All about the audio - The Bear and Badger

GurtTractor

A thread for discussion of all aspects of audio in games, the sound effects, soundtrack, the technology and how it all comes together.

What games have a great soundworld? Favourite sound effects, gun noises etc, menu sounds? Really iconic sound designs? Really masterful uses of surround sound? (Something which I have yet to experience properly). And any terrible efforts that come to mind.

I think the sound in games is all too often forgotten about, for me a game's sound design is every bit as important as the visual presentation. It very rarely gets a mention in reviews, if it is mentioned it's usually only if it's particularly exceptional in some way. (Good soundtracks often get their due however).

Despite this lack of attention, it plays a huge part in giving a game it's character. Good use of ambient sounds (birds, wind, distant traffic, waves etc) can improve the sense of immersion immensely, bringing life to some otherwise bland and lifeless environments. Strong sound effects are an important form of feedback, meaty gun sounds in shooters and affirmative clunks in puzzlers make for satisfying gameplay.

In recent years I've gained a real appreciation of sound generally. I'm always seeking new auditory experiences, and games are a fantastic medium for creating strange and wonderful soundworlds. I'm learning music production currently, and I'd really love to get into foley and sound design for either TV/film or games. I believe a certain Billy_Hologram works in game audio design? I'd very much like to hear your expertise on how it all comes together, how sounds are processed and triggered, how reverbs and spatialisation work within games, and what kind of middleware is used. I need to start building a portfolio of sound design work, so I think I might get a gameplay video of something and do a full redesign of all the sounds. Any advice would be very much appreciated.

I've not read much at all about how sound design works within games yet, so I could do with some articles on the subject if anyone comes across any. I'll stick whatever interesting stuff is found here.

I'm very interested in how sound could be improving in the next-gen, something which has, again, been poorly reported on. I think there's definitely room for improvement in the area of spatial complexity, how sounds arrive to the player though walls and around corners. Less heavily-compressed audio would be welcome too. I believe both the Xbox One and PS4 have dedicated audio chips, so I'm very interested in what difference we could see (hear).

The PS4 has this - http://www.anandtech.com/show/7513/ps4-spec-update-audio-dsp-is-based-on-amds-trueaudio

- http://www.redgamingtech.com/playstation-4-audio-dsp-based-on-amds-trueaudio-technology/

From here -

A dedicated digital signal processor (DSP) is built in to the AMD GPU core. That’s a hefty dose of processing power committed just to generating immersive soundscapes. That doesn’t just enable new and exciting audio features in games; it also saves CPU cycles that can be used for other tasks.

    Programmable sound effects bring to audio the same kind of flexibility that programmable shaders brought to graphics. Game developers aren’t stuck with inflexible canned effects anymore. They now have the flexibility to create complex effects and acoustic environments.

    More voice channels and audio objects mean game developers no longer have the unenviable task of determining which sounds are expendable. AMD TrueAudio technology multiplies the number of sounds a game can generate at once, giving developers the capacity to create much more lifelike soundscapes.

    True to life echoes and convolution reverb are finally available on all platforms, meaning programmers can now build these effects into their games rather than relying on basic reverbs. The types of real-world acoustic phenomena that can be faithfully reproduced are massively greater.

    Multi-channel spacialization brings in-headset surround sound with accurate positional audio algorithms to all gamers; not just the ones with the priciest headgear.

All that sounds very exciting. I'd love to hear people's experiences with next gen games, and if there's any noticeable improvements over last gen.

Brooks

Some of the most important and yet technically trivial elements of vidgame soundwork are options turn it down or off altogether when the BGM is irritating in long doses or fully and irredeemably sucks.

davyK

In older times I found the Parodius soundtrack astounding which together with the visuals make Gradius far more appealing to me, and I loved the subtle little touches in Super Mario World - like the echos in the underground sections, and the little extra drum bit added when mounted on Yoshi.

More recently, Mario Galaxy and Mushi Futari have stood out. The Mushi boss fights being particular highlights and how they build with the tension toward the battle's conclusion when the patterns become more intense.

Skerret

SotC OH YES I DID

But to choose a less obvious example than the most obvious example, Syndicate and Syndicate Wars featured excellent sound design. Some recognizable theme and incidental music, but largely an ambient track, nice mechanical effects (cars and the like) plus excellent loudspeaker style announcement bits fleshed out the dystopian environment nicely.

hylian_elf

SotC is a good shout, but ICO did sound perfectly. Minimal, lots of ambiance, and the soundtrack was so fitting.

In terms of effects, I loved the Dead Space vacuum sections. That was impressive the first time.

Next gen games? Only really played Resogun and there's not much audio improvement in that (lots of visual tricks), but I did like the speaker through the controller! But that's not next gen as the Wii already did it.

GooberTheHat

Skerret wrote:

SotC OH YES I DID But to choose a less obvious example than the most obvious example, Syndicate and Syndicate Wars featured excellent sound design. Some recognizable theme and incidental music, but largely an ambient track, nice mechanical effects (cars and the like) plus excellent loudspeaker style announcement bits fleshed out the dystopian environment nicely.

The WAAAOOP WAAAOOP WAAAOOP of the explosives and the voice chat from your agents when switching weapons where highlights for me.

Moto70

I've mentioned this before but I won many a game of CoD4 S&D thanks to the audio.

Chief

I will forever use Silent Hill 2 as an example of near perfect audio design. When a game knows the importance of silence as much as the need for the right music and sound effects, it brings it closer to being as good as it can be.

[Deleted User]

There's a sound effect in Team Fortress 2 that's hidden away in the options. When you turn it on it makes a little ding sound to let you know you've damaged an enemy, and it's a total game changer.

hylian_elf

Using the mic in the fight with The End when you have a 5.1 setup. Brilliant.

Webbins

Dead Space nailed those opening couple of hours in setting the hairs on end. The clangs and creaks, dropping of pipe and rattle of chain. The transition into zero G also tightened the nerve with muffled combat, no one could hear you scream.

Paul the sparky

I wish I played it with surround sound, but I'm also glad I didn't.

hylian_elf

I was fortunate enough to do so. It was ruddy great. It was before kid(s) came along and had to dedicate space to cot and toys and stuff. Grumble grumble. Now I have a 2.1 setup that I can't even blast out most of the time cos I only get to play weeknights when kids are in bed.

[Deleted User]

Webbins wrote:

Dead Space nailed those opening couple of hours in setting the hairs on end. The clangs and creaks, dropping of pipe and rattle of chain. The transition into zero G also tightened the nerve with muffled combat, no one could hear you scream.

Similarly, space vacuum lack of audio in the opening of ME2 was pleasing.

Diluted Dante

Grunt Birthday Party.

I make people restart the game if they don't turn this on.

hylian_elf

Yeah I was going to mention that. Absolutely brilliant!

GurtTractor

Ico's sound design is very nice, the wind, the birds, the slightly digital sounding reverb all give it a really distinctive character.

Moto70 wrote:

I've mentioned this before but I won many a game of CoD4 S&D thanks to the audio.

Yeah I remember the positional audio in stereo being surprisingly good, I used to be able to tell exactly where my mate was going to be coming from in tiny map with the containers. I was getting 150 headshots or whatever to get the gold camo or something. God damn, I'm glad those days are behind me.

Chief wrote:

I will forever use Silent Hill 2 as an example of near perfect audio design. When a game knows the importance of silence as much as the need for the right music and sound effects, it brings it closer to being as good as it can be.

I've never played a Silent Hill, I'm going to have to get the HD version at some point.

I've been holding off on playing any Dead Space until I get some surround sound sorted. I'll be getting one of these as soon as I can, really looking forward to playing some stuff in surround.

GurtTractor

Another interesting techy gubbins article on the PS4's audio chip.

Played Antichamber last night, such brilliant use of audio in such a graphically minimal game. The slow but oddly intense ambient soundtrack, the field recordings of wind, birds, thunder, and subterranean drips that are disconnected from the bare-polygon setting. As with most good puzzle games the sound plays a part in the puzzles, and keeping your bearings. Good stuff.

GurtTractor

You can get 7.1 virtual surround sound on yer PC.

Unfortunately it just wont work on my system, can't get past the Synapse nonsense. Perhaps because I'm still running on XP. Really annoying because I was really looking forward to trying it out.

[Deleted User]

GurtTractor wrote:

You can get 7.1 virtual surround sound on yer PC. Unfortunately it just wont work on my system, can't get past the Synapse nonsense. Perhaps because I'm still running on XP. Really annoying because I was really looking forward to trying it out.

Just downloaded, installed and calibrated. Colour me impressed. I wonder how it works?

GurtTractor

Jealous! It'll be something to do with HRTF. Arriving at a binaural effect through virtual means, watch this if you haven't already -

Billy

It's a bit of a black art, or at least it's perceived that way by a lot of people. It's abstract, most have no idea how sounds are made and put into a game. And that's half the fun and half the challenge about it.

A lot of studios make their own audio engines or make tools to go along with middleware when the off the shelf solution doesn't do what's required, which means there's a lot of diversity in the technology we work with and that affects our approach to audio. We end up with vastly different sounding games because of it. We also end up with a lot of secrecy, because games development is a cross between entertainment and software development we are always looking to the next gen feature that makes games standout, and on the whole we don't blab about it. At least until after the games released, but often never.

Journos don't often write about it because it's less tangible than graphics, and when they do it's often because it struck an emotional chord with them, the audio worked so well with what the person was feeling at the time it made a strong impression.

And that's the crux, it's not about the tech it's how you make people feel. Of course it's nice to have more memory but you can have all the ram in the world and if your audio isn't striking a chord it's just more shit.

A lot of the points quoted in the OP about the next gen already exist. The PS3 has a dedicated dsp for audio because every dev dedicated 1 spu for audio. The vita has a chip for decoding compressed audio. The bit about true to life reverbs and reflections, many games did that last gen. Of course now we can do more of those things, but take those bullet points with a pinch of salt.

As we move into the next gen I think it'll mean different things to different studios, some will use it to play the numbers game e.g. more zombies/soldiers on screen and we recorded an entire cities worth of people for these characters because next gen! Some will invest in tech for immersing the player and action in the environment, some will focus on foley and giving a lifelike performance to the characters.

I'll post some advice about building a portfolio tomorrow, but do take it with a pinch of salt what works for one person might not be the best approach for another.

Knight

I like guns that sound cool.

hylian_elf

Talking of sound effects, one of my favourites is when you consume a lost soul item in Dark Souls.

Billy

That is by far the part of my job I enjoy the most, making weapon audio, it's an art.

hylian_elf

Knight wrote:

I like guns that sound cool.

What's your favourite? Say from Halo? Needler and that spiker gun thing come to mind. Oh, and holding a plasma pistol shot sound is cool!

GooberTheHat

Billy_Hologram wrote:

That is by far the part of my job I enjoy the most, making weapon audio, it's an art.

How do you do it? Do you actually listen to real weapons being cocked and used or do you make it up?

Diluted Dante

I'd like to be a Foley artist, literally just so that would be my job title.

Billy

GooberTheHat wrote:

Billy_Hologram wrote:

That is by far the part of my job I enjoy the most, making weapon audio, it's an art.

How do you do it? Do you actually listen to real weapons being cocked and used or do you make it up?

Different people approach it in different ways. For me I always decide if I want it to be authentic or if I'm going to ignore what the weapon sounds like in real life or the source material. Then I go and record the actual weapons or ones that are similar with as many mics as possible. Some mics are close up and some further away, that's so I can do 3rd person firing in game that doesn't just sound like the same sample being turned down a bit. Some mics are better for picking up bass, some for the sharp cracks and some for the body and tail, so they are combined to make a richer sound.

If I'm trying to be authentic then the process stops there and it goes in game, otherwise sweeteners are added to make the weapon more interesting in some way. For example when I did the Joker's pistol in Arkham online there wasn't much reference so I recorded some large calibre handguns and mixed that with sweeteners to give it a larger than life sound, plus some long tails that in games are usually only heard on rifles.

Auto weapons are much harder than single shots, there's a number of different ways they can be created, put into the game and spat out again. The two basic approaches are repeatedly triggering single shots very lose together, this means when you tap the trigger for a single shot it sounds great but firing a burst doesn't sound so good. Other benefits are the audio rate of fire will stay in sync with gameplay if it's decided to increase or decrease the fire rate.

The other approach is to get a loop of burst fire and put that in as is, and have it transition to a tail when you release the trigger. This means the burst sounds great but firing a single shot suffers. It's also a problem to change the rate of fire, you have to go back to the source audio to get more or less out of it and change it at that stage. Nowadays what's better is to cut up a burst into chunks and have the audio engine churn through them in a random order, that way you get the benefit of using a recording of a burst but you aren't tied to 1 looping sound.

There are ways to avoid those pitfalls in both approaches but that's basically the two schools of thought.

Doing the 3rd person firing needs the same treatment.

Billy

When I say sweeteners that could mean anything from a recording of thunder, a lion roar (old trick), bird tweet, metal screech anything really.
Also different environments is a challenge, do you just use reverb for letting the player know what size space they are in and if it's indoors or outdoors or in a car park? Most do, but it sounds a bit rubbish, better to use actual content for different environments with a bit of reverb to help it gel together. That's what BF series does and the recent Shadowfall. If it's done well you won't notice, it just feels natural moving from space to space.

Skerret

Fascinating stuff William.

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