2016 - Youtube Spatial Audio for 360° video - Ambisonics
As Senior Sound Designer on PlayStation VR Worlds, I had the privilege to experiment with Ambisonics for the YouTube and Facebook 360° formats, with this promotional video for one of our PSVR experiences, Ocean Descent (The Deep).
With help from audio programmers, we built a system allowing to use the Wwise recorder plugin to get 3rd order ambisonics captures from the game engine (one of the challenges was that the capture was not real-time, due to high resolution 360° video capture).
To pan all sources in this video, I used Reaper with the free Blue Ripple suite of plugins (TOA Core at the time, now 03A Core).
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Here is a little bit of information about how this was made:
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- 360° surrounding ambient elements are 3rd order ambisonics captures from the VR game environments/ambiences
- The player's breathing sound, meant to be coming from the player's helmet, only goes to the W-0 (omni) channel - non positional
- Point sources, such as the turtle or manta rays, are single/mono objects panned within the ambisonics field
- Wide sources, such as the "titles waves", are made of pairs or quads of objects (music is quad as well)
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The design, editing and mixing were all done in the native 3rd order ambisonics Reaper session, then rendered down to the specific platform formats.
In the case of this YouTube video, it is 1st order ambisonics (ACN ordering, SN3D normalisation). There is no binaural decoding on YouTube (at least at the time of publishing this video), so the vertical dimension cannot be perceived.
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To master the overall audio output, we used plugin scripting in Reaper to design a 16-channel linked brickwall limiter.
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Tools: Reaper, Blue Ripple TOA Core plugins, Wwise, FFmpeg, YouTube metadata injection tool.
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Work examples
Please find a collection of media demonstrating some of my game audio work
2024 - Helldivers 2 - Intro cinematic
Here is the game intro which I designed the sound for, including vocal processing and mix. It was great fun!
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The idea was to create this propaganda video for Super Earth. It needed to have a somehow 'fake' feel, made-up in a post-production studio turning brutal war scenes into 'fun' for enrolling new Helldivers! It also had to be able to be played back quiet to avoid exploding at players heads every time they launch the game, hence a dense mix allowing a quieter playback.
The below is the English stereo downmix of the Atmos cinematic.
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2021 - Returnal - Sound Design, Mix & Audio Direction
As the Audio Lead on this title, I was responsible for the audio direction and the 3D mix, overseeing the amazing work of our audio team and partners. This video is a faithful capture of a wide variety of content, taken on an early public build.
Note: this is a video capture in 3D Audio, high bitrate and headphones recommended.
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2019 - Blood & Truth (PSVR) - Sound Design, Mix & Audio Direction
As Supervising Sound Designer on this title, I was responsible for the audio direction and the mix, overseeing the work of our audio team.
I was also responsible for the design and implementation of a few sections of the title, such as the airplanes and dream sequences featured in this video.
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Note: this is a video capture of VR gameplay, in binaural 3D Audio.
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Please make sure to listen in stereo, over headphones and at a good bitrate, as the phasing side-effects of binaural decoding would become overly pronounced otherwise. Without headphones, it is not possible to perceive the 3D Audio positioning.
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An article about how I designed the ships engines sounds for WipEout, with the tonal layer made with NI Massive (with tutorial video).
2018 - WipEout Omega Collection - Engines design with Native Instruments Massive
2017 - WipEout Omega Collection - Mix
As Supervising Sound Designer on this title, I was responsible for the mix (stereo to 7.1).
Here is a video describing the basics of the mixing strategy.
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Tools: Wwise, Sulpha. No game editor (all code - audio implemented with audio programmers).
2017 - WipEout Omega Collection - Sound Design & Audio Direction
As Supervising Sound Designer on this title, I was responsible for setting the overall audio direction, overseeing and reviewing the sound design work across a team of 6 sound designers + 2 audio programmers.
I was also responsible for the design and implementation of the engine sounds of the ships featured in this video.
We only had 5 production months on this title!
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Tools: Wwise, Scream, Reaper, many plugins and instruments. No game editor (all code - audio implemented with audio programmers).
As Senior Sound Designer on those titles, I was responsible for the sound design and implementation of the game sections featured in this video (among many others).
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This work includes weapons (present and future), vehicles (present and future), destruction, cinematic moments, sci-fi, UI and VO processing.
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Note: those captures were taken before game mixing phase. The content was confidential at the time of capture (not anymore).
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Tools: Reaper, Wwise, Unreal, Morpheme, Popcorn, Sony London Studio in-house editor.
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Projects featured in this video:
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00:09 Scavengers Odyssey (VR)
01:20 Danger Ball (VR)
02:09 Hardware Rivals
03:17 The London Heist (VR)
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2016 - Multiple titles (VR and non VR) - Sound Design
2016 - Youtube Spatial Audio for 360° video - Ambisonics
As Senior Sound Designer on PlayStation VR Worlds, I had the privilege to experiment with Ambisonics for the YouTube and Facebook 360° formats, with this promotional video for one of our PSVR experiences, Ocean Descent (The Deep).
With help from audio programmers, we built a system allowing to use the Wwise recorder plugin to get 3rd order ambisonics captures from the game engine (one of the challenges was that the capture was not real-time, due to high resolution 360° video capture).
To pan all sources in this video, I used Reaper with the free Blue Ripple suite of plugins (TOA Core at the time, now 03A Core).
​
Here is a little bit of information about how this was made:
​
- 360° surrounding ambient elements are 3rd order ambisonics captures from the VR game environments/ambiences
- The player's breathing sound, meant to be coming from the player's helmet, only goes to the W-0 (omni) channel - non positional
- Point sources, such as the turtle or manta rays, are single/mono objects panned within the ambisonics field
- Wide sources, such as the "titles waves", are made of pairs or quads of objects (music is quad as well)
​
The design, editing and mixing were all done in the native 3rd order ambisonics Reaper session, then rendered down to the specific platform formats.
In the case of this YouTube video, it is 1st order ambisonics (ACN ordering, SN3D normalisation). There is no binaural decoding on YouTube (at least at the time of publishing this video), so the vertical dimension cannot be perceived.
​
To master the overall audio output, we used plugin scripting in Reaper to design a 16-channel linked brickwall limiter.
​
​
Tools: Reaper, Blue Ripple TOA Core plugins, Wwise, FFmpeg, YouTube metadata injection tool.
​
As Senior Sound Designer on VR Worlds, I was responsible for the design and implementation of weapons in The London Heist.
Here is a video presenting the technical implementation.
Note: assets in this video are placeholders. This was an audio test map I made for technical purposes only.
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Tools: Wwise, Sony London Studio in-house editor.
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2015 - VR Weapons - Technical Sound Design
2012 - Pixar Rush - Sound Design
As Sound Designer on this title, I was responsible for the sound design and implementation of pretty much all the audio content, sharing the workload with my Audio Lead, and some asset outsourcing from Dynamedion.
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Here is a video presenting the work across 5 Pixar worlds featured in this title.
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Tools: Reaper, Sonar, Wwise, Asobo Studio in-house editor.
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