Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1436283
70 I m ps e . o rg Part of that is always world-building through sound, putting sounds in the world where you'd expect them to be, and not just faking shit all the time. That's been a big hallmark for the last 12 to 15 years that Bruce influenced. That's helped us out, especially with 3D audio these days. RK: There's a tension there, actually. As the games get more realistic, the expectation is that they sound equally so. That doesn't always work for the storytelling. But nonetheless, we have to strive for that realism. A lot of it is about attention to detail. Attention to things that, in a linear mix, you might actually not play sound on, but because the player can stop, and because our dynamic range is so wide, if the player stops and looks at rain falling on the trunk of a car and they don't hear it, it can be immersion breaking because everything else is so visually detailed. We try to place those things and try to achieve that attention to detail throughout all these different systems and scenarios. The tension is, when those story moments come, we need to have the ability to pull those things away and make them unimportant because they're not. That is, as we've gone down this path of realism, the hardest thing that we battle against is just trying to keep the clarity of the story. The story and the emotions of the characters are the most important things. The rain on the trunk ultimately is not that important, but it's gotta be there if the player chooses to make it important to their play-through. EM: Rob, you touched a little bit on dynamics and I wanted to talk more about that because dynamics at Naughty Dog audio have always stood out as being incredibly dynamic compared to other games. Clearly, you all aren't afraid to let moments get really quiet and intimate when necessary. When did this idea of dynamics become integral to your games in particular? Have you found any tricks that help you execute this idea well? RK: I think that starts with Bruce. That's bringing a linear sensibility to a video game rather than everything just roaring at you all the time. Letting moments breathe, especially at the time, was rare in video games. Video games come from this arcade sensibility where everything's gotta be loud and in your face, two dimensional in the way it's approached. I think the trust comes from the people making the game to allow the audio to not be roaring in your face. BS: Dynamic range is super- important. Sometimes you need to compress sounds to get them to pop in a dense mix, but you've obviously gotta be careful with that because you need the character of the sound to change with distance. For instance, close-mic'd dialogue may pick up lips, tongue, a little breathing, etc. If you over-compress that audio, the small up-close bits don't fall away with distance as they should. The effect is disconcerting. PK: Dynamics in The Last of Us was something that we wanted. We worked on the dynamic range system, getting a mastering output for the final output of the PS3 so we could make sure it would sit better. We had a midnight mode where you can have much less dynamics. We also had a full, maximum mode, where the gunshots would sound like freaking gunshots. Jonathan wanted Ellie on horseback in The Last of Us Part II. Characters taking in the sunset in The Last of Us Part II.