GAME SOUND PRODUCTION
advantage of the Vita’s touchscreen. The new tactical weapon set, known as the VAN-Guard system, is driven entirely by a wrist-mounted controller on the player character. Once activated the player uses the touchscreen to rain fire down from above with ‘Sky Fury’ or send in a hail of missiles with the ‘Porcupine’. The audio team was able to get into the nitty-gritty of the touchscreen feature and generate a base set of interactive sounds, both functional in nature yet still with that particular Killzone identity. This forced us to think more about how we approach user interface and HUD sounds in the first place. “Rather than having the usual up, down, left, right, accept, and cancel, we had to consider how the sounds themselves tie into the sense of touch. There are a number of different ways the player can press or swipe the screen, all of which need to translate back to the touch functionality and complement it in the most seamless way possible. After
much trial of the ‘language’ of these sounds (eg does the swipe sound ‘feel’ like the swipe action), the team agreed on a simple, unobtrusive group of sounds that maintained the illusion of the wrist-mounted, war-torn VAN-Guard. “During production, as more
content went into the game, it became apparent this wasn’t going to be as easy as we first thought. With a multitude of sounds all fighting for space, a decision on the target mix had to be made. Do we mix for headphones or for the Vita’s speakers? There was no way all the vital aural and directional information about imminent dangers in the 3D environment could be relayed via the onboard speakers. Besides, if we were to deliver an audio experience comparable to PS3, the depth of the sound design could never be appreciated fully without headphones. Controlling the potential cacophony of ‘triggered’ sounds trying to play was managed by an intelligent ‘sound instance’ culling system, coupled with a ‘mixer-state’ system. The mix
THE COMPOSER’S PERSPECTIVE Walter Mair explains how he created a fresh, new sound for Killzone: Mercenary.
“Working on Killzone was an amazing opportunity and great fun. The franchise is hugely successful and I knew the producers’ expectations on music were very high. The creative brief was both really interesting and challenging as it required the music to span from ambient soundscapes that conveyed the mood of the locations to energetic action cues – and everything in-between. The locations stretched from starships to a landing at the beach to an ambush at the embassy, and beyond. On top of the regional specifics, the music also had to reflect our main character’s actions and him switching sides half-way through the game. “The creative team and I
had several meetings discussing the musical requirements. We looked at visual artwork that was available during this early
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stage in development and discussed the new musical direction they wanted me to take for Killzone. At this stage I was given a lot of creative space to introduce musical ideas. “The main character’s switch from ISA to Helghast was one of the key moments in the game which needed to be reflected in the music as well. Each campaign needed to feature its very own sound and I had to define and choose specific sounds and instruments that represent the core mood and temper for the ISA and Helghast. “This initial stage of
creating a unique sound for Killzone: Mercenary was very important as it defines the music for the entire game. The key element was to write a successful main theme and create a distinct overall sound for the music. I started experimenting by layering
instruments to build interesting and moving soundscapes. To add an organic element to the score I decided to spend the first few weeks creating my own sample library for Killzone. In my studio we recorded instruments spanning from classical orchestra to synths and electronica plus custom- built instruments. “As soon as I developed a
few basic ideas we would record them in more abstract ways where say, the cellist plays the strings with the wooden side of the bow instead of the horse hair, or we used bows of different materials like metal to create more distorted sounds. At one point we hammered the cello with metal and wooden objects to produce percussion-like sounds. All these sounds were then mapped in Kontakt (Native Instruments) to make them
states are activated by a series of run-time checks on the AI – is the enemy aware of your presence? How many of them are firing? Every system helped thin out the mix so the player was left with the sounds they needed to hear to inform the correct course of action. These same systems were used in creating state-based music for the game. Walter did a fantastic job helping to bring Killzone: Mercenary to life. Many of the technical aspects of the music employed traditional implementation – due to the limited streaming bandwidth being shared across dialogue, ambient streams, and music, the tracks themselves were created as full pieces and we transitioned between them using the mix state systems. Once all stitched into the state manager, the music, the mix, and the sound design really coalesced as one, gelling the overall audio experience. “As we move forward with the launch of the new generation PlayStation 4, the aspect of integration between Vita and PS4 with remote play
WALTER MAIR’S GEAR LIST
“At the centre of my setup are two Mac Pros, both maxed out on RAM to host a vast selection of plug-ins and software instruments. About one year ago I replaced my trusted Adam S3 speakers with Focal SM9s. Their low- end definition is amazing and helps greatly when working on movies and video games. My audio interface is an Apogee Symphony I/O. All my smaller live recording and solo-sessions go through an Avalon VT-737SP preamp. A Mackie desk is integrated in the system to premix external synths and effect processors, eg: Moog Voyager, Korg MS20, Virus TI Polar, etc. Displays and hardware controllers are very important to me to keep the workflow lean and fast. I use two 23in Apple displays, a hardware controller by Smart AV called Tango, and Lemur on the iPad. The picture is being played out on to a 46in Sony Bravia TV.”
Other kit: Software: Logic Pro
VSL Ensemble Pro Altiverb
iZotope Ozone 5, Trash 2, Alloy 2, Stutter Edit
Synths:
Access Virus TI Polar Moog Little Phatty Stage II Clavia Nord Modular Korg MS 20 Moog Voyager
Sample Libraries: East West Hollywood Brass+Strings+Woodwinds, VSL, Symphobia,
Los Angeles Scoring Strings (LASS), Cinesamples Percussion, Spectrasonics Omnisphere & Trillian, NI Komplete
being a selling point will give rise to a whole heap of more interesting innovations and ideas from developers. I
suspect we will not be seeing the last of Vita and its capabilities for a while yet!”
www.sony.co.uk
Walter Mair
playable like a real instrument. “I went further building and modifying classical instruments. Always on the hunt for unique sounds, I drilled holes into the corpus of a cello and fixed smaller metal pipes onto it which were then filled with shrapnel and other metal objects. When playing the instrument it produced unusual sounds, rich on overtones and resonances. I took similar approaches with other string instruments and we also recorded a vast selection of bass drums, snare drums, cymbals, and man-sized drums that were modified.
“Short and percussive sounds were used to enhance fast-paced action cues and the longer sound creations became the base for stealth and tension tracks. Contrary to this approach, the music for the ISA features a palette of analogue and digital synths (Moog Voyager, Access Virus, Korg MS20, etc) as well as electronic drums accompanied by an orchestra. Many of these sounds were then processed with analogue/digital effects. “The music for Killzone:
Mercenary is truly a hybrid score, a blend of real instruments and synthesised sounds.”
December 2013 33
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