The Future of Game Audio - a Q&A with Matthew Smith. What’s ahead for game audio?
That’s the question we’re looking to answer with this brand-new interview series, with some of the leaders, heroes and influencers in the game audio world. The sounds of Madden NFL 17 come from an unusual source. Fans of EA's Madden games would be forgiven for thinking that the game's audio was recorded at an actual NFL match inside a huge stadium in the US.
It turns out that for this year's game, a lot of the audio came from an unlikely source: Tupperware bashed to bits in the Scottish countryside. Will Morton and Craig Conner left Rockstar North back in 2014 to to set up their own company, Solid Audioworks. Morton worked at Rockstar North for 12 years as a dialogue supervisor and senior audio designer. Conner was the music director at Rockstar North. The Guide To Sound Effects.
I like to think of such sounds as having two general components: a ‘defining’ one, and an ‘impact’ one.
The defining one is what sounds up front and tells the listener what the sound is, especially if combined with picture. The impact one can be anything at all, designed only to pump up the sound to hyper-real. For defining sounds, simply record what things really are: For a face slap for example, record a real slap, hand clap, slap on thigh, etc. For a body kick, record a fist on chest thud, etc. For impact sounds, anything goes. Other purely impact sounds: kick drum, fist-pound on closet door (tapered), car door slam (tapered), kicked or stick-hit cardboard box, leather belt snap, whip crack, etc.
Real-time Sound Propagation in Video Games. BF4 Audio Obstruction System. ONLINE GAME DEVELOPMENT. Sound Advice: The Key to Outstanding Animation Sound Design. How do you create great sound design for animation?
Turns out Jeff Shiffman from Boom Box Post knows a thing or two about that: Jeff has built a career doing animation sound design, having worked on numerous animated series such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Thundercats, The Looney Tunes Show, Transformers: Animated, Ben 10, Kick Buttowski and countless others. And in this special post for A Sound Effect, he exclusively shares his favorite tips, insights and stories from his many years of doing animation sound design: As a medium for sound design, you can’t beat animation.
I’ve created countless robots and aliens. Still, when you add it all up a career in animation sound design is going to be interesting to say the least. Our animation workflow is very streamlined. Ideally, on any new series we will start off with a lot of recording and slowly build our show library. I always try to build an editorial schedule that allows for time to experiment; to be inventive. Please share this: The Sound Design of inFamous Second Son: Video Powers. Of all the powers in inFamous Second Son, Video powers may have been the most esoteric.
I mean smoke at least has an analog in fire (and we used some fire elements in both the visual and sound design), but video? You think video, you may think laser, but we already had a neon power (which was even sometimes referred to as laser). So how the hell did we get something sounding as unique as our video powers without treading on the other power sets? Part of the answer is interestingly with how the power set itself was initially conveyed to the team. The Sound Design of inFamous Second Son: Concrete Powers. It’s hard to believe that inFamous Second Son is a year old already!
I’ve been completely lagging on finishing up these posts about the powers design for the game, so let me use this opportunity to make good and present the first of the final 2 parts of this series. I will hopefully get around to posting my presentation on the Systems Design for the game soon as well so those who haven’t heard/seen it can have the information available to them. Anyway, on to the magic and mystery of concrete! For those who haven’t played or seen inFamous Second Son you play a guy who gets superpowers battling an authoritarian government agency called the DUP whose soldiers are all imbued with concrete superpowers by their leader Dana Augustine (as normally happens with government agencies).
The most common question regarding sound design. For some time now I have been noticing that plenty of future sound designers are asking where should they start or how should they go about sound design.
The answer is yet to be determined – if it is a simple to answer or not. There are no shortcuts in sound design, that’s for sure and most likely you will never learn the full scope of sound design in your life time. You may be great at it, heck even a most wanted pro but you will still learn new things every day. Once you stop learning and you think to yourself that you know it all, you might want to quit right there.
Ori and the Blind Forest - Gumo Sound Effects Teaser. How A Plug-in Recaptured the Robot Voices of Your Childhood. I’ve just gotten lost making my computer sing.
And now I can’t stop. You see, a funny thing happened on the way to the future. As speech synthesis vastly improved, it also became vastly more boring. Intelligibility robbed synthesized words and singing of its alien quality, which was what made it sound futuristic in the first place. Chipspeech takes us back to speech synthesis as many of us remember it growing up. And there’s a history here. But in a revolutionary transformation, you can make them do more than just speak. Montreal’s independent plug-in maker Plogue Art et Technologie embarked in a somewhat ludicrous labor of love, curating a collection of the greatest chips of yore and then painstakingly recreating them in software.
NASA’s stream. What is Foley? Award-Winning Foley Artist Gary Hecker Takes Us Inside The Craft. What is Foley?
What does it take to be a Foley Artist? Many of you might be very familiar with the craft, or maybe you have only heard the word in passing, but Foley is one of the many sound elements that helps bring a film together. Sound Effects and Freelancing in Game Audio. The Secrets Behind Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare's Audio. There's a lot to absorb from the gameplay of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, but one of the key things that stood out when we saw the game in action for our June cover story was the audio.
Audio director Don Veca created the lauded soundscape of the first Dead Space and is now bringing his talents to Sledgehammer Games' first wholly developed game. Veca and his audio team have thrown out all sounds from previous Call of Duty games and are creating their grounded take on the future from scratch. Alongside the focused sounds of gunfire, the game is scored by Audiomachine (known for scoring Hollywood trailers) and also marks the return of Harry Gregon-Williams for the first time since the original Modern Warfare. Watch the video below to learn more about Veca's work on Dead Space, what he thinks of his audio competition in the shooter market, and to hear sounds from Advanced Warfare, . Laurie Spiegel plays Alles synth - temporary replacement.
On Every Sound Resource I've Learned From So Far - Emily Halberstadt. If I've forgotten anything obvious please do let me know, I can add it in. There is so much information out there and I consider myself very lucky to have found even this small pool of knowledge. BooksI like lists, how about you? Here are the ones that I've picked up. Pro Tip- These are all available at the library. KISS2012 - Performing Sound to Picture for Video Game Sound Design.mov. Calling The Shots: Realistic Commentary Heightens Video Games : All Tech Considered. Hide captionRecently released sports video games are touting how their high-powered graphics portray players like the Oklahoma City Thunder's Kevin Durant realistically.
The realism extends to audio as well. 2K Games Recently released sports video games are touting how their high-powered graphics portray players like the Oklahoma City Thunder's Kevin Durant realistically. The realism extends to audio as well. A big selling point for new video game consoles is better graphics — how real something looks. Compare a real live basketball broadcast to video game audio.
Footsteps. General. Weapons. Vehicles. Ambience. Games. Procedural Sound. Field Recording.