For our module Soundtrack Production, we used the audio middleware Wwise for game audio implementation. In this page, I will share my experiences and adventures with it. Let's start off with a short gameplay recording.
A really big part of the gameplay audio were the footsteps of our character "Ellen" on different surfaces. We recorded the footsteps in RP's Foley Studio and the process is documented here.
Ellen had two different jump timings. The first being when she jumps on the spot, and the second being jumping after running, which includes a burst of three footsteps.
I layered the footsteps we recorded in the foley studio with a delay on the second one, to create the 'flammed' sound when the character lands unevenly.
For the second landing sound, there was timing to be taken into account. As a result, we had to add three post-events to the Ellen_Landing_Running event, with the specific timings of each of the footsteps.
An important component was also the weapon our character was using. When I first saw it, I immediately thought of the 'Gravity Hammer' from the Halo franchise. When swung, the staff had a trail of energy and I felt like a normal swoosh would not suffice. What I needed was that 'energy weapon' sound.
I sampled a finger running across the rim of a wine glass from a sound library online, which had the humming quality I wanted. I dropped it in ProTools, shortened it by a significant amount and pitched it down for a metallic property. I then layered it on my swoosh sound.
I enabled the pitch randomizer in Wwise for the weapon swings for variation.
I enabled the pitch randomizer in Wwise for the weapon swings for variation.
I added a voice pitch RTPC setting linked to health to my VO (Voice Over) bus. When the character's health decreases below 2, the pitch of the voice overs lower, serving as a tell that the player is low on health.
I implemented a heartbeat feature as well. I added a heartbeat track that was routed to the audio bus, and made the track play during the 'game_started' event. I used the RTPC to set the output bus at -200, and to increase it to slightly above 0 when the health points dip to 1. The RTPC effectively served as a mute for the heartbeat track, only unmuting it when the health was low enough.
Then, I added a voice pitch parameter, decreasing the pitch and therefore speed, of the heartbeat when hit the threshold. This was to simulate the slowing of heartbeat before death.
As for the music in the game, I implemented it with vertical music. One of my quirks in film or game audio is when the music does not complement or match the media. The choice of music can really take me out of the film/game and break that illusion.
To me, this game had a fantasy look, so I took inspiration from medieval soundtracks and instrument choice.