Life At Resolution: Linus - Audio Director
Sound design is an important and vital part of the game development process and there are many things you have to keep in mind when implementing sound for VR and AR games. Linus, our Audio Director, dives into this process as well as his experience at Resolution Games in this edition of our Life at Resolution Games series.
What is your favorite part of working at Resolution Games?
I really enjoy being able to work on a variety of different projects in different genres and on multiple platforms. It allows me to develop new skills and explore new ways of designing sound and producing music. The game production on a daily basis is about the people though, my fellow Resolutioners. Our collaboration and mutual problem solving are crucial to the success of our games.
Tell us about some projects you've worked on, and challenges you’ve encountered
When working on Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs, one big challenge we had was to figure out how to move around in the VR environment. In 2018, locomotion in general was not standardized or solved and game developers had to experiment with different ways of moving. One early prototype we worked on involved slingshotting a bird to a catching net at different locations of the maps and then transporting the player to that location. We were trying to make the movement based on real-world mechanics and logic. It was a big struggle for my team to make the slingshot/net movement make sense from a visual and audio perspective. After some initial play tests with players, we decided to go for a teleportation mechanic that used an arc and a circle solution. It worked out beautifully and later many other games started to use the same approach. I really feel like all the ground research back then by VR devs was a shared effort to build a framework of how to build games and interact with the environments being made in VR today.
Another fun challenge of working with VR audio is to find solutions to help the fact that the player is not using predefined animations like in traditional games. The different parts of the player’s body like arms, hands, head and torso movement are all moving in real time, but we still want the body and the material covering it to produce audio like in a traditional game. We first started experimenting with real-time free limb movement and triggering audio whooshes based on velocity, angle and distance in Wonderglade with its mini-game Magic Mayhem, where the player smashes crystals waving a wand.
The challenges coming with the future of VR and specifically the metaverse will demand advanced and agile systems that reproduce how the real world sounds using real-time triggering technology, from the slightest turn of an arm wearing a leather jacket, to a sports athlete on a track, to a horse mounted knight in full armor or an astronaut in a space suit. A lot of research is being done at this moment, both at Resolution Games and at other companies. AI machine learning is helping us decide how to calculate and predict how bodies move so we can apply the information to visual and audio systems.
How do you collaborate with your colleagues at Resolution Games?
We produce all of our trailers in-house. This allows us the flexibility to work closely to the game teams and iterate and capture new content continuously. During the production of a trailer we always start with a simple storyboard. At that point, I usually begin composing a music track that the editor can use when setting up the timeline and adding video content. During a period of usually two to four weeks, we start to chisel out the trailer bit by bit with in-game content, custom made CGI and live action. It is amazing to see how the trailer takes form from that early storyboard. It’s also always exciting when we reach delivery day and all of our combined efforts end up in a beautiful trailer that will be released into the world. It is always a great feeling!
Can you tell us about some of the fun things happening at Resolution Games, outside the daily work routine?
I enjoy exercising with my colleagues. We jog together occasionally when the weather is nice and also visit the gym. It is a nice opportunity to get out of the office and regain some energy.
What excites you about being in the VR/AR games space?
I am super fascinated by the potential of the emerging AR and VR technology that scans and interacts and interfaces with your actual reality. I imagine that in the future you’ll be able to build a real-time rendered demo environment based on your house or apartment layout and be able to interact with virtual elements in it. In fact, we’re already experimenting with real-time interaction and virtual elements in your actual space in Spatial Ops, a game that’s currently in the early concept phase.
What do you look forward to learning at Resolution Games?
Soon we are going to record music for Demeo with a symphony orchestra. It will be a next step for Resolution as a company and for me as a composer, allowing us to reach a new level of emotional impact for players. I always strive to improve my storytelling skills in my music composition and we have many cool new projects in the making that will take our storytelling skills as a company to a new level. I really look forward to creating those new experiences for our players and to exploring new technologies with my colleagues to create better games.
If you’re interested in seeing some of Linus’ work make sure to visit our YouTube page or simply play one of our games.
