Network now...NEWS
Breaking the Sound Barrier
By Sande Chen
September 17, 2008
See also:
Related Articles:
“Celebrate our uniqueness rather than stifle it."
At Austin GDC on Wednesday, Jason Page, audio manager of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe R&D, called upon sound designers and composers to fully exploit the capabilities of current systems and to cast aside preconceptions about game audio. In that way, audio in games can move to a next-gen status.
In addition, he announced two forthcoming releases from Sony that would help move the industry in that direction. Sulpha, an analyzer and debugger for audio, will be available at the end of the year and the Awesome Editor, a scripting tool, will be released afterwards.
These new tools address issues specific to game audio. For instance, the Awesome Editor, targeted to designers and anyone in the audio tool area, is cross-platform, uses standard and open formats, and isn’t tied to an audio engine.
“Celebrate our uniqueness rather than stifle it,“ said Page.
Page pointed out that game audio is often compared to audio in film and TV and while the quality is certainly on par, the issues sound designers and composers face are not the same as in film and TV. They don’t have to worry about how much RAM is being used or about porting from system to system.
“Why put us in a box with film and TV? We shouldn’t be like anything. We should be like games.”
However, Page stressed that designers and composers needed to learn more about current tools. “There’s so much untapped potential in what’s available now.”
Page also thought game audio was in danger of becoming stagnant. He worried that game audio creation had more of a “shopping list” mentality. “We don’t think, is it the best method? Or do we need it at all.”
To illustrate this, Page showed two clips of Star Wars. One was the original and the other with footsteps. The one with footsteps sounded ridiculous. Yet, any sound designer doing a WWII FPS will automatically write down footsteps along with gunshots and ricochet as needed sounds. The soundtrack to the WWII FPS would also be orchestral and Page asked if this amounted to wasted efforts and budgets since the soundtrack would sound the same as other games in the genre. How can the listener notice any improvements then? What is there that is new?
“We’ve had decades of being told what to do,” Page admitted. It may be difficult to thrown away that conditioning. Ultimately, he said, “Next-gen is a state of mind.” With technological barriers erased, sound designers and composers can think about innovating the craft and really bringing game audio to the next level.
My speakers are alright. It depends on the game, though. I'm playing Resistance now and steps there sound right. At least in terms of positioning. Not unlike Rainbow 6 Vegas or Condemned.
Maybe it's just me, but steps coming from the front speakers are sound like they are mine. From the rear - not. It's more complex than that(rear or front) of course.
As with all samples, things start to sound weird the moment anyone can hear they are being repeated. Before that, if they are well-implemented, they shouldn't be noticeable - unless the person listening wants to actually notice them. It's like using a virtual instrument versus the real thing - most untrained ears won't necessarily be able to tell the difference until it becomes clear the instrument consists of a number of samples. The more samples, the more realistic. Combine this with things like accurate, natural sounding reverb and you can get some fairly decent results.
But as long as sound designers use two samples for footsteps (left foot, right foot), things aren't going to sound the way they should.
If you use crappy speakers and Ac97 codec on your mobo footsteps might sound awful but I doubt Sony can help it except for selling you a nice set of speakers or headphones. I do not find anything wrong with footsteps in my games and can clearly hear the difference between my steps and enemies. Using Sound Blaster X-Fi gamer and Beyerdynamic headphones.
Any half-decently written game will use EAX and that takes care of reverbs, occlusions, etc. Unlike Sony's technologies EAX is an open standard, same as openAL, which allows for EAX to be processed by dedicated hardware for more accurate audio.
There is EAX HD as well (128 simultanous samples each with effects - compared to 32 in a standard EAX), which is proprietary but licenced to several sound card manufacturers and no doubt a good sound card has a primary impact on gaming audio.
That's all valid assuming that samples used for footsteps were not confused with those used for wet farts in another production in the same studio, but that's rarely the case :)
We've got a very cool footstep system in the game I'm working on now, and it absolutely sounds much better with them than without them. I don't really understand that remark in the article. Especially since Jason Page says we shouldn't compare ourselves to film and then uses a clip from Star Wars (I'm assuming one of the movies) to make a point.
Footsteps are nice, Hmmkay?
Footsteps in games are awful. They just don't sound right. I always think that's it's not mine, but enemy's. And they frequently come from the rear which also isn't right. I'm talking about FPSs of course.