Hello everyone!
In this last part of our blog about the music and sound of Necromunda: Hired Gun, we’ll dive into the sound creation process of the game. Happy reading!
Creating the sound of the Domes
There are a ton of sounds to produce and implement, from the character and NPC weapons, to discreet ambient sounds and huge machinery, to animation and cutscene synchronization.
Being the sole sound designer on the team, I have to work on all aspects of the sound and know every tool of the engine. This includes for example the basic sound source in a level and the animation or sequencing tools for the character animations or cutscenes. It’s even necessary to be able to create tools to ease the design of the audio inside the levels.
So, no matter what the aspect of the sound I’m working on (levels, animation, etc.), we are working through an iteration process. For instance, Dimitri, our lead level designer, first starts the greyboxing of a level. Most of the time I take a look at this stage to know the size of the different spaces of the level. It allows me to work on the music with the design documents while he starts to iterate on the art and structure of the visual feeling.
During the evolution of the level, some of the sounds are implemented by default. The reason behind that is that we have some objects that already contain the 3D asset and the properly configured sound. Some of the sounds are placed by the level designer, and in some specific cases, important landmarks and peculiar structures or machinery. Some sounds are placed as “intent”.
Then, when the level reaches a standard that is close to the production quality we are aiming for, I start the phase I’m calling “audio design”, where I detail every aspect of the environment in the level. This involves: Tweaking potential sounds that were already placed; Adding a lot of details for the visual effects and particles; Synchronizing the sound with the interactive elements or animated assets; Checking “intents” and coming up with a custom sound for this specific situation.
With that done, we iterate and go back and forth from level design to audio design until the level is considered finished.
Another side of the audio design directly linked to the level design is defining how the spaces should sound. For that we rely on audio volumes that process the sounds when you are inside those volumes, adding reverb or other special effects. At first I created the volumes myself, but later on Dimitri or the other level designers took the responsibility of creating the volumes, being way more experienced than me with handling these elements. When the volumes are in place, we discuss what would be the best setup for the reverb and effects, and do playtests to see if it works or not.
In the case of Necromunda: Hired Gun, there are also the cutscenes. They are implemented after the level design process is finished and the structure of the level is considered final. Just like the level design process, I only start working on them when the cutscenes are almost complete from an animation or scripting point of view.
The cutscenes involve working on the ambient sounds, animations of the characters but also the voice over. Some of them evolve during the production, meaning I have to find solutions to disable ambient sounds of the environment that disturb the clarity of the dialogue. I might also need to manually redo / resynchronize some environmental sounds because they are too loud or too quiet in the context of a cinematic moment.
When everything is in place, I play through the maps several times and refine some details, especially the music which evolves during the whole production. Sometimes I’ll feel like music is too present or not present enough and tweak accordingly to obtain a good flow through the whole level and story.
I could go into further detail and keep talking about the sound of NHG for hours, but I’ll keep some in depth analysis on technical aspects of the design for future articles. Here at StreumOn Studio, we are all proud of this project and hope you’ll enjoy your journey through the Domes. See you all in the Underhives.
Necromunda: Hired Gun releases on June 1st on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Pre-order are open here: https://www.focus-home.com/games/necromunda-hired-gun#shop
-The StreumOn Team
