Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
This awareness, this capacity to listen and not just hear, is a fundamental tool for making captivating
virtual environments. Each one of these environments should have a distinctive aural ambiance, just as your
current physical world location does. If you create a sense of the layers and subtleties that the sound of your
physical world has in all of your virtual projects, you will enhance the visitors' overall experience. With a
virtual “soundscape” containing music, sound, and vocalization, your sonic environment will impart a sense
of presence, direction, and emotion to all who visit.
11.1.1 g
ame
s
ound
and
h
oW
i
T
i
s
a
dapTiVe
a
udio
Why is sound in a game so different from sound anywhere else, and how can this help you design better
virtual environments? Fundamentally, there are three large categories of sound in a video game: (1) musical
score and ambiance; (2) special sound effects (or FX); and (3) voice or dialogue. You can design all three of
these, and the more you can compose and orchestrate these sounds, the more immersive and powerful the
experience will be for the visitor or player. Many games accomplish this with an “adaptive” or interactive
sound structure. The underlying musical score may fade away temporarily as new sounds become prominent,
enhancing the ight action for the player. This audio is adapting and interacting with your player's advance-
ment and actions in the space. The sound and music iles are arranged in phased overlapping layers and
triggered by the position and direction of the player's character in the game space.
Should your player retreat, a section of the theme can be replayed or looped to maintain the aural ambi-
ance of the environment. Although a relatively new approach to audio, this technique has become popular in
video game development because it gives the game programmer a lexible musical/sound structure that can
easily be incorporated into the coding that drives the game play [3].
As you start to plan for the sound in your virtual environment, it is helpful to keep these approaches in
mind. While the sound structures of your virtual environment may not be as complex as a high-level video
game, having a clear plan of how the sound will transition, or “play,” for a visitor is important for creating a
harmonious immersive presentation. Look for rhythmic permutations, the “beat” of the space. Ask yourself
if there is an underlying sense of tempo for building a soundscape. Does this tempo provide for sound transi-
tions and changes of overlying themes in the virtual space? For example, perhaps there is a large machine in
the nearby area, thumping and squeaking with wheels and gears in rotation. This kind of device would add
a fundamental “heartbeat” to the underlying sounds in your environment and would actually serve as a loca-
tion guide to the players as they navigate the space. Maybe there are scary monsters that approach and retreat
from the vicinity as the player wanders through your environment. How you structure the sound events in
a virtual environment is crucial to providing your visitor with a memorable experience. Figure 11.1 is a
diagram of a maze-like virtual environment compared to a chart of the types and durations of sound events
(triggered and ambient) as they are experienced by the visitor within the space. In this virtual space there are
continuous looping sounds and infrequent sounds that may be triggered by the player's approach. There are
also ambient sounds and musical themes the player will hear when exiting the space.
11.1.2 C
onsidering
m
oVie
s
Cores
and
V
irTual
s
oundsCapes
Sound is the only aspect of a virtual environment that can touch our bodies physically. When a sound is
created, the vibrations pass physical energy through the air, move the tiny bones in our ears, and transmit
the sound into our brains. Perhaps it is their physical aspect that gives sound effects and musical scores
the capacity to evoke a whole spectrum of emotions in us. Most of you can probably hum the themes from
The Godfather
or
Star Wars
but also consider movies like
Wall-E
or
Apocalypse Now
.
Wall-E
, for the most
part, has no spoken dialogue, and yet you know exactly what is going on thanks to Ben Burt's sound design [4].
