“Audio plays a critical role in creating an immersive gaming experience, from the sound of ballistics hitting your ship to the distinct roar of different ship manufacturers’ engines. Find out how we’re making ship sounds sound…shippier, on”
In this episode of Inside Star Citizen, the importance of audio in creating an immersive gaming experience is highlighted. The team acknowledges that audio is often overlooked until it’s absent, and their goal is to make the sounds in the game worth listening to. They strive to create natural and believable sounds that blend into the background, allowing players to feel fully immersed in the game world. Ship ambiance is a key focus, as it sets the foundation for the overall audio experience. The team aims to create ambiance that represents different ship systems and makes the player feel like they are inside a moving ship in space.
To streamline the process and save time, the team is developing overarching systems that will generate ship ambiance in real-time. By understanding how different ship components should sound, they can implement these sounds before the ship is even created. This allows them to spend more time on the detailed and characterful elements of the ship, such as thrusters and moving parts. The physicalized components in the ships will also have sounds attached to them, reacting to player actions and filling the ship with dynamic audio.
A major focus is on thrusters, which convey the propulsion and movement of the ship. The team wants players to be able to understand what the ship is doing and how it’s traveling through space, regardless of their position on the ship. Different flight modes will affect the sonic qualities of the thrusters, emphasizing the ship’s speed and aggression in combat situations.
The team is also working on improving the sounds of impacts and crashes. They want players to be able to tell where they are being hit and how severely their ship is damaged. Additionally, the audio will communicate the stress on the ship caused by these impacts. This will also be useful for passengers, as they can gauge the skill of the pilot based on the sounds of the ship’s interactions with its surroundings.
Overall, the team aims to create a ship experience that is truly immersive and unique to each player. The audio experience will be a crucial part of this, allowing players to feel like they are in a living, breathing ship. The ongoing improvements in audio, just like other aspects of the game, aim to enhance the player’s immersion and overall enjoyment of Star Citizen.
