View source for Approaching Sound Design

Sound design seems to be to something that is often over-looked when it comes to adventure games & low budget indie games & possibly even in certain commercial games; but in my opinion it is probably one of the more important aspects of a game besides the visuals & the interface, of course, as it can really help to set the overall mood, tone, ambiance & atmosphere of the game or a particular scene.

<span class="bold">What perspective should I use when approaching the sound design for my game?</span><br/>
Characters perspective: sounds volume & balance are determined via characters current position in each scene
* current character sounds such as footsteps, actions & speech should all be approx 100% volume & center balanced
* environmental & cpu character sounds should fade in/out depending on how close the playable character is to the sounds source & the audio balance should be approached in the same way. you have to calculate the x&y position of your character against the position of the sounds source to set the correct volume (I will not go into the calculations in this page) & the audio balance should be based on the playable characters x position versus the sounds source x position.

Camera perspective: sounds are determined via what the camera can see & the objects/characters position in the scene.
* current character sounds such as footsteps, actions & speech volume should be set based on current scale/size or y position
* current character sounds audio balance can be approached in 2 ways:
** current camera view determines left/right audio balance (neater)
** whole scene width determines left/right audio balance (more complicated)
* environmental sounds work in the same way as the character sounds; the current camera position & the distance from the camera determines the sound sources volume levels as the camera being centered further to left or right of a sound source determines the audio balance.


<span class="bold">Environmental things to consider...</span>
Something designers seem to ignore is how the environment affects sounds. What is the character currently walking over? grass? mud? stones? concrete? snow? a wet surface? etc ... Is the character in a cave/cavern or a large empty room? if so then you should consider creating variations of your sounds that are to be used in those types of areas with some reverb/echo & maybe a bit of filter manipulation to make them fit the current environment. In my opinion: it is pure laziness, if you are playing a game & you are in a large cavern & the characters are talking or even shouting in the same dull fashion that they would in a normal scene rather than having their voices echo off the cavern walls or at least reverberate slowly into nothing. Also another thing to consider is: is the character currently walking behind something? if so then character sounds should be quieter/muffled (maybe use a sound with some added filter cutoff) providing you are using the camera perspective approach to sound design.


<span class="bold">Adding a bit of dynamic flair to your sounds</span>
Dynamically approaching how you play a sound is a good way to create a more natural feel/tone to your game rather than all sounds playing at the exact same volume level. For instance: I would recommend creating a few variations of the same sound & randomly calling one of the variations & then using a bit of Lua trickery apply a slight random subtraction or addition value to the volume level of the sound; this is a great way of setting tones - in a music production DAW (digital audio workstation) this is referred to as "velocity" - quieter sounds are softer & louder sounds are harsher - I have used this method in a couple of dynamic sound scripts I have written.


<span class="bold">A few extra things to take into consideration...</span>
When recording sounds, you should really try to record all sounds at approx the same audio level or adjust afterwards to suit, especially sounds that belong in the same set. I would recommend - if possible - getting someone to professionally master your sounds & to sort out the levels. The reason I am mentioning this is because: it's not nice, nor very professional to have one sound that's fairly normal & another that is suddenly 20x louder blasting out at the person playing your game.

On a final note: I have written this article to try & help put into perspective the importance of sound design in a game & also to help you achieve a more polished & professional standard for your games in general.
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