sound design with fmod

.aa - week five.

FMod seems like a fairly useful program for sound designing a video game, even if its user interface is a little bit confusing to get used to. I used Plogue Bidule to knock together a few example game sound assets - in this case a waterfall, wind and a teleport device (like the one in halo 2). The examples I grabbed from FMod actually sound a bit less realistic than what I originally created in Plogue, because the parameters of the sounds have been randomized. In hindsight I do not think randomising the pitch of the waterfall, nor wind, was such a great idea but at least I can tick that box for the exercise. Here's the 'event editor' for the teleport sound and an mp3.

teleport.mp3 (32 kB)

Next up are the two environmental sounds I created. These are deliberately lower in volume.

waterfall.mp3 (208 kB) | wind.mp3 (208 kB)

Getting over the initial frustration of learning how a user interface works is a common task nowadays, not least for geeks like me. It's fair to say that FMod is one of the more frustrating of these, however I think once you get down to the nuts and bolts it is pretty awesome.

.sources.

FMOD 2007, "FMod Designer," accessed 28.08.07.

Haines, Christian 21.08.07, "Audio Engines Analysis," EMU, Adelaide University.

circuit bender

.forum - week four.

Oft partner in crime, Ben Probert, purchased the car toy shown in the video below. I really do not wish to start with the "back in my day" rant at age 19, but, as if they make kids toys that yell 'You're a dead man!' What the...


I made a quick sketch of the circuit on my laptop, which is shown below. As it shows, there was no obvious resistors that Ben and I could get our hands on, which made our bending task a little labourious.


Here a few of our outcomes, firstly we got the recording to speed up gradually which was quite comical. Then we got this weird droning tone sound going, which comprises the next two videos. Videos of Ben and I destroying the car are shown on Ben's blog.







...Well, all this YouTubing should kill off my internet quota by the mid-semester break so I guess after this point we wont have to blog anymore :)

.sources.

Haines, Christian 16.08.07, "Circuit Bending (I)," EMU, Adelaide University.

additive synthesis

.cc - week four.

i. Additive Synthesis object

jam.addsynth.zip (8 KB) | addsynth.mp3 (488 KB)

.sources.

Haines, Christian 16.08.07, "RM, AM and Additive Synthesis," EMU, Adelaide University.

halo engine

.aa - week four.

Both Halo and Halo 2 use a similar GDE (Game Development Environment) created by Bungie Studios, with “creative oversight” (financial support, I’d suggest) of Microsoft. The major development between these Halo installments is in fact in a middleware upgrade – the widely used physics engine: Havok. In line with the new features this development offers, the audio team decided to develop entirely new audio for Halo 2. Martin O’Donnell, the chief sound designer and also composer for the Halo franchise said this on game sound: “I believe that there are three equally important stages for game audio: producing content, implementing content and mixing content” (O’Donnell, 2002). This ‘three stage’ system reminds me of the "Audio for Games: planning, process and production" publication by Alexander Brandon that we have been looking at in Audio Arts.

The sound effects are implemented through various tables in an extensive database. Even the music for the game uses its own database system which allows for the mood, theme and tempo of the game-play to dictate the audio. Halo is certainly not the first game to utilise such an audio system, but its defiantly one of the better and most successful implantations of this, somewhat lofty idea of what music for game could be. In fact this is true of the audio throughout the game, in the final stage of O’Donnell’s process (‘production’) he has made the entire soundscape of the Halo 2 a seamless integration of VOs, SFXs and music in which the other world of Halo truly comes to life.

Game Development Environment (Halo Engine)
Advantages: Well established, bug issues ironed-out, upgradeable (eg: Havok physics), proven to work, cross-platform (using C/C++ and developed for PC and various consoles).
Disadvantages: Fundamentally out of date (for example, unable to display at 1080p resolution).

Game Audio Environment (Halo 2 Audio Engine)
Advantages: Many technological advantages, 5.1 channel audio, integrates with the physics engine (Havok) to control DSP effects parameters (for example reverberation size), programmed specifically for this title.

Both Halo and Halo 2 use a similar GDE (Game Development Environment) created by Bungie Studios, with “creative oversight” (financial support, I’d suggest) of Microsoft. The major development between these Halo instalments is in fact in a middleware upgrade – the widely used physics engine: Havok. In line with the new features this development offers, the audio team decided to develop entirely new audio for Halo 2. Martin O’Donnell, the chief sound designer and also composer for the Halo franchise said this on game sound: “I believe that there are three equally important stages for game audio: producing content, implementing content and mixing content” (O’Donnell, 2002). This ‘three stage’ system reminds me of the “Audio for games: planning, process and production” publication by )(#*)( that we have been looking at in Audio Arts.

The sound effects are implemented through various tables in an extensive database. Even the music for the game uses its own database system which allows for the mood, theme and tempo of the game-play to dictate the audio. Halo is certainly not the first game to utilise such an audio system, but its defiantly one of the better and most successful implantations of this, somewhat lofty idea of what music for game could be. In fact this is true of the audio throughout the game, in the final stage of O’Donnell’s process (‘production’) he has made the entire soundscape of the Halo 2 a seamless integration of VOs, SFXs and music in which the other world of Halo truly comes to life.

Game Development Environment (Halo Engine)
Advantages: Well established, bug issues ironed-out, upgradeable (eg: Havok physics), proven to work, cross-platform (using C/C++ and developed for PC and various consoles).
Disadvantages: Fundamentally out of date (for example, unable to display at 1080p resolution).

Game Audio Environment (Halo 2 Audio Engine)
Advantages: Many technological advantages, 5.1 channel audio, integrates with the physics engine (Havok) to control DSP effects parameters (for example reverberation size), programmed specifically for this title.

Here is a link to an interesting interview with the man himself Martin O'Donnell. It's quite insightful, despite not saying one bad work against halo (heresy).

.sources.

Haines, Christian 28.08.07, "Game Engine Overview," EMU, Adelaide University.

plogue bidule II - oscillate this

.forum - week four.

Dual Potentiometers



Light-Sensitive Potentiometer



DJ Probeboy hacking up Tool


On the topic of electro-bitz and hacking, I found this interesting tutorial on how to turn a DVD player into a light saber. Freakin' laser-beam!

Laser Flashlight Hack! - video powered by Metacafe

.sources.

Haines, Christian 9.08.07, "Modular Electronics," EMU, Adelaide University.

polyphony and instancing

.cc - week three.

This week we updated our cycle~ and phasor~ objects. They are now polyphonic.

i. Polyphonic Cycle

jam.polycycle.zip
(8 KB)

i. Polyphonic Phasor

jam.polyphasor.zip

(8 KB)

Thankfully this weeks subject matter was a little bit easier to get my head around. So hope you like it.

Is it really week four already?! What the hell happened? Where is the time going?

.sources.

Grosse, Darwin 2006, "The Poly Papers (1)," cycling 74' online.

Haines, Christian 9.08.07, "Polyphony & Instancing," EMU, Adelaide University.

halo 2 online

.aa - week three.

Halo 2 has been played online several million times. The audio component to this online sensation is vital to its success, and has been observed as such by many ‘game award’ ceremonies. As shown in this video, Halo 2 multiplayer is intensely fast paced, where players must use absolutely all information feed to them from the game to their own advantage.

Halo 2 assets.xls (excel doc) | Halo 2 assets.jpg (image)

One aspect of the audio that I do not mention in this asset list is the player-to-player communication provided by the Xbox Live headset (pictured). This type of communication is widespread now in almost all online console gaming and all online PC gaming. Everyone who uses plays online games is affected by this development in multiplayer gaming. It makes for a much more personalised gaming experience, and I see it very much as a new avenue of globalisation. We have all heard of online dating, well this development in game audio has made the online game environment just as suitable place to find new love as the pub. And yes, that’s a little unnerving.


.sources.
Haines, Christian 7.08.07, "Process & Planning," EMU, Adelaide University.

fun with piezo

.forum - week two.

Learning to solder was going great, until on the last weld I burnt my finger. ƒΩçK!!

From there I had a bit of a play with a piezo mic (or speaker if you catch them on a saturday night). The great thing about these is you can throw them about like a cheap whore - just like you'd normally do to university microphones. Haha that's a joke just for you Christian (you read these right?)

Anyway, I tried a number of different way of using the piezo as a sort of 'contact' mic to try and catch sound vibrations out of water. Toward this goal, I filled my lunchbox with water and put a layer of glad-wrap over the top. I tried swishing the water around but it just did not achieve the sound I was after. Then I had the idea of putting my iPod headphones onto the glad-wrap - to see how traveling through water would alter the sound of .. Parkway Drive as the case was.

parkwaywater.m4a (792 kB)

I must confess this is simply a reenactment of the way it went, I actually recorded the setup much further back from my laptop, so to avoid spill from the headphones into the laptop mic. After accidentally getting my headphones, the piezo and my iPod wet I figured I would just mess around with the little mic to see what sounds (nay, noise art!) I could come up with. The result was entitled i need take a piezo bad (584 kB)

.sources.

Haines, Christian some time last week i rekon it was "Welding and fondling the electro-bits," EMew! Aderaide University... You know the one on North Terrace. NO~ not the the cool looking one next to Fowlers, the one further up where all the ugly kids get off the bus

musick

i have been working on some new tracks. this one's sits in the minimal glitch electronica vain again.


slow.mp3 (4.2 MB)


it starting off being called 'slow', then 'not quite asleep', the 'dress formal for bed', and now it's just called 'slow' again. ahh, whatever... perhaps i need through a cricket ball at my keyboard and see what comes outs (ala Autechre).

signal switching and routing

.cc - week two.

i. sine function generator


jam.cycle.zip

ii. sawtooth function generator


jam.phasor.zip

We added these sound creation objects to our MSP libraries this week, as well as adding a mute function to our previous objects. You can find these updated objects in my archived library below.

jam.msp.library.zip (16 kB)

The major challenges I faced this week was understanding the concept of the 'phase' inlet with the phasor~ and cycle~ objects. I understand the fundamental concept of phase, but what I can not figure out is how sending a number greater then one or less then negative one effects the sound, if that is the range of these functions..?

Aside from that it was another fairly straightforward week of MSP, with my main challenge being to read through the tutorials. Reading a Max/MSP tutorial is an exercise that I likened to eating a raw Weet-bix.

.sources.

Haines, Christian 31.07.07, "Signal Switching and Routing," EMU, Adelaide University.

final fantasy VII

.aa - week two.

Final Fantasy VII came out in 1997 for the PlayStation X and I was stoked.


There are absolutely no VO (voice-over) recordings in the game whatsoever. Basically the story is so long and convoluted, and contains so many characters, that audio director Nobuo Uematsu decided that the limitations of using recorded audio were too great. Interestingly this was not the only limitation he was faced with, he decided to only use the PlayStations internal chip and created a huge score of MIDI tracks for the game. He did this not only to free up the disc to utilise the power of the PlayStations visual hardware, but also so that the music would never stop to load – much unlike the visual element. In this way, FF7 is certainly an example of a game in which the audio was a primary factor to its success. Given that the game comprises three discs, it was a truly colossal game, with hours of typically frustrating game-play, movies and (best of all) music.

Aesthetically the game opens in the industrious world of Midgar (shown below), with the sounds of steam blow-offs and chrome metal smashes. Most of the sounds tend to conform into this feeling that a dark, cold metal city sits in the night sky. This kind of image is often painted too by industrial music, making use of sharp ‘nasty’ MIDI sounds; this is what probably draws me to FF7 the most.


The interface is navigated with two sounds – as you move the cursor over different buttons and when you select one of these buttons. Environmental sounds normally come intertwined with the music – for the most part the game is set in industrial cities, and the music matches this. Also I recall a part of the game when the characters walk through a windy desert, for which the music contains a swishy white noise sound. As well as the environment, the music often incorporates the mood of the story. A simple example of such mood-music would be the characters enter battle or face a boss, and also when the player wins a battle. In this last case, a triumphant marching band sort of theme is played, and a ‘chimey’ sound effect represents the money being collected from the bad guy.

.sans analysis.

These recordings are pretty average quality, but hopefully you get the idea.

UI SFX
In this example you here me move the cursor three times then make a selection. These are the interface sounds used throughout the game (main menu, ingame and so on).

FMV music
This is the audio that accompanies the opening cut-scene, in which I think you get a good idea of the industrial feel to the music. After around 5 seconds you here the ‘verby’ footsteps of the Aeris Gainsborough walking down a chrome metal street in Midgar. Towards the end, after 31 seconds, you hear the huge chords which accompanies the main FF7 logo (see above) coming onscreen.

Battle music
This sample begins with a swishy blow-off sound, which any FF7 player will know, occurs when a player goes into battle. The feel of increased tension in the music suits the in-game action. You can hear the same UI sounds as before after about 11 seconds (selecting to attack) then at the 12 second mark you hear the main character Cloud Strife jump over the enemy, attack him with his sword, and finally you hear the enemy die. This is last sound effect makes the sorts of ‘a-o-waaa’ noise. Love it. At around the 25th second, you hear the music change, playing big strong chords, signifying the battle has been won. After this music changes again to a more mellow feel, as the player chooses what loot to collect from the defeated enemies.

Critical Strike
Many games make use of ‘critical strikes’, whereby the attacker has a chance to do around double the damage they would normally do on a melee attack. After this sound effect this sample also contains the enemy dying (a-o-waaa).

.sources.

Brandon, Alexander 2005, "Audio for Games: planning, process and production," New Riders Games, Berkeley, Calif.

Haines, Christian 31.07.07, "Game Audio Analysis," EMU, Adelaide University.