Thomas Boyes
Audio Design Portfolio
Undisputed, or ESports Boxing Club as it was then, was the first title I worked on having graduated university and started working at Rev Rooms. As the sole audio designer my main aim was to become as technically proficient as possible so as to deliver all the scoped audio features on time and iterate on the quality of the implementation and design.
This lead to me pitching the licencing of FMOD Studio for the project, which the client agreed to do, so I integrated that and immediately took to it. Given stretched resources, time and lack of audio coding knowledge between myself and the client, I provided an efficient workaround for the crowd audio that re-used audio events like punches and knockouts to drive the crowd audio event via command instruments and parameters. I was even able to spoof combo behaviour and have the crowd react to a fast flurry of hits more than a flailing of glances that didn't quite connect. The crowd events also had to provide a dissatisfaction layer as well as small, medium and large arenas.
Another FMOD system which saved the coders' time was the jukebox on the main menu that allowed players to hear the game's soundtrack with all the expected controls like play, pause, stop, skip forward, skip backwards, randomise and shuffle.
Parallel Studios' self-titled Trading Card Game is the project I've spent the most time on and whilst being 2D didn't demand as much of a technical burden. However, the scale and variety of audio content was far greater than Undisputed, requiring differentiated styles for 6 game factions, each with hundreds of cards. Altogether I designed or edited and implemented thousands of SFX, dialogue lines and music stems. This helped me learn many more techniques in both Reaper DAW and FMOD Studio to make the audio pipeline more efficient and less prone to human error in file naming, loudness settings, not routing a new track through the master plugin chain, etc.
This was doubly important because of the team structure, which fluctuated in number between myself as the permanent audio designer and others as support (between their own permanent projects). Thus between colleagues in-office, or remotely in Singapore and Canada, I improved my communication and organisational skills by fitting the project's needs and available resources.
Technical FMOD Studio work was also my speciality here having planned with a composer to myself implement multiple iterations of a dynamic music system. There was also a dialogue processing system fed by parameters like damage and health thresholds.
RuneScape: Dragonwilds
A stint on Jagex's open world survival take on their RuneScape franchise had me cover several aspects of audio in a new genre for me, fantasy, from UI and quest sounds to stone buildings and crossbows. I also track laid and pre-mixed several narrative and update trailer cinematics
GTA V Radio
As personal training and presentation projects, over the years I've remade versions of the radio system from Grand Theft Auto V in FMOD, Wwise, Love 2D+Lua script and even... Reaper DAW
Seeing how the same system can be replicated and to what degree in different middleware/software gave me an insight into their strengths and weaknesses, especially when porting the FMOD version to Wwise's (now deprecated) music system.
The first version in FMOD I gave a talk on with a live demonstration at the Brighton Game Audio meetup.
References
Gavin Shepherd, Rev Rooms
Joint CEO
Thomas worked at Rev Rooms for 5 years as an Advanced Audio Designer.
During that time, he worked on many video-game projects, primarily using Unity and FMOD,
including a boxing game and a trading card game.
He completed Wwise certifications and took part in internal training initiatives when not working on
client projects.
Andy Gibson, Rev Rooms
Joint CEO
Tom Boyes was employed by Rev Rooms as an Advanced Sound Designer.
During his employment, Tom was responsible for a range of sound design and audio-related
duties as part of the wider team.
Aaron Holland, Rev Rooms
Principal Sound Designer
Thomas Boyes has been a Sound Designer at Rev Rooms for the past 5 years. In that time, Thomas
primarily worked on a competitive online strategy card game and a 3rd person action-adventure title.
During this time, he gained skills in sound design and utilizing engine tools FMOD and Unity, Wwise
and Unreal.
When off projects, Tom participated in internal training projects using Wwise and Unreal and
completed multiple Wwise Certifications where he displayed technical aptitude.
University work from 2018-2021:
8 Videos:
Video studio / recording studio experience
Music
During university I used MIDI instruments and electric guitar through a direct input to produce a cheesy but unique 80's-inspired EP in the synthwave genre.
I've created or covered other music with a similar style as well as performed live on the guitar.
