Year 1 - Unit 73 - Assignment 1: Sound for Computer Games

Level 3 Games Design
Unit 73: Sound for Computer Games
Assignment 1 - Understanding the use of music in games and the methodology of recording and production.

Task 1 - Compare and contrast game music:

--> The Last of Us - Main Theme <--

--> Little Big Planet 3 - Dead Heat <--

==

      The game music for Little Big Planet 3 is very dramatic and unsettling but still a very good background sound that you don't completely focus on. This is one of the many reasons why the developers used it, along with how it gives a feel of feeling of stealth and there is as much to come as has just gone. Not only this but the track doesn't change dramatically all that much throughout its length. The Last of Us is a lot calmer and less dramatic but still as unsettling as Little Big Planet 3 and helps create a calmer take on an apocalyptic world. Both of these work extremely well and create the prefect mood for the game, therefore, I personally would not change either of the tracks. The music is very important to the game, it creates an environment for you and can change an impression of a game whether it be first or midway through.
The psychology of these are used to convey information to the player through thing like iconography, metaphors and symbolism. Sound symbolism is the idea that certain sounds represent a certain place or feeling etc. which help then set the scene for, in this case, a game. The slow and repetitive beat and long symphonic notes create a feeling of doing something in a slow and sneaky way in Little Big Planet 3, this adds to the intensity. The acoustic notes in The Last of Us show an idea that we're witnessing the aftermath of something, creating a calm and relaxed mood while still being on edge. Therefore submerging the player deep into the game. This is a good example of how audio manipulates how you play a game, this can be in a good or bad way, but the majority of the time it is very beneficial and crucial to the gameplay.

The audio environment can be created using mono, stereo and surround sound. Both of these tracks would create the best using surround sound as the the player would literally be surrounded by all the sounds at different angles. Luckily all are very common with at least mono sound (uses a single a channel from one position) and surround sound (using two channels to create sound from two channels from the left right and middle) being widely available to all/most audiences. Both games can be played with any of the three method above. Here is a Dolby Digital test of Surround Sound HD: https://youtu.be/PvnlpPWAcZc  Here is a test of Stereo Sound HD https://youtu.be/TAOQWSmkofA
The theory of sound is the wavelength (one wave to the next), amplitude (maximum interference from its undisturbed position), frequency (number of waves per second), pitch (whether a note has a high or low tone), hertz (unit of frequency, one cycle per second), sound generator (vibrating object that generates a sound), foley (use of reproduced sounds) and timbre (describes characteristics which allow the ear to differentiate sounds that have the same pitch and volume). These songs all have different pitches and loudness which change with Little Big Planet feeling generally lower in pitch than The Last of Us and louder in volume as well.
The gaming format that you would be playing on creates the sound for the speakers to output using a sound generator that is internal. Any sound for a game (or anything else like a video or general sound) is run by a sound generator, this is a vibrating object that produces a sound which is then generated by a speaker. This device is located inside the console or PC itself.
Legal issues can come from the sound sources, if you were to download and upload (or just download) the soundtrack without meeting the proper copyright terms it would class as an infringement. Copyright means that the owner has paid for the rights to the sounds of the game, The Last of Us music is owned by Sony rather than the creator, Gustavo Santaolalla, because they enlisted him. Little Big Planet 3's, I can only guess, has it's ownership by Sony and the partly the developer, as they are the only people with such rights.



Task 2 - Methods that could've been used to record and produce this music and why:

      The file formats used in audio can be lossy compressed (loses quality as it discards info. Eg. MP3, RA and VOX) this is best used on ipods and phones so its very unlikely that these high quality tracks are stored like this. They can also be uncompressed (almost perfect version of the original recording but uses up more space than lossy compressed files. Eg. WAV, AIFF, AU, SMP and VOC) which gives us better quality and uses more space but is best stored on game discs or PCs because they have more disk space. The likelihood of these tracks being uncompressed is very high. Below are some compressed and uncompressed examples of sound files and how their file extensions could look.

The audio sample rate is measured in Hz or kHz and is how many samples of audio carried per second. The bit-depth is the number of bits of information in each sample and the resolution is how values the sample can take on, the higher the bit-depth and resolution the higher the quality and file size. Therefore this music must have higher bit-depth and resolution because of its high quality and large file size. To the left are digital audio sample rates showing how much clearer and accurate you hear the sound as the sample rate gets higher.
 Audio does has its limitations, these include, DSP (Digital Signal Processor), can process data in real time making it ideal for applications that can't tolerate delays by taking a digital file and handling it to improve it to a clearer sound; RAM (Random Access Memory); PCM (Pulse Code Modulation), its the form of sound that digital sound is decoded into to be outputted to the speakers; File Format, can change the readability of a file, it's quality and the amount memory used; and Audio Output, mono, stereo and surround with surround sound being the best. To record a good quality audio file you need a good amount of RAM , these tracks must have been recorded with a good amount of RAM in the recording device.
There are also many types of audio recording systems, the most common are Multi-track Recording, allows separate recordings to be put together into one track; MIDI (Multi Instrument Digital 
Interface), allows a single person to have access to multiple instruments at the same time, its enables electronic instruments, computers and other electronic equipment to communicate and sync up together; DAT (Digital Audio Tape), a single recording and playback medium on tape; Analogue, used to record analog signals which allow playback later (to the right is a vinyl as an example of an analogue sound. These are personally my favourite way of hearing a sound as they are much more pure and gritty to the original sound.); Software Plug-ins, adds a specific feature to an existing program, they can be used to generate, process or analyse sound; and Software Sequencer, it's a class of application software giving functionality of music sequencer, it can be controlled by either the GUI or a specialised input device. From the list of recording systems above its safe to say that Little Big Planet 3 and The Last of Us' tracks used multi-track recording to fit all the different parts together and probably Software Plug-ins to capture the different parts.

In conclusion, there are many factors that benefit, neglect, underestimate and purify the use of sound in any game. Any sound used in a game should be true to the games meaning and how the developers wish the game to be felt, connected with and most importantly, how it submerges the player into the game itself and how the feeling surrounding them should match this. Sometimes stereo and mono sound create the same, amazing atmosphere as that of surround sound if placed in the right circumstances. I feel, like many others, that both of these amazing pieces of music but I still must feel like The Last of Us' general soundtrack does a much better job at creating the perfect mood than Little Big Planet 3 because of how much of a simplistic feel it has to it.

References:
All taken from P1 and P2 - http://sarahsgamesdesign.blogspot.co.uk/