Blogs of the Round Table: The Art of Foley, plus Contractually-Obligated Usability Noises

First, I should preface this by saying that I have a healthy respect for the Foley artists in the world. It really is amazing to watch a good Foley artist at work (you can catch sometimes in DVD extras) making extraordinary sounds from careful manipulations of average, ordinary objects. We've known since the days of early radio dramas that our sense of sound is the easiest sense we know how to realistically fool. The many years of television and film production have nearly perfected much of the art of making the audio effects we hear "realistic".

Arguably there aren't any real innovations left to make in terms of audio effects. There is no "uncanny valley" for most sound effects and sound effects are the easiest and cheapest media we have the ability to record, re-record, manipulate, and re-manipulate. You can buy standard, over-used sound effects on CDs for cheap. They may be something that you've heard a million times, but they probably will still suffice for the job and there are some simple tricks that you can do with off the shelf software to help even the most recycled sound effect sound fresh and new.

So far the consensus in this month's round table is that audio can be critical to immersion. I certainly agree with that sentiment, but I think it is useful to dissect why audio effects are crucial to immersion. Audio effects, I think, are so effective in drawing immersion because they are ultimately "cheap sources of realism". In most cases it's going to be a lot more cost-effective to push for added realism in a sound composition than to attempt to fight the various valleys of uncanny in realm of graphics.

Here's a pitfall to be weary of, however: realism ...