Back to search
Town Hall ·
Published on this date.2016-08-31
· 21 Q&As

Star Citizen: August Subscriber's Town Hall feat. Audio Team

The audio team explains how sound effects are made, planetary reentry sounds, and sound propagation through walls and stations. They also cover the dynamic music system, surround support including Dolby Atmos, sonic booms, unique ship sounds, ship AI voice packs, jukeboxes and radio stations.

Transmission log

Full answers

I'm wondering how you guys create the majority of your sound effects used in the game? Do you use artificial methods or do you use old school methods?

Cloud Imperium

There's no limitation to which way they do things. They use live material and artificial to create new material that people haven't heard before.

Town Hall·
Published on this date.31 Aug 2016
Audio

Can you walk us through the various sounds that will make up planetary reentry? Will they vary in length depending on speed?

Cloud Imperium

Darren Lamborn has put a lot of effort into that design aspect. It's not 100% where they want the system to be quite yet, but for now it works for the time being. There's various layers that make up the sound effect like the bulkheads rattling, also the they would like to have the size of the ship affect the sound. A Drake ship may sound different than a MISC ship during reentry.

Town Hall·
Published on this date.31 Aug 2016
AudioShips

Can variables like speed change the length of reentry?

Cloud Imperium

Yes. Any variable that could happen will be reflected on the ship. Your speed matters, angle of approach, etc. It's important to not build a sound to what you see, but rather sounds that can handle all the things you may encounter.

Town Hall·
Published on this date.31 Aug 2016
AudioPhysics

What are your plans and ideas for the sounds on a planet, will there be different sounds for like woods, oceans, caves etc.?

Cloud Imperium

When it comes to environmental ambience, it's not difficult to find sounds to put in, but how it can be done without having to comb over the entire surface manually. An automatic or semi automatic way is what they're looking to do for that.

Town Hall·
Published on this date.31 Aug 2016

Will 7.1 support or only 5.1. Is there a specific sound card that the audio team recommends?

Cloud Imperium

It's their job to support those. They would like to have Dolby Atmos implemented because Wwize natively supports it, but it depends on how easy it is to implement.

Town Hall·
Published on this date.31 Aug 2016
Audio

What process do you have in place to get a sound into the game?

Cloud Imperium

Everyone has their ownership of a process with, of course, a final say, but it's not cut and dry with what makes it and what doesn't, there's no official "Sign off" because sound is constantly reiterated and refined.

Town Hall·
Published on this date.31 Aug 2016
AudioDevelopment process

What kind of work goes into managing the low end sound systems to high end, how does it scale?

Cloud Imperium

It's actually quite easy because of the standards set by the industry where if you have 7.1, then you know how to downscale it. However if someone has a really bad pair of speakers, that can't be helped.

Town Hall·
Published on this date.31 Aug 2016
Audio

When a sound such as a sparking cable is obscured by a wall or panel, how does that sound to the user? Does sound bounce off walls? Does sound come from the source or from the wall?

Cloud Imperium

Working on a system where propagation exists and it's close to that of what it sounds in real life.

Town Hall·
Published on this date.31 Aug 2016
AudioPhysics

Can you tell us more about the new dynamic music system?

Cloud Imperium

It's a system that's been worked on for quite a while now by Ross. It has had a lot of iterations so far. The first system was too chaotic, and now it's simple, but powerful. There's a scale from 1-10000 that's constantly changing and the more intense music is higher and the calmer is lower. There's also a similar scale for mood that meshes with the "intensity" meter. EVA, Ground, Space, all have their own scales and at any time they can put in Cinematic music and drop a "Pedro bomb".

Town Hall·
Published on this date.31 Aug 2016
Audio

What would you say is the biggest feature the Audio department has brought to Star Citizen?

Cloud Imperium

t's hard to pick one specific feature because there's several as audio touches on everything. The dynamic music system is definitely one of them, but coding in such a way that allows sound designers to make things that can run on their own.

Town Hall·
Published on this date.31 Aug 2016
AudioDevelopment process

Are you guys going to remove or dampen sounds that happen outside of stations then you're inside them?

With propagation, yes they're putting the finishing touches that also includes the outside sounds to hear what's going on outside.

Town Hall·
Published on this date.31 Aug 2016

Will there be any customization in terms of the "bitching betty" ship voice?

Cloud Imperium

They do want to allow players to have sound packs to change the voice AI. Furthermore they want players to be able change what you hear from the ship AI. Right now they feel there's too much and want to dial it down or allow players to customize what they hear.

Town Hall·
Published on this date.31 Aug 2016
AudioShips

Will sound be percieved differently between multiple players?

Cloud Imperium

Yes, there's three sounds. First person, third person, and local.

Town Hall·
Published on this date.31 Aug 2016
Audio

With the introduction of atmospheric flight, will there be a sonic boom? Can players on the ground hear it?

Cloud Imperium

Yes, and it depends on the atmospheric density for when it would occur.

Town Hall·
Published on this date.31 Aug 2016
AudioFlight model

Will there be audible cues for the health of equipment?

Cloud Imperium

It's a balance you have to find. Too much feedback can go against the player and confuse them. For ships there's something, but FPS weapons, they're not sure at this point.

Town Hall·
Published on this date.31 Aug 2016

Does Star Marine have a different way of how sound is done?

Cloud Imperium

Like Arena Commander there will be some differences, but the framework is the same, it's just built on it to simulate that it's a game within a game.

Town Hall·
Published on this date.31 Aug 2016

Are ship sounds unique or shared?

Cloud Imperium

Every ship is designed to have their own unique sounds. Manufacturers don't share sounds and if they do it's temporary. The quantum drive for now is, but they would like to have it unique. Two of the same ships may also sound different based off their structural integrity.

Town Hall·
Published on this date.31 Aug 2016
AudioShipsShip components

Will there be a jukebox in ships?

Cloud Imperium

Eventually yes, it took awhile for hangar, but it's coming.

Town Hall·
Published on this date.31 Aug 2016
AudioShips

Has there been any thought to how music is in 2947?

Cloud Imperium

It's in a kind of concept, but they would like to create some new genres of music and what the future would like, but it's open ended and time is a factor.

Town Hall·
Published on this date.31 Aug 2016
AudioLore

Will there be radio stations in the PU like GTA? Will it be a loop or constantly updated?

Cloud Imperium

In some form I'm sure something will exist, but constantly updated is a whole different aspect that could be really cool to have people earning a living in the PU being a radio host, it's just a matter of how to implement it.

Town Hall·
Published on this date.31 Aug 2016
AudioEconomy

Can we expect to see different effects added to voice communication depending on where it's received? Will a Drake ship have lower quality sound versus a MISC, will distance play a role?

At first no, but it's definitely possible to have elements like that in the game.

Town Hall·
Published on this date.31 Aug 2016
AudioShips