So what is the sound effect production in the game? How are the sound effects we usually hear in games made?
To answer this question, we need to start with the post "Imitator".
As the earliest post in film and television production, the task of mimeographer is to produce corresponding sound effects through post-simulation when actual sound (the real sound when shooting) cannot be included in film and television works due to conditions. Later, with the improvement of the accuracy of game production, imitators are no longer exclusive to film and television production, but gradually enter the game industry and become an important part of modern game production.
(Recording of Synchronization Tone)
In the production of modern high-standard games, immersion has become an extremely important indicator. Whether the game is rendered in a realistic style or not, it is necessary to consider whether the game can bring immersion to the players. In order to create excellent immersion, sound production has become an extremely important part.
For example, in "Liang Jian 3", although the picture quality of the game has reached the average level of this generation, there is no problem in character modeling and the dubbing quality is good. Why is it difficult for us to substitute the protagonist and his party in the game?
There are two reasons. First of all, due to the cost of the game, Legend Sword 3 does not use motion capture and face capture, so the actions and expressions of the characters are a little stiff; Secondly, the game really didn't put much effort into sound effects. The action sound effect of Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man 3 is relatively simple, and the sound is too dull when chopping, just like chopping with wood instead of metal, which makes it extremely easy to play.
In fact, this is a common problem of domestic high-quality games at this stage, and it is also an inevitable pain point. After all, China does lack excellent phonetics imitators, and training from scratch will inevitably take a lot of time.
So what do they do in mature European and American industries?
The first thing to say is that big companies like Capcom mentioned at the beginning of the article have their own professional voice imitators, who can simulate the required sound in various ways that are unimaginable to ordinary people according to the actual needs of the game. For example, in Rise, the sound of armor collision comes from the sound of a schoolbag full of metal parts shaking, and the sound of mud dragon tail comes from the sound of celery being broken. In addition, there are operations such as breaking ice to simulate the sound of breaking ice and electric drill to simulate the sound of drilling.
(Ni Wenglong)
In addition to these special production methods, some companies also use some "hard core" methods to record sound effects.
For example, in the process of making Cyberpunk 2077, CDPR chose an extremely hard-core way to record the gunshots in the game, and this way is-recording. Yes, they really found the venue and recorded the sound of guns firing live ammunition. After being mixed and tuned by imitators, the sound of these gunshots becomes the sound effect of gun battles in the game.
Coincidentally, when making hearthstone sound effects, Blizzard chose to wear helmets and armor, hold big swords and various cold weapons in the national parks of Arizo and Wood Canyon in the United States, and prepared to record the sound effects of various weapons colliding in hearthstone in this way. According to the sound designer of Blizzard, in order to get the ideal sound effect, they also had the experience of waving steel pipes in the supermarket, which is a very unique behavior.
(in this deep mountain)
Of course, this does not mean that all manufacturers have the ability and financial resources to get the sound effects in the game in this hard-core way. More often, what they do is to "cheat" players' ears through simulations like Capcom.
I don't know if readers have found that our perception of sound effects is not accurate when watching film and television works or playing games. Many times, the pictures we see, BGM with sound effects, will be the reason for us to deceive ourselves. For example, it was mentioned in the article just now that the sound effect of Ni Wenglong's tail was achieved by breaking celery, but in the Mortal Kombat series, the classic fracture sound actually came from the sound of breaking celery. But I don't think anyone will confuse these two sounds in the game, right? This is not only due to the late tuning of the imitator, but also because the picture of the game makes us subconsciously determine "what kind of sound should appear here". When we have a clear cognition in the subconscious, we will subconsciously set the sounds we hear as established cognition, so we ignore the possible irrationality or familiarity of some sounds themselves.
("Live-action 1 1")
Besides our vision, our hearing can deceive ourselves. When a group of sound effects and BGM appear at the same time, our attention tends to focus on the most obvious BGM, while the sound effects will be put in an unimportant position by the brain. At this time, we usually don't know what the sound effect we hear is, but only leave a vague impression that "there seems to be something just now."
Some people say that "movies are the art of deceiving vision".
According to this statement, sound effects are the art of deceiving hearing.
In order to make us think that we have heard the sound that should appear in this place, countless imitators have come up with various methods with different styles and ideas. These people may not be known to players all their lives, but they have indeed become the cornerstone of the modern video game industry.
With the passage of time, the missing cornerstone of this domestic game will be filled one day, making the quality of domestic games climb to a new level.