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Development Diary #12: Sound & Music

Hi everyone and welcome back! Today we delve into the world of sound and music in Cities: Skylines II. The sounds follow in the footsteps of the game’s predecessor with all the familiar basic elements: City Service building sounds, atmospheric sounds, and the sound of traffic, however, all these elements have been expanded to give more depth, variety, and control. Ambient sounds generate the overall mood and feeling in the game while sound effects provide information and support in a more dynamic manner.

After sound effects, we explore how the main menu music for Cities: Skylines II was created and take a look at the radio. All of the in-game music is handled by the radio feature which, along with other sounds, has been expanded compared to Cities: Skylines. The game also now has even more audio options to help you tailor the soundscape to fit your personal preferences.

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Tweak your audio experience in the Options Audio section

Before we get into all the details of sound and music in Cities: Skylines II you might want to check out the feature highlights video below and have a little listen for yourself.


SOUND
City Service buildings are the focus of audio in Cities: Skylines II. Almost all Service Buildings and their upgrades have unique sounds that reflect the building's functionality but also provide more detailed information about the building's operational status. Additionally, building sounds now have short, randomized audio spots together with their sound loops to create an interesting and varied building sound.

Because Cities: Skylines II features much larger buildings some buildings host a dynamic audio source. This source reacts to the camera position so that the building audio can be heard properly in every corner in even huge building complexes. Building sounds can also react to the time of day, temperature, and other building conditions based on the building’s functionality, and attaching new building upgrades often adds new building sounds. As a few examples, school buildings are silent during the night and birdsong can only be heard when the temperatures are above a certain threshold. Signature Building audio is divided into categories based on the building types. Each building type has an audio loop that differentiates them from regular zoned buildings.

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With audio adjusting to the camera position you can hear the building audio in every part of large buildings such as the Nuclear Power Plant

AMBIENCE
A changing background ambient soundscape is used to create an immersive atmosphere to the city’s overall feel depending on different types of zones, weather, and other occurrences. World ambiance consists of layers that always follow the camera, providing solid background sound for all situations. Changing simulation conditions further affects the ambience, for example, rain isn’t just visible but adds to the ambience sounds.

03 Rain.png

The ambient rain sound helps set the proper mood

AUDIO GROUPING
Two challenges with Cities: Skylines II’s audio were the number of audio sources and the transition between near and far sounds. As a solution, the game now recognizes distance and number of audio sources in relation to the camera. This is called audio grouping, and it is designed to reduce the number of potential audio sources being active at the same time so you aren’t overwhelmed by the sound of 100 cars as you move around your city. The game switches between close and distant audio based on the camera position and the number of audio sources in its proximity. This system allows you to hear the sounds of traffic from a much greater distance, such as a busy highway from afar. Audio grouping also allows zoned areas to sound distinctive. The sound heard depends on the distance of the camera from the area in question. As an example, observing a busy commercial zone from a distance sounds different from observing it close by and the amount of stores directly affects the sound.

04 City & traffic.png

The sound of traffic fades into the background as you move further away from the source

VEHICLES, CITIZENS & ANIMALS
We have put emphasis on vehicle and traffic sounds as they are a core part of your city. Vehicle audio changes based on the speed of the vehicle and a style variation for vehicle sirens is chosen automatically based on the theme. Finally in order to align with a more personalized touch for the citizens, selecting a citizen from the city plays a small audio cue. These audio cues reflect the citizen’s age, gender, and mood. Similarly, selecting any animal in the city plays a small audio cue related to the type of animal selected.

05 Dog.png

Fido is all bark and no bite


MUSIC
Jonne Valtonen is a Finnish composer who together with Jani Laaksonen wrote the music Cities: Skylines, and we’re excited for you to hear what he has created for Cities: Skylines II. We asked Jonne to talk about his work and process for the music and here is what he had to share:

“It had already been some years since I wrote the music to the first Cities: Skylines with Jani Laaksonen, when Mariina Hallikainen contacted me and told me that they at Colossal Order are working on a new game. They were wondering if I would be interested in writing music for their new game as well. Naturally, I agreed, especially as Colossal Order has some seriously nice people working in the company and I remembered our previous collaboration with great warmth - simply writing for the first Cities: Skylines was a blast.

I was asked to write two pieces for this new game. The first piece was for the Menu that would introduce an identifiable, light, and carefree theme. The second piece was a longer Themes piece that would feature the main theme as well as different themes and textures for different times of the day. I was sent some videos and rough concept art from the game and from that point I started to work on the theme. I was told that the next game was also going to be a city-building game, so this was something I picked as a backbone for the music. City building takes time and things evolve gradually and this is what I wanted the music to reflect.

There were a couple of production meetings where I introduced possible themes. They seemed to like one but they felt it wasn't quite there yet. It was agreed that with some small tweaks, it could be the one. I revised the theme a bit (and yes, the theme got better) and then the main theme was liked by all parties, approved, and ready to be used on the music. The theme has identifiable, different, and clear motivic sections that I could use as building blocks. Either to be used as an accompaniment, as a secondary theme, in inner voicings, as a textural and rhythmical reference, or basically anywhere. That is why writing a great melody is hard for me. Not just to have a great hold on the melody itself, but to have a melody that has an motivic identity that can be spanned and sprinkled throughout the soundtrack. This glues the game itself together (that you might be consciously or subconsciously aware) and gives the game a more coherent outlook.

06 Jonne Valtonen - työhuone 2 - 2020 - Kuvaaja Nelli Nyman.png

Meet Jonne Valtonen, the composer of the music in Cities: Skylines II. Photo by Nelli Nyman.

THE PROCESS
At first, we made the music like we did it for the first game. I wrote and orchestrated the music with Sibelius notation software and Jani Laaksonen converted the score with sample libraries and skillful mixing sounding like it should. I have known Jani already for quite some time, from the time when we were studying composition together, so he is very comfortable with notes and knows the intent. I prefer working this way as when the sample template on my DAW (digital audio workstation) grows large, I tend to lose myself to the programming. This way I can focus more on the music and how the music progresses (horizontal) and then Jani can focus more on the programming (sample libraries) and the mixing, making everything sound perfect (vertical). After some tweaking and demoing we finished the pieces and everybody was happy.

I just casually happened to mention to Mariina that I have some pretty good contacts with the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra (TPO) as I had just written a couple of quite large commissions for them. How cool would it be if our local orchestra would do the soundtrack?! Our local orchestra just happens to be a very high-caliber instrument and oozes with quality, so the end result would be stellar! This could be done with a little editing of the music as the scores are basically already written - because of the way I and Jani work. Colossal Order is also located in Tampere so Mariina got quite excited about the idea, and off we went! I contacted the TPO orchestra manager, but sadly just couldn’t make the schedule work. City orchestras are quite busy and their programming sometimes spans over several years, so I knew this was a bit of a long shot, but it was still a bit of a letdown.

Colossal Order continued liking the (real) orchestra approach, and as I had quite a lot of orchestra contacts throughout Europe, I started to look for an orchestra that would match the budget and would be able to perform and record these two pieces, despite our somewhat strict timetable. Finally, through the contacts of producer Thomas Böcker, we found a very high-quality orchestra from Germany. Staatskapelle Weimar is one of the oldest and most traditional orchestras in the world, so I felt very excited that they were able to take on the recording process! The score and the parts got polished and were sent to the conductor, Eckehard Stier, as well as to Holger Busse of the GENUIN recording group who recorded and mixed the music.

The recording was done at a time when the pandemic kept opening and closing the concert halls, and we were a bit worried if the recording would happen at all. Luckily when it was time to record, everything was okay and the recording could take place. I wasn’t able to fly to Weimar though due to Covid restrictions, but I followed and commented closely via Skype with the engineer and the conductor. I had a direct audio link so that I was able to listen to the orchestra in real-time. It was almost like sitting in the control room of the studio. We recorded everything in one day (2x3h sessions) and I must say, I was quite amazed at the quality of the orchestra and the recording team!

So there you have them. Two pieces. I hope that you enjoy them. I used quite a lot of time for writing these pieces and personally couldn’t be happier with how everything turned out. I think having a real orchestra performance takes your ears and feelings to the next level as it throws this wonderfully organic sheen with a human touch over the music. There are more than 70 players in this orchestra, of whom each musician is a master of their own instrument, with possibly decades of experience listening to each other and playing together as one unit. This is something that, in my opinion, is extremely hard, if not impossible, to achieve with sample based music making.

MENU
On the Menu piece, you hear an opening fanfare, after which the music settles (on which some seemingly random woodblocks are building in the background!). The main theme is then introduced by a clarinet and the further you go with the piece, the more the theme gets “built up”. Now solo instruments are introduced and everything gets bigger and bigger until finally, the music reaches a loud, bright, and majestic point in which the brass section plays out the main theme in its full glory. Things settle - the build is complete.

The music opens with the menu immediately after the game is turned on. This is the first introduction to the game, so usually one needs to be a bit careful with the composition. I like to start things more on the calm side so that if you want to go directly to the actual game without being bothered by anything too much, you can do it. On the other hand, if you want to stay on the menu and take care of all things menu, then you have something identifiable and nice that is growing in the background. Of course, there is the one-shot fanfare when you first turn on the game, but otherwise, there is plenty of time to go into the game itself before the music makes itself heard. In general, the music demands more and more attention as it progresses just to say: go and play already!

07 Main menu.png

The menu greets you with a fanfare before introducing the main theme

THEMES
The Themes piece would introduce three different themes for different times of the day. This piece would not be used in the game but to showcase different thematic and textural materials. These are the day (main theme), evening, and night themes. The piece starts with a fanfare, as does the menu music. After the fanfare, the day theme starts out quite innocent and small. I had this idea that it is the dawn of the build and I am showing you the tools (= the theme) that the music will be built on. When the music progresses you get more instruments joining the overall flow - sometimes playing more soloistically and sometimes more as a group. After a grand iteration of the day theme, things settle. The evening is upon us. A bit mysterious and as things start to darken, you get a new evening theme introduced by the horn section while the tuba provides the bass. This mysterious, but still bright music paints the evening sky. And as always, the evening turns into a night. Now you have yet another theme introduced. And yes. It’s party time. The partying drives throughout the night and drives directly to the biggest iteration of the day theme. The whole orchestra joins the celebration and everything ends with a big and festive bang!”

08 Sheet music.PNG

A sneak peek at the sheet music for Cities: Skylines II

Thank you to Jonne for joining our development diary and bringing an amazing theme to Cities: Skylines II. We can’t wait for you to enjoy it as you create your cities.


RADIO
Cities: Skylines II has two radio networks which are the top category for radio functionality. The networks function as station collections and the biggest difference is the type of content they have between the songs. Public Citizen Radio is a public network that leans a bit more toward classical and miscellaneous popular music. The public network plays public service announcements but has no ads. Urban City Radio is a commercial network, themed more around popular music. The commercial network plays ads but has no public service announcements. Each network has a selection of radio stations under it which all represent a certain music genre or style. The two stations have a host who is the heart of the station and anchor the show. The game also includes a music-only station for those of you who prefer it.

09 Radio stations.png

Pick your favorite station in the Radio panel

In addition to playing music, station talk shows, and ads the new radio system is capable of more intricate behavior that can take simulation conditions into account. For example, the radio can play news and public service announcements, which are fact-based and informative clips about the events and problems in the city. When a disaster strikes the player hears a disaster-related radio announcement from the radio which interrupts the current radio broadcast. A disaster alarm is also emitted from the Early Disaster Warning System Building if the player has the building in their city. As a result, the radio can provide both entertainment while you work in your city and highlight important information or critical situations you need to address.

10 Emergency broadcast.png

Emergency broadcasts are visible in the mini-player which can take you directly to the site of the disaster

We hope you enjoy the new sound and music additions to Cities: Skylines II, whether you follow citizens around and experience the ambience of the city, get into your building groove with the radio stations, or hang around the main menu enjoying the game’s theme. That’s all we had for this week’s development diary, but we’re back next week with an introduction to the Cinematic Camera & Photo Mode.


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While we're on the subject of music, I really would like to know who composed the radio music. There are so many great tracks in CS1 (like in Synthetic Dawn Radio for example) and I'm curious who are the people that create such nice tracks. The only info I found that it was made in house but that's not enough so please share some insights. :)
 
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toggable ads? Blasphemy!!! How will the people know if there are any news from Horse Simulator???
:me chilling building a city:
The game: "WHAT'S THE CATCH? THERE IS ONE! CALL TODAY! MONEY FOR NOTHING!"

I can't be the only one who went into the game folders and deleted all the incessant ads and blurbs.
 
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Will buildings like churches and boats have sounds as well? The thing I missed the most in Cities Skylines was to build a church or cathedral and I would never hear the iconic bells. It gives an entirely different atmosphere to the city. BTW will temples or religious buildings be a thing?? They should, they are an important component of cities.
 
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Looking forward to the variety of sounds & I like how they'll reflect the time & environment. Along with Audio Grouping, it seems like these should hit at some of the biggest issues with sound in city sims: too much cacophony overwhelming the sounds of what we're focused on, but while also preserving the immersion of the bustling city. I also like how radio seems to knit in some of the goings-on of the city. Anyways, onto feedback!
  • [Sources] - Do zones themselves generate the sounds? Or do the uses or assets generate sound? Like let's say a music store opens up & the sounds of people testing instruments gets generated (use-based sound), or maybe a house has a pool asset & during hot days there's splashing sounds (asset-based sound). Totally understood if sound will be much more high-level at the moment, but a DLC that introduces use-based & asset-based sound might be one of the few sound-focused DLCs I might actually buy. (usually DLCs in other games that focus on audio are easy for me to pass on, but there's a chance to really nail this & make it worthwhile)
  • [Radio Networks] - How many stations will there be at game launch?
  • [In-Game Score] - I feel like I'm just misreading something obvious, but where do we hear the scored in-game (non-menu) music? Is the "From Dusk till Dawn" theme on one of the radio stations?
I also love the story of producing the music -- it's fun to hear not just the thought process but also the technical bits of how it was produced. Looking forward to hearing Staatskapelle Weimar!

Thanks! :)
 
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One question, though: unless I'm misreading the DD, there's going to be several radio stations with blurbs and ads, and one without? Couldn't you instead give players the option to play the existing ones without interruptions?

Oh, and looking forward to hearing distant sounds. That can do so much for atmosphere. I remember playing Project Reality, which had some pretty big maps, and where unlike in vanilla BF2, you could hear gunshots over pretty much the entire map, just sounding way more... muffled, as they do when heard over a great distance. It's one of those things that really does a lot for ambience.
 
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Will buildings like churches and boats have sounds as well? The thing I missed the most in Cities Skylines was to build a church or cathedral and I would never hear the iconic bells. It gives an entirely different atmosphere to the city. BTW will temples or religious buildings be a thing?? They should, they are an important component of cities.
Surely that would be something ;). A completely higher level of experience. Avanya I've a few question:
1. I love religious buildings as architectural objects that really give the city character. It would be nice to see them from small churches to cathedrals (you will be able to build Notre-Dame Cathedral by the way). And will we hear the sounds of bells coming out of them?
2. Dogs will bark in the game, will cats be added in the future...?? (meow, meow) :D
3. Will it be possible to listen to and add my own music in the game?
 
It would be nice if someone made mods for this game that allowed people to put their own music in, for example, music by the female-fronted American metal band Mute Prophet. Caution with this is warranted as music tracks that are licensed are not allowed to be used when streaming the game. I used the CSL Music Mod quite a lot and also put in public service messages from the Ad Council that are to be played during commercial breaks.
 
Will buildings like churches and boats have sounds as well? The thing I missed the most in Cities Skylines was to build a church or cathedral and I would never hear the iconic bells. It gives an entirely different atmosphere to the city. BTW will temples or religious buildings be a thing?? They should, they are an important component of cities.
All buildings and vehicles, including ships, have sounds appropriate for their use. We don't really have religious buildings in the game, so I'm afraid we don't have any church bells.

Looking forward to the variety of sounds & I like how they'll reflect the time & environment. Along with Audio Grouping, it seems like these should hit at some of the biggest issues with sound in city sims: too much cacophony overwhelming the sounds of what we're focused on, but while also preserving the immersion of the bustling city. I also like how radio seems to knit in some of the goings-on of the city. Anyways, onto feedback!
  • [Sources] - Do zones themselves generate the sounds? Or do the uses or assets generate sound? Like let's say a music store opens up & the sounds of people testing instruments gets generated (use-based sound), or maybe a house has a pool asset & during hot days there's splashing sounds (asset-based sound). Totally understood if sound will be much more high-level at the moment, but a DLC that introduces use-based & asset-based sound might be one of the few sound-focused DLCs I might actually buy. (usually DLCs in other games that focus on audio are easy for me to pass on, but there's a chance to really nail this & make it worthwhile)
  • [Radio Networks] - How many stations will there be at game launch?
  • [In-Game Score] - I feel like I'm just misreading something obvious, but where do we hear the scored in-game (non-menu) music? Is the "From Dusk till Dawn" theme on one of the radio stations?
I also love the story of producing the music -- it's fun to hear not just the thought process but also the technical bits of how it was produced. Looking forward to hearing Staatskapelle Weimar!

Thanks! :)
[Sources] - Sounds are tied to the buildings and vary between zone types so commercial and industry buildings do not sound the same, however, buildings in your commercial area will generally sound the same. Of course, other sounds are layered with the building sounds, like traffic in the parking lot of the buildings.

One question, though: unless I'm misreading the DD, there's going to be several radio stations with blurbs and ads, and one without? Couldn't you instead give players the option to play the existing ones without interruptions?

Oh, and looking forward to hearing distant sounds. That can do so much for atmosphere. I remember playing Project Reality, which had some pretty big maps, and where unlike in vanilla BF2, you could hear gunshots over pretty much the entire map, just sounding way more... muffled, as they do when heard over a great distance. It's one of those things that really does a lot for ambience.
We have 3 different radio stations, one with public service announcements and two with ads. On the two commercial radio stations you can disable the ads if you just want to listen to the music.

Surely that would be something ;). A completely higher level of experience. Avanya I've a few question:
1. I love religious buildings as architectural objects that really give the city character. It would be nice to see them from small churches to cathedrals (you will be able to build Notre-Dame Cathedral by the way). And will we hear the sounds of bells coming out of them?
2. Dogs will bark in the game, will cats be added in the future...?? (meow, meow) :D
3. Will it be possible to listen to and add my own music in the game?
1. Please see the answer above
2. Perhaps, we'll have to see what the future brings.
3. I'm afraid not but I wouldn't be surprised if a mod is created to do that, similar to in Cities: Skylines.
 
I love silly commercials, I hope there's lots of different, much more than original game.
Call me a boring old fart (I'm 26), but nothing takes me out of the immersion more than silly commercials that're trying too hard to be funny, that they end up telling why we shouldn't buy their product. Like, here I am trying to get fully immersed in the city I'm trying to build, only for a radio ad to pop up saying how much their product/service sucks, but expecting you to buy it anyway, and I'm left wondereing how these businesses are still running with ads like that. And if these ads are working on my citizens, then great, that means I'm building city full of morons.

It seems like any game with in-game radio ads are trying too hard to be like the ones in GTA (or in this case, Streets of SimCity since they did it first I think). At this point, it would be more unique if the ads were less satirical and more grounded in reality. Now that doesn't mean the ads can't be funny or irreverent, just as long as they don't break the immersion. Right now, anything's better than:

"Our product sucks! Now buy it!"

or

"Our company is outwardly morally and legally dubious! Now buy our sucky products!"

or

"We don't know what our company does or what service we provide. So you should use us because we probably suck!"
 
Call me a boring old fart (I'm 26), but nothing takes me out of the immersion more than silly commercials that're trying too hard to be funny, that they end up telling why we shouldn't buy their product. Like, here I am trying to get fully immersed in the city I'm trying to build, only for a radio ad to pop up saying how much their product/service sucks, but expecting you to buy it anyway, and I'm left wondereing how these businesses are still running with ads like that. And if these ads are working on my citizens, then great, that means I'm building city full of morons.

It seems like any game with in-game radio ads are trying too hard to be like the ones in GTA (or in this case, Streets of SimCity since they did it first I think). At this point, it would be more unique if the ads were less satirical and more grounded in reality. Now that doesn't mean the ads can't be funny or irreverent, just as long as they don't break the immersion. Right now, anything's better than:

"Our product sucks! Now buy it!"

or

"Our company is outwardly morally and legally dubious! Now buy our sucky products!"

or

"We don't know what our company does or what service we provide. So you should use us because we probably suck!"
I didn't even know that someone forces you to listen to those radio stations. I'm sorry, it must be hard for you to concentrate, I wouldn't want to be forced to do anything either.

- 56 yo-fart -
 
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I didn't even know that someone forces you to listen to those radio stations. I'm sorry, it must be hard for you to concentrate, I wouldn't want to be forced to do anything either.

- 56 yo-fart -
I mean, of course I can just turn the radio off. That's what I did in C:S1, partially because of what I said earlier. But I would still like to see CO try to add some radio ads that makes the city feel lived-in without sacrificing immersion. But of course it all comes down to personal taste. Perhaps mods can do it for me.

Edit: Speaking of which, since businesses can post on Chirper whenever they open a new location, it'll be a nice detail if their radio ad played whenever they did so as well.
 
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