1. Audio Director, Splash Damage
Guns have wheels “ ”
Chris Sweetman
Audio Director, Splash Damage

2. Source is king Good quality source is important
Three main avenues for this:
Commercial audio libraries
Licensing from third-parties
Field recording

3. Commercial Libraries Pros: Cons: Fairly cheap Easy to use
Embedded metadata
Pre-edited
Cons:
Often overused
Generally not comprehensive enough

4. Licensing from third parties
Pros:
Offers full range of recordings
Cons:
Relatively expensive
Don’t own the material for future titles

5. Field Recording Pros: Cons: Tailored to your production needs
You own it
Material can be re-used for future titles
Cons:
Expensive
Need to spend time editing and mastering

6. The Problem
Several enemies firing at the same time result in audio clutter
Player can’t pin-point specific enemies
If the three tapirs here were to engage the player at once, using the same weapons and firing sounds, the resulting audio clutter would make it extremely hard for the player to listen for a specific enemy.

7. My Solution
“Choir of Guns”: Create variations of the weapon with different timbres
Work with designers to give enemies different weapons
Can design slightly different sounds for each team in multiplayer

8. Sound Design Recreate your mental picture of the sound
Texture is important
3 degrees: Create distinct sounds for close, medium, and long distance
Plug-ins can easily change sound characteristics, such as McDSP, Waves EQ
The first sound contains the various elements used to create the second, final shotgun firing sound.

9. The Traditional Approach
Single shots
Too staccato and not realistic enough
Loops
Firing sound is the same every time
Limit “sweeteners” that can be added

10. Go Go Granular Split your sounds and recombine them dynamically
Add “sweeteners” to your base template to easily create variation
Not locked to frame rate, so no chugging sounds
While the head section of the sound is the same, the “middle” section of the firing sound can be as long as needed and, thanks to dynamically added sweetener sounds, provide slight variations every time the weapon is fired. The tail section of the sound is played whenever the player stops firing.
The first sound is one of the elements of the “middle” section, while the second sound is the recombined firing sound.

11. Where are We going? Evolve sounds to match the player’s experience
Reflect gameplay devices
Match player & story progression
Adapt weapon sounds to different environments
Accurate reflections

12. Thanks For Coming!
Presentation will be available online at
Additional questions or comments?