Video Game Audio Prototyping with Half-Life 2 :: Granulation Leonard J. Paul VideoGameAudio.com

info {at} VideoGameAudio.com VCMM 2009 Vancouver, BC Slide 2 of 17 Overview Overview of audio for video games Why is audio prototyping important ? Description of system Demonstration Q & A

VideoGameAudio.com info {at} VideoGameAudio.com VCMM 2009 Vancouver, BC Slide 3 of 17 Games Overview Video games are a widespread form of “interactive entertainment” Grand Theft Auto IV $500 million in sales in 24hrs vs. The Dark Knight's weekend opening of $158 million Games are software with interactive content and require innovative technology to stay current

VideoGameAudio.com info {at} VideoGameAudio.com VCMM 2009 Vancouver, BC Slide 4 of 17 Game Audio Overview Like film audio, game audio is comprised of speech, sound effects and music However, unlike film audio, the audio is interactive and must respond to changes in gameplay Older systems such as the Playstation 2 had little CPU power available to audio, so sample playback was all that was easily possible

VideoGameAudio.com info {at} VideoGameAudio.com VCMM 2009 Vancouver, BC Slide 5 of 17 Old-Gen Game Audio Workflow Conventional methods before the current generation of game consoles (pre-2007) have required recompilation and game coder involvement to hear results which is typically slow: Create 30 mins Compile 5-30 mins Run Game 3 mins Locate 2-5 mins Test 5 mins

VideoGameAudio.com info {at} VideoGameAudio.com VCMM 2009 Vancouver, BC Slide 6 of 17 Next-Gen Game Audio Promises techniques such as wave-tracing reverbs, granulation and physical modeling Game audio becomes a combination of older methods of sampled sound and newer generative sound design methods Sound designer becomes familiar with procedural sound design techniques = scary ? ->

VideoGameAudio.com info {at} VideoGameAudio.com VCMM 2009 Vancouver, BC Slide 7 of 17 Next-Gen Game Audio Workflow Devise a system that doesn't require recompilation of audio behaviours when changing procedural sound design Test design interactively Create 30 mins Compile 5-30 mins Run Game 3 mins Locate 2-5 mins Test Interactive

VideoGameAudio.com info {at} VideoGameAudio.com VCMM 2009 Vancouver, BC Slide 8 of 17 Next-Gen Audio Prototyping Allow sound designers to create their procedural sound designs in real-time while the game is running Middleware solutions such as Wwise allow real- time tweaking of parameters, however only for existing patches and basic synthesis unless plugins are used Use of Kismet within Unreal allows for some scripting

VideoGameAudio.com info {at} VideoGameAudio.com VCMM 2009 Vancouver, BC Slide 9 of 17 Game Audio Pipeline Game Code Commercial Sound Tool Game Audio Tool Sound Driver Code Game Audio Code OSC Layer

VideoGameAudio.com info {at} VideoGameAudio.com VCMM 2009 Vancouver, BC Slide 10 of 17 Game Parameters to Granulation Granulation is a good match for games as it requires many parameters which the game can provide (ex. RPM -> playback rate) Physics allow for continuous control over playback of sample (ex. ragdoll -> foley) Complexity overload Lines of code ?

VideoGameAudio.com info {at} VideoGameAudio.com VCMM 2009 Vancouver, BC Slide 11 of 17 Open Sound Control (OSC) OSC is open-source software that allows communication between the game and PD OSC is included in PD extended and just requires the addition of several C++ modules into the game engine Access to the game events while the game is running

VideoGameAudio.com info {at} VideoGameAudio.com VCMM 2009 Vancouver, BC Slide 12 of 17 Pure Data (PD) Relatively easy to learn open-source interactive audio implementation environment Can integrate directly into game code (as in EA's Spore), but not optimal as it is interpreted Create compiled code from (simple) patches as shown by pd2j2me public void met0Bang() { double a; a = counter.bang(); a = a * 3; a = a / 4; }

VideoGameAudio.com info {at} VideoGameAudio.com VCMM 2009 Vancouver, BC Slide 13 of 17 Audiomulch Independent audio processing tool that is good for granulation Doesn't support OSC but can receive MIDI control information from PD server Easy to use and quick to prototype real-time adaptive musical ideas

VideoGameAudio.com info {at} VideoGameAudio.com VCMM 2009 Vancouver, BC Slide 14 of 17 Half-Life 2 Half-life 2 is a PC game/XBox that won over 40 “Game of the Year” awards in 2004 and allows users to change the maps and other content of the game using the “Source engine” technology in C++ Left 4 Dead and other games based on Source Hammer editor allows for map editing Make your own too

VideoGameAudio.com info {at} VideoGameAudio.com VCMM 2009 Vancouver, BC Slide 15 of 17 Half-Life 2 Source Mod A mod is a modification of the game that can be quite simple or be advanced enough to create an entirely new game (ie. total conversion) Change code using Microsoft's free compiler Visual C Express Edition Cost for replicating this system is just the cost of the game - $19.95

VideoGameAudio.com info {at} VideoGameAudio.com VCMM 2009 Vancouver, BC Slide 16 of 17 HL2 Demonstration

VideoGameAudio.com info {at} VideoGameAudio.com VCMM 2009 Vancouver, BC Slide 17 of 17 Questions ? Leonard J. Paul info {at} VideoGameAudio.com web: VideoGameAudio.com