Driveclub is often praised for its graphics, but audio is another element that has almost no rivals in the genre, especially after the latest patches.

The game's engines roar, gurgle and sing like you were sitting right in the cockpit, and we're soon going to hear in details how that result was achieved.

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Audio Manager will hold a panel titled "Driveclub: Coffee and Skidmarks" at the Game Developers Conference 2015 held in San Francisco between March 2nd and March 6th:

A lighthearted and accessible overview of audio production on Driveclub from the audio director and the senior sound designer on the project. The talk will discuss a wide variety of topics such as tools and tech, recording techniques, and a variety of development lessons learned throughout. The talk will focus on the production as a whole, and gives a holistic overview of how Evolution Studios' audio team interfaced with the rest of the development team, and some of the challenges this presented when working on a new console.

Takeaway

A good understanding of our recording techniques, tools and pipelines, and a good sense of how we structured review processes to get the best out of the physics and to make ourselves as useful as possible to the rest of the dev team.

Intended Audience

This session will be most useful for audio designers and engineers, producers and anyone interested in digital signal processing and physics within driving titles.

But that's not all, as Sony will also host a second audio-related panel with  Senior Sound Designer Joanna Orland, who will speak about "Getting Buy-In: How to Give Your Game Audio Style"

This lecture aims to put an end to audio being an afterthought in the game production cycle. Through research, analysis, defining an audio style, and creating a common language, audio can become an integral part of a game, even from the wider dev team's perspective. This lecture will examine how with a developed and defined audio style, a game's audio experience becomes innately more cohesive and unique in its delivery.

Takeaway

Attendees will learn to utilize audio design research through analysis. Methods of creating an audio style guide will be demonstrated. Communication between audio and dev teams will be examined, allowing audio developers to make audio a more integral part of the development cycle.

Intended Audience

Audio designers looking to further develop creative visions and bespoke audio styles on their projects will benefit from this lecture. A basic level of knowledge of creative sound design is required.

Audio is often overlooked when assessing a game's quality, so it'll be nice to hear about it from some of the best in the industry. Many GDC panels are made public afterwards, so there's a very good chance that even those who won't be able to attend might be able to enjoy them.