Introduction

The introduction provides an overview of Mirror's Edge, a first-person jump and run parkour game that was released during an international economic crisis. Despite the unlucky circumstances surrounding the game's release window, it managed to cultivate a large enough following to warrant a sequel.

Game Audio

This section discusses how game audio tends to fly under the radar and how Mirror's Edge features great music, impressive dynamic audio systems, and ambient sound design which goes above and beyond what an average player might expect from a linear action game.

Soundscapes in Mirror's Edge

This section explains how Mirror's Edge takes place in a believable world dominated by bauhaus and brutalist architecture. The game relies on familiar sounds such as footsteps, rustling of clothing, hands grabbing onto things, shattering glass, and mundane city life soundscapes.

Footsteps in Half-Life 2 vs. Mirror's Edge

This section compares the footsteps in Half-Life 2 with those in Mirror's Edge. While Half-Life 2 relies more on its environmental soundscapes rather than detailed sound effects of a player character's body which you cannot even see if you look down besides the footsteps we cannot actually hear Gordon Freeman no friction between his legs no rustling of clothing no clinking off his hev suit gordon doesn't even seem to get exhausted over time judging by the lack of breathing. On the other hand, Mirror’s edge has more convincing footsteps that include friction and rustling of Faith’s clothing.

Movement Sounds in Mirror's Edge

This section explains that movement sounds are played at specific keyframes of animations consisting of foot plant, foot lift, and a cloth sound which originates from Faith's baggy pants at a keyframe when both legs touch each other in the movement side. Different sounds for sneaking, walking, and running exist to make movement feel more realistic.

Conclusion

The conclusion summarizes that Mirror's Edge is often referred to as a timeless masterpiece due to its exceptional graphical fidelity, innovative gameplay, impeccable animations, and impressive dynamic audio systems.

The Importance of Sound Design in Mirror's Edge

This section discusses the significance of sound design in enhancing the gaming experience, particularly in a game like Mirror's Edge that emphasizes movement.

Footstep Sounds

• The sound team put significant effort into creating unique and realistic footstep sounds for different surfaces and movements.

• The attention to detail greatly enhances the immersive experience of playing as Faith, the main character.

• Wall runs and vaulting also have distinct sounds that add to the overall movement experience.

Breathing System

• The escalation-based breathing system is based on Faith's velocity and adds another layer of realism to her movements.

• When idling, Faith breathes through her nose with long inhales and exhales. As she gains speed, her breaths become shorter until she starts breathing through her mouth at high speeds.

Sound Effects Working Together

This section highlights how all the sound effects work together to amplify the gaming experience.

Movement Animations and Sound Effects

• Movement animations and sound effects must work together seamlessly to create an immersive experience.

• In Mirror's Edge, every movement has a corresponding sound effect, from climbing pipes to swinging from one pipe to another.

• All these details make Faith feel like a living, breathing person rather than just a character in a game.

Combat Sounds

• Different sounds are used for punching an NPC's head or torso during combat.

• Guns are mostly carried by sound design alone; visually not much is happening.

• Gun sounds were designed by combining previous session material and library sources. Some gun sounds were initially intended for other games before finding their way into Mirror's Edge.

Realistic vs. Satisfying Gun Sounds

This section discusses the importance of gun sounds in creating tension during chase sequences.

Shotgun Sounds

• The shotgun sounds in Mirror's Edge are not realistic but are incredibly satisfying to use.

• Realism is expected from realistic-looking guns, but it can be boring. Gun recordings are a great option for games that revolve around shooting simulators.

Tension During Chase Sequences

• Weapon sounds contribute significantly to the tension of the game's chase sequences.

• The booming firing sounds create a clear sense of immediate danger for players.

• Realistic sounding guns are required for shooting simulators like Hot Dogs, Horseshoes and Hand Grenades or Arma.

Introduction to Mirror's Edge Sound Design

The sound design of Mirror's Edge is based on the principle that any noise heard in the game has a source. This section discusses how movement and ambience are important aspects of sound design.

Movement and Ambience

• The game features various sources of noise, such as air conditioning units, pipes with water running through them, and traffic throughout the city.

• The sound of different objects changes depending on proximity and velocity of the player. Wind is added when Faith starts gaining speed.

• The game modulates sound based on proximity, cuts off sounds when too far away from an object, and disables it completely.

• A distinct system had to be implemented for the train segment where Faith jumps onto a roof of a moving train while standing on a non-moving object.

Sound Occlusion

• Sounds can be blocked or muffled by other surfaces in the game. Traffic noise is occluded more when walking away from a ledge.

• When walking indoors, outside sounds get muffled. However, this occlusion isn't real since there is an intense shift in audio when walking out of one area into another.

Runner's Bubble

• The runner's bubble is a design concept that explains what a runner should hear in their immediate surroundings at any speed. It includes ambient noises, music, and specific events happening around them.

• Footsteps of PK runners have been amplified to enhance player awareness during chases.

Overall, the sound design of Mirror's Edge is based on realism and functionality to enhance player experience. Movement, ambience, sound occlusion, and the runner's bubble are all important aspects of this design.

Fully Recording Sessions

This section discusses the process of fully recording sessions for Mirror's Edge.

Ideal Environment for Fully Recording Sessions

• The studio is jam-packed with props that reproduce interesting sounds such as grates, pipes, fences, instruments, cables and furniture.

• Any surface needed to record for an urban parkour game is present from glass to dirt concrete grass and gravel. Sometimes objects are even stacked on top of each other to create more nuanced sounds or to dampen unwanted textures.

Footstep and Handstand Sounds

• Designers had to create footstep and handstand sounds together with soft medium and hard landings.

• Several footstep and liftoff sounds have to be recorded in order for them to sound natural in-game when played in a random pattern.

• Every step had to be recorded cleanly so the designers marked a spot on the ground and repeatedly stepped on it to get consistent and clean audio.

Hardware and Software Used

• For hardware, both a tlm-103 and a dpa4011 were used.

• Various filters and software were used for processing most sound files.

Experimentation

• Discussion and experimentation happened all the time specifically regarding how certain sounds should be recorded.

• Another issue was that you couldn't just run and hold a field recorder to record the footsteps holding a microphone introduces sounds originating from handling and operating the recorder while this can add a lot to your run cycle in battlefield like experiences for mirror's edge every step had to be recorded cleanly.

Achieving the Right Sound

• A lot of the recording process also consists of feeling things out. If it sounds right, it's right.

• The sound doesn't necessarily have to be spot on perfect. Some designers may cheat all the time and get away with it because if done right you won't spot the difference anyway.

Music in Mirror's Edge

This section discusses the importance of music in Mirror's Edge.

Magnus Bigeshon

• Magnus Bigeshon, also known as Solar Field, composed stunning compositions that made Mirror's Edge what it is today.

Solar Fields and Mirror's Edge Sound Design

In this section, we learn about how Solar Fields was brought onto the project and how the music was composed for Mirror's Edge.

Solar Fields' Involvement

• Magnus Walterstadt connected Solar Fields to the audio director of the project.

• Valtterstadt discovered Solar Fields through Pandora and thought their music would be perfect for Mirror's Edge.

• After a few phone calls, Bigeshon offered to bring Solar Fields onto the project.

• The music was recorded off hardware synthesizers and composed in stems.

Music Composition

• Stems are different components of any given music track that can be mixed however the musician wants them to.

• The sound team settled on stereo music tracks which play when triggering events in the level since music isn't mixed dynamically in Mirror's Edge.

• Stingers and reverse stingers were used to hide dissonant transitions between tracks.

• Stingers could also be used to end a music track perfectly at the end of a level.

The transcript discusses other topics such as Valdestad's infatuation with synthetic ambient music, but they are not directly related to Solar Fields' involvement in Mirror's Edge sound design.

Introduction

The video demonstrates how music could have sounded like if a dynamic mixing was implemented into the game.

Dynamic Mixing Implementation

• All music was edited in a video editor to demonstrate how music could have sounded like if a dynamic mixing was implemented into the game.

Music

This section focuses on the music used in the game.

Music Used

• The video features two different pieces of music.

• One of the pieces is accompanied by an "oh" sound effect.

Dialogue

This section focuses on dialogue used in the game.

Dialogue Used

• A character says "they're playing rough cell I'll be fine."

• Another character says "get out of".

• A third character says "gotta get off here".

• A character speaks about uncovering a secret and expresses disappointment that the dynamic music system was omitted from the final game.

Technical Limitations

This section discusses technical limitations that prevented implementation of certain features in the game.

PlayStation 3 Limitations

• The PlayStation 3 console had limited random access memory (RAM), which made it impossible to implement a dynamic stem-based music system into Mirror's Edge.

• PCs from 2005 to 2009 generally possessed up to 4 gigabytes of RAM, while Xbox 360 only featured half a gigabyte.

• The PlayStation 3 featured only 248 megabytes of RAM, which meant that assets needed to be streamed, loaded and unloaded constantly.

• Implementing a soundtrack that requires up to 6 files or potentially more to be loaded at all times was too much to ask at the time.

Game Development

This section discusses how Mirror's Edge was developed.

Game Development Process

• Mirror's Edge was not a game that was written down in a notebook somewhere. Many of the decisions made for the game arose from circumstance.

• The game got its iconic look one day when the developers needed to load up the game without textures to debug a problem only to find out that the game looked beautiful without them.

• The concept of the game was synthesized out of many tried game concepts which for one reason or another were redone or scrapped entirely.

Mirror's Edge Sound Design

In this section, the speaker talks about the unique art style, gameplay, and soundtrack of Mirror's Edge. The speaker also highlights the importance of sound designers in creating a great game.

The Unique Game Design

• The game had an art style like no other.

• The playstyle was alien to the gaming scene at that time.

• One of the most interesting and instantly recognizable protagonists ever designed.

The Striking Soundtrack

• The soundtrack is just as striking as the many locales the player may find themselves in.

• Sound designers played a crucial role in making Mirror's Edge sound great.

Conclusion

• This production cleared up some questions you may have had about Mirror's Edge or maybe you were able to come to appreciate the work of the many sound designers that made Mirror's Edge sound great.

[Music]