{"id":2081,"date":"2015-10-31T18:58:10","date_gmt":"2015-10-31T18:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/?p=2081"},"modified":"2015-10-31T18:58:15","modified_gmt":"2015-10-31T18:58:15","slug":"game-audio-stack-vs-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/2015\/10\/game-audio-stack-vs-design\/","title":{"rendered":"Game audio stack vs design"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

I watched the new Unity5 audio system stuff, it\u2019s pretty cool. They don\u2019t dig so much in how performance is when you use a granular synth and sub mixes on top of an actual game with AI and input though. They are going full native avoiding the managed code part so it\u2019s promising but even \u201coffline\u201d audio processing using native plugins is heavy on recent CPUs, I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll be able to use those effectively in-game soon at 60fps.<\/p>\n

They are a bit if not a lot overlapping with well known and used third party solutions like FMOD and Wwise.<\/p>\n

Miyamoto once said: <\/p>\n

\n

A good idea is something that does not solve just one single problem, but rather solve multiple problems at once.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I like this quote because advanced audio features tend to solve one single particular problem while adding tons of complexity while simpler solutions can not only solve a sound problem but also a game design, UI feedback problem at the same time.<\/p>\n

My focus as a designer is not to use fancy tools to the max. More features doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s going to make things so<\/em> much better. Two things make me think that: <\/p>\n

– Most game audio that people remember is not related to anything technical, it\u2019s usually from games where audio is played or stopped. No convolution reverb or complex variables to make something duck \u20134.5 dB in the background. <\/p>\n

– As Iwata, a fantastic programmer said after working with Miyamoto: \u201cit\u2019s about content\u201d. Even though technical mastery is useful ultimately it\u2019s about what people will hear, the content.<\/p>\n

And that works for me: I\u2019m enjoying Else Heart.Break()<\/a> made in Unity which has basic audio integration but the content is great: the music is awesome, the foley and little sounds are cool (I really like the fake TV show sound). Content first.<\/p>\n

GunPoint<\/a> has some clever FMOD layering going on but if the music was bad, it wouldn\u2019t have mattered. And the layering (happening when you switch to hacking mode) can actually make it tiresome from time to time.<\/p>\n

Kentucky Route Zero is the master of the past few years in terms of ambiance and mood, achieved by fantastic audio design with about zero fanciness or parameter-enabled function. It\u2019s just a great sounding game.<\/p>\n

With time I feel like people enjoy and remember two things from game audio: music they can hum, and sound\/voice effects they can remember because they heard them a billion time (\u201cKAY-O\u201d and other \u201cthe bomb has been planted\u201d). It seems like the loop\/repeat paradigm is part of game audio\u2019s DNA and we can\u2019t escape it. <\/p>\n

The only games that require massive audio systems and tech are the CoDs and Halos of this world: big battles, hundreds of sounds being played, the need for a robust system to control what\u2019s going on is inevitable.<\/p>\n

But for most games? Nah. Audio designers, focus on making great sounds. That\u2019s what will make the game better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I watched the new Unity5 audio system stuff, it\u2019s pretty cool. They don\u2019t dig so much in how performance is when you use a granular synth and sub mixes on top of an actual game with AI and input though. They are going full native avoiding the managed code part so it\u2019s promising but even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2081"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2081"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2082,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2081\/revisions\/2082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}