scholarly journals Developing Procedural Generation Tools for Video Game Audio Designers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Christopher Wratt
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Sound Design ◽  
Game Engine ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Game State ◽  
Game Developers ◽  
Time Accuracy ◽  
High Degree

<p>In video games, audio is often a vital element in the creation of immersive gaming experiences. One set of techniques that are particularly well suited to attaining this immersion are procedural audio techniques. These techniques enable enhanced immersion through supporting close synchronisation between player and game state in ways that are difficult to achieve with other game audio techniques. While this is the case, there is a lack of GUI and script-based tools that support the use of such techniques. This thesis explores this lack, and documents the development of two new video game tools for the creation of procedurally generated audio.  The first of these tools is a Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) library that supports the playback and real-time manipulation of MIDI files in the Unity game engine. The tool achieves real-time procedural audio, yet fails to meet required levels of time accuracy and is only a partial success. The second tool developed is a plugin hosting application that enables the use of the popular audio plugin format, VST2, in the Unity game engine. The tool succeeds in achieving VST2 effect plugin loading and, at the time of the completion of this thesis, is the only tool capable of embedding such plugins into applications developed in a major game engine. This will be of significant benefit to game developers who wish to achieve a high degree of immersivity in the music and sound design in their games.</p>

scholarly journals Developing Procedural Generation Tools for Video Game Audio Designers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Christopher Wratt
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Sound Design ◽  
Game Engine ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Game State ◽  
Game Developers ◽  
Time Accuracy ◽  
High Degree

<p>In video games, audio is often a vital element in the creation of immersive gaming experiences. One set of techniques that are particularly well suited to attaining this immersion are procedural audio techniques. These techniques enable enhanced immersion through supporting close synchronisation between player and game state in ways that are difficult to achieve with other game audio techniques. While this is the case, there is a lack of GUI and script-based tools that support the use of such techniques. This thesis explores this lack, and documents the development of two new video game tools for the creation of procedurally generated audio.  The first of these tools is a Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) library that supports the playback and real-time manipulation of MIDI files in the Unity game engine. The tool achieves real-time procedural audio, yet fails to meet required levels of time accuracy and is only a partial success. The second tool developed is a plugin hosting application that enables the use of the popular audio plugin format, VST2, in the Unity game engine. The tool succeeds in achieving VST2 effect plugin loading and, at the time of the completion of this thesis, is the only tool capable of embedding such plugins into applications developed in a major game engine. This will be of significant benefit to game developers who wish to achieve a high degree of immersivity in the music and sound design in their games.</p>

Exploring genomes with a game engine

2014 ◽  
Vol 169 ◽  
pp. 443-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremiah J. Shepherd ◽  
Lingxi Zhou ◽  
William Arndt ◽  
Yan Zhang ◽  
W. Jim Zheng ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Linear Structure ◽  
Structural Data ◽  
Game Engine ◽  
3D Genome ◽  
Genome Viewer ◽  
A Genome ◽  
Visualization Techniques ◽  
Insight Into

More and more evidence indicates that the 3D conformation of eukaryotic genomes is a critical part of genome function. However, due to the lack of accurate and reliable 3D genome structural data, this information is largely ignored and most of these studies have to use information systems that view the DNA in a linear structure. Visualizing genomes in real time 3D can give researchers more insight, but this is fraught with hardware limitations since each element contains vast amounts of information that cannot be processed on the fly. Using a game engine and sophisticated video game visualization techniques enables us to construct a multi-platform real-time 3D genome viewer. The game engine-based viewer achieves much better rendering speed and can handle much larger amounts of data compared to our previous implementation using OpenGL. Combining this viewer with 3D genome models from experimental data could provide unprecedented opportunities to gain insight into the conformation–function relationships of a genome.

The Game Music Handbook

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noah Kellman
Keyword(s):  
Programming Languages ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Visual Programming ◽  
Sound Design ◽  
Video Game Music ◽  
Compositional Field ◽  
Game State ◽  
Advanced Readers ◽  
The Relationship

Writing music for games is an art that requires conceptual forethought, specialized technical skill, and a deep understanding of how players interact with games and game audio. The Game Music Handbook embarks on a journey through numerous soundscapes throughout video game history, exploring a series of concepts and techniques that are key to being a successful game music composer. This book organizes key game music scoring concepts into an applicable methodology, describing them with memorable distinctions that leave readers with a clear picture of how to apply them to creating music and sound. Any music composer or musician who wishes to begin a career in game composition can pick up this text and quickly gain a solid understanding of the core techniques for composing video game music, as well as the conceptual differences that separate it from any other compositional field. Some of these topics include designing emotional arcs for nonlinear timelines, the relationship between music and sound design, discussion of the player’s interaction with audio, and more. There is also much to be gained by advanced readers or game audio professionals, who will find detailed discussion of game state and its effect on player interaction, a composer-centric lesson on programming, how to work with version control, information on visual programming languages, emergent audio, music for virtual reality (VR), procedural audio, and other indispensable knowledge about advanced reactive music concepts. The text often explores the effect that music has on a player’s interaction with a game. It discusses the practical application of this interaction through the examination of various techniques employed in games throughout video game history to enhance immersion, emphasize emotion, and create compelling interactive experiences.

scholarly journals Using the Roblox Video Game Engine for Creating Virtual tours and Learning about the Sculptural Heritage

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (20) ◽  
pp. 268
Author(s):  
Cecile Meier ◽  
Jose Luis Saorín ◽  
Alejandro Bonnet de León ◽  
Alberto Guerrero Cobos
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
3D Models ◽  
Game Engine ◽  
Santa Cruz ◽  
School Students ◽  
Final Questionnaire ◽  
Game Engines ◽  
The Creation

This paper describes an experience to incorporate the realization of virtual routes about the sculptural heritage of a city in the classroom by developing a simulation of the urban environment using a video game engine. Video game engines not only allow the creation of video games but also the creation and navigation of in-teractive three-dimensional worlds. For this research, Roblox Studio has been used, a simple and intuitive program in which no previous programming skills are required. During the 2018/2019 academic year, a pilot experience was carried out with 53 secondary school students who were given the task of designing a virtual environment in which they had to include 3D models of the sculptural her-itage of the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Before starting the experience, the par-ticipants answered a questionnaire to obtain a previous idea of the students' knowledge about the creation of video games. Once the activity was finished and in order to evaluate the result of the activity, the participants answered a final questionnaire. The students emphasized that after the activity they are more aware of the sculptural heritage of Santa Cruz and that they consider themselves capable of creating their own interactive worlds with Roblox.

Facilitating the Musician's Engagement with New Musical Interfaces: Counteractions in Music Performance

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koray Tahiroğlu ◽  
Juan Carlos Vasquez ◽  
Johan Kildal
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
User Study ◽  
Music Performance ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Sound Design ◽  
Audio Analysis ◽  
Degree Of Satisfaction ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Design Comparison

The level of engagement of a musician performing on an instrument is related to the degree of satisfaction derived from that activity. With our work, we aim to assist musicians performing live on a new musical instrument, Network of Interactive Sonic Agents (NOISA), by helping them maintain or increase their level of engagement with the activity. The NOISA system can learn from performers through observation and estimate their engagement level in real time. The new response module, which includes new sound design, comparison of gestures, and audio-analysis features, can also decide what action to take, and when to implement it, to help the performer recover from lowering engagement levels. We report on a formative user study that evaluates the impact of this response module.

Game Sound

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-102
Author(s):  
Karen Collins
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Sound Design ◽  
Video Game Music

Karen Collins reflects on her seminal volume Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory, and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design, a little over a decade after its publication.

Variations on a Theme by a Rogue A.I.: Music, Gameplay, and Storytelling in Portal 2 (Part 1 of 2)

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Reale
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Theme And Variations ◽  
Scientific Experimentation ◽  
Game Developers ◽  
Variations On A Theme

This two-video series explores how the scoring to the video game Portal 2, published by Valve Corporation, not only helps tell the game’s story, but also comments on the game developers’ philosophy of puzzle design. The first video explores how the game’s title theme 9999999, including its texture, voice leadings, and chord qualities, musically enacts dual aspects of the character of the game’s central antagonist GlaDOS: once human, her personality was uploaded into a computer mainframe where she has become a sociopathic, homicidal artificial intelligence who takes delight in subjecting humans to hazardous scientific experimentation. The second video demonstrates that 9999999 serves as the theme for a set of double variations in the game’s middle act. Since Valve’s philosophy of player training centers on iterative puzzle-design that systematically increase in complexity, and the musical accompaniments for these puzzles feature coordinated developments in musical complexity, the scoring here lets us parse the puzzle design into a kind of set of gameplay theme-and-variations.

scholarly journals The perils of project-based work: Attempting resistance to extreme work practices in video game development

Organization ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 570-587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Peticca-Harris ◽  
Johanna Weststar ◽  
Steve McKenna
Keyword(s):  
Working Conditions ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Work Conditions ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Work Practices ◽  
Game Development ◽  
Video Game Development ◽  
Dominant Ideologies ◽  
Reader Comments ◽  
Game Developers

This article examines two blogs written by the spouses of game developers about extreme and exploitative working conditions in the video game industry and the associated reader comments. The wives of these video game developers and members of the game community decry these working conditions and challenge dominant ideologies about making games. This article contributes to the work intensification literature by challenging the belief that long hours are necessary and inevitable to make successful games, discussing the negative toll of extreme work on workers and their families, and by highlighting that the project-based structure of game development both creates extreme work conditions and inhibits resistance. It considers how extreme work practices are legitimized through neo-normative control mechanisms made possible through project-based work structures and the perceived imperative of a race or ‘crunch’ to meet project deadlines. The findings show that neo-normative control mechanisms create an insularity within project teams and can make it difficult for workers to resist their own extreme working conditions, and at times to even understand them as extreme.

Advanced Horizontal Well Correlation Method for Dynamic Update of Subsurface Layers While Geosteering

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdul Mohsen Al-Maskeen ◽  
Sadaqat Ali
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Horizontal Well ◽  
Control Point ◽  
Correlation Method ◽  
Thickness Variation ◽  
Structural Framework ◽  
Framework Model ◽  
Subsurface Layers ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Well Correlation

Abstract A new automated approach to well correlation is presented that utilizes real-time Logging While-Drilling (LWD) data and predicted well curve to dynamically update subsurface layers during geosteering operations. The automatically created predicted log and a dynamically updated structural framework provides the foundation of the process. The predicted log is created using vertical sections of the nearby wells, which provide high confidence for determining depth and stratigraphic position of the geosteered well. The results give a better understanding of thickness variation in the horizontal part of the reservoir and maximize the reservoir contact (Sung, 2008). A new advanced methodology introduced in this study involves the creation of a dynamic structural framework model, from which horizontal well correlation is performed using real-time well logs and predicted logs that are generated from adjacent wells. The predicted logs are correlated to the LWD logs using anchor points and an interactive stretching and squeezing process that honors true stratigraphic thickness. Each new anchor point results in the creation of an additional control point that is used to build a more precise structural framework model. This new approach enables more rapid well log interpretation, increased accuracy and the ability to dynamically update the subsurface model during drilling. It also enables more efficient steering of the wellbore into the most productive zones of the reservoir. This study demonstrates how wells with over 10,000 feet of horizontal reservoir contact can be correlated in a real-time geosteering environment in a dynamic, efficient and accurate manner. The proposed process dramatically helps reduce the cost of drilling and the time it takes to dynamically regenerate accurate updated maps of the subsurface. It represents a major improvement in the understanding and modeling of complex, heterogeneous reservoirs by fostering a multi-disciplinary environment of cross-domain experts that are able to collaborate seamlessly as asset-teams. Both accuracy and efficiency gains have been realized by incorporating this methodology in the characterization of multi-stacked reservoirs.

An interdisciplinary sound classification framework for environmental sound design

2021 ◽  
Vol 263 (5) ◽  
pp. 1130-1141
Author(s):  
Kivanc Kitapci ◽  
Dogukan Ozdemir
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Creative Thinking ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Design Guidelines ◽  
Design Framework ◽  
Sound Design ◽  
Environmental Sound ◽  
Sound Classification ◽  
Sensory Interactions ◽  
Auditory Analysis

One of the objectives of architectural design is to create multi-sensory environments. The users are under the influence of a wide variety and intense perceptual data flow when users experience a designed space. Architects and environmental designers should not ignore the sense of hearing, one of the most important of the five primitive senses that allow us to experience the physical environment within the framework of creative thinking from the first stage of the design process. Today, auditory analysis of spaces has been studied under architectural acoustics, soundscapes, multi-sensory interactions, and sense of place. However, the current sound design methods implemented in the film and video game industries and industrial design have not been used in architectural design practices. Sound design is the art and application of making soundtracks in various disciplines and it involves recognizing, acquiring, or developing of auditory components. This research aims to establish a holistic architectural sound design framework based on the previous sound classification and taxonomic models found in the literature. The proposed sound design framework will help the architects and environmental designers classify the sound elements in the built environment and provide holistic environmental sound design guidelines depending on the spaces' functions and context.

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