I'm interested in composing for games, so i've been doing a bit or research into the field and process.

I'm currently reading up on spotting sessions and all it entails, such as game asset overview, defining the creative vision, interactive system goals, building cue sheet, etc.

The Spotting session(s) seem to be where the composer figures out precisely how he's going to approach production in every aspect.

However i'm a bit confused when it comes to "Creating Audio Design Document", also known as an Audio Style Guide.

Some texts seem to imply the composer is tasked with the creation of the design document/style guide, while others imply it's the game development team.

To me, it would make sense for the game developers or audio director to actually create the audio style guide, as it's their game... and then bring in the hired composer to further flesh out the music aspect of the document. But based on what i've read, I can't be sure.

Question: Is the composer usually presented with an Audio Design Document by the development team, or must he generally take part in the creation (which also entails overall sound design, dialog, sfx) of the document?

It depends. In AAA games the Audio director and Game Director will give you the guide. In small indie dev teams you're the specialist, so you have to work with the lead game designer/game director in order to decide and document everything. In my experience, most indie devs don't even know what an audio design document is, so is your job to make them understand that is a vital asset for the project (because it is). If you don't know how do they look, you should check the following tips and examples.
Writing an Audio Design Document – Zachary Quarles: Sound Designer
https://www.asoundeffect.com/game-au...sign-document/ (this one is a second part of the previous one)
Sound Design Document - Stephan Schütze
https://issuu.com/rocket_powered_hip...unddesignfinal
https://ashleemccarthy.wordpress.com...sign-document/

Good luck!

As said, it really depends. Even in small studios, the team may have so strong sound vision so they produce very detailed sound document. In other cases they only have vague ideas on how it should sound ("we need some tribal backrgound music because our levels are jungle levels")

One thing, are spotting sessions more typical for movies than for games? I've never heard of spotting sessions for video games, but I cannot say I have too much experience with it.

DK
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