CSE3AGT - Audio Paul Taylor 2010

Sound Technologies XACT (Cross Platform Audio Creation Tool) – XACT is the audio production tool for Xbox development, it’s also freely available as part of the XNA Game Studio

What does XACT let you do? Create Music &Sounds – Create Sound Trees Add effects – RPC Runtime Parameter Control – DSP Digital Signal Processing Effects

Source Files These must be WAV, AIF, or AIFF files – Real artists NEVER use mp3! These get imported into a WaveBank – It’s just a collections of ALL your sounds Unused sounds are red, used are green – From the WaveBank you can create Sounds in the SoundBank – You can use the sounds in the SoundBank to create Cues

Why so complicated? The programmer can simply call the CUE: – PositiveComment The audio designer can create an elaborate set of semi-random cues to choose from, without having to plead the programmer to keep updating their code

AudConsole.exe Part of the tool set, this allows you to play sounds form the XACT project without needing to recompile and run your game development. – Allows sound art to be worked on in parallel with the game development

XSB, XGS, XWB When you compile (File->Build) an XACT project it outputs two useful files: –.xsb (Sound Bank) Sounds and Cues –.xwb (Wave Bank) Raw Audio Data