Project 2 Game Audio - Overview
- Ron De Guzman
- May 3, 2018
- 10 min read
After completing my project related to Foley, I really wanted to tackle Game Audio. It's an aspect of audio I've wanted to try for a long time and as I've mentioned before my interest stems from a lot of the games that I love to play!
Dark Souls III, The Halo Games, The Last of Us
To the sound design and music of these fantastic games is phenomenal, it's amazing how much of an impact sound has. It delivers the feel, emotion and atmosphere, its the sound of a game that really contributes so much to the immersion and aesthetic. Two good friends of mine Daniel Horvat and Heh Pray joined me on my search to find a game project to work on.
We managed to find a group of game developers called Team Magneta, they were looking for people to create the music and audio assets for their game. The game was being pitched as a 3D game where you play as a squirrel in first person and go hunting for acorns during the night time to feed your babies. You are able to fly and glide around from tree to tree while also encountering dangerous snakes along the way. The type of sound assets they were looking for were sounds of a forest, squirrel, trees, snakes and gliding sounds with ambient and atmospheric music to suit the night time feel.
We reached out via email and expressed our interest. It wasn't long before we got a response that they were eager to work with us and which then we quickly became apart of Team Magneta.
The Planning Phase
We were provided with an asset list and although I found it very brief with no specific references, it left us with a lot creative direction to experiment with the style of sound we thought would be appropriate for the game.
The C24 studio was booked in solely for discussing and experimenting with props while also planning exactly how we were going to create each sound. Before our studio session I did some minor research in preparation for this studio session, it was mainly to get a view into what its like to design sounds for a game.
Great Video by Marshall McGee:
The Sound and Music of The Last of Us:
The Designing Phase
06/04/2018
The start of the session was pretty smooth, when experimenting with sounds I usually like to use both a condenser and a dynamic microphone. We hired a C414 and a SM57 with Pro Tools set up on time and ready to record. Daniel was running the desk while Heh and I were alternating between Foley acting. We started off with experimenting with my snow jacket to act as the squirrel wings catching air, which sounds similar to a boat catching sail.
To emphasise on the wings catching air, we recorded myself blowing air close to the C414 microphone, which worked really well when layered together.
Here is what it sounds like:
We used the same method to create the gliding sound, which also worked but you were able to tell it was coming from a person's mouth. We kept the sound for now but planned to replace it with wind noises from an air vent. One sound we were struggling to bring to life was the crawling sounds of the squirrel. We tired many methods but none were really clicking with us at all.
This method was to portray the squirrel's footsteps and claws when walking/crawling around. It seemed to be too light for playing a squirrel in first person (We got this idea from this video). We also tried scratching the plank of wood as footsteps but then again it was not portraying the right weight of a squirrel being played in first person, also the texture of the wood didn't fit the scope. The surface we were imagining for the squirrel to walk on was forest trees which have bark on the outer surface. To achieve this sound we planned to go out and obtain bark from a tree or find another alternative. After discussing with the team we all felt that we needed to clarify with the game developers the exact style of sound they want for the game. After the session was over we contacted them via discord to schedule a meeting.
The Building Phase
14/04/2018
After confirming the realistic style of sounds with the game developers we went ahead and worked on every sound on our asset list that needed to be recorded in the C24. This was our last planned session in the C24, the sounds we aimed to capture were:
- Walking/Crawlling sounds on wood - Squirrel landing on tree
- Baby squirrel squeaks
- Baby squirrels eating
- Acorn Pickup from branch
- Snake Hiss
- Fall in fog sound
In addition, we had a visual reference to work with:
Walking/Crawling
With this sound, we were still struggling to find the right sound for the footsteps, mostly due to the fact none of us brought in props specifically for this sound. We ended up having nothing for this sound and throughout out the session we realised that we were spending too much time and we needed to move on. We agreed to come back to it with better props and possibly come up with something during the editing phase.
Squirrel landing on tree
Similar to the walking/crawling sound we had trouble finding the right sound. We still needed the proper material to achieve the sound we wanted, so we agreed to come back and figure out something within the editing phase.
Baby squirrel squeaks
For this sound, we originally were attempting to try and emulate the sound of a squirrel with my own voice which hilariously did not work, but we managed to find success while looking through the props within the C24 studio.
We found a piece of styrophome and while experimenting we found that if you rub a piece with your finger, they make a really nice squeak that can pull of the sound for squirrel!
Here what they sound like:
Baby squirrels eating
Before recording this sound we researched how squirrels eat and chew their food (nuts). We went out and bought a packet of nuts and recorded me chewing. The specific way I chewed the nuts were with my front teeth only while also chewing rather fast.
Here a hilarious video of a squirrel eating a nut:
Here is what it sounds like (combined with the squirrel squeaks):
Acorn pick up
The styrophome was very helpful in creating a lot of our sounds. It was so helpful that we managed to use it for its light and hollow sound when dropping it on the floor. When thinking of an acorn sound I would instantly think of Scat from Ice Age and the sound design that went into the acorn sounds. They were rather hollow sounding which I found perfect from depicting an acorn.
Here is what it sounds like:
Snake Hiss
This sound went 'ok', I attempted to emulate the sound of a snake and the team and I we content with how it turned out. Although, I would of rather experiment and try a different technique but we needed to continue moving on. The reason I wanted to try other techniques is mainly because we can sometimes hear the sound of my own mouth coming through the recording, which can breaks its immersion of the sound.
Here is what one of the takes sounds like:
Fall in Fog/Death
What we wanted to achieve is a 'poofy' sound like you were falling into a cloud. The technique we used was rather 'comfortable' and which it worked very well. We used a bean bag to capture a pillow like sound with also layering a recording of me blowing air close to the microphone.
A pic of me hard at work:
Here is what those two sounds sound like together:
This session ended up being very productive even though we were not able to get some of the sounds we wanted. Here is what we have completed and what we have left to record:
- Walking/Crawlling sounds on wood - Squirrel landing on tree
- Baby squirrel squeaks (Done)
- Baby squirrels eating (Done)
- Acorn Pickup from branch (Done)
- Snake Hiss (Done)
- Fall in fog sound (Done)
The Editing Phase
The following days after the studio session in the C24, we agreed to work on each of the sounds at home while on also communicating through discord. Now that we have attained most of our sounds, we were ready to add a more of a game aspect to the recordings. This was mostly done through Ableton Live with the help of the plug-in Serum.
The first sound I started with was the falling in fog/death and with also designing the teleport/respawn sound. I wanted the overall sound of the game to be bubbly/ambient to suit the poly art style. I imported the recordings into Ableton Live and started off with adding this nice ambient electric piano with delay and reverb. I first created the teleport/respawn sound by running my finger across the keyboard, I wanted to have a sound ascending in pitch.
After adding this, I also reversed an impact sound from my sample library to give a build up for when respawning. The falling fog sound didn't need much processing, the only thing I added was reverb. I also took the electric keyboard sound effect I made for the tele/respawn sound and exported, reversed it and layered it with the bean bag recording.
Here is what both of them sound like:
The next sound I worked on was the acorn pick up sound, since the main objective of the game is to hunt for acorns to feed your baby squirrels I wanted to have a nice victory sound when you collect one. After listening to the styrophome recording I felt like it wasn't hollow enough.
Here are some reference sounds I went off:
The reason there is a video of a xylophone is because I wanted to combine that type of sound with the styrophome recording. I wanted the acorn sound to be similar to the coin sound effect from Super Mario but much more ambient. I used the technique of synthesis and created a patch to replicate the theme/sound of the coin sound effect.
I was able to achieve the exact sound I wanted, I used a basic sine wave and adjusted envelope 1 to my liking. For effects, I only implemented reverb to reinforce the ambient sound. With the styrophome recording I used a xylophone instrument in Ableton Live to layer it on top of the recording.
The Music
Due to time constraints I was not able to create a significant soundtrack for the game. I quickly composed two short loops containing two arpeggios. Daniel previously suggested a beautiful reference from the classic game Chrono Trigger.
I definitely wanted to implement an element of this track into each of the short loops but we still needed to have a more ambient sound. So I also referenced a soundtrack from the game Minecraft.
The game loops may be short and simple but their intended use was mainly to be played in certain areas and interactions within the game.
Here is what they sound like:
This loop is to be played within the home tree while feeding the baby squirrels
This loop is intended for when you encounter a snake
Field Recording/Midi Session
23/04/18 & 26/04/18
This time we aimed to record the ambience for the game and any sounds that required recording outside of the studio. We went out and hired a ZOOM H4N which is great for recording wide areas because of its X/Y micing technique!
(Check out this great blog on the ZOOM H4N by Claudia Walton)
We walked to a park and recorded the sounds of birds chirruping which came out really clean but we also picked up traffic noise in the background. Most of the background noise from the city traffic were all low frequencies and were easily taken out with a high pass filter. The next layer to add to the game ambience is a strong wind effect, since you will be playing and running around on tall forest trees we wanted to give an effect that it sounded like you were up extremely high.
Prototype Image of the home tree in the game:
We went into a room with an air con vent that gave this strong whistling sound from the wind outside, we captured this then layered it on top of the park recording and looped it.
Here is what it sounds like:
Sounds Left to Record:
- Walking/Crawlling sounds on wood - Squirrel landing on tree
On they way back from field recording we made sure to collect some props for recording these 2 sounds.
The pile of bark gave a nice mid range sound and had the perfect texture. We used both the pinecone and fork to bring a more of a high frequency ranged sound which had the perfect texture, this was to emulate the claws of the squirrel. We brought these new recordings into the midi studio after.
After over viewing the recordings we realised that it was needing low end to simulate the feel of walking in first person as a squirrel. So we decided to add a kick from the Abelton Live's sample library and layer it with both the bark and pinecone sound. We had a variety of recordings for the footsteps. To make sure each footstep was distinct from one another I transposed each individual kick slightly and it turned out better then expected!
Here is what it sounds like:
For the landing sound we basically used a similar recording but had a reversed impact played before it. This was to emulate you descending from gliding to gently land on a tree.
Here is what it sound like:
We then finished the rest of the sounds and applied similar things, we exported each sound in its highest quality and then imported all of them into a Pro Tools session. We had sounds that were either too quite or too loud, so after importing all the sounds each to individual tracks, we matched all the levels to all have similar volumes.
Reflection
Diving into sound design was where I had the most fun, it allowed me to be very creative in developing the game like sound/theme to each of the recordings. I applied a lot of the skills that I picked up from my previous project (Dragon's Den) which really helped get through the each of the Foley recordings smoothly. Although, I do feel that I could've had much better communication with the game developers and clear any confusion that was within my team. One major lesson I will learn from this experience is to make sure that I really sit down and clarify exactly what the developers want, this was to avoid any delays due to miscommunication. Other than that the project was a success and we delivered each of the sound assets on time!
This whole project was a lot of fun, it was interesting finally working with student game developers and learning the process of how a game is made. The amount of time, effort and work that goes into a game was so fascinating for me, seeing all the pieces slowly come together. The game is still a work in progress and I will make sure to update my blog on its release.
To get a full picture of what the overall game is suppose to sound like, here is all the sounds put together:
References
- YouTube. (2018). Making Halo's beam rifle sound with just an iPhone mic. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/-_TGR2ux0nE
- YouTube. (2018). SoundWorks Collection - The Sound and Music of The Last of Us. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/tpBpoe7cK9I
-YouTube. (2018). The Magic of Making Sound | That's Amazing. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO3N_PRIgX0&t=17s
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