Creating & Implementing Video Game Foley Sound Effects, with Sound Designer Brendan Wolf

MPSE Golden Reel award-winning Sound Designer Brendan Wolf (Injected Senses Audio – Marvel’s Midnight Suns) shares how he creates and implements video game Foley sound effects for video games using Reformer Pro, Wwise and Unreal Engine in this video demonstration.

He shares how he expands his Foley recordings into long versatile game audio assets of different intensities for his musical platform game ‘Brubeck Dreaming’, whilst also sharing his sound design beginnings and his reasons for using Reformer Pro for this project.

Watch the Video Below

“I imported the WAV files into Nuendo, and used Krotos Reformer Pro to create custom Foley libraries sorted by backpack, clothing, and buckles. Once all the libraries were created, the fun part was using Reformer Pro to generate the Foley.” – Brendan Wolf

From Brendan Wolf:

Creating Game Foley Sound Effects with Reformer Pro

The first step was recording the Foley source sounds which match the character’s animation and outfit.

The protagonist, Brubeck, wears a large jacket and adventurer backpack with various buckles and leather elements that move around during player movement, so I recorded backpack jostles, jacket swishes, belt buckle clinks, and sleeve rubbing sounds. Next, I imported them into Reformer Pro and made the into individual libraries.

Using Reformer Pro’s Continuous Play, I then adjusted the Amplitude, Frequency, Bandwidth and Variation parameters until I dialed in just the right timbre and quality for each Foley element.

Brubeck Dreaming Character

Why Use Reformer Pro For Game Foley Sound Effects

For Brubeck Dreaming, I wanted to explore how I could make an entire character’s Foley sounds using just a few household items and then perform the varying intensities.

Reformer Pro worked beautifully. I was able to come up with countless variations for the low, medium, and high-intensity movement that could be tied to Player Speed in Unreal Engine. With Reformer Pro, I could quickly generate 10+ source files for each Random Container in Wwise.

What Sound Design Means to Me

Since being a young kid, I have always had a vivid imagination and have loved playing video games. My first console was a Super Nintendo Entertainment System and I got wholly immersed in titles such as  Zelda: A Link to the Past, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario Kart, Street Fighter II and so many other incredible games of the 16-bit golden age of gaming.

I’d often romp around my backyard, manifesting my daydreams through sound effects and dialogue that I would create, sourced from fighting epic intergalactic wars or taking down pirate ships…oh the joys of being an only child with a creative mind!

I remember my parents were so impressed with how I could reproduce the sound of the garden sprinkler. They had me perform it in front of family and friends to show off my talents…little did we know that these fascinations with sounds were the building blocks of a career in game sound design!

About Brendan Wolf

Sound Designer Brendan Wolf

Sound Designer Brendan Wolf is an award-winning interactive audio designer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is currently at Injected Senses Audio, working on Marvel’s Midnight Suns, and recently won a Daytime Emmy® and an MPSE Golden Reel award for his on the animated VR short Baba Yaga (2021) on the Meta Quest.

Read more about Brendan and the Brubeck Dreaming at his website.