Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
In i lm, the creation of sound ef ects to
correspond in real time with the action on
the screen is called
Foley
, and the people
who create these sounds are called foley
artists. This branch of sound design is
named after Jack Foley, who originated
the art in 1927. He and his crew created
ef ects for “talkies” (the i rst movies with
sound) by recording sound ef ects (such
as footsteps and closing doors) in real time
as they watched projections of the movies.
Their method required perfect timing so
the audio synced with the action in the i lm.
Today, although the art is still practiced,
modern day non-linear audio editing from
a DAW like Pro Tools means that the sound
can be recorded i rst and then synchronized
later with the action on the screen.
Vancouver Film School student recording old typewriter foley in sync with
a video. Foley for games is recorded the same way, sometimes with and
sometimes without the need to see the action on a screen.
Credit:
Vancouver Film School.
In i lm and television, sound designers work in a linear way; they follow the timeline of the story, and the
product of all these sound ef ects, ambiences, music and voice-over is carefully mixed all together. Once
the mix is completed it always sounds the same when played back. In games, a cutscene, or a cinematic
works exactly the same way.
In games, however, it's a bit of a dif erent story, as we've mentioned. Because games are a non-linear
medium, we can't mix all of our various sounds into a single i le, because
we don
'
t know when they might
be needed
. As a result, we have to be prepared to trigger any sound at any time in the game.
When a game sound designer is working on interactive gameplay areas, all the elements—music,
sound ef ects, and voice-over—are rendered out as individual i les, and added into a database of code
that calls the sounds when specii c events take place in the game. In the game world, sound designers
may create custom libraries by recording their own sounds or they may use pre-made sound libraries.
In some cases, they may use processing and synthesizers to create brand new, never-before-heard
noises.
In the end, the computer processor actually calls the audio on the l y in real time as the player moves
through the world. In simple platforms such as most mobile and social games, the sounds must be pre-
mixed (or balanced in terms of level) before they are triggered. In more sophisticated platforms such
as console games, the audio engine can actually mix audio in response to the player's actions. These
engines can act like virtual foley artists by adding signal processing ef ects to the sounds in real time.
Note, however, that not all games are alike; the platform specii cations dei ne the parameters of what
can and cannot be done with sounds inside a game—all of these can be dif erent—which continually
presents audio professionals in games with new challenges.
