Wednesday GameAudio AA - Sound Implementation April 23, 2014

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Getting the sounds into the game

Welcome to the subreddit feature post for game sound implementation questions, tips, tricks, shortcuts, and best practices. Offer your own or ask a question.

For example; What engines are you working with? Why do you prefer one over the other? What middleware? Other helpful app's? How often are you coding? Java script, C#, or ?? What do you spend most of your days actually doing? Does your audio team usually handle sound implementation or is that left to another department? How long do you get for this phase?

UPDATE - The GameAudio subreddit now has four bi-weekly feature posts; Monday Sound Creation, Tuesday Getting Started, Wednesday Sound Implementation, and Thursday Resource Recommendations. If you have ideas for other regular topics, please message the moderators.

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[u/[deleted]]

Hi guys and girls. So there was no Tuesday 'getting started' post this week...hope no-one minds if I move my questions into this thread.

I'm currently a student of undergraduate Digital Music, finishing off my 2nd year and making plans for the 3rd and beyond. We've covered a fair amount of sound design, composition and sound art principles. My main pursuits over the past couple of years have been sound for film and audio-visual programming. I've been an avid gamer for as long as I can remember, and during high school I dipped into a bit of level design (Unreal, Quake, Counter Strike). I'm looking to base my final dissertation and project around sound design for interactive media, with an emphasis on (non-linear) narrative. Potentially also moving on to an MSc/MA in Sound design afterwords.

My questions surround the intersection of tech and creativity in game audio.

• How do work opportunities for audio programmers compare to that of composers/sound designers?

• Is it worth investing into learning in-depth game programming in order to cross the boundaries, or is it better to develop a strong suit in one or the other?

• I've read to never give your work away for free. Given that I'm a student (albeit one of professional audio production), it's very tempting for me to invest a bit of time in a mod project or similar, just to get an original production on the resume. Any first-hand opinions of this would be appreciated.

• My strengths tend towards extreme detailing of sounds, spatialisation, and immersion. ie I can easily envisage how something should sound from a certain angle or distance, in an environment, and so on. As such, should my focus be upon the more technical implementation of sounds in games? If so, does this lean towards the use of UDK/Unity/Wwise/Fmod/etc, rather than composition, dialogue, general artistry?

• How is the industry in general these days? Is it realistic for a newcomer to be able to make a liveable income after a few years of dedication? For graduates?

I realise these are very much subjective questions, but any perspective would be very helpful. I'm enjoying sponging as much info as I can at the moment. Just getting started with Wwise and Project Adventure which is immense fun. First time I've actually enjoyed learning my way around an audio tool I think...

Thanks!

[u/Chippy569 → u/[deleted]]

I'll take a stab at this, no real data to back any of it up though so it's all my subjective opinion and should be regarded as such.

1. Audio programming jobs are typically limited to 1-2 per AAA title, where composers are typically 1 (maybe 2) per AAA title and sound designers can range from 1 to 12 depending on the scope of the title. That said, out of that whole group the programmer is probably the best-paid.

2. Mod projects are very popular for student projects. Obviously you have to start somewhere gaining some experience, and it's not going to be the big leagues right out of the gate. If you're "doing work for free" just be sure you're doing it for yourself, not for someone else.

3. There is a type of job becoming more popular as an audio implementation specialist, which seems like it might be a good fit for someone like you. Damien Kastbauer (of gameaudiopodcast or @lostlab on twitter) has done this for quite a long while. This type of person designs the systems within the audio engine that the sound designer then flushes out with content. It's a sort of bridge between programmer and designer if you will.

4. That's very dependent on a number of variables. There is no industry right now that guarantees a well-paying job immediately after graduating - there's always going to be some amount of luck, of active hunting, and of compromise on what you consider "livable." Working in AAA tends to pay better; sticking to indie titles is more difficult typically. Ultimately I think most of the people working in game audio do so because they love the work and are very passionate about making great sounds to go with great games, and being able to work at a place that makes you feel satisfied professionally is very rewarding.

As an aside, i'm curious to know if your coursework actually includes wwise or if you're digging into that yourself? And if you don't mind my asking, which school are you attending?

[u/loencn → u/Chippy569]

side question: is the best route to junior design (i literally can not focus enough to learn programming) through QA? I do audio QA and just network with the teams for the AAA companies i work(ed) for - but there haven't been any junior openings yet anywhere local so I'm not sure if it's the best route.

[u/Chippy569 → u/loencn]

Maybe? My route in was decidedly atypical so im not the most qualified person to answer this. I would say it's uncommon to go from test to QA but im not entirely sure that's true either. That said, quality audio testers who can provide useful, qualitative feedback are a bit of a gem in games. One of the more interesting thoughts is that a lot of the big publishing houses (Sony, Microsoft, EA, etc) all have a sort of "central audio" group, where the staff are there to help out a couple months here and there with various projects throughout the publisher. I would guess those types of places would have more junior positions than your average studio.

There are also other aspects of game production that require audio attention - namely marketing and media. If you love cutting sound for film that's another area to explore.

[u/samueljustice00 → u/Chippy569]

Hey guys -

1. Good audio programmers are highly sought after, and those with the knowledge will find themselves being approached quite often. A lot of times studios will justify multiple vacancies for audio programmers by having them take on two roles (for example when I was at DICE we hired for an audio programmer/game programmer). This way it is easier to put the argument to HR for staffing, and also having someone who works in audio also dealing with game programming is a powerful force. As it helps expose audio to more disciplines.

2. Strong technical implementation skills are a must these days - that doesn't necessarily mean programming, but if you want to learn how to script and/or program, then it certainly wouldn't be a bad choice. Some of the most talented people I've come across are a hybrid of technical and creative force, they know exactly how to create and present their work.

3. You just described a sound designer - saying you want to create awesome audio is not something you should be aspiring to do, it should be something you are doing! It's all well and good having a pretty sound in a DAW but putting it ingame, in context, is a completely different beast. You should overcome the technical hurdles first, then design your sounds based on your findings of what/what isn't possible within your implementation. There are multiple roles that do pop up, but it's pretty standard these days that if you're a game audio sound designer, you know how to to wrangle the system you're making the content for, along with its limitations.

4. It can be an extremely rewarding and well paying job, when I started out however it was a far more niche role than it is these days. Universities and Colleges are churning out aspiring sound designers these days. But nothing speaks louder than passion and the portfolio to back that up. I worked in game audio 4 years unpaid doing mod work, small titles with no budget, helping out where I could - this landed me my first gig. I loved every second of it. If I wasn't designing audio, I was writing about it, if I was writing about it, I was recording it, it encapsulated my life and still does. To me there's nothing like it, it's the best job in the world. You need to make sure others know how passionate you are when applying for these roles. Also, have a sense of humour, please! I would say though that there is absolutely no guarantee of work out of college/university.

In response to "(Sony, Microsoft, EA, etc) all have a sort of "central audio" group, where the staff are there to help out a couple months here and there with various projects throughout the publisher."

This is true but the roles of juniors are few and far between, central audio teams are skilled people who know exactly what they're doing, they can jump into projects that are on fire and help put them out without asking how to use the hosepipe.

If you have anymore questions you can find me over at www.samueljustice.net, fire me a mail

[u/[deleted] → u/Chippy569]

Awesome, thanks for the response!

In response to point 3, that does sound like quite a suitable niche for me. As far as I can tell, Damien Kastbauer was the main author for the 'Project Adventure' tutorial/documentation for Wwise. I see why I'm enjoying this approach to sound design so much now :) Definitely an area I'll look more into.

As for the job side, I certainly appreciate that this is an area that requires passion. I have passion in abundance for sound and music though. When I was 18 I had to make a big choice about where my life was heading, and that ended up taking me down the sound/music route. I'm 22 now and am still stand by that choice and don't see myself changing that commitment in any significant way in the future. However, I do have to be realistic about being able to make a living eventually. Providing I can find a way to put food on the table and pay for a roof over my head, I'm happy :)

Wwise is a purely personal pursuit at the moment. We did venture into game audio very briefly during the first year. That involved a few lectures with Tom Betts (creator of Sir, You Are Being Hunted and AvSeq), who guided us through the fundamentals of Unity, and how it can be integrated with other tools such as Max/MSP and SuperCollider. He also talked at length about procedural audio and generative content in general.

I'm at the University of Brighton at the moment. The full course title is 'Digital Music and Sound Arts', although it is undoubtedly a misleading name. As a rough summary, half the course is dedicated to learning to develop new audio tools, half the creative process and use of said tools (such as for film, TV, sound art, audio-visual work, new media, etc).

Thanks again for your reply :)