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February ‘08 Round Table - UPDATE 2/29
By Corvus | February 29, 2008
After an excellent start to the year with some truly delightful posts submitted to the January Round Table, I thought we’d follow up in February by making some noise! As always, everyone is free to participate. Just read the FAQ and let me know if you have any questions at all.
February ‘08
Make Some NoiseThere’s no question that ambient sound can play a big role in videogames, yet the sound artists who design these soundscapes go largely unsung. This month’s Round Table invites you to explore the idea of sound effects in videogames. Whether you’ve got an idea for a better implementation, a gripe about a particular game’s audio fidelity, or a memory of how a game used sound effects to spectacular effect, this is your opportunity to sound off!
There you have it, I’m eager to see what you come up with. I will be attending GDC later this month as will at least of few of my potential contributors. So if you’re going to be away that week, be sure to get your post in early! I know I’m going to be too exhausted the following week to be much good to anybody.
That being said, I’ll be armed with the EEE PC throughout the conference (I’ll be happy to let you play with it if you’re there) and I’ll continue to update this post with new entries as they arrive, so feel free to postpone as long as you need to. Don’t forget that this is a short month, though!
As he often does, Chris Bateman of Only a Game has launched our February Round Table with an excellent, solidly on-topic post. In it he extols the virtues of Sound Judgement when creating quality world immersion.
I submitted a post discussing the ambient sound that exists Within the Sound of Silence.
Max exults the art of Foley and laments the misuse of audio cues within notable games such as Half Life in his entry.
Thomas overshot this month’s topic and landed back in January with his post Why We Hum Along. I agreed to retroactively include it in January’s table in exchange for a post on audio hardware limitations as they apply to this month’s topic.
True to his word, Thomas has submitted a February entry wherein he take us Out on the Dynamic Range.
UPDATE
It looks like we’ll be wrapping up this month’s Round Table with a light hearted entry from Andrew’s Site as he challenges us to Guess The Sound!
You’ve got until midnight tonight to let your voice be heard in this month’s Round Table!
Tagged:audio effects, Round Table. |
February 1st, 2008 at 4:10 pm
I’m going on hiatus from the start of GDC for a few weeks break having reached the end of “the Ethics campaign” (as of next Friday), so I might not get in on this Round Table. I’ll try and make sure I at least plug before I take my break, though.
Cheers!
February 1st, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Audio eh? Interesting, I’ll have to delve into it and get some downloads of what I want to write about sorted - something I should have done for my last post.
And I’ve tried an EEE PC since someone here has one - it is damn small I’ll give you that. I must admit I’d be tempted to get one *if* I had the money, and didn’t already have a Macbook
I wonder if March will be about voicework, since we’ve had music and now audio
February 1st, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Voice Work indeed sounds like a good topic… If Corvus isn’t planning a round table on that specific topic, maybe I’ll just decree that voice work is an important part of game audio and ramble about that this month…
February 1st, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Hold onto that voice post there, WM. I suspect Andrew may be on to something.
February 6th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
I’m a semi-pro sound engineer, but not a game designer. I’m very sensitive to my soundscape, whether in-game or out of game. A few random thoughts…
- Recordings don’t cut it for ambient sound. Ambient *must not* be repetitive, or you lose immersion. That bird call spooks you the first time, but after you’ve heard the same sample 100 times it gets repetitive. How about some model-based ambient sounds, with variation in the models?
- Why do all wind noises sound like they were generated by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s vintage 1970s wind machine? Wind *doesn’t* sound like that, we have 30 years of new research to go at. Surely there are better models now?
- How to handle changes of ambient sound between locations? A closed door muffles sound, but doesn’t kill it. An open doorway modifies the ambient sound from the other side of the door. Is there enough processing power now available to model this effectively?
All these would add another degree of realism to the background.
February 6th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Peter, even those of us who are far less qualified to speak on the topic undoubtedly will… and at great length too! I’d love it if you turned those thoughts into a full post and submitted it to the Round Table!
February 28th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Okay, I’m still working on mine - and it isn’t on voicework (I wish I had noticed the comment implying it was earlier). It’s not even technically a written piece - it’s silly, almost
sorry!
The reason I’m doing a non-written piece (and if I don’t finish it by Friday, I’ll still release it on the web), is I have absolutely no experience to write about such matters, so I went a different direction.
If it doesn’t fit for the roundtable, I don’t really care - it’s fun to do anyway. But it’ll be done tomorrow (GMT time), not today, sorry!
February 29th, 2008 at 6:57 am
Silly is good! Shoot me an email when it’s done, if you would be so kind.
February 29th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Really interesting ones this month, even the more technical ones (I liked the HL2 use annoyance - yes, it is very annoying and immersion breaking).
I also “fixed” my quiz, it’s on multiple pages, so the errors I kept getting (ie; no sounds playing whatsoever) should be better. It’ll definitely stay on the same pages now at least, if anyone does look at it, although I might mess with the players a bit more again.