Damian Kastbauer (author of the “Audio Implementation Greats”) has published a really interesting post on his blog with a deep analysis of footsteps in different video games such as Prince of Persia, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Fallout3, Borderlands, Brutal Legent and more. He also gives global concepts about the recording and implementation of footsteps sounds in video games, share links, tips and lots of great info.

Lately, I’ve been taking stock. Not the usual “What have I done with my life?” or “Where is everything headed?” (although those questions perpetually tumble around my brain stem on a regular basis); I somehow found myself obsessed with the minute details of movement sound and system design. If you’re working in games today, chances are good that you’ve recorded, implemented, or designed systems for the playback of character footsteps and Foley at some point during the course of your career. It’s even more likely that you’ve played a game where, at some point during your experience, footstep sound wrestled your focus away from the task at hand and demanded your listening attention.

Yet, let it be said, all footsteps are not created equal – which seems obvious given that no two games are exactly the same, neither should their footsteps or the way in which they are implemented be (necessarily) the same. At the end of the day, as content creators, we should be slaves to the games we are helping to make and not showboating unnecessarily in our own art by accentuating or spending time of things that have little consequence outside of our own satisfaction; however, for a sound type that may be heard for countless hours across every level in a game, surely they deserve more than a passing thought. (or maybe I’m trying to justify my current obsession!)

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George Spanos has published a nice talk he had with Vance Dylan, sound designer with work on titles such as Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age: Origins, and Sonic Chronicles. Vance talks about specific games, his career and how he creates sound. Let’s read:

Let’s start off with the ubiquitous question: when did you decide to pursue a career in sound?

Vance Dylan: I was inspired by my Uncle Eddie who was a singer/songwriter who would often open for Bill Haley and the Comets way back in the day. My dad was also a great closet musician who never did pursue his dream but damn he was a sweet guitar player.I tried a few things, became a decent drummer, tried to write songs but sucked at it but the whole time I was very interested in hooking up gear and messing around with recording things. I think my first recording was that of my sister playing her recorder back in he 70′s using a Candle cassette recorder.

With the success of the first Mass Effect, where there any sound implementation changes that were necessary for Mass Effect 2?

Vance Dylan: There were massive changes in audio from Mass Effect to Mass Effect 2. We used the (Creative Labs’) Isact audio engine on the first one which limited what we could do, we are now using Wwise which in my opinion is the best audio engine on the market today. We also had a big shift in our team as we brought in Rob Blake as the audio lead and added more team members to handle the load. I think we had 10 guys working on ME2 at one point. As far as implementation, it was a whole new ball game using Wwise. For example in ME2, I was responsible for all the vehicles in game and in cutscenes and all that and we were able to do stuff like making sound more intimidating if you were more paragon. The idea being if you were more renegade then you wouldn’t be as scared or the sound wouldn’t be as scary to you. Things like that took only a few minutes to set up using Wwise where before it just wasn’t possible at all.

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Interesting video about the sound design of Dragon Age Origins, the last title of BioWare. You can see the Audio Director Simon Pressey and Sound Designer Jordan Ivey talking about the sound of the video game.

Dragon Age Origins Website