We wrote this book because we love games. We also love sound and music, and we love what they can bring to games to make them thrilling, involving, and moving. We want you to be able to try out your sound and your music in a real game. For a book whose examples are based exclusively around one piece of software, it may appear contradictory to say that actually the tools are not important. Once you’ve had experience with any game editor or audio middleware package, the concepts you learn are easily transferable to others. We chose the Unreal Development Kit (UDK) for this book, as it’s a serious game development tool, it’s used for lots of games, it’s free, and it’s fun. In terms of sound and music there are easier tools to use, but unless you’re already working for a games developer, you can’t get them to work in an actual game. Putting your sound and music into a real game environment = cool. Having to be already working for a games developer to get access to the tools to get them in game = not cool.
We want to put control into the hands of sound designers and composers and to show what you can do, and how far you can go, with the standard tools that come with a typical game editor. As a sound designer, composer, or game designer (we hope there are a few of you reading too!), you have to be an advocate for audio. The good thing about audio is that it tends not to be noticed that much. This means we can affect the player on a powerful subconscious level. The bad thing about audio is, well, that it tends not to be noticed much. You will have to constantly convince people of the importance of investing in sound and music. You’ll have to be able to make your case, explain and persuade people that better use of audio makes a better game. You can do this by talking, but you can do it better by showing. We’ve tried to give you not only the sound and music systems themselves but also an introduction to a number of gameplay systems. By having the means of production, you won’t just be the passive provider of assets but can understand the game design process, experiment, and get involved in building systems to demonstrate your ideas effectively. If you want to create great sounds or music and then hand them over for someone else to put into the game, then this book isn’t for you (and P.S., your days are numbered). Game audio is about a system of sound or music elements that interact in real time with game events. If you want to be part of the future of game audio you need to learn how to produce interactive audio, not just one-shot sound effects or music loops. You can’t separate asset creation from implementation.
A note on genre. There are many genres of games appealing to many different people. Although we’ve tried to mention several, we have not exhaustively explored the particular aspects of implementing sound for each one, as the principles here are intended to be applicable to many. The biggest-selling, highest-grossing games are undoubtedly first- and third-person shooters. As this is the case, they also tend to be the areas where the most investment is being made in taking the technology of games, and game audio, further. If this is not your preferred genre we can only apologize for the amount of gunfire, death, and explosions in this book, but we hope you understand our reasoning. (We also just like blowing stuff up.)
The Structure of the Book and Tutorial
We have called this book The Game Audio Tutorial, as that is what it’s intended to be—a practical, hands-on tutorial to introduce the subject of sound and music in games. To find out what’s going on at the cutting edge, visit www.thegameaudiotutorial.com for links to some great articles and further research into the subject.
This book does not stand alone. While you’re reading this introduction, go to the website and download the tutorial game level and exercises. These are practical demonstrations and exercises built in UDK for you to learn from as you work your way through the book. You’ll also find more than 20 video tutorials on the website that you can download and watch to reinforce key techniques. We’re very pleased to say that sound designer Andrew Quinn has also put together a fantastic resource of sound effects on the site for you to download and use. These can be found on the Sound Library page.
This book is roughly chronological in terms of skills development, so it’s intended that you’ll read through from the start. After Chapter 2 you should have enough of a basic understanding to be able to dip in and out, but you won’t necessarily be able to skip straight to Chapter 7 without understanding all of what has come before. The text will discuss transferable principles, and their implementation in the accompanying tutorial level, before going on to suggest an exercise that you should do in order to embed this knowledge. This hands-on experience will equip you with the skills and knowledge to apply this learning to other games engines and platforms you may encounter or wish to use in the future. Each chapter will follow this approach with the exception of Chapter 8: Next Steps, which is by its nature more discursive.
We hope you find this book useful,
Richard and Dave.
