Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
enough pages on it. Most programmers and designers tend to wait until the very end
of the production cycle before bringing in the sound engineers and composers. By
that time, it
s usually too late to create a cohesive sound design in your game, and
the whole thing will be horribly rushed. As much as sound designers have resigned
themselves to this fate, it is still something you should try to avoid.
Get organized from the very beginning, and ask yourself whether each task in your
game schedule needs an audio component. You
'
ll be surprised how many objects
need sound effects, how many levels need their own background ambient tracks,
and how much speech you need to record. Basically, if it moves at all, it needs
sound.
Sound technology will also stress more of your core game components than any
other system, including resource cache, streaming, memory, main loop, and more.
Once your sound system is working flawlessly, you can feel confident about your
lower-level systems. That
'
'
s another good reason to get sound in your game as early as
possible.
Most importantly, don
t forget that sound sets the emotional stage for players. They
will get critical player direction, feel more immersed, and react more strongly to
everything if you
'
'
ve done a good job with your sound system and the sounds that it
makes possible.
