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Alan Wake II: Staying in the Light on the Journey to Building an Audio Team & Achieving a Vision
Join Remedy Entertainment's Audio Director, Richard Lapington, and Senior Development Manager, Anika Neubert, as they explore the intricate interplay between audio vision, leadership, team dynamics, and meeting shipping deadlines. In this insightful session, they will dissect their approach to developing the BAFTA award winning audio of Alan Wake 2, offering valuable insights into the challenges and strategies involved in bringing the game's auditory experience to life.
Session Takeaway
- Creative Audio Vision: Gain insights into how we bring our audio vision to life for our development team.
- Collaborative Efforts: Discover how our collaboration between Audio and Production drives the unique needs of audio development.
- Innovative Team Building: Discover how we foster teamwork in the complex audio work environment.
- Effective Strategies: Learn about the strategies we've employed to overcome the distinctive challenges of the audio development cycle.
Avatar: Frontiers of Sound Propagation
New gen consoles and modern GPU hardware have opened new opportunities for how sound propagation can be handled in games. In Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, these new opportunities sent the sound crew on a journey to the realms of raytracing and voxelized path finding, towards the ultimate goal: a real-time propagation solution providing an obstruction and occlusion simulation that’s scalable, supports dynamic environments, uses existing data, requires no baking steps, no adding of rooms and portals, or tagging materials with absorption values. Spoiler alert: they did not quite get there! However, in this talk, two senior members of the audio team will present their intriguing and impressive final solution sharing what they learned along the way.
Session Takeaway
- Hear how Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora utilizes GPU raytracing for sound propagation.
- Learn how the team's understanding of obstruction, occlusion and attenuation changed through the development.
- Gain insights into the iterative workflow between audio code and sound design.
Battlefield 2042 - Growing the Audio Experience Through an Evolving Game
In this talk Danijel Djuric, DICE Sr Sound Designer, and Rasmus Thorup, DICE Sound Designer, will discuss working with audio in a game that continues to live and evolve after its release. How we adapted to a new perspective after the complex launch of Battlefield 2042. How we worked in a truly live environment balancing the player's real time feedback with the areas of biggest positive impact. And how we continued to evolve the sound and music of 2042 as the creative vision for the game continued to grow and develop post launch.
Session Takeaway
- Challenges of evolving the game audio vision with real time player feedback.
- Learning to pick your fights, what will result in the most “bang for the buck”?
- Daring to do things differently, engaging the players.
- Adapting to a new perspective of the game post launch.
Elevating Diegetic Music – Tuning into Dead Island 2’s Identity
Embark on an intriguing exploration of diegetic music through the lens of Dead Island 2 and its influences, as the Dambuster Audio team discuss evolving diegetic music beyond conventional boundaries. This often-untapped methodology is explored as they delve into creating unique cinematic moments, employing non-traditional implementation techniques, and collaborating across departments to achieve the standout moments of Dead Island 2.
Attendees are invited to unravel the concept of 'diegetic blurring' and its transformative impact on Dead Island 2's music design. Instances are explored where diegetic music seamlessly contributes to character development and enhances gameplay. Additionally, the team will share insights into using non-music technology to vividly depict the vibrant cultural environments.
The talk also touches on the practical aspects of production in diegetic music, from crafting bespoke assets to navigating the intricacies of working with licensed music. This is an insightful journey into the world of game diegesis, with practical learnings focused on increasing player immersion and drama, providing valuable takeaways for those eager to delve into the intricacies of diegetic soundscapes.
Session Takeaway
- How to approach the creative decisions and production of diegetic music in new and exciting ways.
- Implementation techniques that go beyond the normal radio/playlist approach and how these techniques inform the creative decisions.
- Learn varied approaches to presenting diegetic music to the player that provide more bang for buck.
- Insights into the developer experience of using licensed music, including the creative process and logistical implications.
From Ka to Boom – General Learnings From Creating an Explosion Sound Library
Expert sound designer and recordist Mattia Cellotto’s renowned sound libraries are used the world over in all manner of audio projects. In this insightful session he’ll lift the hood to reveal his planning, process, and post-production to execute on carefully considered design goals determined long before hitting record. Drawing on his recent experiences creating and recording explosions in a number of extraordinary locations using an impressive array of equipment, as well as other projects, he’ll guide you with tips, tricks and learnings to inspire and encourage you to successfully follow in his footsteps.
Session Takeaway
- Planning and executing complex recording sessions.
- Selecting audio equipment and tools based on the specific goals set for creating a sound library.
- Editing and processing content for the purpose of tailoring it to a specific aesthetic.
- High level tips on creative sound design.
Music of the Orbs: Real-time Synthesis in COCOON
Composer / programmer Jakob Schmid will discuss the motivation and benefits of using real-time synthesis for COCOON’s critically acclaimed game music, explaining the structure and operation of the instruments, how they are set up in FMOD Studio, and how they react to input from the game, focusing on a few experimentally developed control methods that might prove useful for any game audio developer.
Session Takeaway
- Learn how a soundtrack for a 5 hour game can be generated by 5 MB of plugins.
- Learn simple and effective methods for controlling synthesizer plugins.
- See an example of how a synthesizer design can be prototyped in Bitwig Studio.
- Gain insight in how a Bitwig Grid prototype is implemented as an FMOD plugin.
- Learn how the internal state of audio plugins can be debugged on Windows.
Task Force SFX: Exploring the Sound of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League
Andrew Riley (Audio Director) and the audio team behind Rocksteady's SS:KTJL will take you on a reflective journey through the intricate sonic design behind the game. Starting from the key audio pillars and team ethos, we will explode selected key areas of the sound through to release. All the time looking at the creative and technical challenges we faced while we approached these areas, how we overcame them and how the challenges of reality alongside the initial intent of the pillars fundamentally shaped the realisation of the project.
Session Takeaway
- Learn about the value of setting out clear pillars at the start of of a project and how to work with them through the life of a project
- Be inspired and motivated by the Rocksteady audio team explaining their approach to sound design and mixing
- Learn about some key areas of sound design and how to record EVERYTHING on a AAA project
