Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
•
Create perfect seamless loops that do not skip
. We cannot stress
this enough—there is nothing worse than getting audio notes that say
“Sorry, but the audio is skipping. Can you please re-edit?” We'll have a
lot more to say on the subject of looping later on in this level.
•
Provide an asset list or asset database management system
to
properly identify your i les so a programmer can help to implement
them. Alternately, you would provide prepared audio middleware i les
or do the implementation yourself! Audio does not magically appear
inside a game—it takes planning and elbow grease. If you don't know
how to do it yourself, then you must make sure that at the very least
you understand the process and can provide the programmer with the
information they need to get the job done in as ei cient a manner as
possible.
Go to the Classroom
in the App, and click
on the Video screen to
watch and hear more
about preparing your
audio for games!
This i gure shows what should be pretty obvious by now—a looped
i le of 1 minute duration played eight times is much smaller in size
than an 8 minute long i le. This does not mean that all loops have to
be short, however: these decisions are individual to the game and
the situation at hand.
Credit:
Jeremy Engels.
JUST SO YOU KNOW. . . .
Triple A console titles and big budget games usually involve the use of audio middleware. When a
designer works with a middleware engine, all the audio elements are roughly balanced ahead of time,
then the mix is rei ned in real time while the game is being played. Reverb or other ef ects can be added,
music levels are frequently reduced in volume under voice-over through a process called ducking, and
spatial sounds are all dealt with on the l y within the middleware audio engine. This is then output to the
game engine itself or possibly to a platform-specii c development environment like XCode, Visual Studio,
or myriad others, to be compiled along with the graphic and structural game data.
Social and mobile games, like iOS, Android and online games, do not usually use audio middleware. In
the case of platforms like these that don't use dynamic mixing, audio elements must be pre-balanced
