Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1524863
68 M PS E . O R G physically above the player for 3D Audio pans as expected in Atmos. If the thunder had been created as a '2D' quad asset, we would have had to rework it to take advantage of the height speakers. Cinematics were a different story as they are created in traditional channel-based formats— typically, 7.1—so those had to be authored specifically in 7.1.4. How did the hardware capabilities of the PS5 enhance the audio experience in Marvel's Spider-Man 2? Blake Johnson: One notable difference for us as developers is how much more we could stream audio. We would have to wrangle memory much more stringently, but on PS5, we can put in content with less concern for staying under memory budget. The PS5 also has dedicated hardware for doing processes like Impulse Response rendering, which freed up our CPU for other things. All HRTF (3D audio) and Atmos rendering is done on dedicated hardware of the PS5 so thankfully that processing does not cut in to our CPU budget as well. Lastly, the PS5 has some dedicated mastering at the very end of the processing chain. One aspect of the mastering I really appreciate, and most people don't know about is that mastering on PS5 is that the recording stream can receive separate mastering than what is applied to the headphone or HDMI output. Because of this, video captures made on a PS5 will retain full dynamic range even when playing on Midnight Mode! How did you create the variations in traversals (swinging sounds) to keep the experience fresh and dynamic? How many different swinging sounds did you develop, and what techniques did you use? Johannes Hammers: Zack Bogucki and I worked on traversal sounds for months. We created multiple previs versions to game-captures before we implemented anything. Miles and Pete have different web- shots for traversal, but they share some whooshes. Zack also set up a 'flow-state' in Wwise—the longer you traverse through the city, the more your speed increases and the sound of the whooshes get more intense until you land or crash. There's a great sound for the 'flow- state' ending as well. We used some library sounds for the whooshes, but many came from Joanna and Blake's Foley session. Some of the larger whooshes were created from wind gusts, explosion tails, rumbles, and whizzbys. A regular symphony of whooshes. As far as how many sounds we created; too many to count. But to give you an idea of the detail involved, here's a brief list of the different types of traversal elements: • Dive • Leap • Perch • Point Launch • Swing Apex • Wall Jump • Web Tunnel • Web Zip • Swing Enter • Swing Exit • Traversal Flourish • Wall Run Each of these contains a set of sounds and this doesn't even factor in the Web-Wings, that's a whole other category. Can you discuss how you designed the wind sounds and car dopplers to enhance the sense of speed and motion while swinging through the city. How did you manage audio transitions seamlessly when moving from one area of the city to another? Johannes Hammers: Car dopplers are specific to their locations and our game engine and Wwise handle the transitions as we go from street level to rooftops and from one part of city to another. The city has a completely different sound at street level. Alex Previty mixed the open- world aspect of our game, and it sounds amazing. With so many web weapons available in the game, how did you ensure each one had a distinct and impactful sound? What was your approach to designing these sounds, and how did you test their effectiveness in the game environment? Johannes Hammers: Variations were extremely important in combat especially with our players focusing their time there. I created as many web 'thwips' as possible. I spent a few days finding Miles' signature 'thwip,' I could hear it in my head, but it was quite a road to get there. It ended up being a beautiful combination of Foley and design. One key prop element involved a plastic pen and a corduroy fabric pillow. We tried every sound iteration in-game until we found the perfect combination. I used Foley recorded by Joanna Fang and Blake Collins, and a combination of designed FX, percussive elements, and extremely short whooshes to fill