Resource Planning

A game of this scope requires a good deal of planning to ensure that the distributable footprint, runtime footprint and streaming needs for the audio are within Unity's recommendations and the developer's requirements. Doing this requires developing a working idea of the amount of audio needed for the character and object sound effects, ambiences and music.

A thorough analysis of the game's design documents was carried out, and all sounds needed for the various characters, objects and ambiences were documented. An outline of the score was developed based on the story and individual levels, which led to the conceptualization of the two main themes and a couple of one off pieces.

Next, it was necessary to consider what sounds could be re-used. Could Joseph's footsteps, with minor pitch adjustments, be used for Ally? Do we need more than one set of footsteps for the redcoats? Do we need different versions of sounds printed with various reverbs for different locations, or would Unity's built-in reverb suffice and be performant enough? If a sound was just for a cinematic, I might need only one variation, but if it was part of the gameplay, I might need several. Also, I had to consider what amount of file compression I could use and still end up with acceptable quality for short sound effects, ambiences and music.

Some in-game test cases were performed, and then spreadsheets were created to come up with rough estimates of what the audio footprint would be. These continue to serve as a guide to audio creation as game development proceeds.