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Game Audio Loudness Standards

Posted: February 12th, 2014, 12:16 pm
by deskinscraig
So I have been researching this the past couple days trying to prepare myself for next month when I will need to mix the game I'm working on. I want to adhere to the recommended standard that the GANG IESD has released(http://designingsound.org/2013/02/loudn ... ame-audio/) but my game is not utilizing middleware, so metering through that is not an option. I wasnt able to find a link to the actual document so apologies for that. Does anyone have any recommended practices for achieving a standardized mix without the use of middleware? The game engine is Unity if that helps at all, and it is a PC/Mac release.

Re: Game Audio Loudness Standards

Posted: February 12th, 2014, 12:40 pm
by MikeQuell
Can you send the game back into your DAW and monitor with a plugin?

Re: Game Audio Loudness Standards

Posted: February 12th, 2014, 12:56 pm
by deskinscraig
Pretty sure Unity just uses whatever system audio you have selected so I imagine I could use soundflower to route the signal into PT. Any recommended plug-ins?

Re: Game Audio Loudness Standards

Posted: February 12th, 2014, 2:38 pm
by dpb
Orban has a nifty, free, stand-alone PC program. http://www.orban.com/meter/

You can set it up to monitor whatever audio is playing on your PC.

Re: Game Audio Loudness Standards

Posted: February 12th, 2014, 3:13 pm
by MikeQuell
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Maybe you can have the project budget for the Waves WLM plugin?

http://www.waves.com/plugins/wlm-loudness-meter

Re: Game Audio Loudness Standards

Posted: February 12th, 2014, 7:04 pm
by deskinscraig
Cool thanks guys! Going to explore both of these options...

Re: Game Audio Loudness Standards

Posted: March 2nd, 2014, 3:39 am
by Nick Output
Theres also the Izotope insight. When the team i was working with last year completed the mixdown we were in a very similar position. No middleware and using proprietary software. We worked with a pro mix engineer from the feature film world and they used this plug in with the output of the game routed back into pro tools. I also set up a record function in the pro tools session so we could record, playback and isolate each speaker in the 7.1 mix which was our chosen format. We even ended up using this in review sessions to capture all the action and scrutinise further.

Thats the difficulty with games, theres no linear timeline so when problems occur its harder to recreate and debug the mix. This way, recording all outputs back into pro tools gave us a system where we could get some of these benefits back. Whilst also facilitating loudness monitoring.

http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/insight/

I've since gone on to mix a couple of shorts using this plug in. The pre sets are really helpful. I would definitely join the ranks of engineers recommending this unit.

Re: Game Audio Loudness Standards

Posted: March 4th, 2014, 4:32 pm
by deskinscraig
I like the idea of recording your output, making your adjustments, and then rinse and repeat. Definitely going to utilize that, thanks. I was just using FMOD Studio the past few weeks for a side project, and I must say I liked their mixing functionality a lot. Made metering and making adjustments on the fly SO easy! The way you can use effects, and route audio felt more like I was mixing a film than a game. I'd kill to have it hooked up at work!