Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/283421
28 Post • March 2014 www.postmagazine.com There are three classes of Titan chassis: the commonly used Atlas, the heavy Ogre, and the agile Stryder. Snyder, who was the first sound designer at Respawn, created the sound for the Atlas Titan. His Atlas sound design established how all the Titans should sound. Snyder's approach stemmed from the idea that the frontier people were like farm- ers. "What if this was farm technology that they had militarized?" he asks. Snyder com- bined familiar machine sounds, like pallet jacks, with energy-based elements to give the Atlas a working machine sound with a sci-fi edge. The Ogre Titan chassis is the most heavily armored. It sounds heavy and lumbering compared to the others. Parsons's sound design has a guttural, bestial quality to it, with growly-sounding servos when it moves. "When the Ogre is just walking around, the chassis has a very tight sound, but when the Ogre runs, its dash sound has a snarling roar. It's meant to sound as intimidating as possi- ble," says Parsons. The Stryder is the smallest, fastest Titan. Kraber, who created the Stryder sound, felt it was very cricket-like. It's able to dash around the environment very quickly. It has a more nimble, less lumbering dash sound compared to the other Titans. "It has this 'wheeeee' sound to it," explains Kraber. "Sort of a descending pitch. It sounds cricket-like with whistles and pitch shifting hydraulic elements." To balance gameplay between Pilots and Titans, Pilots have special tactical abilities, like Cloak and Stim, to help them counter Titan attacks. Abilities only last for a finite amount of time. Each ability has a unique audio cue. As the ability runs out, the sound's pitch rises. The sound for the cloaking ability, which makes a Pilot invisible, can be heard by other players within 40 feet. "The cloaking sound works against the ability and that helps keep the ability in check," says Kraber. The Stim ability makes Pilots move and heal faster. Snyder's inspira- tion for the Stim sound came from the stim- packs given to Marines in StarCraft. Since Stim is like a hyper-drug, Snyder worked medical sounds into the design, like the jolt of a defibrillator, and an elevated heartbeat. "It almost gives you this feeling that you yourself are on the drug and you're running around faster in the world," Snyder says. Titans also have special abilities, such as Electric Smoke and Shield Wall. The Electric Smoke sound has two distinct parts: the ini- tial deploy of a canister popping open, and a cloud of smoke with rippling electrical sounds. Snyder, who designed the sound, says, "It's as if the Titan has a smoke grenade. Not only does it mask the Titan's position, the electricity damages whoever is in the smoke." Snyder's design for the Shield Wall is a com- bination of heavy castle gate sounds that give the deploy an almost physical feel, followed by a synth-based energy sound. "In addition to the portcullis sound, the Shield Wall has many layers of synth ele- ments that were manipulated using the GRM Tools Spectral Transform bundle," says Sny- der. Overall, the sounds of the ballistic-based gunfire, explosions and Foley for both the Pilots and Titans, are more prevalent than the synthy sound design elements. Titanfall uses separate scores for IMC players and militia players. The IMC is a technologically-advanced corporation, so large it seems unstoppable, explains Kraber. Composer Stephen Barton made the IMC score more electronic, with soft, fuzzy distor- tion and big orchestral arrangements. In contrast, Barton's militia score uses small orchestral instruments, and a wide variety of ethnic instruments from all different regions and cultures, making it feel more organic. "When you play either side, it feels like a dif- ferent story. The score and the sound design unite the players to their side. Stephen did a great job with the soundtrack and defining the initial sound of the IMC and the militia," says Kraber. To make up for a lack of in-game DSP, such as reverbs and EQ, the Respawn audio team relied on creative sound design tech- niques. They authorized assets for multiple distances with multiple layers, to achieve a sense of varying distance and changes in environment. "Between the sound design collaboration of our team and Bryan's team at Warner Bros. Game Audio, and the audio implemen- tation work here at Respawn, we were able to achieve DSP-like effects in-game with many dynamic samples and many layers of sounds," says Kraber says. Watkins gives the example of a proximity mine he delivered to Respawn. Between the distance variations of close, medium, and far, he sent 112 LCR tracks to Kraber, with the center channel being the point source material. "Our focus here is to deliver a lot of lay- ers so Erik and his audio team would have the ability to mix our elements so they make sense in-game," says Watkins. All the little subtleties help to prevent monotony, and keep the sound from being too gamey, adds Kraber. Since the game is online-only, Respawn can continue refining the soundtrack. "The last thing you want is to have the players be confused or fatigued. It's very easy to get that way, especially with a massive game like Titanfall. We did our best and at the end of the day we know now what we are going to be improving on later." SAINTS ROW IV On Saints Row IV, Bryan Watkins is the sound design supervisor at Warner Bros. Game Audio (http://www.warnerbros.com/) in Burbank, CA. He worked with project audio director Brandon Bray at Deep Silver Volition, LLC (http://www.dsvolition.com) in Champaign, IL. Saints Row IV is a third-person shooter game with an open-world environ- ment that gives players the choice to com- plete campaign quests in the main storyline, do secondary missions, or just wreak havoc and destroy everything they see. Initially, gameplay feels similar to recent The Dubstep Gun is just one of the crazy weapons featured in Saints Row IV. Audio for Games