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Diegetic versus non-diegetic sound

If you have never heard of the term diegetic, you may just have gotten a queasy feeling in your stomach wondering what you got yourself into. Do not worry, the term diegetic refers to audio that is audible in the scene or screen as a part of the action or interaction. Conversely, non-diegetic refers to sounds that are added to the scene or screen and are not visible. Perhaps; it is more helpful if we look at some examples of diegetic and non-diegetic sounds, listed here:

Diegetic sounds include:
- Sound effects: Explosions, gun fire, car engine, or collisions
- Music: Band playing, musical instruments onscreen playing, or car radio
- Vocals: Character dialogue, voices, or crowds
Non-diegetic sounds include:
- Sound effects: Off screen sound effects such as coins entering a purse, tones to denote activity changes in a game, or footsteps
- Music: Scary background theme music, a novelty theme, or boss theme music
- Vocals: Narration, character vocal cues, or haunting voices

These terms may sound rather abstract right now, but be rest assured, we will get fairly intimate with the use of non-diegetic sounds in the adaptive sound and music section. As you will learn, one of the cornerstones of developing great game audio is building up good non-diegetic sounds.

You may have already noticed that game audio borrows or shares a number of common film and television terms sound designers use. That, of course, is not by accident. Games have been using the same principals of audio design established for movies and television for many years. In fact, later on in this book, we will explore the use of various commercial Digital Audio Workstations ( DAW) traditionally used for film or television and now plugins to Unity.