Interview with D. Chadd Portwine, Audio/Video Director, High Voltage Software

Dolby: Hi Chadd, thanks for taking the time to chat with us. You've worked on more than 40 titles during the last seven years. How have you seen sound for games change during that time?

Portwine: Well, I'm a longtime reader of Electronic Musician, and I've held on to many of the issues over the last 15 years. Just last week I pulled out an issue from '94. There was an interview with a sound designer from Lucas Arts. Just about everything you'd need to know about making sound for games was in that article. It covered adaptive music and how to work with a programmer. Update the tech specs and that article could have been published today. I finished reading it thinking, the ideas for what game audio should be have been around for a long time.

So what's changed? Obviously the technology is allowing us to do most of what was dreamed up years ago. It's the process for developing interactive audio and the quality that is delivered to the player, that is what's really changed.

Dolby: How has surround sound impacted the industry?

Portwine: Surround sound was a technology everyone in the industry could get excited about. Two speakers are good, five speakers and a sub must be better! You don't have to be an audio engineer to understand or perceive the coolness factor of surround sound. Marketing guys had a new excuse to use the word "immersive," hardware companies saw dollar signs all over the place, and the gamer could impress friends and annoy neighbors with their new sub.

Surround sound also brought a new level of credibility for the game audio folks. The term "video game music" will always mean bleeps and bloops I think. But say 5.1 game soundtrack, and people are impressed.

For those of us making game audio, the biggest change surround sound brought with it is the theater-in-a-box for less than $300. Today there is a good chance the player is listening with decent speakers and not just to the crappy speaker in the television. Also the concept of positional sound using four or more speakers…to make this work we've revamped our tools and our creative pipeline. Getting a good interactive surround mix has to be the most difficult and satisfying challenge right now.

Dolby: What was your first title supporting surround sound?

Portwine: Hunter: the Reckoning^® on Xbox^® was my first game to utilize surround sound. I started this in 1999. I had so much to learn about surround mixing, and the entire industry was learning or making up how to work with interactive surround. Charles Deenan was ahead of the curve at the time and really taught me a lot. The folks at Dolby went out of their way to support me as well. That was an exciting time.

Dolby: Do you have a favorite game in terms of the audio you've created?

Portwine: Boy, that's tough. Disney's Haunted Mansion ended up sounding really good. But that first Hunter holds a special place in my heart.

Dolby: What pieces of technology wouldn't you be without when creating game audio?

Portwine: My red Yamaha SHS-10 keytar! Okay, I guess more truthfully the answer would be Sony's Sound Forge^®. I use so many different PC audio applications, but Sound Forge is the first tool I install on a new machine. I'll bet I've run a million WAV files through Sound Forge.

Dolby: Most recently you worked on the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory title. How does developing a title with a movie tie-in differ from an original franchise?

Portwine: There are so many things that are different about making a game tied to a movie. With an original franchise, the decisions you make are for the betterment of the game usually. With a movie license the game is far from the most important part of the property. If you think about it, more dollars are likely to be spent on the movie's marketing than on the game's development costs. So changes to the movie's plot or style can affect the game development in unexpected ways. It requires complete flexibility on the developer's part.

Dolby: What is the coolest thing about the audio in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?

Portwine: I think I'm most happy with the music and its implementation. Winifred Phillips was the composer, and what an amazing job she did. Her vocals added so much to the score. The narrator in the game is something special too. But I don't want to give too much away.

Dolby: How much influence does the film have in the development of the game, and vice versa?

Portwine: It seems like everyone in the world has fond memories of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. So for the team at HVS it meant there was a staggering number of external people protecting the license, so to speak. So every asset that went into the game had to be approved by several different entities. But that's not always how it goes down. I'm working on another title right now that has a movie tie-in. The director has been very cool. He's a crazy gamer, and he's giving us the freedom to be creative.

Dolby: Can you tell us what that project is?

Portwine: It was on the E3 show floor, so I think it's safe to say. The movie is Zathura. Think Jumanji in space! I'm excited by this game. It has a '50s sci-fi vibe, it's fun to play, and it's sounding awesome already!

Dolby: What do you hope to see (hear) game audio doing in the next-generation consoles?

Portwine: I know this one! Real algorithmic compressor/limiters with side chain. If I had VST-type compressors sitting on various volume groups with side-chain inputs from other volume groups…interactive mixing would be much more manageable. It's almost possible to do now, but the next generation of consoles will have the processing power to do this without impacting other game resources.

Dolby: Thanks so much for taking the time to answer our questions! I do have one more, you know I have to at least ask. The 'D' in D. Chadd, what does that stand for?

Portwine: It stands for Delicious of course! See you in the future.