My greatest achievement so far, I was fortunate to be the audio director for Sword Coast Legends. As the sole audio developer I was responsible for...well...everything! Sound Effects, Music implementation, Dialog Management. That's hundreds and thousands of spells, combat, environmental sfx, etc. SCL features a dynamic music system that matches intensity and "tide" in real time that I developed with Inon Zur (our composer!). The game is also fully-voiced both in the story and in combat using systems I created just for SCL using Wwise. I even voiced a handful of characters including the cover demon, Belaphoss. A single paragraph won't cover everything I did, nor can it account for all the support from n-Space I had to make the world of audio I've always wanted to make. I'll try and break down the big categories here.
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Music DesignI was just going to write the name "Inon Zur" and leave it at that, but I figure I would expand a bit.
Inon was fantastic to work with. A composer with not only years of experience and knowledge to draw from, but one that can both draw and instill inspiration and energy into any track or request. We didn't make it easy for Inon with the many revisions we needed on some of the stronger themes in the game, but we all felt the time was worth it to get it RIGHT. Outside of the compositions, Inon and I devised a system for dynamic music. We wanted something that could be used over and over without fatiguing the player. This would be doubly important in multiplayer as the game features a LIVE DM that can spawn monsters, traps, or other obstacles in the party's way at any time. Battles could scale at a moments notice, or just be a single one-off from a wandering mercenary. So we introduced a real-time value that was based off the rank or perceived threat the player incurs that would drive both the music's content and energy. As battle scale higher, you'll hear more parts of the orchestra piping in. As you gain the edge in battle, the music transitions to a more triumphant scheme. This ended up working very for SCL. It's not an over-the-head implementation, most players won't notice the transitions as everything should feel natural. |
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The devil is in the details... |
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There really wasn't an alternative to using Wwise. This would be my 8th commercial title using Wwise and I'm starting to get real good with it. Wwise allowed me to do a lot of complex bussing and routing to get everything to behave the way it needed. Using the invaluable "switch" system we were able to change from terrain sounds for footsteps to armor types worn by players and enemies, the above mentioned combat barks. Also included a dynamic weather system that the DM could dial in by both environmental values like snow, rain, temperature, to time of day... all affecting the audio output. I also mentioned the combat system above as being designed with scaleability in mind. Combat music wouldn't even be triggered if the threat value was below a certain threshold cause that would be annoying to hear pop up everytime you dispatch a single wolf, right?