Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/477283
www.postmagazine.com 29 POST MARCH 2015 Canada (www.ea.com/ca) designed the crowds, sound effects and music systems for the mobile version, FIFA 15 Ultimate Team for Android, using EA's proprietary audio tools. They worked in conjunction with Emanuel Balaceanu, EA Romania's audio artist responsible for integrating into the mobile version many of the audio assets created by Hertzman and Berrie for the console version. It's no easy task boiling down 5GBs worth of game audio content to fit within the mobile version's 250MB initial down- load limit. One key to making it work is to offer additional content in separate down- loads. For instance, Berrie notes that after the initial download, users can choose a commentary language: English, French, Spanish or German. "That extra commen- tary chunk is 400MBs," says Berrie. Ultimately, to shrink the amount of audio data to mobile-friendly size, choices have to be made. So what stays and what goes? Hertzman says, "We have so many licensed teams in our game, over 250, and we can't include all those authentic crowd reactions and chants for all those teams in the mobile version. We see what teams are getting played the most and focus on those, mak- ing sure they sound the most authentic." To save on data, the stadium ambi- ence tracks are downmixed from 7.1 to stereo, and general ambience elements are shared between different teams that wouldn't be shared on the console ver- sion. "On the gen-4 consoles, we have the space to get very specific," says Berrie. "When we look at putting those on mo- bile, we hand-pick chants, so maybe five chants from Liverpool and three chants from Manchester United. Generally, we can deliver only one or two chants instead of seven or eight," adds Hertzman. The team used iZotope RX 4 Advanced to clean up all the recordings captured on-location at the matches. "If there are individual shouts we wanted to remove from the crowd, we used the Spectral Repair feature," says Hertzman. The music tracks are also cher- ry-picked. From the 50 tracks included in FIFA 15, roughly 10 are chosen for FIFA 15 Ultimate Team for Android. "We have a stellar soundtrack we can choose music from. We were able to capitalize on our amazing FIFA console soundtrack to use in the mobile version," says Hertzman. FIFA 15 Ultimate Team for Android features unique sound design to support interface functions, such as swiping and tapping. There are also unique reward sounds to reinforce players' purchases and achievements in the ultimate game mode. "That mode is all about collecting and gaining special cards and building your absolute ultimate team. The sounds are a bit synthy, with card shuffling elements as well, to make it feel like the player just opened a pack of collector cards," says Hertzman. The team creates their sound design in Pro Tools, choosing elements that match the visuals, as well as characteristics of front-end elements from other EA Sports games. For the most part, the audio for FIFA 15 Ultimate Team for Android close- ly matches the FIFA 15 console game. Thanks to proprietary in-house audio authoring tools, Hertzman and Berrie are able to essentially use the same sound engine and share assets between gen-3, gen-4, and mobile products. "We can re- ally leverage as much of the behavior and work that we are doing with our console version with the mobile products. Our integrator at EA RO, Emanuel Balaceanu, is helping to pick and test what assets are making it into the mobile version," explains Berrie. He claims Balaceanu has a wall full of mobile devices on which he can test the game. Their goal is to make one mix that will playback well on different speakers, in different listening environments. "Most importantly, the commentary [designed by audio artist Kevin Maeng at EA Canada] must cut through in all playback situations. That's always our goal," concludes Hertzman. EISENHORN — XENOS Chris Sweetman and Samuel Justice are the sound designers behind the upcom- ing Pixel Hero Games release Eisenhorn — Xenos, based on the Warhammer series Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos, Gregor Eisenhorn. Sweetman and Justice started their cleverly-named, game-audio com- pany, Sweet Justice, eight months ago, bringing together their many years of experience in the game audio biz. Sweet Justice (www.sweetjusticesound.com) is located in Worthing, England, but they work remotely with clients all across the UK and here in the States. Their recent game audio work includes the titles Call of Duty, Evolve, Star Citizen and Fortnite. According to the Pixel Hero Games site, Eisenhorn — Xenos is a 3D action/ad- venture game set in the grim, dark future of Warhammer 40K, where inquisitor Eisenhorn (who's job description includes uprooting heretics and witches) is sent out into the galaxy to fight and protect the imperium of man from threats. Eisenhorn — Xenos will be available later this year on mobile devices as well as on Steam (an Internet-based game distribution and social networking platform compatible with PC, Mac and Linux systems). While the soundtrack for the mobile and Steam versions will be relatively similar, Sweetman notes one big consideration is the capacity to play back the audio. "You're thinking about the amount of memory you have to store the sounds, but also you're thinking about the ways the sound is transmitted Chris Sweetman (inset) and the Sweet Justice team are currently- working on Pixel Hero's Eisenhorn — Xenos.