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[intro music]
>> Marshall Parker: Hi we are the Ubisoft Singapore audio team.
Here is our video showing the extraordinary lengths we went to making sound for Assassin's
Creed 4: Black Flag
>> Lawrence Tay: Throughout the duration of the project, we recorded many different things
such as plants, wooden objects and metal chains.
>> Justin Chow: We have seaweed in the game which the player can swim through.
But the thing is, you don't make any sound when you swim through seaweed underwater.
So we found this plant in the office and we layered that with this giant yam leaf.
On top of that we also layered some recordings of ravioli to get that sticky oozy texture.
>> Erik Evangelista: The shipwreck sound was a happy accident. One of our mike stands was
actually creaking over the wooden platform when we were recording the diving bell sound.
To us, when pitched down, it sounded like a shipwreck.
>> Lawrence: For the diving bell, we built a rig to record the sounds of the raising
and the lowering of the diving bell.
We bought a metal chain and we found a rusty metal pipe to build this rig.
Edward's swimming sounds were very interesting to record because in reality, any movement
underwater does not produce sounds.
>> Justin: To record sounds underwater, we need to use a special kind of microphone called
a hydrophone. We tried waterproofing our normal microphones with condoms and balloons but
all of them got destroyed eventually.
>> Erik: We experimented with many different size pools. But it was hard to find a pool
in a quiet environment here in Singapore.
We first started our research with a baby pool here in the studio but when it came time
to move up, it took us four months to find the right pool.
>> Lawrence: We had to try different movements right under the water surface to get the sounds
that we wanted.
For example, the arm stroke sound that you hear in game is actually a tiger claw movement.
The frog kick sound is actually a shoving-the-water-forward movement.
For Edward's diving sound, the main focus for us was to record the sound from the underwater
perspective and not the above water splash.
We wanted to recreate the feeling that you get when you dive in reality.
>> Erik: It was not easy to record Edward's drowning voice because we couldn't open
our mouths underwater.
This is a very tedious process because I can only do 3 takes before I run out of breath.
>> Marshall: Apart from creating the sounds for the humans and for the objects, we also
had the challenge of creating sounds for the marine animals.
We had an awful lot of fun creating sounds for whales swimming and breaching, sharks
attacking and of course, the danger of the moray eel.
>> Lawrence: For the shark struggle sound, we wanted to create a violent and turbulent
underwater experience.
Therefore the only way to do that was to recreate a real struggle underwater without the shark.
So, the shark punching sound is actually Erik elbowing the water really hard and fast, creating
a very impactful sound.
>> Marshall: When it came to creating the sounds for the whale, we couldn't find anybody
that had a pet whale.
So we had to use objects to try and move large amounts of water that you would expect would
happen when a whale moves through the ocean.
>> Justin: For the whale tail slap sound, we used this recording of Erik slamming down
this shipping pallet onto the water.
But that wasn't massive enough, so we layered a couple of explosions in to really give it
that punch and massiveness that we were looking for.
Apart from underwater, the naval forts were also a huge challenge. The challenge this
time round was to design an audio system for Realblast.
For the fort tower fragments, depending on the size and material that the fragment just
hit, we play a different sound.
So for example, there are different sounds for the fragments hitting sand, rock, wood
and water. And what we also do is amplify the impact sound according to the velocity
of the fragment.
>> Courtney Johns: So apart from underwater and the forts, we worked on two other main
missions here in Singapore which were Charleston and Blackbeard's death.
For Charleston for example, the surroundings are quite quiet, so there is a huge focus
on the ambience:
the sounds of the swamps, the crickets, the creaks on the boat.
In North Carolina, the stealth aspect there, we had a huge focus on the sound of the pirate
party and the opening of the forest, where subtle sounds are more obvious.
And then by the time we got to the British invasion, the big reveal of the ships on the
horizon in North Carolina was a big moment, from the whoosh to the impact, and to the
subsequent chaos.