Blog 7: Audio Analysis of Bioshock (final part)

For the final part of my audio analysis of Bioshock I will be talking about navigating the underwater environment of Bioshock and the sounds that it provides. A certain points in the game the player will have to leave the innards of the city of Rapture and navigate the ocean floor. While on the ocean floor every aspect of the sound changes.

The whole world becomes almost silent. All sounds are muffled and the loudest thing you can hear is the sound of yourself breathing through your diving suit.

While on the ocean floor you can hear the sound of the ocean current flowing past you. One of my favorite sounds on the ocean floor is the sound of the air bubbles constantly around you making sounds like a "bloop."
The most common sound effect that is used in the outside world of Rapture is the muffling effect on literally every sound that is made by the player, enemies and the environment. It really gives off the feel that the player is truly underwater.


 

Blog 6: Audio Analysis of Bioshock (part 4)

One of the main enemies in Bioshock is the Big Daddy. These enemies are genetically enhanced human beings with their skin an organs molded into a giant diving suit. The sound of the Big Daddy is that of a deep whale call with a long, low drone. It's a very eerie sound that gives me chills. You always know when a big Daddy is near because you hear the whale-like groan along with the sound of giant footsteps that make the ground shake.

The Big Daddy will not bother you until you provoke it and the calmness of it's nature changes along with the sounds that it makes. If you leave the Big Daddy alone and let it pass it will continue to make the calm whale-like noises, but if you provoke it the sound changes drastically. The Big Daddy's whale-like groans turn into more aggressive roar and it erupts into a blind rage. After you provoke the Big Daddy you will get a change to hear the sound of his giant drill that is attached to his right arm.

Another form of the Big Daddy is the Big Sister. By contrast the Big Sister is much thinner and faster and her sound is much higher pitched than the Big Daddy. The Big Sister sounds more like a dolphin or a modified screech of a dolphin.

Blog 5: Audio Analysis of Bioshock (part 3)

When Bioshock was released it showed that the game industry was focusing a lot more on the narrative in video games and creating a robust story in the game while driving the player forward. This helps the player stay focused on the game and wanting to know what happens next with the narrative.
The story accomplishes this by placing audio diaries throughout the game for the player to find. These audio diaries explore the games backstory with events that happened before the game takes place. What is good about these audio diaries is that they are played in real time. Which means that they play once you pick them up and the game doesn't pause for them. So when you pick one up you don't want to get into any action and you want to explore your immediate surroundings and look for supplies. This will make you slow down and really appreciate the sounds of the world around you.

Game Design Blog 4: Audio Analysis of Bioshock (part 2)

Bioshock can be a pretty intense game. There is plenty of killing, blood, gore and unethical experimentation going on inside the crazy underwater metropolis of Rapture. But the music in this game is a different story.

The music featured in Bioshock is old-timey 40's and 50's music and can set the mood in a variety of different ways. Personally I think that the music comes off a bit creepy mixed with the dark environment of Rapture. Some may take it a bit comical, but opinions aside there's no arguing that the choice for music in the game is perfect. One really interesting choice for sound design in Bioshock is that it doesn't rely on a musical score to evoke emotions while playing the game. Bioshock relies entirely on atmospheric sounds of the ocean to immerse the player. The music that is heard in the game is in the game itself. There is no score composed for this game. For example: The player is walking through the city and he hears a faint sound of music playing. As the player gets closer to the sound the music gets louder. The player then discovers that the music had been playing on an old time jukebox or record player. This is a great sound design choice and makes the player fully immersed into the world of Bioshock and the city of Rapture.

Game Design Blog 3: Audio Analysis of Bioshock. (part 1)

For this blog I chose to focus on the audio of a certain video game called Bioshock. To me the audio in this video game really stood out. The setting of the game takes place in 1960, in the fictional underwater city of Rapture.

 Being a city underwater the sound of water is very abundant throughout the entirety of the video game. The sound of running water coming out of a big broken pipe and flowing on to the ground, into the room and down a flight of stairs has a very interesting dynamic sound. Because it starts with a very violent sound and then ends with a very calm sound. The water coming out of the broken pipe is flowing very rapidly, so the audio of the water is a very violent and rapid sound. As the water hits the floor and begins to more across the room to the stairs, it turns less violent and more reserved. The extremity that the sound of the water from the pipe is now almost silent. The water is moving across the floor with very little sound and the only thing that can be heard are little splashing sounds. As the water moves out of the room and down the flight of stairs the water starts to get louder and sounds like a gentle flowing stream.
Another sound of water that can be heard throughout the exploration of Rapture is the sound of the ocean from inside the city. You can hear the sound of the water flowing around the city constantly. If you choose to walk up to a window as close as possible, ( as if you're pressing your face up against it) you can hear the sound of the ocean even more. It's similar to the sound of putting your ear against a conch shell and it's an awesome feature that they decided to include in the game that can further the immersion of the player and make this fictional world feel even more real than it already does.

Game Design Blog 2

While reading through different sound designer interviews I came across a sound designer that was comparing the difference between sound in movies and sound in video games. The key difference between the two is the player versus the watcher. A player grasps and gains satisfaction from the sound effects because the player is 'inside' the gaming world and experiencing sound effects based on the decision they make in the game. A watcher is simply along for the ride. While watching a movie the sound effects are the same no matter how many times you watch the movie. When you play a video game the order of sound effects will different every time.
The player can choose to do different things like pushing a button to fire a weapon, and then hears a reaction and sequences of sounds to correspond to that action. For example, the sound designer may implement a multitude of sound samples for one action, like an explosion. For explosions at a distance, a latency effect might be implemented, or an explosion behind a wall the sound might be blurred or dampened.

Audio in Video Games

After researching through how the audio is created in video games I have found that the majority of game developers use the popular recording software called Pro Tools. Pro Tools is mostly used by studio producers for recording music as well as mixing and mastering the audio tracks. There are a lot of plug-ins for Pro Tools that are essential for making the sounds that are heard in video games and some of the most popular ones are: Pitch 'n Time, Pultec EQ, McDSP, FilterBank and Compressor Bank, Waves and Altiverb.
Altiverb is used for sampling acoustic spaces and is mostly used for voicing effects to make them sound more organic and realistic. Pultec is used to dirty up sounds with heavy compression, so it's used to create gritty effects like footsteps on a dirt and gravel road or the sound of a campfire burning with the crackling sounds of the firewood. These plug-ins allow you to twist sounds with gritty, realistic sounding effects while still maintaining the organic feel of it.
A lot of sound designers don't actually go out and record their sounds themselves. Most designers typically rely on their library of sounds when creating sound effects because it is more efficient. They just have to get even more creative when editing them to make them sound unique and original. When field recording is done by hiring studios to go out and do the field recording for them and all of the sound effects we hear in video games are almost always recorded in a studio.
The process of recording sounds and implementing them into a video game is as follows: Recording, editing, creation of the in-game audio system, implementation and finally balancing. A sound designer must have a very good relationship with the animators and visual effects team, because one change in animation could mean a whole group of sounds must be replaced for new ones so the animation can perfectly match up with the paired sound for that animation. A games audio is not done in post-production but along with the development of the game, so it's very important to keep track of the work flow between animators and sound designers.