Diablo III Sound Design Interview
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I played as Witch Doctor, so I think a lot of my favorite sounds are those really gushy explosions. How did you get those?Make sure you proceed to the end of the Q&A, too, as it's followed by some sound samples coupled with commentary from Joseph, as well as sound designers Michael Johnson and Kris Giampa.
Well when we started this game, we all knew that we were going to need an absolutely metric ton of gushy, gooey, squishy sounds. 'Cause that kind of stuff is everywhere in the game. Over the years we've done numerous sessions for those we've put our hands in giant vats of yogurt, glue. One particularly disgusting session that just looked horrible by the time we got done was this pile of stuff I'd been manipulating with my hands it started off as bits of spaghetti, then I mixed in some yogurt [and] chocolate sauce; I think there were some packing peanuts. All these different liquids have a different viscosity and way they sound sticky. We used all manner of vegetables; by the time it was done there was this big pile of disgusting brown goo. There was even a New York steak at the bottom of it that I was slapping against to make splat sounds.
I can't tell you how many trips to the grocery store I had to turn in to the accounting department when I'd bought 10 watermelons and crab legs. It's like, (Mmm, what's for dinner? Doesn't really look very good!) [Laughs] The grocery store is just a playground for a sound designer. There are so many things there that make an interesting noise, and there's no end to the combination of things you can squish together and smash.
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How do you see the sound in this game relating to the sounds in Diablo and Diablo II? In my write-up of the beta I commented on the whistling of the loot-drop that brought me back to the original game.
It was always a question of which ones we were going to use, which ones made sense, which ones we thought we could make better. We wanted to pay homage to the earlier games and keep a sense of continuity. Over the years a lot came in, and a lot went back out. One that's the most recognizable we called (the flippy sound.) When the monster dies and the loot flips out, there's a little [whistles]. That's the same exact sound from Diablo II, it just made sense! I couldn't imagine trying to make that one better after a while you don't even hear it anymore. But the older fans, they loved hearing that.
Another one is the health well, that [slurps]. The original gold sound just wasn't holding up under the compression that we were using often high-pitched metallic stuff will just totally break down under compression. It had to be something new, but close enough to the original that people still appreciated it. It's there because it's gold, but after an hour or so you kind of tune it out.
