STACK #162 April 2018

GAMES

FEATURE

What was involved in the implementation of the speakers within the game itself? Are they able to independently broadcast sound? Justin DeCloedt: Getting those little speakers working in the map has been a feature I’ve been asking for since the project first started and I was pretty excited once our audio programmer, Tomas, was able to get the code implemented for them to work. Normally, all of the sound emitters we place in the world are unique instances of a sound object. If we have a row of torches for instance, they all might play the same sound but they will be playing it at different points within its loop. With the syncing feature that Tomas came up with, if we place multiple instances of the same emitter in a map and then activate this setting, they will all start to play the same looping file and try to match the same point within it. Tomas Neumann: Normally, when we place sound emitters in a map we intentionally want to avoid them playing identical audio data, because that can lead to unwanted phasing and loss of

• Overwatch is out now

In your opinion, what do you think is the most realistic/immersive part about the BlizzardWorld map, or one of the more interesting sounds you managed to include? Chris de la Pena: I had a great time working on the Diablo area of Blizzard World. I never thought I’d get the opportunity to implement Diablo style sounds in Overwatch ! My past experience working on Diablo III helped inform me on what appropriate sounds to use for reflecting the size of the opening chamber of the Diablo area (Reign of the Black King). The basic background ambience was taken from one of the Diablo III Cathedral areas which you battle through on your way to fight the Skeleton King (The Black King). So not only is the ambience appropriate for the size, it also stays true to the Diablo III lore. If you walk past the entrance of the Diablo area there is a deep steaming pit. I placed an audio emitter of some ambient sounds I created for the Abattoir pits in the area of Westmarch found in the Diablo III expansion, Reaper of Souls . The sounds reflect an ominous hot breeze coming from the unknown deeps of the pit. I also used audio emitters for randomised creature sounds you might recognise from different areas of Diablo III . A few more sounds I had a blast implementing in the Blizzard World Diablo area are the torches and urns, which you can hear crackling as you pass by. One last thing – if you by chance pass by one of the lore books in the area, go up to it and listen. You just might hear the ghost of Deckard Cain scribbling notes and turning the pages!

solution is, that we randomly pick a master instance and essentially feed its audio stream into the other instances. To make sure my code was correct I was using a sound that was a voice counting up numbers from one to ten. It was a little spooky walking through Blizzard World hearing this voice counting, but at least I knew the sync code was working. How did you decide on the placement of these speakers? Paul Lackey: Hearing music as you stroll through a theme park is so essential to the experience that we knew these speakers would be the

primary ambience for the map. Even though we did not yet have the tech to synchronise the music being distributed across multiple speakers, we had to get started. I

Going to a theme park is a sensory overload, and a very audio-heavy experience

immersion. To prevent this, our Sound Designers can define a random start point in loops, and even author loop segments, which cross fade at different times, to guarantee that similar objects in the game world do not play identical sounds. To create the best virtual amusement

began making top down views of the various parts of the park and drawing in speaker locations that would project the correct way, provide the needed coverage, and not bleed

park speakers in Blizzard World, we needed exactly the opposite: perfectly synced emitters. We tried an approach to mix a single sound into different playback positions, but we ran into problems with our obstruction and occlusion feature, because one speaker left of you could be blocked, but the one on the right is not. We had to come up with a special solution, because just starting them at the same time was not reliable enough for them to stay in sync. Our

into unwanted areas. Since the music was not yet synchronised, the zones sounded pretty chaotic, but as a proof of concept it was a solid start. Once Tomas got us the tech we needed, the final speaker locations were tuned and then our environment art team went in and made the speakers look like they are camouflaged into the park’s walls and buildings, just like in real theme parks.

Read the full interview at stack.com.au

013