[Written by Rodney Gates for Designing Sound] Jason Bourne – One Skilled Fighter Jason Bourne is one of my favorite characters brought to the silver screen in the early 2000’s. More realistic and practical than James Bond, he made for a great character to watch. I loved the tightly-choreographed fight scenes in the films, so when we set out to begin development of a game … [Read more...]
Rodney Gates Special: Early Challenges – Authoring Sound for “Darkwatch” on Two Very Different Platforms
[Written by Rodney Gates for Designing Sound] All SKUs are created equal…right? It is a common question every time a new game is released on the console platforms: “I have both systems. Which version should I buy?” In a perfect world, any game created for the consoles would run just perfectly on them, without any performance edge leaning towards one machine or the other. … [Read more...]
Rodney Gates Special: How I Spend My Vacations: Field Recording
[Written by Rodney Gates for Designing Sound] Serenity Now! Nothing can be more peaceful than sitting quietly for several minutes at a time in a unique location recording the living world in front of you. Your eyes and ears are alert and observant of everything that’s happening as the recorder captures it all. There is a calm that comes over you and for the first time in a … [Read more...]
Rodney Gates Special: Learning to Listen: Using Sounds out of Context
[Written by Rodney Gates for Designing Sound] The Blank “Page” As we sit at our desks each day, creating new sounds for a game, it’s important to think outside the box when it comes to choosing your source material from which to design from. Most of the sounds you hear in games or film are usually not a single recording edited and dropped into place to represent the things … [Read more...]
Rodney Gates Special: Getting the Gig – A Guide to Becoming a Video Game Sound Designer
[Written by Rodney Gates for Designing Sound] Everyone has a story on how they started working in games, and they can be as varied as the day is long. Many start in Quality Assurance positions (game testing), or Customer Service (in the case of Sony Online). Some get internships, and some get hired on as a junior sound designer attached to a team right away. What I’d like … [Read more...]
April’s Featured Sound Designer: Rodney Gates
It's always a pleasure to announce a new guest on Designing Sound. During this month, Rodney Gates will be sharing with us a lot of his experiences in the world of sound design and audio direction for video games. Bio "I became interested in sound and music at a young age, making cassette tapes on my Yorx stereo with a crude electret-condenser microphone with old needle-drop … [Read more...]