IASIG @ GDC in 2007

September 5 - 7, Austin TX

IASIG Members Chris Grigg, Guy Whitmore, Peter Drescher, David Mollerstedt, and Jeff Wesevich each lead sessions on interactive audio for industry colleagues. Mollerstedt's talk was "HDR Audio: Adaptive Prioritized Mixing in Frostbite." Drescher presented "How Broadband Phones Will Affect Mobile Game Audio." Whitmore presented "Creatively Managing Audio Teams and Production on Multiple Games," and Grigg's talk was "Introducing the Interactive XMF Standard for Interactive Audio." Check the conference site, AustinGDC.net, for details and final schedules. IASIG Member Brian Schmidt was the Audio Keynote.

March 7 - 9, San Francisco CA

IASIG Party & Mixer

We celebrated our 12^th anniversary with a party at the Chieftain Pub in San Francisco. The event was open to all GDC Audio Pass holders and interactive audio pros. We were delighted to see many newcomers show up at our subsequent Town Hall Meeting to propose Working Groups based on discussions that started at the party. Special thanks to Dolby Labs for sponsoring the event, and to Creative Labs, BIAS, Wave Arts, Backbeat Books, and O'Reilly Media for providing over $2,000 in prizes for our raffle. 

Once again, the IASIG filled the Chieftain Pub with top interactive audio developers, who enjoyed refreshments, networking, and dozens of great audio prizes. (Photos courtesy of David Battino.)

IASIG Town Hall Meeting

The Annual IASIG Town Hall Meeting @ GDC was one of the most lively and energetic in recent history.

Tom White, speaking as one of the organization's founders, began the meeting by providing a history and overview of the IASIG. He explained that the IASIG was formed in response to requests at GDC from composers, sound designers, programmers, and hardware and software developers to work together on designing the tools and platforms for interactive entertainment. Tom said the open forum discussion at the Town Hall Meeting is an important way to find out what the hot topics are and who wants to work on them. 

Kurt Heiden (IASIG Chair) then conducted a review of recent IASIG projects, presented by Working Group Chairs:

• Interactive XMF: Linda Law reported on the working group activity using visual metaphors accompanied by music and sound effects courtesy of Peter Drescher. Because Linda in prior years has already presented the details of the iXMF proposal, she referred attendees to the written handouts and noted that the newest (and final) schedule for release of the document is now September 2007 (for preview at the Austin Game Conference).
• Mobile Audio: Peter Drescher (former Chair) gave a stirring speech supporting the WG goal of eliminating annoying audio on mobile phones. The WG report is in final editing and expected to be made public by the end of Q1 2007. Peter also announced he will continue his crusade against annoying audio on his blog.
• Game Audio Education: WG Founder and Co-Chair Michael Sweet announced the launch of the Interactive Audio Wiki and "Ask the IASIG" Web Forum on the IASIG website. As an educator, he noted the difficulty in finding authoritative and up-to-date resources his students could use to research interactive audio, and how the IASIG site already had a wealth of information thanks to various contributors. Michael showed a few key areas of the site and urged everyone to check it out and contribute more. He noted that each time developers research a new project, they pick up expertise that could benefit the whole community if published on the wiki.

Kurt then opened the floor to attendees to ask questions or propose topics for discussion. Topics included:

• Standard for Speaker Elevation: Opening with the provocative line "Games audiowise are still running Doom while the graphics are running Quake," one developer pushed for a standard to render sound in true 3D (including height). Part of the approach might involve defining additional speakers and their placement. The developer noted that he'd already approached several major companies and each had said the best way to bring such a spec to fruition would be through the IASIG.
• Content Conversion Tools: Saying, "One thing that makes me and everyone else in the industry frothingly, criminally insane is working with 70 different [mobile phone] file formats," a speaker proposed creating a tool to customize Standard MIDI Files for different mobile phones, eliminating a tedious task for content developers. It was suggested that collaboration could make the task more practical because the customer base for such a tool would likely not be large enough to justify the work for one person. A related suggestion was to make it an open-source project.
• Audio for Toys: Embedded audio systems used in educational toys are even more constrained than mobile phones. What can IASIG do to assist developers in progressing their platform? As with phones, toy developers would welcome cross-platform compatibility.
• What Happened to Web Audio? Flash appears to be winning the Web, and is poised to make an impact in mobile, but still doesn't offer much in terms of audio. But many things have changed since the IASIG last addressed Web audio, and now Flash is owned by Adobe (which has some experience in audio) so maybe it's time for the IASIG to evangelize Web audio once more.
• How to Launch a Working Group: With so many topics coming up, Linda Law outlined the process for launching an IASIG working group: Submit a proposal to the Steering Committee, describing what you want to do and a timeline for doing it. If approved, the group will get an e-mail reflector to develop the project. (Details here.)

Thanks to everyone who took time to attend the IASIG meeting at GDC, and especially to our new members who completed the membership application and joined on the spot.

IASIG members and visitors took the floor to identify problems in interactive audio and start brainstorming possible solutions via IASIG Working Groups. (Photos courtesy of David Battino.)

Schedule of Recommended Sessions at 2007 GDC

If you missed attending the 2007 GDC, or just want a reminder, click here for a list of scheduled sessions addressing Interactive Audio topics.