Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1524863
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 113 Olliver got us some great captures and being that Helldivers 2 is a live service title, we provided unique weapon source sound effects for weapon archetypes. This source was then sent to our colleagues at Arrowhead and Formosa Interactive UK giving them fresh sounds to play with, all performed in sync to the game's move set. The weapon props used in the recordings were a mix of replica firearms, high-quality airsoft guns, and nonfunctional parts and pieces. Additionally, I taped together heavy metal tools, metal pipes, and large ammo boxes to handle the rattle and drops of certain larger- than-life weapons. This way, the acoustic shapes and properties expected of the listener match the virtual geometry and size of these hard sci-fi weapons. BC: I don't have much to add to what Joanna has mentioned. This project was both fun and challenging, as it involved creating a wide variety of unique weapons. The main challenge was to make each weapon sound distinct and worth recording. Along with selecting and creating props, I used several tools from my arsenal to achieve this. The Eventide H9000 was my primary tool, allowing me to use many effects chains to add a bit of sparkle to Joanna's creations. Pitch shifting and compression helped a lot to tame some of the unruly transients and beef up the low, chunky ends. Adding a little Distressor also enhanced the sounds, allowing sound designers to tweak them to their heart's content. The H9000, along with the plugin version of the H3000, has a variety of cool pre-sets that I've discovered over the years. These pre-sets modify the sounds enough to give them an otherworldly quality, helping to distinguish one weapon from another in the lore of the land. Similarly, I used the same tool set for the footsteps and armor to add weight and depth where needed, ensuring variety across all classes. As a gamer myself, I really enjoy it when the sound changes with different classes, gear, and skins. It adds another layer of immersion, making it feel like your in-game choices have a tangible effect. OA: The player Foley in Helldivers 2 consists of many different layers. Those being the aforementioned weight classes (heavy, medium, and light armor), player cape, support backpacks, held weapons, stowed weapons and a generic layer which we named "gear belt"—kindly recorded and mixed by PlayStation Studios sound designer Toivo Kallio. Our end goal was to have all layers represented to support the player fantasy and reinforce their team role as part of the emergent gameplay. As a player, I want to hear that I'm a light-armored flamethrower user with a jump pack and that my teammate is a heavy-armored character that supports the team with machine guns and energy shields. Helldivers can bring any weapon or backpack combination that they want on a mission, which made it important for us to implement the Foley in a modular fashion, meaning that we have to always be able to update which Foley layers are active, based on what the player does in game. Much of the Foley playback in the game was implemented with traditional animation triggers, meaning that we play different Foley sounds at different points of an animation cycle. Other layers such as the player cape and stowed support weapons required us to use game data such as player speed and acceleration to playback assets. Our advantage with some of these physics-driven Foley layers was that it introduced some additional variety in rhythm, breaking up our otherwise quite sequential implementation. L-R: From the intensity of point-blank range combat to the stealthy exploration of alien landscapes for resources, the title presented a challenge to provide appropriate sound and dialogue content, and a mix to manage the sum of these elements for every situation.