AA2 Sem 2 Week 5 FMOD

This program is fantastic, easy enough to use and does all you need for a game. I can see why so many game developers have used it. And its free!! All the effects are fantastic and easy to use and access. The customisable parameter bar on the top is great. I cant imagine seeing myself use this is a context other than in gaming, but a very powerful tool that's relatively simple to use. I didn't have too many issues with the task, actually the only issue i had was creating a multichannel .wav, Cubase was acting up and took longer than should have, but once over this hump had fun with the multichannel panning. This may be program a could introduce students to in the future, certainly not in a lot of depth, but for exposure to the game industry.

References:

Haines, Christain. "FMOD." Lecture. Adelaide University. 19/8/08

"Chapter 3 - Technology". Modern Sound Engine in Brief. Brandon, Alexander. 2005,
Audio for games: planning, process, and production, New Riders Games, Berkeley, Calif.

pp 25 - 56. "Chapter 3 - Using FMod Designer". Creative 2007, FMOD DESIGNER:
USER MANUAL, Creative Labs, 2007, http://www.fmod.org/index.php/download.

FMOD, 2007, 2006,

Forum Week 4

From what I've seen the meanings, at least the simplified meanings, of the rasas all seem to be fairly universal. The most diverse ive seen in my search was these meanings

Sanskrit Term	Principal Meaning	Further Meanings & related emotions
Shringara	Love	Beauty, devotion
Hasya	Joy	Humor, sarcasm
Adbhuta	Wonder	Curiosity, mystery
Shanta	Peace	Calmness, relaxation
Raudra	Anger	Irritation, stress
Veera	Courage	Pride, confidence
Karuna	Sadness	Compassion, pity, sympathy
Bhayanaka	Fear	Anxiety, worry
Vibhatsa	Disgust	Depression, self-pity

http://www.rasas.info/index.htm

These meanings are fantastic for artists to draw inspiration from, as so many have not just drawn inspiration, but rather the inspiration has drawn them into it. One of my favorite artists, John McLaughlin, became heavily involved so much so that he earned the title Mahavishnu, and gave his band the same name. I'm sure that he would have undergone a similar task, looking for sounds that represent the rasa, in his study.

As i talked about in class, this task needs to be taken in context or sounds on their own can imply any meaning. However for this task ive taken the obvious meaning.

hasya
Major Chord, laughing, children playing (laughing)
adbhuta
a crescendo symphony orchestra playing a major chord, ???
veera
a march, marching army, horns playing a fanfare, a human roar
karuna
a kiss, a harp
krodha
a raging roar, low basses driving ostinato in 5ths.
bhibasta
a spit, a sinister murmur
bhayanaka
a scream, dimished chord or odd chromatic chord, perhaps low basses driving ostinato in 5ths, gunfire, pain noises.

shoka
a minor chord, crying
shanta
a subtle major chord, a water stream

References:

Whittington, Stephen. "Week 4 Composition Workshop." Lecture. 21/8/08. Adelaide University.

http://www.rasas.info/index.htm

CC2 Sem 2 Week 4 Music and Signal Processing

I have had a few problems this week, but i managed to sort all the main ones out. Don't use sends in your poly~ it sends it to all of them!!! I really wanted to send different function graphs to each poly instance, however it affected all of them, and it just added more points to them, so in the end you would end up with a bunch of very complicated function graphs all the same. So i had to compromise and just put them in the poly itself. Which is annoying because now it isn't customizable. In future weeks Im going to try and figure out a way to send different functions to different instances, i can see this is going to play a big part in my final project.

Check it out in the Box widget!

References:

Haines, Christian. "Music and Signal Processing." Lecture. 21/8/08. Adelaide University.

Cycling'74 2006, MSP Tutorials and Topics,
http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation

AA2 Sem 2 Week 4 Game Engine Analysis

Ive had to modify the task for this week, i couldn't use the game engine from last week's game as the engine predates the 2000 period. The game was released in December of 2000 however the engine was based on the Quake 2 Engine (iD Tech 2) which was released in 1997. So I've decided to look at the GTA IV engine called RAGE (Rockstar Advanced Game Engine). Heres the lowdown

GTA IV

RAGE - incorporated motion capture engine
Euphoria - procedural animation engine
Image Metrics - lip sync and facial expressions
SpeedTree - vegetation production

Support
Ps3 Harware, uncertain release on PC, if so DirectX
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ps3

Audio Engine developed at Rockstar North In house Audio Engine.
96kHz/24 bit. High end sound in 7.1

Format, Ps3, XBox, yet to be released in PC. Unsure if it will be.

No Editors

I am doubtful of any major engine downfalls as reviews of the game have been almost perfect, 10/10 by most game reviews. The Graphics are amazing and from personal experience the gameplay is fantastic, the only issue is the framerate.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "Game Engines." 19/8/08. Adelaide University.

"Chapter 3 - Technology". Brandon, Alexander. 2005, Audio for games: planning,
process, and production, New Riders Games, Berkeley, Calif. pp 2, 3, 19.

pp7 - 8, 149 - 152. Childs, G. W. 2006, Creating Music and Sound for Games, Thomson
Course Technology.

Game engine, 2007, 2007, .
Directory of Game Middleware Solutions, 2007, .

Week 3 Forum

Some interesting presentations. The bar has been raised, some of the projects were fantastic, especially for first years. Game sound is something I'm quite interested in at the moment, AA2 being the stimulus, and it was awesome hearing about somebody actually involved in this. and starting so early as well. He really captured the feel for the game, although i hadn't seen it i could clearly imagine what sort of game it was. I was disappointed that we didn't get to hear all the Foley sounds he made.

The standard of the concrete projects have certainly increased since last year and i cant wait to see what else the 1st years can create. However one criticism. I believe that turning the sounds into music isn't keeping with the concrete tradition and i remember fighting the desire to do this last year. This aside the music that was created was very interesting and muti layered. Well done 1st years!

Week 3 Polyphony and Instancing

Poly~ is a great object, this is defiantly something I'm going to use extensively in my final project. I'm still unsure how the thispoly~ object operates, but I'm sure we'll go through some of its uses in class. Instead of using a thispoly~ object to turn the voices off, i created my own way using select and sends. It doesn't work perfectly, when playing chords it sometimes doesn't turn notes off, but with a lot of fiddling and playing with delays i could probably get this working. But with the thispoly~ object its not necessary.

Check it out in the MyBox wideget at the top.

References:

Cycling'74 2006, MSP Tutorials and Topics,
http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation.

Grosse, Darwin. 2006, The Poly Papers (part 1), 2007,
http://www.cycling74.com/story/2005/5/3/135756/4001.

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "Polyphony and Instancing." 14/08/08. Adelaide University.

AA2 Sem 2 Week 3 Planning and Process

For this task i chose the original Counter Strike game. In hindsight this game isn't the best example for demonstrating the different elements of game audio, but none the less, it still offered insight into game audio asset creation. I picked a sample of sounds that would best demonstrate the game's asset list.

Each weapon has its own fire and fire-sil sound (it could be a sound played only when the gun is shot once and not on automatic, but thats just a guess), clip in and out and other various bolt noises. Some weapons have more sounds than others, but the main sounds are outlined.

Another interesting point i noticed was that all the sounds were processed at a really low quality. mono 8 bit and 22kHz. However at the time this was probably the most economic of CPU processing and considering this game is meant for fast online game play this was a smart choice.

Other games such as Medal of Honor Allied Assult and Metal Gear Solid Series, have incredible music audio libraries and game engines that change these elements as the game play changes. I'm quite fascinated by this and will look into it further throughout the semester

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "Planing and Process." 12/8/08. Adelaide University.

Lampert, Mark. 2006, IT’S QUIET … ALMOST TOO QUIET, Bethesda Softworks, 2006,
.

"Chapter 2 - Sound Database". Childs, G. W. 2006, Creating Music and Sound for
Games, Thomson Course Technology.

pp 2 – 24. "Chapter 1 - A Development Process Map of Game-Audio Implementation".
Brandon, Alexander. 2005, Audio for games: planning, process, and production, New
Riders Games, Berkeley, Calif.

Week 2 Sem 2 Forum

Im very impressed with David's quartet piece, changing to an 11/16 meter followed by 9/16, im surprised that the performers didnt slap you in the face. I really did get the sence that the piece was floating, was no pulse to lock into, or if there was it was quickly thrown out. I wouldn't know how to approach composing a piece of music like this. I'd be interested in hearing about the processes David went through to produce this outcome.

I cant say that i was overly interested in Schubert's piece, it certainly has its moments, some good melodies and some interesting harmonies. But I do agree with David on this, its so long that it puts you in a kind of trance, however i don't normally look for this in this style of music.

References:

Harris, David. Lecture. "My Favourite Things." 7/8/08. Adelaide University.

CC2 Sem 2 Week 2

I think im getting used to MSP now.

Ive done help files for all the main patches and they explain what each patch does. Ive included more mutes that i would normally, but it demonstrates what it does. The mute is quite a handy function, i can see myself using it quite a lot in my final project. Ive used the cycle~ object with the phasor~ for the sine wave and just the phasor~ object for the sawtooth wave. I can see these objects being very usefull in the future.

Check out the files in the box widget.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. " Week 2 Signal switching and routing." 7/8/08.

Cycling'74 2006, MSP Tutorials and Topics,
.

AA2 Sem 2 Week 2 Game Sound Analysis

Unreal Tournament, released in 1999, is still one of the most highly regarded multiplayer FPS' of the gaming world. It spawned a whole series of games still in production today. The sound in the original 1999 game isn't too complex, however are iconic of the series and online FPS gaming, in particular the VO 'monster kill' etc. The Audio structure is as follows.

Opening video of streets, atmosphere sound (localised to particular objects) and a VO.

The Main title screen has a few sounds. Menu bar selection noise, menu click noise and scroll over noise, they are all robotic like sounds. This could be a Family of sounds.

In game there are plenty of sounds. background music (drum and bass style) SFX - gun noises (different for each type), bullet ricochet, shell sound, footsteps (on a random selection of a few footstep noises), VO both team mate radio sounds and achievement VO. Person noises, Jumping grunt, bullet hit grunt, falling to death screams. Other in game sounds like alarm for stolen flag, victory music for achievements.

Watch 0:00 to 0:20



References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "Game Sound Analysis." 5/8/08. Adelaide University.

Brandon, Alexander. 2005, Audio for games: planning, process, and production, New
Riders Games, Berkeley, Calif. pp 2, 3, 19.

Arcade Original Pong, 1972, 2007, .

Williams Defender arcade game, 1980, 2007, .

Wonder Boy, 1986, 2007, .

Mortal Kombat Gameplay, 1992, 2007,
.

CC2 Sem 2 Week 1 Intro to MSP

This patch was quite a bit harder to do than originally thought. Control and Sampling Rate control speeds are quite tricky to get around. My Patches seem to work, but they appear to be more complicated that I would think would be necessary. I’ve also included help files with the patches if you want to know how they work. One of the main issues I had was with the number~ object. Monitoring and sending data with this object is a tricky thing to do. I think with more practice I’ll get it, but still a little frustrating.

Run the 'Week 1 Intro to MSP.pat' file

Check it out in the Box widget.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecutre. "Intro to MSP." 31/7/08. Adelaide University

Cycling'74 2006, MSP Tutorials and Topics,
http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation