Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1546054
34 M PS E . O R G cascade. For example, under the Ambience bus, we could have Scenery and Wildlife busses. Under Scenery, we could have Wind, Tree, and Water busses, and under Wildlife, we could have Bird and Insect busses. Each of these can have their own Bus Balance setup, pushing and pulling on sounds at each point along the chain. This can be useful for two reasons: • First, as with music, small dynamic adjustments happening in several places along the signal path can feel more natural and sound better than a large dynamic manipulation at a single point. • Second, this granularity allows taming of mix elements by category, which, if leveraged well, can help keep the mix balanced and easier to control. Unfortunately, as far as I know, it's not really possible to change these Bus Balance RTPC curves at runtime. However, the meter (and thus the bus balance effect) can be bypassed. In fact, it's possible to make several meters on a single bus, each with different settings, and simply bypass all but the one desired at a given moment. Admittedly, that's not as flexible as the notion of being able to alter the RTPC curve, but it does offer a path to variation. Musings, Ideas, and Unpopular Opinions Headphones In discussing his recent PhD research with me, Ethan Robson mentioned that 78% of players reported normally using headphones when playing games. Despite this, many game mix processes are still centered around surround or even Atmos setups. While it can feel incredible to hear a mix translate on a premium multichannel speaker system, fewer than 10% of your players will experience that. The headphone mix is commonly treated as secondary, but I suggest mix monitoring on headphones should be considered at least as important as monitoring in a multichannel mix room. HRTF Sounds Harsh In my experience, HRTFs wreak havoc on sounds, especially sounds with a substantial amount of high-frequency content. If you use HRTF filtering at all, I suggest being selective and using it quite sparingly. Despite the push to use them in VR, I shipped two Oculus titles without HRTF after testing showed the sound quality to be notably better without it. And not once did anyone lament the subtle reduction in directional precision. Ambisonic Busses I first used ambisonic busses in a VR game, but since then, I'm convinced this is an excellent way to operate for any game. Treating busses as spherical representations of sound until they're translated to channels for output is an elegantly simple way to maintain coherence and support virtually any output format. Human Experience Is Based on Contrast If you want something to make an impact, leave space for it to stand out. If every player footstep is hitting the subwoofer, the boom of an explosion won't feel as exciting when it rumbles. Give the Player More Control A great way to help create a good player experience is to give the player useful controls to shape the sound the way that works best for them. Some of these have added accessibility benefits, like the Dialogue Enhancement system I mentioned earlier. Here are some more: • Volume Granularity—In one FPS I worked on, we decided to set up separate volume control for narrative dialogue and combat barks. Likewise, depending on the game and nature of gameplay, giving more granular control over other things might be good, too. • Mellow/Night Mode—Lift quiet details, squash loud ones to allow late- night play without waking the neighbors. I suggest making this a fader rather than a switch, allowing the player to dial in an amount of adjustment to taste. • Mono Mode can help with clarity for players with unilateral hearing loss. Again, I think this is best as a fader between completely mono and completely spatialized. Elegant Simplicity > Complexity Complex systems increase potential for edge cases and make things difficult to test and debug. On the other hand, a few carefully devised simple systems working together can do amazing things and make for a smoother overall workflow. Needs will vary from game to game, but if there's one global rule to keep in mind it is: The simpler you can make your systems, the better. "... a few carefully devised simple systems working together can do amazing things."