Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
LEVEL 09
The Early Bird Gets
the Worm
Preparing Your Audio
Mixing for Games •
Audio Preparation for Game Engines •
The Importance of Looping in Games •
Creating Perfect Loops •
Audio Format Choices
•
Learning Outcomes:
Comprehension of mixing and what it means for games •
Understanding the importance of proper naming conventions •
Know how to create seamless loops •
Mixing for Games
So, now that we have learned the basics of workl ow concerning sound
ef ects, music and voice-over, how do we go about preparing all of those
awesome sounding assets for use in real live games? Well, you should
have it hammered into your brain by now that we're dealing with non-
linear media. Because of this the individual elements must be put into
separate i les and you will likely i nd yourself with folders and possibly
subfolders of sounds. These asset folders need to be organized
and properly named so that the game programmers can call the
audio ei ciently. This includes sound ef ects, individual music stems,
voice-over and more. As discussed in previous Levels, there are a host
of dif erent requirements between genres of games that have a huge
inl uence on how these audio elements will need to be organized.
Ultimately, the answer to how they should be organized will emerge
from the logic of the game itself.
Sometimes you may i nd yourself having
to create multiple categories of sounds to
accommodate your game and your team's
needs.
