Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Audio Preparation for Game Engines
Here are a few important workl ow concepts to keep in mind when
preparing your assets. You must . . .
•
Bounce out your sounds from a DAW
or Stereo Editor into individual
i les and into separate folders. These folders will contain all the
music, sound ef ects and voice-over in the game and will need to be
meticulously organized.
•
Tightly trim and edit your i les
so that they can trigger right away
when called by the game engine without skips or delay. We also need
to trim the start and end of each sound so they are as size ei cient as
possible and don't take up any more space than is necessary. Game
audio is all about ei ciency.
•
Volume balance all your audio
. In some cases you will normalize all
your elements as individual groups (meaning for example all voice-
over i les) to 90 percent of maximum volume to prevent clipping,
deliver them, and then let the programmers and integrators set the
i nal mix volumes between these groups. In other situations you will
premix the entire soundtrack in your DAW—this means you mix the
sounds in your DAW, but bounce out the individual i les or layers
needed along with any reverb, EQ or ef ects you require and then
deliver these i les for insertion into the game. In this case, and with
luck, the programmer will simply insert the i les into the game with no
need to do any additional audio work.
