最有趣和最富有挑战性的电子游戏音效。在这类游戏的声音设计过程中，我们需要考虑到许多棘手的层面。

最重要的是，其音频必须令玩家在使用武器时感到满意。此外，还必须让玩家在特定游戏的成百上千次使用武器的过程中总能获得相同的体验。

游戏的声音设计离不开技术和创意。我们将在本文探讨这两个层面在这一过程中的相互作用。

一般来说，我们是在预制作和制作这两个阶段中制作音频。

预制作：探索和规划阶段

这是一个我们存在大量疑问的阶段，也就是所谓的探索和规划阶段。这是我们首先构思技术设计，以便继续向内容设计推进的过程。一般而言，此时游戏体验中所有的音频和音乐（不只是武器）都要到位。

音频是由游戏设计本身所推动，也会受到技术管道（以及我们如何明智地绕过这些局限性）的制约。而武器音频设计还会受到与之相伴的动画的影响。

从创意角度出发，我们要搜集参照材料。这是为了便于找到灵感以及产生想法以防备大家一时计穷。我们会查看市场上的其他游戏（还有电影），听听其中最酷的武器声音设计。这样有助于我们确立一个标准，然后找到自己可从而借鉴和超越的地方。

何为最适用于游戏的武器声音创意？例如，它是像《星球大战》中那种更像“激光”氛围的声音？还是类似于模拟现代武器并添加一些“未来主义”元素的声音？创造科幻武器的一大妙处就在于它有许多创意空间。

从技术角度来看，这个阶段需要确定许多细节。

*它是什么类型的武器？也许是一杆等离子步枪或者类似重力手榴弹的东西。武器的参数是多少？它是否拥有较高的开火率还是开火较缓慢，但却像狙击步枪一样强大？武器的射程如何？它是一个炮塔还是一种手持武器？

*“事件类型”是什么？在游戏中，因为我们并不处理线性混合结构，而是考虑玩家驱动的可能性，所以一般会将其划分为“事件”。武器事件可以是“开火”、“装弹”、“二次开火”、“超温”、“低弹药存量”等。使用这种方法可以覆盖到游戏音频的所有层面。

*距离模式是什么？也就是武器声音超越一个距离的行为。对于更复杂的武器设计，声音设计师就需要想到近距离样本设置，令其无缝融入远距离样本设置。

关于这方面还可以挖掘出许多其他问题，以上内容却可以作为一个良好的切入点。

制作：令其生效

当构想出武器技术和创意方法时，内容本身的创造工作也就开始了。这里最佳的切入点就是武器的模型，这通常是由玩法视频剪辑或动画输出来完成的。模型有助于构思声音的所有层次和事件如何整合到一起，并且还有助于团队其他人员理解武器声音效果。

优秀的游戏声音设计师会在心里记住如何将这些资产修整成游戏所需资产的理念。

特定声音事件的变体很关键。炮弹坠落到地面是一种重要的事件，在其中植入变化可以增加活力。

这正是部署这些资产可以切入的起点。我们之后就可以将材料输入游戏音频工具（例如Wwise或FMOD）。这个过程通常离不开与其他部门的合作，例如与编程人员或动画人员配合，令声音事件与实际的游戏事件相对应。这件事情发生后，我们才最终听到武器在游戏中的声音效果。但这还不是工作的终结，它还需要内容和武器音效技术方面的更多迭代。

创造简练武器声音的过程不仅仅局限于创造一系列声音文件。它是需要我们找到贯穿整个创造过程的技术和创意挑战解决方案的一种独特经历。这是最令人兴奋的部分！当我们最终听到游戏音频生效，并从玩家角度看到声音设计为整体玩法体验添加的深度时，我们就知道自己走对路了。

篇目1，篇目2，篇目3，篇目4，篇目5（本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao）

篇目1，The Next Big Steps In Game Sound Design

Damian Kastbauer

It’s a great time in game audio these days. As we move forward in the current console generation, several emerging examples of best practices in audio implementation have been exposed through articles, demonstrations, and video examples.

Even though in some ways it feels like the race towards next gen has just begun, some of the forward-thinking frontrunners in the burgeoning field of Technical Sound Design have been establishing innovative techniques and pulling off inspirational audio since the starting gun was fired over four years ago with the release of the Xbox 360.

It’s a good feeling to know that there are people out there doing the deep thinking in order to bring you some of the richest audio experiences in games available today. In some ways, everyone working in game audio is trying to solve a lot of the same problems.

Whether you’re implementing a dynamic mixing system, interactive music, or a living, breathing ambient system, the chances are good that your colleagues are slaving away trying to solve similar problems to support their own titles.

In trying to unravel the mystery of what makes things tick, I’ll be taking a deeper look at our current generation of game sound and singling out several pioneers and outspoken individuals who are leaving a trail of interactive sonic goodness (and publicly available information) in their wake. Stick around for the harrowing saga of the technical sound designer in today’s multi-platform maelstrom.

Reverb

Reverb is one area that has been gaining ground since the early days of EAX on the PC platform, and more recently thanks to its omnipresence in audio middleware toolsets.

It has become standard practice to enable reverb within a single game level, and apply a single preset algorithm to a subset of the sound mix. Many developers have taken this a step further and created reverb regions that will call different reverb presets based on the area the player is currently located. This allows the reverb to change based on predetermined locations using predefined reverb settings.

Furthermore, these presets have been extended to areas outside of the player region, so that sounds coming from a different region can use the region and settings of their origin in order to get their reverberant information. Each of these scenarios is valid in an industry where you must carefully balance all of your resources, and where features must play to the strengths of your game design.

While preset reverb and reverb regions have become a standard and are a welcome addition to a sound designer’s toolbox, there is still the potential to push further into realtime. By calculating the reverb of a sound in the game at runtime either through the calculation of geometry at the time a sound is played or through the use of reverb convolution.

Leading the charge in 2007 with Crackdown, Realtime Worlds set out to bring the idea of realtime convolution reverb to the front line.

“When we heard the results of our complex Reverb/Reflections/Convolution or ‘Audio-Shader’ system in Crackdown, we knew that we could make our gunfights sound like that, only in realtime! Because we are simulating true reflections on every 3D voice in the game, with the right content, we could immerse the player in a way never before heard.”- Raymond Usher, to Team Xbox

So, what is realtime Reverb using ray tracing and convolution in the context of a per-voice implementation? Here’s a quick definition of ray tracing as it applies to physics calculation:

“In physics, ray tracing is a method for calculating the path of waves or particles through a system with regions of varying propagation velocity, absorption characteristics, and reflecting surfaces. Under these circumstances, wavefronts may bend, change direction, or reflect off surfaces, complicating analysis. Ray tracing solves the problem by repeatedly advancing idealized narrow beams called rays through the medium by discrete amounts. Simple problems can be analyzed by propagating a few rays using simple mathematics. More detailed analysis can be performed by using a computer to propagate many rays.” – Wikipedia

On the other side of the coin you have the concept of convolution: “In audio signal processing, convolution reverb is a process for digitally simulating the reverberation of a physical or virtual space. It is based on the mathematical convolution operation, and uses a pre-recorded audio sample of the impulse response of the space being modeled. To apply the reverberation effect, the impulse-response recording is first stored in a digital signal-processing system. This is then convolved with the incoming audio signal to be processed.” – Wikipedia

What you end up with is a pre-recorded impulse response of a space being modified (or convoluted) by the ray-traced calculations of the surrounding physical spaces. What this allows the sound to communicate in realtime is a greater sense of location and dynamics as sound is triggered from a point in 3D space, and sound is reflected off of the geometry of the immediate surrounding area.

You can hear the results of their effort in every gunshot, explosion, physics object, and car radio as you travel through the concrete jungle of Crackdown’s Pacific City. It’s worth noting that Ruffian Games’ Crackdown 2 will be hitting shelves soon, as will Realtime Worlds’ new MMO All Points Bulletin.

With a future for convolution reverb implied by recent news of Audiokinetic’s Wwise toolset, let’s hope the idea of realtime reverb continues to play an integral part in the next steps towards runtime spatialization.

Ambient

Listen, the snow is falling… In addition to that, my computer is humming, traffic is driving by outside, birds are intermittently chirping, not to mention the clacking of my “silent” keyboard. Life is full of sound. We’ve all spent time basking in the endless variation and myriad ways in which the world around us conspires to astound and delight with the magic of its soundscape.

Whether it is the total randomness of each footstep, or the consistency of our chirping cell phones, the sound of the world lends a sense of space to your daily life and helps ground you in the moment.

We are taking steps in every console generation toward true elemental randomization, positional significance, and orchestrated and dynamic ambient sounds. Some of the lessons we have learned along the way are being applied in ways that empower the sound designer to make artistic choices in how these sounds are translated into the technical world of game environments.

We are always moving the ball forward in our never-ending attempts at simulating the world around us… or the world that exists only in our minds.

The world of Oblivion can be bustling with movement and life or devoid of presence, depending on the circumstances. The feeling of “aliveness” is in no small part shaped by the rich dynamic ambient textures that have been carefully orchestrated by the Bethesda Softworks sound team. Audio Designer Marc Lambert provided some background on their ambient system in a developer diary shortly before launch:

“The team has put together a truly stunning landscape, complete with day/night cycles and dynamic weather. Covering so much ground — literally, in this case — with full audio detail would require a systematic approach, and this is where I really got a lot of help from our programmers and the Elder Scrolls Construction Set [in order to] specify a set of sounds for a defined geographic region of the game, give them time restrictions as well as weather parameters.” – Marc Lambert, Bethesda Softworks Newsletter

In a game where you can spend countless hours collecting herbs and mixing potions in the forest or dungeon crawling while leveling up your character, one of the keys to extending the experience is the idea of non-repetitive activity. If we can help to offset that from a sound perspective by introducing dynamic ambiance it can help offset some of the grind the player experiences when tackling some of the more repetitive and unavoidable tasks.

“[The ambient sound] emphasizes what I think is another strong point in the audio of the game — contrast. The creepy quiet, distant moans and rumbles are a claustrophobic experience compared to the feeling of space and fresh air upon emerging from the dungeon’s entrance into a clear, sunny day. The game’s innumerable subterranean spaces got their sound treatment by hand as opposed to a system-wide method.” – Marc Lambert, Bethesda Softworks Newsletter

It should come as no surprise that ambiance can be used to great effect in communicating the idea of space. When you combine the use of abstracted soundscapes and level-based tools to apply these sound ideas appropriately, the strengths of dynamics and interactivity can be leveraged to create a constantly changing tapestry that naturally reacts to the environment and parameters.

Similarly, in Fable II, the sound designers were able to “paint ambient layers” directly onto their maps. In a video development diary, Lionhead audio director Russel Shaw explains: “I designed a system whereby we could paint ambient layers onto the actual Fable II maps. So that as you’re running through a forest for instance, we painted down a forest theme, and the blending from one ambiance to another is quite important, so the technology was lain down first of all.” – Russel Shaw, posted by Kotaku

In what could be seen as another trend in the current console cycle, enabling the sound designers to handle every aspect of sound and the way it is used by the game is just now becoming common. The ability to implement with little to no programmer involvement outside of the initial system design, setup, and toolset creation is directly in contrast to what was previously a symbiotic relationship requiring a higher level of communication between all parties.

In the past, it was not uncommon to create sound assets and deliver them with a set of instructions to a programmer. A step removed from the original content creator, the sounds would need to be hand coded into the level at the appropriate location and any parametric or transition information hard coded deep within the engine.

It is clearly a benefit to the scope of any discipline to be able to create, implement, and execute a clear vision without a handoff between departments to accomplish the task. In this way I feel like we are gaining in the art of audio implementation and sound integration — by putting creative tools in the hands of the interactive-minded sound designers and implementation specialists who are helping to pave the way for these streamlined workflows.

As we continue to move closer towards realistically representing a model of reality in games, so should our worlds react and be influenced by sound and its effect on these worlds. In Crysis, developer Crytek has made tremendous leaps towards providing the player with a realistic sandbox in which to interact with the simulated world around them. In a presentation at the Game Developers Conference in 2008 Tomas Neumann and Christian Schilling explained their reasoning: “Ambient sound effects were created by marking areas across the map for ambient sounds, with certain areas overlapping or being inside each other, with levels of priority based on the player’s location. ‘Nature should react to the player,’ said Schilling, and so the ambiance also required dynamic behavior, with bird sounds ending when gunshots are fired.” – Gamasutra

In a game where everything is tailored towards immersing the player in a living, breathing world, this addition was a masterstroke of understatement from the team and brings a level of interactivity that hadn’t been previously experienced.

Audio Lead Christian Schilling went on to explain the basic concept and provide additional background when contacted:

“Sneaking through nature means you hear birds, insects, animals, wind, water, materials. So everything — the close and the distant sounds of the ambiance. Firing your gun means you hear birds flapping away, and silence.

“Silence of course means, here, wind, water, materials, but also — and this was the key I believe — distant sounds (distant animals and other noises). We left the close mosquito sounds in as well, which fly in every now and then — because we thought they don’t care about gun shots.

“So, after firing your gun, you do hear close noises like soft wind through the leaves or some random crumbling bark of some tree next to you (the close environment), all rather close and crispy, but also the distant layer of the ambiance, warm in the middle frequencies, which may be distant wind, the ocean, distant animals — [it doesn't] matter what animals, just distant enough to not know what they are — plus other distant sounds that could foreshadow upcoming events.

“In Crysis we had several enemy camps here and there in the levels, so you would maybe hear somebody dropping a pan or shutting a door in the distance, roughly coming from the direction of the camp, so you could follow that noise and find the camp.

It was a fairly large amount of work, but we thought, ‘If the player chooses the intelligent way to play — slowly observing and planning before attacking — he would get the benefits of this design.’”

In this way, they have chosen to encourage a sense of involvement with the environment by giving the ambient soundscape an awareness of the sounds the player is making. The level of detail they attained is commendable, and has proven to be a forward thinking attempt at further simulating reality through creative audio implementation.

Parameters

If we really are stretching to replicate a level of perceived reality with video games, then we must give consideration to every aspect of an activity and attempt to model it realistically in order to convey information about what the gameplay is trying to tell us. When we can effectively model and communicate the realistic sounds of the actions portrayed on screen, then we can step closer towards blurring the line between the player and their interactions.

What we are starting to see pop up more frequently in audio implementation is an attempt to harness the values of the underlying simulation and use them to take sound to a level of subtlety and fidelity that was previously either very difficult or impossible to achieve due to memory budget or CPU constraints.

It’s not uncommon for someone in game audio to comment and expound on the “tiny detail” that they enabled with sound to enhance the gameplay in ways that may not be obvious to the player. While previously encumbered by RAM allocation, streaming budgets, and voice limitations, we are now actively working to maximize the additional resources available to us on each platform. Part of utilizing these resources is the ability to access runtime features and parameters to modify the existing sample based content using custom toolsets and audio middleware to interface with the game engine.

In the Wii version of Ghostbusters, the Gl33k audio team handled the content creation and implementation. Some of the ways that they were able to leverage the real time parameter control functionality was by changing the mix based on various states:

“The ‘in to goggle’ sound causes a previously unheard channel to rise to full volume. This allowed us to create much more dramatic flair without bothering any programming staff.” The PKE Meter was “Driven by the RTPC, which also slightly drives the volume of the ambient bus.

“Ghost vox were handled using switch groups, since states would often change, but animations did not. Many of the states and sounds associated with them that we wanted to happen and come across, did not actually have any specific animations to drive them, so we actually ended up going in and hooking up state changes in code to drive whatever type of voice FX we wanted for the creature. This helped give them some more variety without having to use up memory for specific state animations.” – Jimi Barker, Ghostbusters and Wwise, on Vimeo

In Namco Bandai’s Cook or Be Cooked, says Barker via email, “I tied [RTPC] in with the cooking times, so when a steak sizzles, it actually sounds more realistic than fading in a loop over time. This allowed me to actually change the state of the sound needed over time to give a more realistic representation of the food cooking as its visual state changed. It’s totally subtle, and most people will never notice it, but there’s actually a pretty complicated process going on behind that curtain.

“I (had) roughly four states per cookable object that went from beginning, all the way through burned. There were loops for each of those states that fed into each other. These were also modified with one-shots — for example, flipping an object or moving it to the oven. We tried to provide as much variation as we could fit into the game, so almost every sound has a random container accompanied with it.”

Similarly, with the FMOD Designer toolset on Nihilistic Software’s Conan, the developers were able to use the distance parameter to adjust DSP settings based on the proximity of an object to the player. In one example, a loop was positioned at the top of a large waterfall far across a valley with a shallow LPF that gradually (over the course of 100 meters) released the high frequencies.

As the player approaches, the filter gradually opens up on your way toward two additional waterfall sources, placed underneath a bridge directly in front of the waterfall. The additional sources had a smaller rolloff with a steeper LPF applied and were meant to add diversity to the “global” sound.

The shifting textures and frequencies of the three sounds combined sound massive as you battle your way across the bridge which helps to add a sense of audio drama to the scenario, which you can view here.

Whereas parameter values have always existed behind the screen, they have not always been as readily available to be harnessed by audio. The fact that we are at a place in the art of interactive sound design where we can make subtle sound changes based on gameplay in an attempt to better immerse the player is a testament to the power of current generation audio engines and the features exposed from within toolsets.

In 2008′s Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, Shaba Games lead sound designer Brad Meyer was able to use the player character’s good/evil affinity, in addition to the dynamic “mood” of each level, to determine the sound palette used, as well as the sound of the effects, using the Wwise toolset.

By tying the transition between Spiderman and Venom to a switch/state in Wwise, a DSP modification of the sounds triggered could be applied. The change could be easily auditioned with the flip of a switch within the Wwise toolset, allowing for prototyping in parallel and outside the confines of the game engine and gameplay iteration. This ability to mock-up features is a key component in the current generation, where iteration and polish allow for the development of robust audio systems and highly specialized sound design.

“To explain what I [ended up doing] on the implementation side… was drop the pitch of Spider-Man’s sounds by a couple semitones when he switched to the Black Suit, and also engaged a parametric EQ to boost some of the low-mid frequencies. The combination of these two effects made the Black Suit sound stronger and more powerful, and Red Suit quicker and more graceful.

“The effect was rather subtle, in part because it happens so often I didn’t want to fatigue the player’s ears with all this extra low frequency information as Black Suit, but I think it works if nothing else on a subliminal level.” – Brad Meyer, via email
It makes sense that with a powerful prototyping toolset at the sound designer’s disposal, the ability to try out various concepts in realtime without the aid of a fully developed game engine can be a thing of beauty.

By enabling the rapid iteration of audio ideas and techniques during development, we can continue to reach for the best possible solution to a given problem, or put differently, we can work hard towards making sure that the sound played back at runtime best represents the given action in-game.

In the field of Technical Sound Design there is a vast array of potential at the fingertips of anyone working in game audio today. Under the surface and accessed directly through toolsets, the features available help bring sample based audio closer towards interactivity. In what can sometimes be a veiled art, information on implementation techniques has at times be difficult to come by.

We are truly standing on the shoulders of the giants who have helped bring these idea’s out in the open for people to learn from. It is my hope that by taking the time to highlight some of the stunning examples of interactive audio, we can all continue to innovate and drive game audio well into the next generation.

篇目2，10 Tips: The Creation and Integration of Audio

Tristan Donovan

Sound is crucial to any game, but what do you really have to concentrate on to reach the heights of the video game medium? Gamasutra caught up with audio directors to pick their brains for 10 juicy morsels of sound advice and ideas.

1. Focus on Sounds That Matter

“One of our mantras during the development of Saints Row: The Third was ‘is this sound going to be meaningful to the player?’,” says Ariel Gross, audio director at the THQ-owned studio Volition.

“Some sounds just need to be there and sound right. If you hit a dumpster, then it needs to sound close to a dumpster, but is that sound meaningful to the player? Usually not. They just need to be there. So we spent less time on object impact sounds than the unique sounds for the big moments in the missions.”

“We had to keep asking ourselves ‘How important is this sound?’ and ‘Would the player care?’ If they did, we would put our time, money and resources towards that sound, but if the answer was ‘Well, yeah, it’s kinda important’ or ‘Not really’, then we would spend a lot less time designing those sounds.”

2. Blur the Boundary Between Sound Effects and Music

Martin Stig Andersen drew on the concept of electroacoustic composition when creating the audio for Playdead’s Limbo. “My background is in electroacoustic composition, where instead of writing scores for orchestras you record sounds and then make a sound montage or collage that would become a piece of music,” he says. “To do this I use the same tools as sound designers but I think of my work in a more musical, compositional way.”

The moment in Limbo when the boy nears the spider is a good example of how this works, he says. “Instead of putting in traditional music, I used sounds from the environment to create the same effect. So when you approach the spider, the wind sounds stand still, because that gives a tense feeling equal in suspense to using an instrument like a violin. But instead of having this abstract orchestra sound dropped in, I work with the sounds from the actual game space.”

3. Be a Good Housekeeper

“Maintaining your library of sounds is not the sexy part of the job but it is one of the most important, and it’s one of the places where you can fall down the worst,” says Jeff MacPherson, the audio director of EA’s FIFA games.

“When I work with or hire people, one of the things I value most is good housekeeping skills. If you cannot manage a database of 50,000 samples, you may make a mistake that could result in a lot of bad things happening. Something that is not licensed could make it into the game, so you could get sued, or bad content like swearwords get in, and you get into trouble with the ratings board.”

“You could also lose stuff or not put the right stuff in. We’re paying a lot of money to get a lot of different audio content, and so if you don’t manage it properly in the databases and backup systems, you could get into trouble, and there’s really no excuse.”

4. Big Worlds Need Small Sounds

Open world games rely on streaming sounds more than most titles, so keeping audio file sizes down is important, says Volition’s Gross.

“If the player is driving a car so the environment’s streaming, and we try to call a sound because he starts shooting out of the window at 100 mph, we have to make sure those sounds get streamed off the disc at the same time as the world,” he says. “So we make our sounds as small as possible.”

But profiling the audio early is critical. “You need to profile constantly and as early as possible using DVD emulation on the 360 and actual Blu-ray disc on the PS3, rather than an installed copy of the game,” he says.

“With Saints Row: The Third we found out frighteningly late that when we started playing on DVD emulation and Blu-rays that most of our sounds weren’t even playing. We had to go back and optimize all our sounds, get rid of extra variations, and compress them further. It was a nightmare.”

5. Sounds Should Serve Game Design

PopCap’s sonic approach is to have sound effects that support the game’s design, says the company’s audio director Guy Whitmore. “The sound is always communicating something specific to the player that’s very important to how you play the game,” he says.

One example is how musical notes are used to signal progress in its recent Facebook game Solitaire Blitz, says PopCap’s audio producer Becky Allen. “In the game multipliers are given for 10-card runs. When the player plays the seventh card in a row without interruption, a note on the glockenspiel is played. A different note is then played on the eighth card, then another different note on the ninth, creating a small three-note melody that plays well with the music. This progression of glockenspiel tones informs the player that they are progressing and on the right path.”

6. Explore the Psychology of Sound

What we hear is not just a product of sound waves, but also of our state of mind, says freelance sound designer Alistair Lindsay, whose credits include Kinectimals and Defcon. “You might have big explosions for your game, but do they reflect how you would feel if you were a solider in the battlefield?” he asks.

“I’ve spoken to soldiers who’ve been in combat, and one guy said that your buddy can be right next to you firing his weapon, and it sounds like it’s 200 yards away — whereas the guy shooting at you sounds like he’s right next to your head. Sound doesn’t necessarily run on railroad tracks; it’s not two plus two, it’s two plus two plus perception.”

Lindsay is hoping to take advantage of people’s sonic perceptions with his work on Introversion’s forthcoming jail boss sim Prison Architect. One simple example from that game is having the sound of a pistol being cocked will be played at a key moment in a cutscene involving a gruesome murder.

“That same sound effect is then used out of context in a later cutscene, the idea being that the dissonance between what the eye sees and the ear hears at that moment might re-trigger any emotion felt during the first gruesome scene. That idea has its root in neurolinguistic programming techniques,” he says.

7. Peer Review Unfinished Sounds

“Something that we advocate at Volition is peer review,” says Gross. “We involve each other while we are designing sounds, before they are done. Showing your work when you’re halfway through it is something that audio people can find challenging or frustrating, but this is a way that we can gradually talk about the sounds before we actually implement them in the game.

“So by the time they go in we’ve already had gone over them two or three times. By creating an environment where it is safe to share your sounds while they’re in progress really helped us nail it before implementation because we knew there wasn’t a lot of time to iterate.”

8. Mount a PR Campaign

“Audio is one of the areas with the biggest disc footprint, and there are a lot of people vying for resources — whether that’s the CPU, RAM or disc footprint and rightly so it does become a bit of PR campaign to get those resources,” says EA’s MacPherson.

“It’s important to evangelize upwards the importance of audio, because it’s not as tangible a discipline as graphics or gameplay. With graphics you can pause a picture, and anybody can look and see if something’s wrong immediately, but it’s not the same for sound. Unless you point something out specifically, people maybe think it’s because the graphics or gameplay is better. They only really notice audio when it’s not good.”

To help win support, FIFA’s audio team uses AV comparisons where they show footage from the game with poor or limited audio and then explain or show how giving more resources to audio could improve the experience.

9. Defy Logic

“In games people often go for the more logic-based approach, where if an object is in this place then it should make this sound. It’s like a machine: you put sounds on objects and then they just mix themselves,” says Playdead’s Andersen.

“I am much more into a subjective mix. I mix it so that you always hear what you are approaching, and as soon as the objects are no longer important to the player, I get rid of them. I found it important to have the boy in Limbo at the center of sound perspective at all times, even if he moves away from the center of the screen. I think it makes perfect sense, because the player takes on the role of the boy in Limbo, so the sound follows the boy, not the environment.”

10. Get Included and be Inclusive

Audio teams need to get involved earlier in the development process, says Volition’s Gross. “There’s a perception that because a lot of the audio work comes at the end that we don’t need to be involved until the end,” he says. “But by being involved from the very beginning, we can expose hidden work in other people’s plans and sometimes change these plans.”

It’s not just about audio muscling in; it’s also about audio opening up. “People can be a little intimidated talking to audio people because they don’t know the language that we use, but they don’t need to,” says Gross. “We need to stop thinking of ourselves as separate and get involved in the planning. We need to talk to people, invite them into our offices, and just get this rapport going. A lot of it is on us in audio to go out and insert ourselves. We need to say to people that we are part of the team, and we’re going to make your stuff sound amazing.”

篇目3，Opinion: Why Audio Matters

Jefferson Hobbs

There are two kinds of people who are reading this article. First are the people who saw the word “audio” in a game industry site and got excited because that doesn’t happen very often. And then there’s the people who I am actually writing this post for.

If you fall in the first group, don’t fret. You should still keep reading. I am sure you will learn something new. If you are in the second group, be brave and venture forth. This won’t hurt too much.

Current State Of Audio

Audio is probably the most under-rated element in a game. Granted they are a few companies that value audio a lot but generally speaking it does not get the respect it deserves.

More often than not audio is treated like a checkbox that you have to check before you ship. It’s not something that everyone looks at with a fine tooth comb and tries to get 110 percent right.

However, things are changing…slowly but surely. It’s tough to quantize the amount of buzz audio is getting around the industry, but I’ve seen more people are starting to get into it lately. It’s not over-whelming but it is increasing from the bottom up.

This article hopefully will show you why audio is important and simple steps you can do to improve it in your games.

The Impact Of Audio

Audio has more of an impact to the game than most people think. For some reason people forget about the sense of hearing. It truly baffles me. How can someone think that a human sense doesn’t play much of a factor in a gamer’s experience? It doesn’t make sense (yep…that’s a bad pun and you just read it. Sorry). What does make sense (sorry again) is for game developers to take a step back and look at what audio is actually doing.

Below is a list of things about audio that you may not know. Hopefully, you are able to take away the point that audio is an important element in games.

WARNING: I am posting some information below that are not really referenced…unless you count the word on the street as a valid reference

Ear Is Hard To Trick: If you have bad audio, people are going to notice. They might not realize what it is but they will feel something is wrong. One theory that I have been told by Alan Kraemer (CTO of SRS Labs), is that audio has a relatively low bandwidth compared to other senses like vision. The brain is able to do a more thorough analysis of the sound waves as a result. This makes it tough to trick.

Audio Makes Things Look Better: There is a famous study in the consumer electronics industry where they actually tricked people into thinking a TV looked better by only changing the quality of the sound. They took two TVs that were exactly the same except for the speakers. When asked what they thought about the video quality, more people said that the TV with the better audio looked better. I am sure that this also applies to games. Who would of thought that one could improve a game’s graphics simply by improving the sound.

Movie Industry: The movie industry has known the value of audio for a long time now. A lot of the emotion and thrill is actaully in the sound track. Imagine a scary movie without erie sounds followed by a sudden screech. Or think about what Star Wars would be like if you replaced the sounds a crappy free sound library and generic music. The movie industry has invested a lot into sound because they know it helps them make money.

The Whole Brain Is Involved: Music has the ability to activate the whole brain and even trigger the production of certain chemicals. If audio wasn’t important than clearly the brain would just filter it out.

Audio Is Something That People Need Even If They Don’t Demand It: Just like with every other misconception in psychology, a person might not know what they actually need. Just because someone doesn’t ask for something doesn’t mean that it’s not important.
Good Ol’ Fashion Shotgun: The shotgun is everyone’s favorite weapon. Why? Because it goes BOOM! QED.

How Do You Fix This

First off, audio is not hard. Its not. Really. The amount of energy and man hours it takes to get good audio is far far less than what it would take to get good graphics, game play or physics. Usually the biggest road block in adding audio features is realizing that there are other audio features to add besides playback.

Below I have a list of other small steps a company can do to help out their audio:

Get good sounding assets. You can’t make something out of nothing… Well you can but it’s crap.

Hire at least one engineer that knows audio. He/she doesn’t have to work on audio 100 percent of the time, but he/she should have a knowledge of sound effects, music, or interactive audio.

Try to get an in-house sound designer. This might break the bank for some, but it’s worth it if you can afford it. This will speed up integration time and can offer up ideas for new audio features.

Listen to your game’s audio and critique it like you would a new game mechanic. If it doesn’t sound right, send it back to the cook and have it remade.

Put your energy into the music first and then the sound effects. Music is played ALL the time and carries most of the emotion. Make sure that it resonates with that game and sets the environment that you are aiming for. Once you get that, you can then focus on the sound effects.

Audio Effects To Think About

To conclude my post, here is a quick list of simple sound effects that you can do to enhance your game. These may be things that you have not thought of before but are trivial to setup with an API like OpenSL ES.

EQ of Death – Lower the 3D effect and apply a low pass filter (ie cut the treble) when the player is low on health. This will lower the clarity and disorient the player just like blurring the screen does in the graphics world.

Cinematic Stereo Widening – Widen the sound during cinematic points. For instance, if the player is walking down a small hall way into a big room with a boss or dramatic cut scene, you can start off with a narrow sound stage and then widen it as the room opens up.

Bigger Explosions – Apply a bass boost effect to enhance the explosion’s boom (note that bass boost is different than just increasing the bass). Afterwards apply a low pass filter for a short time afterwards to shock the player audibly.

Engulfing Sounds – Apply stereo widening on sounds that encompass the player like crowd noise, fire, rain, bees, etc.

Thanks for reading! If you know of other cool things about audio, please share them in the comments. I (and others too) would love to hear about them.

篇目4，Composer and Audio Designer Jonathan van den Wijngaarden on How Ambition can Kill Your Project, Coded Illusions, Fairytale Fights, his Mentor and his Love for C&C.

Vlad Micu/Javier Sancho

Audio designer and composer Jonathan van den Wijngaarden has had a career where illusions got broken and fairy tales did not really end happily ever after. After working at two of the Netherlands’ most promising studios that failed for aiming too high, he remains optimistic and takes the lessons learned into his own endeavors as a freelance audio designer and composer. Van den Wijngaarden gives us a first quick post mortem look of Fairytale Fights. The final project of the fallen Dutch game studio, Playlogic Game Factory.

Long Distance Mentor

In the era where the highest tech in the house was probably the VCR, Van den Wijngaarden was one of the first few privileged kids to have an expensive PC in his household. His dad worked in IT, which made him and his family one of the early adopters in the Netherlands. “He used to bring me floppies with games like Pac Man and Dig Dug but soon enough I got my own PC to mess around with and play a lot of shareware games”.

A few PCs later, 14 year-old Van den Wijngaarden found himself making his own scenarios and mods of Command & Conquer. “I used to put my taperecorder next to the PC to record the Command & Conquer music so I could listen to it even when I wasn’t playing,” he recalls. Through the C&C modding community he decided to get in touch through email with the musical genius behind the game, Frank Klepacki. They started exchanging emails for about 4 years in which Klepacki gave feedback on Van den Wijngaarden’s music. He followed keyboard lessons at that time, but that never satisfied his craving to make his own music. “I quit the lessons, so I could pour my heart into tracking (sample based music, red.) and composing music. Frank Klepacki took me under his wing and became my official mentor giving me something close to a full scholarship in game audio design.”

Van den Wijngaarden’s first professional job in the game industry was at Coded Illusions. He got in touch with the founder, Richard Stitselaar. Stitselaar had just left the upcoming Guerrilla Games to start his own company. They shared the same interests in games, especially Command & Conquer, and when Stitselaar learned about his “scholarship” with Klepacki, he was as good as hired.

Their first idea became the illusion they never got to finish, Nomos (in the early days also called ‘Haven’): a sci-fi, Blade Runner-esque game with religious elements. “Huddled together in a small office, I used to work on the audio with my headphones on while the rest would sit a few meters away listening to Elvis loud through the speakers. We didn’t take things very professionally then,” he recalls. When Coded Illusions got its first funding, things started to get more professional with its first official employees, many of them coming from Guerrilla. Van den Wijngaarden remained as an all-rounder in the office not only doing audio design but also being involved in management, level design, pitching game design ideas, story and dialogue writing.

Illusions Breaking the Code

In 2004, the future for Coded Illusions looked bright and for four and a half years the team worked very ambitiously as what Van den Wijngaarden fondly remembers “a group of friends making cool stuff. What we lacked in experience, we definitely made up for in enthusiasm.” Unfortunately the team’s enthusiasm is what may have put an end to the illusion. In the end of 2008, Coded Illusion went bankrupt quite instantly and the close group of friends found themselves on the street before they knew it. What went wrong? “Things started well building our own engine for the game,” Van den Wijngaarden says. “But in summer 2004, some of our managers went to GDC and got their first taste of the Unreal Engine 3. At the same time, the Xbox360 had just been announced and things looked very tempting to start working with a new engine.” His explanation: “the industry was on the front of a major turning point, getting ready to develop for next-gen consoles.” The new promosing tool in the studio became the Unreal Engine 3. “It was too tempting,” he recalls. “The Unreal Engine 3 made our project grow disproportionately because it enabled us to pour in so many ideas we could not develop. [Nomos] wasn’t a small humble title anymore, but a full blown Unreal Engine 3 title.” The enthusiasm made them want to add an endless list of features that this shooter-oriented engine offered, including RPG-elements, more action, more story. In other words, more illusions than the code could handle.

“What we had was not bad, but there was no way of getting our project sold to a publisher.” The team’s enthusiasm and creativity ironically started to become a burden. “We couldn’t sell this to publishers, because it was not finished enough and no one was willing to admit that the game needed a lot of cutting.”

Nowadays, smaller games, including bigger projects that got cut down, are easier to market through digital distribution and a broad market of casual gamers, “but in that period the market of digital indie games was not taken seriously yet”, Van den Wijngaarden explains. So he and his teammates got stuck with an overambitious project that had nowhere to go and an economic crisis that did not make things easier. Van den Wijngaarden admits: “it would have been a lot smarter to think and start small. Starting with a lower budget and consequently attempt to take a bigger step. We were not able to build a track record as a company and a lot of good work has gone to waste.”

Fighting for Fairytales

The whole team of Coded Illusions ended up on the street at the beginning in fall 2008. Founder Richard Stitselaar managed to keep the IPs and start another company, Vertigo Games. He was able to hire some of his old team members to start developing Adam’s Venture. Like many of his former team members, Van den Wijngaarden wound up at the Playlogic Game Factory, a studio that was set full sail to release its first next-gen cross-platform title, Fairytale Fights. “I got in there very easily. I had built up a lot of experience with Unreal Engine and audio at Coded Illusion and I hardly had to do a job interview.” Working at Playlogic at that time was not that easy. He started at the company in holiday season and Fairytale Fights had to go gold after the summer. Van den Wijngaarden had his worries. “How was I going to finish this project in eight months with no plan ready yet and no audio design document? What problems am I going to encounter in crunch time in a team I’m not used to work with yet? I decided to get all those thoughts and worries out of my head and go for it.” Van den Wijngaarden has to dig deep into his memories to recall how that process was. “It was such an intense period, it kind of turned into a black hole in my memory”.

“The main thing I had to get used to was that this was not MY project anymore,” he recalls. “Others already mostly worked the concept of Fairytale Fights out and was long past its prototyping.” With only eight months time to get the game on the shelves, there was no audio yet and Van den Wijngaarden had to dive into the documentation to get submerged in underlying ideas and feeling of the game. “My main focus on this project was to make it feel like my own project and give this game its own identity in audio”. Fairytale Fights already had its unique colorful art style, looking like a plasticine version of Happy Tree Friends. “Psychonauts was the game that inspired me the most. I tried to convey its diversity in settings to give Fairytale Fights its distinct character in sound. Especially giving all the weapons unique firing and handling sounds was a huge workload for me but crucial in giving the game its own identity.” This was one of the many lessons Van den Wijngaarden had learned from his mentor and inspiration, Klepacki: “always try to put your own signature on the music and sound. That’s what I admire about Klepacki, he always knows how to stick to his own style and sound. I can recognize the games he has worked on immediately, even without knowing he worked on it.”

So, what went wrong in this process? Again, it was the double-edged sword of ambition that killed the cat in boots. “We were under a lot of time pressure and in the end we had to cut about 25% percent of what we had made. Otherwise we never would have made it. Among the things we cut was a final chapter with four levels. This meant having to come up with a new final boss and invent a new main villain. Originally we also wanted to add some RPG elements and conversations with NPCs. There was absolutely no time for spoken dialogue, since that meant we had to localize it too. All kinds of drastic changes were made in a short time which stripped Fairytale Fights down to a pure brawler game.” At least this time the cuts were made and the game went gold. One of the main forces for getting the title shipped on time was managing director Olivier Lhermite. “He performed miracles. Not only by creating the right workflows but changing the focus on what was needed the most: game design.” Van den Wijngaarden admits that the game design aspect came late, maybe too late. During the process, the main focus and strength of the project had been its art style and setting, but somehow it lost it focus on the kind of game it should be. “Olivier made sure everybody picked up on the gameplay and worked fulltime on making sure everything worked and felt right.”

Another of Klepacki’s wise lessons that echoed through Van den Wijngaarden’s mind throughout the tough process is one seems applicable for any game development process. “As a creative person it can be difficult to balance the fact that on one side you are making an artistic creation and on the other side you are working on an entertainment product. As an artist you are primarily concerned with creating the best quality, but at the same time you will have to deliver a certain amount of quantity. Therefore you have to find balance between quality and quantity and make sure that each sound is equally great. You can’t make everything as perfect as you want it to be, it is more important that all the components you make work in harmony and offer a complete package. That’s a lesson that I got to experience very closely while working on Fairytale Fights.”

篇目5，Weapon Sound Design for Sci-Fi Shooters

by Michael Bross

Some of the more interesting and challenging sounds to create for a video game are found in weapon audio for Sci-Fi-based shooters. In the sound design process for this genre, there are many intriguing facets to consider.

Most importantly, the audio needs to feel gratifying for the player when shooting the weapon. What’s more, it needs to feel that way over and over again since player may use their weapons hundreds or even thousands of times over the course of their experience within a particular game title.

Sound design for games can be as much about the technical as it is about the creative. In this article, we’ll look at each aspect, and how they are intertwined throughout the process.

Generally, we work within a two-phase process–pre-production and production, as described below.

Pre-Production: Discovery and Planning Stage

This is the phase where we ask a lot of questions. It’s a discovery and planning stage. It’s where we first conceive the technical design so we are able to move forward on content design. Generally, this is done for all audio and music across a game’s experience (not just weapons).

Audio is driven by the game design itself. And also by the limitations of the technical pipeline (and how we can cleverly get around those limitations). In the case of weapons, how a sound is created is also heavily influenced by the animations to which the sounds will be attached.

From a creative standpoint, we are gathering reference. This is for inspiration and also to generate ideas of approach beyond what our own brains may drum up. We are looking at other games on the market (along with film). What supercool weapon designs are we hearing? Doing this helps us to establish a bar and then we figure out what we can be inspired by and aim to exceed.

What’s the creative approach to the weapons that would best serve the game? For example, is it something with more of a “laser” vibe like Star Wars? Or would it be better to do something that models modern-day weapons while adding “futuristic” enhancements? The beauty of creating for sci-fi weapons is that it leaves a lot of room to be creative.

From a technical perspective, many details need to be defined in this phase.

–What type of weapon is it? Maybe it’s a plasma rifle or some kind of gravity grenade. What are the parameters of the weapon? Does it have a high ROF (rate of fire) or is it slow but powerful like a sniper rifle. What’s the scale of the weapon? Is it a turret or a handheld weapon?

–What are the “event types”? In games, because we are not dealing with a linear mix and instead, we’re thinking about what the player-driven possibilities are, we tend to break it down into “events.” A weapon’s events could be: “fire”. “reload”, “fire empty”, “secondary fire”, “overheat”, “low ammo” and so on. Approaching it this way allows for all aspects of a weapon’s audio to be covered.

–What is the distance model? It’s the behavior of the weapon’s sound over a distance (also known as “falloff”). For more complex weapon designs, the sound designer will need to come up with near-distance sample sets that flow seamlessly into far-distance sample sets.

Though there are many other questions to be asked, those above represent a good starting point.

Production: Making it Happen

Once the weapon’s tech and creative approach have been conceived, creation of the content itself begins. The best place to start here is with mockups of the weapon which are usually done to gameplay video captures or animation exports. A mockup helps in conceiving how all the layers and events of a sound will work together. It also aids in selling the idea of what the weapon will sound like to the rest of the team.

A good game sound designer will keep the idea in the back of his/her mind as to how these assets might be stemmed out as game-ready assets.

Variations on certain sound events are essential. Shell casings dropping to the ground is one such event where this is important. Employing variations adds life.

This is the point where implementation of these assets can begin (after the material is stemmed out). We then would import the material into the game-side audio tool (such as Wwise or FMOD). This process will typically involve collaborating with other departments such as code engineers or animators to align the sound events with the actual game events that these sounds are matched to. Once this happens, we can finally hear the weapon working in the game. This is rarely the end of the work and involves further iteration on the both the content and the tech to refine the weapon’s SFX.

And in the big picture, this sound would also be dialed into the overall soundscape in regard to mix.

As you can see, the process of creating sci-fi weapon sounds involves much more than crafting a couple of sound files. It’s a unique, challenging experience that requires us to find solutions to tech and creative challenges that manifest throughout the process of creation. That’s the most exciting part, though! And when we finally hear the game audio in action, and see from a player’s perspective how much depth the sound design adds to the overall gameplay experience, we know we’ve hit the mark spot-on.