Charley-Lanusse
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Music on the frontier: An interview with WildStar composer Jeff Kurtenacker
A great soundtrack has the ability to raise the mundane to memorable and the wonderful to epic. It's hard to imagine films like Star Wars or Back to the Future without their iconic scores or video games like Super Mario Bros. and Final Fantasy without their catchy tunes. So I'm always keen to hear the soundtracks of up-and-coming MMOs because they give me an indication of how much care is being given to the overall quality of the project. I'm doubly excited for WildStar's score because it's being composed by Jeff Kurtenacker. Kurtenacker produced one of my all-time favorite MMO soundtracks, Pirates of the Burning Sea, which is a playful, exuberant romp through the nautical soundscape. And so far from what we've heard of WildStar's score, we can expect much of the same when we make planetfall on Nexus. On one drizzly afternoon in a country that you've never heard of, Kurtenacker met with us in a small pub to talk about the joys of creating the music that will soon be infecting the brains of thousands (millions?) of gamers worldwide. Read on, space-man or space-woman, and be astounded!
From mind to ear: The journey of sound creation in WildStar
A rustling of brush behind you. The click of a gun safety switching off. A low growl off to the side. While seemingly minor details, even the smallest of sounds give us important information about the world around us, especially when we're playing our favorite MMOs. Two weeks ago, WildStar's weekly dev blog delved into the pairing of sounds to actions in-game. Today, WildStar Wednesday revisits the realm of audio to discuss the actual process of building the sounds that bring the sci-fi game to life and enhance the player experience. So how do the distinct in-game sounds come about? They start with an idea. WildStar Audio Director Charley Lanusse detailed how the team members move from idea to reality: They take smaller sound bytes from a large collection of sounds, manipulate them, and then arrange them together to create the more complex and organic soundscapes. He also explained how the game engine will rearrange the sounds into different orders to change how the sound effects play depending on the exact real-time situation in game. You can read up on more details -- as well as get a few hints from Lanusse if you want to break into sound production yourself -- in the blog.
