Your Audio Design Document: Important Items to Consider in Audio Design, Production, and Support

Contents

Ask Yourself Components Checklist

So now you have the design and implementation where you want it, and everything is under way. But you realize as your document comes to life, that it is opening up more and more complex questions that need answers. Support all the way through the project is crucial; with that, somewhere within the document there should also be the following considerations, taken as notes, mental or written:

DESIGN DOC PRODUCTION CHECKLIST

• Aesthetic Continuity/Quality
  • If using more than one composer or sound designer, do their styles blend well with one another?
  • Have these people ever worked together before? Does anyone need additional training on your internal production process, game background, software, or hardware?
  • Should there be additional up-front time for creative research if it's a more challenging style or genre to define?

• Technical Continuity/Quality
  • Is there proper level balancing for all files?
  • Do certain sounds have odd qualities, such as strange EQ or other unusual DSP aspects when compared? Is this intended?
  • Have all files been checked to ensure their correct file format? Bit depth? Sample or playback rate?
  • Are all file names spelled correctly?
  • Any odd characters being used that a CD Data Mastering Specification cannot handle?
  • Are you confident of the "real estate impact" your audio will have in memory/on your CD/DVD/Server/other?
  • Are you using an audio technology to your advantage? Are you getting what you need from it for this game?
  • Have you cleaned up any noise/maximized your S/N(signal-to-noise) ratio for all files?
  • Are you getting enough of the frequency spectrum you want (especially for music) in your files? Is it worth taking another pass at certain files to remaster/remix/re-EQ?
  • Does your audio sound good on a wide range of speaker systems? Have you decided upon an "optimum" sound card and speaker configuration?
  • Do your files have clean starts and finishes (especially voice clips)? Any unnoticed dead space before or after any files? Any unnatural rhythm patterns on voice files, especially those that were constructed from multiple takes?

• Miscellaneous Production Considerations
  • Are you going to be within budget?
  • Is the schedule reasonable? Will you need more people, or need to put in more hours?
  • Do you have the production tools/equipment you need? If not, can you make due with what you have? What areas can you cut corners in?
  • What can be done earlier or later in the production cycle? What is not time-dependent within that cycle?
  • Is extra time allowed for additional content or redos? Any "outside" influences that may break up/accelerate your schedule: multiple title/version production, web site needs, marketing materials, E3, magazine demos?
  • Do you have access to the most up-to-date, correct information (design documents, schedules, content lists/requirements)?
  • If someone cannot complete their tasks for any reason (becomes ill, quits, and so on), is their a contingency plan? Can some content be "let go" or reduced in scope due to time constraints?

• Overall testing
  • What the main areas of the audio design that need testing? Can anyone else help define this list with you, on a more objective level?

• CPU performance testing
  • If your game's performance is sluggish, could it be due to too many audio files playing simultaneously? Is it just a matter of finding a more suitable audio file format or specification? A more suitable technology? Can the code in question be further optimized in this area?

• Limits testing
  • Can you work on your own or with your QA group to help test the limits of the audio design? How many sound files can play simultaneously? What if the same sound is played by multiple sources simultaneously? What if someone toggles the music off, then turns it on again? Does it pick up where it left off or start over from the top? Is that the desired effect? And so on.

• Relevancy
  • Which areas are more important to focus on from a programming perspective? Will all of this coding even make an aesthetic or qualitative difference for gameplay? Or will the efforts go unnoticed? Can the programmers' resources be better spent elsewhere?

• Technology trade-offs
  • WAVs vs. MP3s vs. DirectMusic, for example. Can these or other technologies be used to their (and your) advantage?

Ultimately, your game's audio design should translate into a rewarding, interactive experience, one that blends effortlessly into the gameplay, graphics, and other components of the product. The real trick of course, is how you specify it in your audio design document.

Your document should be able to answer most questions about the audio design and implementation, or at the least point other team members in the right direction to go for more information (references to another document, a manual, a web site, or another contact). As mentioned earlier, how detailed or concise you need to be in writing it is up to you and/or your team, provided it meets your needs and, where applicable, can be generally understood by the people who need to make use of it.

Hopefully this article has demonstrated some effective, practical methods in designing and supporting audio for games. I have found the these ideas and techniques useful for my particular environment; of course they may not necessarily reflect your studio's needs. But I hope that for those reading this, it has at least provided further inspiration to strive for excellence in the quest to create great audio for games.

Keith Zizza is the Audio Director for Impressions Games, a division of Sierra Studios (Havas Interactive).

 

Discuss this article in Gamasutra's discussion forums

________________________________________________________

[Back To] Ask Yourself