Hello everyone! I have really interesting question for me. How do you, guys who are already in audio game area, cope with repetitions in sounds and code. For instance, when I was coding FS system for a game jam project, I noticed that I have quite a good code for this system and I don’t really know how to optimize it. I can add something slightly but it won’t change the main structure. But if I join another team or even get a job where I also have to write a code for footstep system, how I should do it? Can I use the same code again and again but change it a bit to fit my code into other programmers’ work? Or I have to reinvent the wheel and figure out how to change my not bad template just because big companies need to protect their copyrights and so on?

And the same question about sounds. How do you cope with sounds that don’t really vary from one game project to another like footsteps? Yes, it is really difficult to create the same gunshot sounds because they may be really different. But what about the footsteps. Lots of games have concrete surface or grass surface. How not to repeat? Do you just record these fs again and again or what?

Thanks for your help.

kshangaun said:
Can I use the same code again and again but change it a bit to fit my code into other programmers’ work? Or I have to reinvent the wheel and figure out how to change my not bad template just because big companies need to protect their copyrights and so on?

This would depend on your employer and contract, but generally you would have to write everything again from scratch each time. In most cases the employer owns the IP of your work which means it is off-limits for reuse for another company (check your contract for details). If you were to use a template made on your own time for a project at work, then that risks your employer “owning” your template forever.

kshangaun said:
And the same question about sounds. How do you cope with sounds that don’t really vary from one game project to another like footsteps? Yes, it is really difficult to create the same gunshot sounds because they may be really different. But what about the footsteps. Lots of games have concrete surface or grass surface. How not to repeat? Do you just record these fs again and again or what?

I'm not a sound designer, but from what I know you would either re-record the samples, or license the use of sound effects that come from big sample libraries. If you are working at the same company for multiple projects, I suppose it would be possible to reuse samples from project A in project B, since the IP is owned by the same entity. My feeling is that most people use sample libraries wherever possible, then manually record extra samples when there is nothing fitting from the libraries, because it's cheaper to license than record from scratch.