2022N. GAME NetEase Game Developer Summit (hereinafter referred to as the Summit) was held in "April 18-April 21", the summit around the new theme of "The Future has come THE FUTURE IS NOW", a total of creative trend field, technology-driven field, art polishing field and value exploration field four sessions, invited 20 heavyweight guests at home and abroad to share industry research and development experience, cutting-edge research results and future development trends.
At the event on April 20th, NetEase game audio designers, from "Yin and Yang Division" to "Harry Potter: Magic Awakening", chen Baihan, a senior game audio worker who has developed a number of popular mobile game audios, brought a speech entitled "How to Create a 3A Audio Experience in the Field of Mobile Games", taking "Yin and Yang Division" and "Harry Potter" as examples, and conducted in-depth analysis and discussion on the nature of audio and the direction of immersive pursuit.
The following is a transcript of the speech:
Hello everyone, I am an audio designer from NetEase Game Art Design Center, my name is Chen Baihan, today I want to share with you a theme is how to create the effect of 3A audio in the field of mobile games.
That 3A, in fact, when we explore what the essence of 3A is, we first understand that it can be divided into three parts: high investment, high quality, and high return. Relatively high investment and high return are two relatively objective indicators, that we can objectively obtain through numbers and reports, but high quality is relatively very subjective, so the quality of game audio, especially mobile game audio, is very important.
So in fact, I think that after the mobile game audio reaches 60 points, its quality is very subjective, so there is nothing to discuss, right (laughs)? Thank you, that's it for us today.
But in fact I think what we are pursuing, especially in the pursuit of mobile game audio 3A, is more like pursuing a goal than pursuing the outcome of AAA. So I would like to share some of my journey and reflections from Yin and Yang to Harry Potter in the past six years, and through this reflection we can explore whether we are moving towards the goal of mobile game AAA.
Fledgling, what you see is what you get
I think that the beginning was a process of "seeing mountains is mountains". What does that mean? To create a mobile game audio, the question we explored at the beginning must be what mobile game audio should pursue?
Can you say that the mobile game audio has a sense of shock? Or do we pursue well-known composers? Or do we use traffic singers to ensure the audio quality of a great, very high-quality orchestral recording? Even through very complex interactive setups, or through the latest engine technology.
In fact, no matter which way we pursue, I think these methods are more like we are using a purposeful pursuit to provide a sense of security for "good mobile game audio".
So when I climbed this 3A audio mountain, it was actually the first stage of "seeing the mountain is a mountain", that is, the development process of modern mobile game audio.
The first is "what I see is what I get," wherever I see it should be sounded; second, the smooth use of today's sound engines; and finally the integration and highly industrialized division of labor. A solid industrialization process. Then I think that's the first step in the development of audio for the 60 breakup tour.
Gradually into a better situation, what you see is not what you get
Next we still need to go all the way up the pursuit, right, when I walked to the middle of the mountain, it was actually a second stage of "seeing the mountain is not a mountain", and I think the most important thing in this stage is the stylization of mobile game audio. But stylization is actually a relatively fictional theme, right? In fact, he is more representative of what the game should convey. Therefore, in this stage of "seeing the mountain is not a mountain", we are more about the pursuit of freehand.
To give an example here, in the case of the Yin-Yang Division, in the early days of the Yin-Yang Division's design, we intended to create an extremely stylized game, so we began to turn from the pursuit of realism to the pursuit of freehand. Whether it is the design of the gods, characters, or scenes, we are more concerned about what the setting behind it is, what is the story behind it, and what it wants to convey to the player. So we used foley, recording, resampling of many traditional Japanese instruments, and incorporated them into the sound effects, and even into the field sounds.
We'll also make a reinterpretation of combat. This kind of combat for a normal RPG, I think it's going to be a concept of character coming in and out, and underneath that concept we're going to steer sound to this stylized concept.
Let's share some of the traditional Japanese instruments that our Yin-Yang division uses on the UI to fuse the sound effects. In fact, we integrate the sound effects of many traditional music and the music of instruments into the sound effects, and also integrate them into the scene, so that it will make the whole game listening more holistic and more in line with its stylized core.
We transform the appearance of each character into a concept of appearance, so in the normal character sound effects, we also add a lot of formal non-realistic sounds, and at the same time, in the skills we can also integrate the musical tones to make the character more three-dimensional.
In addition, in the discussion of percussion, in fact, we don't necessarily need to use a very consistent standard to determine the quality of percussion, so in this example video, a small percussion instrument is used to represent its percussion.
Through the above demonstration, we tried to create a highly stylized game. We hope that this game is a manifestation of the whole thing that the player can feel as soon as he hears it, and feel that it is a yin and yang master. After we finished the highly stylized game of Yin and Yang Division, there were actually a lot of great and stylized game works one after another.
So we are also constantly thinking about what we should pursue next, and what we are thinking about is: in addition to pursuing stylization, can we think about the essence of game audio from a more holistic perspective?
So, in the Wake Up of Harry Potter Magic, we tried to rethink our direction and goals by doing something called the internalization of the essence of audio. Here's a clip of Harry Potter audio.
Form a closed loop and return to basics
Through the above video, in fact, I think it is the third stage of "seeing the mountain and the mountain", that is, the internalization of the essence of audio. This stage is also divided into two parts:
Pursuit and landing. So what is the pursuit? In this game, we pursue three points: the first is to focus on the player's feelings; the second is a strong sense of magical immersion; and the third is the details and IP of the game. We pay more attention to the details of the sound that players feel in this game. Does the player feel the scream level? Did he feel the joy of a lot of Easter eggs? Can he feel enough magic in this scene? Can he feel his connection to IP, hearing and IP in every detail?
I think the part on magic is the one that deserves the most discussion, which means that what kind of sound sounds magical? In fact, in the world of Harry Potter, it is through the conflict between reality and fiction to create its magic sense, which means that if my whole game is full of magical sound effects, you will not think that this game is full of magic. Therefore, the sound of reality is a key to creating a sense of magic, that is, we must create an auditory conflict between the two through the details of the overload of real sounds and the meaning behind each sound.
We started with audio design considering the introduction of a concept similar to Art VI. First of all, we have three things that we have to avoid: we have to avoid futuristic, modern, and electronic sounds, and then we have to avoid the two obvious elements of mechanical and electrical energy at the same time. We also want to avoid the sounds that often appear in the market, because it is easy to make this style play.
We do four self-limitations at the same time, which is a reflection on ourselves, which means that when I make each audio, I have to ask myself: Is there a reason behind this sound in the first place? What is the meaning behind this sound? Does this sound have overloaded details and content? Is this voice from the player's point of view to think about what this sound can bring to the player? This is the 4 points we do self-limiting.
So let me share through the restrictions and norms that have just been made. We interpret the embodiment of UI sound. In fact, as mentioned earlier, we have a way to create this sense of magic through the conflict between the sound of reality and the illusory sound of magic, so in the sound of reality we do a lot of overloaded details, then these details, we blur a concept of its distance to make it reach a conflict, that is to say, the sense of hearing of these sounds, usually you should be very close to hear, but it is in conflict with the visual.
We've also added a lot of Easter eggs, considering how the player will feel when he hears these sounds. Is it possible to make the whole game more exciting and make the player scream more through these Easter eggs? We also pay special attention to the chain of the movie, the connection of the IP, and some voices we can use these links to evoke the player's emotions for this IP.
The mechanical sound and current mentioned earlier cannot appear at the same time, and for the details of overload, we need to consider the meaning behind each sound, that is, different clicks, different operations and even different copy descriptions should affect the expression of each sound. Therefore, when most of the sound has realistic elements, I only need to create a sense of magic through a small number of emphases, and the overall immersion will increase.
Even if it is the same operation, the same type of object, we will make some differences for different copy settings and even its different style content. We have also designed a lot of designs for player interaction and even for UGC to create this community, that is from the perspective of the player to consider, even simple UI operations we have added a lot of Easter egg elements, and even each operation will be similar to the concept of a game like rogue like, through the player's operation to change what kind of sound the player hears.
On the more classic 2D map, we use the 3D approach to let the player feel that the map is full of magic, and you can hear every detail in this flat map.
Therefore, for different buttons and different feedback, the sound must represent the meaning behind him, and through these ways, it can also strengthen the rendering of a visual emotion.
So I think that's the most important first part of us, the pursuit, and it's very important when we go back to the audio essence of "seeing the mountain and the mountain" and internalizing the pursuit in this thinking.
Then we want to talk about landing. In fact, game audio is a very complex digital audio industry, so to complete our goal of chasing AAA mobile game audio, this industrial cooperation method is unavoidable, that is, the way to land. Whether it's audio and planning collaboration, procedural collaboration, or copywriting collaboration, the focus is actually different.
When we work with the planner, we must consider whether the audio and gameplay are a good fit. Cooperation with the program should consider the feasibility of any innovative sound functions in integration? Our cooperation with copywriters needs to consider the meaning behind each copywriter, can audio have a better way to interpret the text? The cooperation with the fine arts is how do we sublimate static vision through sound? Cooperation with marketing includes the expansion of IP and the operation of players' circles. QA's cooperation is version capacity and schedule control. If there is no way to smoothly land these things, in fact, no amount of pursuit in front of you is useless.
So why I say game audio is a complex digital audio industry, this is a very important part of what I think.
Game audio can do much more
When we have completed the stage of "seeing the mountain and the mountain", we are actually thinking about the expansion of audio capabilities. What else can game audio do? Then the answer we get at this stage is based on gameplay and expands to IP. Taking the Yin and Yang Division as an example, in fact, we use the audio method to help each character make its role more three-dimensional, so that its IP expansion is more extensive, and then, we want to share an integrated IP expansion that we have done in the Yin and Yang Division.
We from the stylization of the game to the pursuit of the essence, and finally to the landing of industrialization, in fact, in this journey we understand that the game audio is actually not independent, that is, when our mobile game audio goes in the direction of 3A, I found that in fact, the most important thing about game audio is the connection between audio and the game, and the connection with the user, so user orientation is the key factor that determines the audio quality.
epilogue
In fact, I think that the game should be the ninth art, it should have something that the core wants to express, it should make people emotionally invested, and it should make people realize.
Some shortcuts are not necessarily the most perfect, and some stops may be more important to give you more important thoughts. I hope that all partners who love games and love game audio can find their own mountain in this industry, and encourage everyone, thank you!
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