Sound effects are essential to any game, but what can you focus on to get you to the pinnacle of the video game medium?Gamasutra interviewed multiple audio directors who shared 10 sound suggestions and ideas.
1. Focus on key sounds
Ariel Gross, Audio Director at THQ's studio Volition, said: "During the development of Saints Row 3, we often asked, 'Does this sound make sense to players?''Such a question. ”
Some sound effects just need to be added and rendered appropriately. If you hit a trash can, you'll need a sound effect similar to a trash can, but does that sound make sense to the player?Usually it doesn't make much sense. They just need to be present in the game. As a result, we spent less on the sound of the object impact sound than on the unique sound during the mission's critical moments. ”
We have to keep asking ourselves, 'How important is this sound?''and' Do players care about this sound?'If it's a sound that a player might care about, we invest time, money, and resources, but if the answer is, 'It's not important,' then we'll spend less time designing those sounds. ”
2. Blur the boundaries between sound effects and **
For the audio for Playdead's Limbo, Martin Stig Andersen used electroacoustic composition. "I have a background in electroacoustic composition, where instead of writing an orchestral score, I record the sound effects and then stitch them together into a **," he says. To achieve my goals, I used the same tools as a sound designer, but I think my approach is closer to ** and composing. ”
He says the moment when the little boy in "Limbo" gets close to the spider is a wonderful example of how effective this approach works. "Instead of adding a traditional ** approach, I used sound effects from the environment to create the same effect. So, when you're close to a spider, the wind is still there, because the tension is just as great as that of an instrument like a violin. However, instead of using abstract orchestral sound effects in the game, I utilized sound effects from the game space. ”
3. Be an excellent housekeeper
Jeff Macpherson, Director of Audio for EA's FIFA franchise, said: "Maintaining a library of sound effects is not a fun job, but it's one of the most important tasks, and if you don't do it well, it can be the worst. ”
When I work with others or hire people, the most important thing I look for is good management skills. If you don't manage a database of 50,000 examples, you may make mistakes in your future work and cause serious things to happen. Something that is not licensed is added to the game, and you will be sued. Alternatively, if you add bad content such as profanity to your game, it will result in a low rating for the title. ”
You may also lose content or not add the right content. We spend a lot of money to get different audio content, so if you can't properly manage your database and backup system, you're going to get into trouble. ”
4. Big world needs small sound effects
Open-world games rely more on flowing sound than other genres, so Volition's Gross thinks it's important to control the audio file size.
"If the player is driving a car, the environment is in flux, and we have to make sure that the sound in the game is similar to the real world," he says. So, we made the sound file as small as possible. ”
However, it's also important to feel and test the audio as early as possible. "You need to use the *** emulator to experience the audio on PS3 as soon as possible, rather than waiting for it to be used in the game," he says. ”
While working on Saints Row 3, we were then horrified to discover that most of the sound effects didn't work properly when we started on Analog and Blu-ray. We had to go back and optimize all the sounds and compress them even more. The process was a nightmare for the team. ”
5. Sound effects should serve game design
PopCap's approach is to use sound to support the game's design, says Guy Whitmore, the company's audio director. "The role of sound effects is to convey to the player what is critical to the gameplay," he says. ”
PopCap audio producer Becky Allen says that the company recently released a Facebook game, Solitaire Blutz, as a case in point. "In the game, the player is dealt a total of 10 cards. When a player plays 7 cards at once, the game will play a carillon. When the 8th card is played, it will be **different**, and the **9th card will also be different**, and this **design will match the game design. This progressive tone informs players that they are moving in the right direction. ”
6. Explore the psychology of sound
Freelance sound designer Alistair Lindsay says that it's not just the sound products we hear, it's our state of mind. He asked, "You may have seen too many big **s in the game, but do they reflect how you feel as a soldier?"”
I've talked to soldiers who have fought in war, and someone has said that your companion is near you**, and the voice sounds like he's 200 yards away from you, but to those who have been in the war with you, you'll feel like he's right next to you. Sound is not simply cascading, it is influenced by human perception. ”
Lindsay wanted to use human perception to enhance his work. In Prison Architect, the game appropriately renders the sound effects of the pistol during the cutscenes of the case.
"We used the same sound effects in the cutscenes that followed, to remind the player of the emotional state they had before," he says. ”
7. Let your peers comment on the sound effects you are designing
"We at Volition promote peer reviews," Gross said. When we design the sound, we let all participants have their say before it's done. During your work, you can present the work-in-progress to people who are also in the audio industry and let them have a voice so that we can polish it before we actually execute it into the game. ”
So, we've done it 2 or 3 times before the sound effects are used in the game. Creating an environment where sound effects can be shared safely during development has really helped us a lot, as we know that there isn't a lot of time for reproduction. ”
8. Carry out PR activities
EA's Macpherson said, "Audio is in a competitive space, so we need to get resources through PR activities. ”
Spreading the importance of audio is important to games and industries because it is not as tangible as images or gameplay. In the case of an image, you can pause it at any time and anyone can look for flaws in it, but that's not the case with sound effects. Unless you specifically point it out, people are likely to forget about the sound part. They will only notice the undesirable condition of the audio. ”
To gain support, FIFA's audio team used comparisons to demonstrate the importance of audio, explaining how investing more resources in audio can improve the user's experience.
9. Not following logic
Playdead's Andersen said, "In games, people tend to take a more logical approach, like if an object is in that place, then it should sound that way. It's like a machine: you add sound to objects, and they fuse them. ”
I prefer subjective fusion. I've incorporated some of the sounds that always pleasing the player, and I'll remove them whenever the object is no longer important to the player. I found it important to keep the boy in Limbo in the accompaniment of sound effects at all times, even when he moved away from the center of the screen. I think that's important because the player is playing as this boy in Edge of Hell, so the sound effects should follow the boy rather than the environment. ”
10. Participate in the development process
Volition's Gross believes that the audio team needs to be involved in the development process as early as possible. "A lot of people think that a lot of the audio work happens at the end of the project, so we just need to be part of the development process at the end of the project," he says. However, if we get in from the very beginning of the project, we can help with other people's potential plans, and sometimes modify those plans. ”
Audio should not only be integrated into development, but also be open. "People may not like to talk to audio producers because they don't understand the terminology we use, which is unwarranted," Gross said. We can no longer work on our own and need to be involved in the whole program. We need to talk to other team members and invite them into our studio. We also need to get out of the studio and into their work area. We need to show people that we are part of a team and that we can bring an aural treat to your work. ”