Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1538144
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 23 the gaps however I can: make sounds, implement stuff, fix bugs, etc. Most people just want to be given the freedom to do cool things, they want to get better, and they want a reason to do what they're doing. I try to give my team those things and then get out of their way and let them work their magic. Early Involvement & Creative Prototyping When starting a new project, how early do you like audio to be involved, and what foundational decisions do you try to establish first? MK: As early as possible. There's a lot that can be done from both a technical and creative perspective early in the project. Creatively, you can define and iterate on the palettes for various key elements of the game, record some material if necessary, build a relationship with your creative director and get inside their head so you're on the same page, provide content for iteration during prototype and more. Technically, there's a lot to do on a project in the early stages. If you're using a proprietary engine or audio pipeline, the sky's the limit on the number of things you may need to get done to prepare to enter production. But even in a situation with an available engine and middleware solution, for example, Unreal and Wwise, there's still a lot of work to be done to prepare. You have to build out your mix structure, evaluate the game design and figure out what features you need to make the sonic direction work for it, build those features and so on. If you have design, engineering, animation, VFX, take your pick, trying something new with their tools or tech, you have to determine how audio fits into that. As the team builds features, audio needs a seat at the table to ensure things aren't built in a way that paints audio into a corner down the road, which prevents time wasted refactoring systems. Creatively, I like to establish what I call a "beautiful corner" as quickly Mark designing sounds for a current project. REAPER and NVK tools; below: Wwise.