Creating Sounds for games tutorial

Sounds are an extremely important part of any game. Without them we would be in a silent environment which wouldn’t be fun or entertaining at all.
To create sounds is easy. It doesn’t take a huge amount of resource or software, and can be done with the minimum of equipment.
To begin, all it needs is a little imagination and some sort of recording device.
I would recommend an easy to use minidisk recorder or even tape and a good microphone.
You can even get away with a headset microphone if that is what you have access to.

The sound:
First of all you need to decide what sort of sound you are after. This includes the environment that you want the sound to be used in, such as “Outside”, “inside”, “enclosed space” or “vast space”.
Some of these effects can be created from “Dry” sounds (ill explain later) or you can be creative and record the sound in an environment that is close to the one you want. For example if you want the sound to have a lot of reverb, you could always record the sound in a hall or church.
If you want the sound to have less reverb, you would be surprised what noise you can create in a cupboard or small garage.
I would also suggest looking at various games to see how the sounds come out. There are many instances where the “Real” sound isn’t the one used for the game. For example, when recording gun sounds for Project IGI 2, Kim Jensen, the composer and sound tech for the former game studio “Inner loop” had to change the sounds as all the gun sounds were too similar.
You need to remember that sometimes the sound you know to be a certain item may not be recognised by other people because of how the sound or media is represented via other games or movies.
If you had for example access to an mp5 machine gun, and say an ak74 machine gun (oh how that would be great) you may find that when they are recorded , you find that they don’t sound “good” enough for your space marine super gun.
Anyhow, back to reality.

Let’s start with something simple, like footsteps. When you listen to footsteps there are various different things you need to think about. Firstly what ground are you walking on. Secondly, what material is on the feet of your character?
For example, if your game character is running in a wood wearing big working boots, the sound needs to reflect this.
So let’s look at this as an idea.
Our hero “Bob” is running through a wood, he isn’t being chased by anything, he’s just running.
If we think about this it’s not too hard to arrange. Find a wood nearby or some other foliage that is similar. (You could get away with a garden with trees in for example)
Then we need to make sure the weather is similar to what we want. If its midsummer and you want some crunchy leaves noise then simply grab a large bag of leaves and let them dry out in the sun.
This should provide the same effect when put over your patch of synthetic woodland.
Ok so..
Boots:
Well any good or bad boots will do. After all you’re the one who will be wearing them.
If you don’t have any as a friend to help you or just grab their boots.
Person who will play the char:
Well you can do it yourself or use a handy buddy who doesn’t mind running him or herself into a rabid state for about 5 mins.
Woodland:
Well this is either going to be woodland (preferably as empty of other people as possible) or a patch of grass with some “un-carefully” placed broken twigs and makeshift dried leaves.
Take a friend with you to watch your equipment and to help should you need assistance.

Equipment:
Ok so we have everything we need, now we need to record your Hollywood sound.
Take one minidisk recorder, or a tape recorder. And grab as good a microphone as you can get your hands on. If you can I would seriously recommend the Sony ECM – MS907 made by Sony. But for now anything will do.
Take some headphones as well so you can listen to your recording whilst out in the environment.

Then you need to make sure that the device has plenty of power and that you have something to sit the device on when you get to your place.
I would suggest that you find somewhere quiet to sit your microphone as right next to your recorder may cause noise problems. (I spent two hours recording birds to find that some strange clicking and whirring sound was all over the recording) I would make sure you have a good length of wire from the microphone (at least three to four feet).
Recording:
Ok, here we are then in the local park or wood. Put the recording device on your stool, or whatever you brought with you to hold it.
Put your boots on and have a quick wander around the area near to the microphone to test that it works. (This will also give you an idea of what sounds you can expect)

Ok now for take 1, with the microphone set away from the recorder start running . You should try to run past the microphone as often as you can but don’t run too close.
Try making your footsteps vary, this will help to make the sound more varied.
Do this for a few moments then stop, take a breather and have a quick listen to your recordings.
If your happy with your sounds then pack up and go back home so you can work on the final sounds.

Ok so you have your recorded sound. All you have to do now is get the sounds from the device and onto your computer.
First you will need a wire that will go from your recorder to a stereo in on your soundcard.
This will either be a stereo mini-jack to stereo mini-jack or twin ¼ inch to a single stereo mini-jack.
Either way, as long as you can connect the two together you’re on a winning run.

Ok, you need something to record the sound that is coming into the sound card. I will assume that you have some, or you can download a trial version of more popular software such as “Cool Edit” or “Sound forge”.
Windows does have recording software and this isn’t too bad but it won’t allow you to do very much with the sound.
So, make sure you set the software to record from the line in or mic in and then simply play back the recording device whilst recording the sound into the sound program of your choice.
This should produce a sound wave on the screen that will be a direct representation of your sounds.
Once you have this I would suggest you save the file. I would recommend that the file is saved in the following format: 16bit stereo 44100 kHz this will give you a decent quality of sound but be aware that it may take up some space.

Ok, you now have your sound effects saved onto your computer. In this format it should be easy to manipulate and if your software supports it, you can add effects to your heart’s content.
I will be doing another part to this tutorial soon to go into the sound itself.