By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow
So happy you’ve joined us! I’m videogame composer Winifred Phillips. Welcome back to our four part discussion of the role that music plays in Virtual Reality video games! These articles are based on the presentation I gave at this year’s gathering of the famous Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco. My talk was entitled Music in Virtual Reality (I’ve included the official description of my talk at this end of this article). If you haven’t read the previous two articles, you’ll find them here:
- Composing video game music for Virtual Reality: The role of music in VR
- Composing video game music for Virtual Reality: 3D versus 2D
During my GDC presentation, I focused on three important questions for VR video game composers:
- Do we compose our music in 3D or 2D?
- Do we structure our music to be Diegetic or Non-Diegetic?
- Do we focus our music on enhancing player Comfort or Performance?
While attempting to answer these questions during my GDC talk, I discussed my work on four of my own VR game projects – the Bebylon: Battle Royale arena combat game from Kite & Lightning, the Dragon Front strategy game from High Voltage Software, the Fail Factory comedy game from Armature Studio, and the Scraper: First Strike shooter/RPG from Labrodex Inc.
In these articles, I’ve been sharing the discussions and conclusions that formed the basis of my GDC talk, including numerous examples from these four VR game projects. So now let’s look at the second of our three questions:
Do we structure our music to be Diegetic or Non-Diegetic?
In this example, we see how the Dragon Front theme music starts as traditional underscore (that is, a non-diegetic score), but then moves into the VR space and becomes a diegetic score – one that is understood to be present in the game world. And that brings us to the second of the three core debates at the heart of music in VR: should music in VR be diegetic or non-diegetic?
It’s a thorny issue. As we know, musical underscore is absolutely vital in gaming – it creates momentum, motivates players and adds emotional texture to the story and the characters. However, in VR, the idea of presence becomes paramount. We want players to feel like they are inside the fiction of an awesome VR world. So, when the non-diegetic music starts playing, we worry that players might stop and wonder, ‘where’s this music coming from? Why am I hearing it?’
The obvious solution is to make all of the music in the game diegetic – somehow, in this VR world, all music comes from in-game sources that players can see in the environment around them. Here’s an example from one of my VR projects – Bebylon: Battle Royale, from developers Kite & Lightning.
Bebylon: Battle Royale proves that its possible to get away with a completely diegetic score, but we’d need really specific circumstances to justify it. Most games won’t be able to make this approach work. So, what then? I’ve found that there are three strategies to ease non-diegetic music into VR:
- Keep it subtle and gradual,
- Keep it dry and warm, and
- Keep it both inside and outside the VR world.
So let’s start with the first strategy – subtle and gradual.
In order to address this problem, I composed the ambient music in Scraper so that it would come and go in subtle, gradual ways. As a technique for music implementation in VR, this can be an effective approach. Let’s take another look at what that was like in Scraper:
While this technique works well for the ambient music, it wasn’t an option for combat. Battles in Scraper are pretty intense – the music begins with a bang and keeps on whaling away until the room is cleared of enemies. At the beginning of the project, we’d decided on a stereo music mix rather than spatialization – considering how important audio cues are to expert first-person-shooter players, we didn’t want a spatialized score to introduce any confusion. My job at that point was to figure out a way to delineate the stereo music mix from the VR world so that the player wouldn’t wonder where the music was coming from.
I recorded the music for Scraper with fairly dry acoustics, and when I mixed the music, I focused on keeping the tone warm and bassy, with a solid low end and some rich mids in the EQ spectrum. Here’s an example of how that worked in combat sequences of the Scraper VR game:
So now let’s look at another approach, which I’ve called ‘Inside and Outside.’ If music is 3D – if it’s spatialized – we’re more likely to think it actually exists inside the fictional world. If music is 2D – if it’s a direct stereo mix – we’ll be more likely to accept it as non-diegetic, as outside the experience.
So we’ve now discussed the second of the three important questions for video game composers creating music for VR games:
- Do we compose our music in 3D or 2D?
- Do we structure our music to be Diegetic or Non-Diegetic?
- Do we focus our music on enhancing player Comfort or Performance?
We’ve contemplated what role our music should play in the VR experience – whether it should be considered a part of the fictional world or an outside commentary that shapes the player’s emotional experience. Both roles are valid, but the choice between them is especially meaningful within the context of VR. The next article will focus on the third of the three questions: whether music in VR should enhance player comfort or player performance. Thanks for reading, and please feel free to leave your comments in the space below!
Music in Virtual Reality
Topics included 3D versus 2D music implementation, and the role of spatialized audio in a musical score for VR. The use of diegetic and non-diegetic music were explored, including methods that blur the distinction between the two categories.
The discussion also included an examination of the VIMS phenomenon (Visually Induced Motion Sickness), and the role of music in alleviating its symptoms. Phillips’ talk offered techniques for composers and audio directors looking to utilize music in the most advantageous way within a VR project.
Takeaway
Through examples from several VR games, Phillips provided an analysis of music composition strategies that help music integrate successfully in a VR environment. The talk included concrete examples and practical advice that audience members can apply to their own games.
Intended Audience
This session provided composers and audio directors with strategies for designing music for VR. It included an overview of the history of positional sound and the VIMS problem (useful knowledge for designers.)
The talk was intended to be approachable for all levels (advanced composers may better appreciate the specific composition techniques discussed).
