General:Mark Lampert: "It's Quiet... Almost Too Quiet"

This is a developer diary for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The diary was originally posted to the old Bethesda Newsletter website and the old elderscrolls.com website on 17 February 2006.

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By Mark Lampert

IT’S QUIET … ALMOST TOO QUIET

That's where I come in

Hello and welcome to my Team Diary for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion! My name is Mark Lampert and I handle the many aspects of audio here at Bethesda Softworks. I joined the Oblivion team in the last days of March of 2005, but I've been a huge Elder Scrolls fan since having first stepped into the world of Tamriel in 1993 with the release of The Elder Scrolls: Arena. That's a long time to wait and I can't tell you how excited I am to be here now, working on this game with this team and helping bring to life the massive province of Cyrodiil and the dark netherworld known as Oblivion.

If you've played previous Elder Scrolls games, you know very well how rich and detailed the games' outside worlds are. Well, you've truly never seen anything like this. Right from the start I'm presented with a truly amazing landscape of lush forests, rolling highlands, snow capped mountains, lowland swamps, and grassy meadows ... all of which will need my attention in some way. Great sound design means immersion and I can tell right away that a visual masterpiece like this will require a sonic landscape that sucks you right in as powerfully as the visuals. And that's only one aspect – let's not forget clashing swords, the sound of clattering about in a full suit of plate armor, slamming shut city gates as you enter a new town to explore, wading through water along a riverbank, casting a blazing fireball, the crack of thunder in a heavy downpour, gentle chirping of crickets at night, and on and on.

With only a year to go until the completion of this truly massive and detailed game, I needed to hit the ground running immediately upon arriving for my first day of work: meeting the rest of the team, familiarizing myself with the game as it currently stood, talking with producers and getting an idea of what needed to be done, what was already done, and generally just where to start when faced with such a beast. Thankfully, our friends at sound design house d-Sonic had already gotten the ball rolling by filling out a few areas of the game's audio assets, so I took the reigns from there and started out on what was to become a long and amazing journey as part of the Oblivion team.

GIVE ME A LITTLE MORE LEVEL ON THE CICADAS

Creating the sonic landscape

Using the sounds created by the d-Sonic crew as a starting point, I first proceeded to make variations of those sounds. The crash of a sword smashing into your shield is excellent, but we'll need several if it's to sound believable rather than just being repetitive. So when you raise up your shield or two-handed weapon (or even just your fists in order to block with!), you'll get a good feel for the power and weight of the weapons that your enemy is so eager to cut you down with. Add in the sound of heavy armor clanking about as you and your opponent circle one another and wait for your next opportunity to strike. Now add in a few hot-blooded taunts from that opponent as he mocks you. The combat system in this game was already a blast, but now we're really getting somewhere! This is what I love about sound design ... helping to give what you see on the screen a real feeling of substance. But this is just the tip of the iceberg ...

The part of the game's audio that I'm most excited to tell you about is the aforementioned great outdoors (look for Noah Berry's team diary detailing this amazing aspect of the game world). The team has put together a truly stunning landscape, complete with day/night cycles and dynamic weather. Covering so much ground -- literally, in this case -- with full audio detail would require a systematic approach and this is where I really got a lot of help from our programmers and the Elder Scrolls Construction Set. Working with audio programmer Mathew Krohn, I laid out a short list of features that we'd need in the Construction Set where I could specify a set of sounds for a defined geographic region of the game, give them time restrictions as well as weather parameters (Example: I only want this type of bird to chirp in the early morning hours, but I also want it to cease during a rainstorm and I want this all to take place only in the Great Forest). Mat went to work and it wasn't long before the system was in place and working exactly as described. From there I needed to create all of the audio assets for the nature sounds and organize them into a schedule for each region – birds, insects, wind in the trees, etc. – and then all that was left to do was plug in all of the data and start to fine tune it. One piece at a time, Cyrodiil came to life. Those of you who downloaded our E3 demo videos have heard a rough early version of this system in the forest demo. With a natural landscape so diverse and distinct in its geography, I wanted its sound to match -- if you can easily recognize the dense woods of the Great Forest from the wind-torn, frozen cliffs of the Jerall Mountains, then you should also be able to close your eyes and easily hear the difference as well. I think we've really achieved that and I know you're going to love it.

(listen)

Creeping down into the darker, opposing end of the spectrum, we have the many windy caves, abandoned fort ruins, old mines, ancient Ayleid cities, city sewers, and other dungeons of Cyrodiil. Here you will find no birdsongs, chirping crickets nor gentle breeze, but rather the deep rumbles of the earth, dank and dripping catacombs and howling wind channeled through dark passageways. This is the polar opposite of the world above and the most comforting sound you'll find here is the warm crackle of a torch clenched tightly in your hand to light the way as you explore. This emphasizes what I think is another strong point in the audio of the game – contrast. The creepy quiet, distant moans and rumbles are a claustrophobic experience compared to the feeling of space and fresh air upon emerging from the dungeon's entrance into a clear, sunny day. The game's innumerable subterranean spaces got their sound treatment by hand as opposed to a system-wide method. The advantage in doing so was the ability to better highlight certain rooms or corridors in terms of sound.

So with all of these sounds to create to complete the game's atmosphere, where does one start? If I've got the time and a certain idea in mind, I'll record a sound myself here in our studio to use as one ingredient in a sound or even as that sound itself. Part of the sound of walking in heavy armor was achieved by shaking a heavy canvas grocery bag full of assorted scrap metal and this was further combined with deep thuds to add a greater sense of weight. The result is played simultaneously with the game's footstep system so that you can clank and rattle along as you walk through town showing off your shiny and intricately detailed Dwarven armor. All of these sounds are combined, trimmed, layered with effects, compressed, and mixed down out of my multitrack software.

From there I take the resulting mixed down stereo file and further trim it up in my stereo or mono audio editing software, then spit it out into the individual variations (eight files in this particular case) that I want to hear play back when I'm walking with a full suit of heavy armor in the game.

Naturally, there are further steps before a sound is truly complete and most of those revolve around mixing or getting the relative volume levels in the game in good shape. I need a good reference point from which to mix, and the best references are going to be the loudest sounds in the game: exploding fireballs, the smash of a weapon against a solid object, and so on. Once I've got the loudest sounds at a good level, I can mix those other sounds relative to those which I'd like to be quieter. But most important of all is that the spoken dialog is loud and clear above anything. Wait a minute ... I haven't told you about all the voice in this game? Well, throw another log on the fire and get comfortable.

CALL KINKO'S AND MAKE SURE THEY'RE OPEN

Preparing to record the inhabitants of Cyrodiil

As you’re no doubt already aware, spoken dialog was to be one of the many massive changes that went into making Oblivion, and spoken dialog manifest in a world as large as an Elder Scrolls game is going to be a great deal of dialog indeed. With heavyweights like Patrick Stewart, Terence Stamp, and Sean Bean already on board, the next step was to cast the races that inhabit the lands in Tamriel and our featured province of Cyrodiil. Local voice actors were brought in for auditions right here at Bethesda Softworks, and after a couple of weeks and a lot of listening and feedback from team leads, we had our races ready to go. Estimates were made, sessions were booked, and in mid-July recording began at Absolute Pitch Studios in Bethesda, Maryland.

But before this could all take place, the script itself had to be finalized and prepared for the voice talent. This meant exporting all dialog that had been written in the editor by our designers (a process that had to literally run through the night because of the sheer amount of data), then getting that all organized and into some useful form, printed, and separated into three copies – one for the voice talent in the recording booth, one for the recording engineer so they could make notes as to which take on which line we wanted to keep, and one for myself and two other designers to read from as we directed the voice talent in different studios. Starting the formatting and organization work on the exported script at noon on a Sunday, I finally had the script copies back from the printers, assembled, and organized by 4am the next morning. I enjoyed a three hour snooze before waking myself up to load up all the scripts in their three separate boxes, load them into the trunk of my car, and head down to the studio to meet everyone for the first day of recording. The first conversation I had with the recording engineer was to ask if they had a dolly cart that I could borrow for a few minutes. “Sure. What do you need it for?” he asks. “To bring in the script,” I replied. Below are some of the pictures I took while assembling the script as it came back from the printers at some wee hour of the morning.

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Voice recording gets me excited. It’s a big departure and often a welcome break from sound design. While I do need to sometimes keep in mind the context of the game in which some lines will be heard as far as other sound effects that might be playing at the time, it’s a chance for me to focus on a fresh aspect of the game’s audio. A big part of the enjoyment comes from the human element – working with different people who are very enthusiastic about working on the project and each have their own special perspective that they’ll bring to it. When dialog is written, the person doing the writing usually hears it in their own head a certain way (particularly if the voice talent has not yet been cast, as there’s no reference point yet). I myself, upon reading through the script, hear it in my head another way. The point being, everyone might have their own idea of how a line should be delivered in its context, and the voice actors are no different.

WHAT'S THAT IN THE ROAD? A HEAD?

Directing the voice recordings

When directing the voice actors in the recording studio, each line can be a surprise since this is the first time you’re hearing it as interpreted by this new person, the actor. I prefer to not be too heavy-handed in directing, rather letting them take a crack at it and just see how it sounds. If casting was done right then there’s often very little to comment on or to correct. If a line is flubbed, misspoken, or mispronounced, I punch the “talkback” button to communicate with the talent in the recording booth and we go through the line again. The recording engineer makes an additional second hash mark on his copy of the script so he’ll know to throw out the first take when he does his editing pass after the session. Most of the time, the first take is the keeper. Sometimes it sounds just like I expected it to and sometimes it’s an unexpected but pleasant surprise. That’s the part I like best … someone bringing their own approach to our work, and that approach really being the thing we were looking for, but perhaps couldn’t quite put our finger on.

In those times where I do want to step in and direct the talent in another way, it’s often most useful to them to be given an objective to work toward, rather than the intended result itself. In other words, if I tell them, “Try it more angry,” then I’m still the only one who knows how angry I’m really talking about. So let’s say this line is intended to be read as if the speaker is just mildly annoyed, such as if the player continually tries to speak with them repeatedly, but they have nothing more to say and only wish to be left alone. Going with that previous vague direction, the voice talent might just take a guess and end up taking things way too far, screaming the line with clenched fists and wild gestures (the best ones always let their body get into it, just as if they were actually going through that emotion toward a person standing directly in front of them in the recording booth). But now I’ve got to back them up a bit because it was only supposed to be mildly annoyed, not fuming mad! Still being too vague in my direction, I punch the talkback and say, “No, no. Less angry than that.” Well, this time they go too far in the opposite direction and now hardly seem bothered at all. What we need is a situation, or motivation, for them to work from.

At the risk of sounding cliché, I want to stress that ‘motivation’ is actually a pretty good word to describe what good direction should deliver. If I say, “Do it more angry!”, they’re likely to ask me, “Why?” Motivation is the ‘why’ that will get you the result you’re after when given to a talented actor.

So this time I explain the situation properly and in as few words as possible (we’ve got several weeks of material to record … there’s no time for a long-winded story). “I keep walking up to you in the tavern and tapping your shoulder each time you go back to your ale! Doesn’t that bother you?” Now the line comes out just as the writer intended … annoyed, maybe even hinting at anger, but certainly not pulling a dagger out of a sheath just yet. And the actors like it, too. They’re having fun because I’m feeding them these situations that they can now relate to and picture themselves in. I address them directly rather than talking in the third person about the character they’re speaking for because it gets right to the point and is clear. They have a motive to work from. It’s the same reason that big Hollywood animation flicks, like those you see from Pixar, will do voice sessions with all the lead voice actors in separate recording booths partitioned by soundproof glass. They can see one another and the emotion is far more likely to be genuine and spontaneous when it’s delivered right to the face of the other actors. The audience will know the difference when they hear it.

The other part of having a director present during these voice recordings is that this is not the easiest script in the world. The two designers, Mark Nelson and Ken Rolston, and myself often played the part of quality control. The world of Tamriel and the province of Cyrodiil have a rich history and culture, and that means a wealth of fictional names, places, creatures, and artifacts being thrown around in the script’s text. Context and emphasis suddenly become these very important, but difficult to wrangle things if everyone isn’t on the same page, so to speak (making fun of misinterpreted context and emphasis is the essence of the title for this section of my team diary).

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KEEP YOUR EARS SHARP AND YOUR SWORD SHARPER

The dawn of your next Elder Scrolls adventure draws near

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is now in the fifty-eighth minute of the eleventh hour of its development cycle here at Bethesda Softworks. We’re almost done with our masterpiece and the mood around the office reflects this as everyone gets more and more excited about having all of you out there experiencing the world we’ve created. I know I can’t wait.

When I stroll into the kitchen to fix another cup of tea, I can hear the various sounds of the game echoing around the office. Clank, clank, clank of the hammer on the anvil as someone makes armor repairs. Smashing, crashing, and yelling as someone else finds themselves in a fierce battle in the streets outside the local tavern. And seemingly from another world entirely, the gentle crunch of footsteps through tall grass while (yet another) lone adventurer takes a scenic stroll through the windswept meadows of the West Weald. Sccccchiiing … as the sword comes out of its scabbard … it sounds as though this peaceful walk has just been interrupted by a waiting troll who thought he was being sneaky by hiding behind a large rock a ways up the road.

Their gurgling groans always give them away.