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[ Working Group Publications | Articles and Features | Old Homepage News ]
Source: 3dsoundsurge.com
08/29/02 - Music4Games has posted an interview with Keith Arem of PCB Productions. He has over 100 game titles to his music and sound design credits including titles such as Spiderman 2 and Tony Hawk. Here's a snip from the interview:
Q: Are you working with any new technologies?
A: We've been doing quite a bit of mixing recently in Dolby Digital and ProLogic 2. Being able to mix in a 5.1 audio environment is extremely liberating, since every speaker has it's own independent soundtrack. Positional sound is a great technology to add to the experience of films and gameplay, and it really enhances the viewer's experience of the title. It'll take a little while before everyone has 5.1 systems in the home, but it's definitely going to be a great future for audio enthusiasts.
Source: sonify.org
08/29/02 - claims support for surround sound audio at 44kbps, batch file conversion, audio gain control, audio re-sampling of 24 bit 96khz audio input.
Source: 3dsoundsurge.com
08/24/02 - Fraglands has posted an interview with the folks from Brat Designs about their upcoming title, Breed. It will include the following:
. Different sound effects assigned to different textures.
. Unique and interesting weapon effects, distorted in real time.
. Ambient sound effects controlled by emitters.
. Sounds tied into the AI, allowing enemies to communicate and respond to
noise.
. Realistic reverb and echo, depending on the environment.
. Multi-layered 3D positional audio, using multiple effects to produce a
single sound.
. Spot effects and speech expressed via full 3D positional audio.
Source: 3dsoundsurge.com
08/13/02 - GameSpy has posted a Q&A with audio director Paul Mudra about his work on Earth & Beyond. They discuss the extensive use of NPC audio dialogue and music in Earth and Beyond. Here's a snip:
GameSpy: How much time have you guys spent on all of the audio for Earth and Beyond? How much is complete, and what are you working on at this point?
Paul Mudra: We hired a full time audio person for the project (probably about eight months ago) and he pretty much facilitated all the audio needs at that time. Then, about four months ago, we started to add other people to help with the audio tasks that needed to be accomplished. Basically, we now have everyone here at the audio department working on Earth and Beyond including our music composer, two dedicated sound designers, an audio lead, and some contract service people. I contracted out a music creator to compose some themes for us and I have a dialogue editing facility that I use. I'm actually doing some sound design now.
Silva: Even though we have a pretty tight deadline, we find that they are still adding a lot of design elements and art elements to the game that require audio. So, as usual, the audio guys are in it until the very end. We are trying to facilitate all of the needs that are coming through right now.
Source: 3dsoundsurge.com
08/05/02 - Music 4 Games has conducted an interview with composer Bill Brown discussing among other things his work on the Tom Clancy's games The Sum of All Fears, Ghost Recon - Desert Siege and Rainbow Six. In related news Bill Brown's website mentions new music tracks from Return to Castle Wolfenstein and the upcoming X-box version of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, video clip from Ghost Recon for X-box. Bill Browns website also mentions a feature on GANG by Bill Brown regarding the use of live orchestral soundtracks and chorus in games
Source: 3dsoundsurge.com
08/02/02 - DTS is now offering its interactive software developers kit (SDK) to game developers directly through Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.'s (SCEI) Web site for PlayStation 2 game developers. DTS launched the DTS Interactive SDK last year to allow developers to create games featuring real-time interactive surround sound during game-play.
Simplifying integration for developers who use SCE's MultiStream, the DTS SDK is now also compatible with this free audio development tool for games. There are currently four DTS-encoded PlayStation 2 titles available: SSX Tricky, NHL 2002, Sled Storm and Pirates: Legend of Black Kat (all from Electronic Arts.) You can find more details in the press release.
Source: sonify.org
07/24/02 - Macromedia claims support for javascript/player interaction in Netscape 6.2+ through XPConnect with Flash player version 6 r40. This release adds support for reading MP3 ID3 tags in downloaded sounds and fixes some issues related to controlling streamed sounds with ActionScript. Flash 6 r40 to support Javscript XPConnect
Source: sonify.org
07/18/02 - In addition to supporting the older Netscape LiveConnect format, Apple is supporting javascript interaction with the QuickTime 6 ActiveX control for Windows Internet Explorer and XPCOM plug-in for Netscape 6 browsers.
Source: 3dsoundsurge.com
07/16/02 - Microsoft has announced the newest member of the Windows® XP family: Windows XP Media Center Edition. Formerly known by the code name "Freestyle," Microsoft® Windows XP Media Center Edition turns a PC into a media center that integrates digital entertainment experiences -- including live television, personal video recording (PVR), digital music, digital video, DVDs and pictures -- with the freedom of remote control access.
Currently in beta testing, Microsoft will ship Windows XP Media Center Edition to OEMs in time for the holiday shopping season in the United States, Canada and Korea. It is expected to be available in Japan in the first half of 2003. No mention of Europe in this press release. You can as usual find more details in the full press release.
Source: sonify.org
Source: sonify.org
07/09/02 - In this all-day, hands-on workshop Thomas Dolby covers many of the composition and programming techniques needed to get the best sounds out of this year’s funky new phones. Workshops on August 16 Helsinki, Finland and August 20 or 21st London, England.
Source: 3dsoundsurge.com
07/06/02 - Ambitious outsourcing games specialist Babel has announced the launching of a London sound studio aimed specifically at the games industry. Based in the heart of Clerkenwell, the studio caters purely for games companies and will not serve other sectors such as advertising and broadcast. Consequently, games producers can keep their costs down while using specialist gaming whose credits include PlayStation Formula One, Unreal Tournament, Jimmy Neutron and many more. You can find more details in the press release.
Source: sonify.org
07/02/02 - Apple announced that it will acquire the Hamburg, Germany-based music software company and make it a wholly owned division. Macintosh-based products account for more than 65 percent of Emagic's revenue. The company plans to discontinue its Windows-based products on 30 September.
Source: 3dsoundsurge.com
07/01/02 - YiYas has posted an interview with composer Jesper Kyd. You may have heard his work if you played MDK 2, The Nations, Hitman 1 & 2 and Messiah to name some.
Source: sonify.org
06/17/02 - Check out the new sonify.org Koan player tutorial section. The Koan player, now part of the TAO suite of technologies, offers superior quality audio and interactivity at very low bandwidth.
Source: 3dsoundsurge.com
06/11/02 - Music for Games has posted an interview with the creators of N.S.O. - the world's first orchestra dedicated to computer & videogame soundtracks!
Source: 3dsoundsurge.com
05/29/02 - GameSpy has posted the third part of their interview with staff from id Software. Again there is a section on audio, this time with Graeme Devine who wrote the sound engine for DOOM III. Here's a snip from an entire page on sound:
GameSpy: What is your role in the development of DOOM III?
Graeme Devine: I wrote the sound engine, and I wrote the particle engine. We're trying to take the sound from where we were in Quake 3, (Return to Castle) Wolfenstein and so forth, up to the next level. We're doing full room acoustics on the fly, so as the room gets smaller around you, you can hear the echo of your gun, with reverb. We're also working in 6-channel sound, real-time 5.1 mixing.
GameSpy: Are there any challenges with working on a 5.1 channel game?
Graeme Devine: Well, the hardware's only just come out to support multi-channel out of the card, so … the challenge is the hardware, as always. You find little things that you need to get fixed in the actual hardware itself.
GameSpy: What was the reason you wanted to go ahead and support the new technology?
Graeme Devine: DOOM is all about getting immersed in the world and really putting you there. We really wanted to really provide both a graphical front end -- the graphics are just outstanding - and a sound front end which would really put everything together. You can have a great game with great graphics and OK sound… you can have a great game with great sound and OK graphics … why not do both? We have enough manpower and programming time to be able to do both well.
As before this raises around the differences between what they are doing with the Doom III engine and the range of other 3D audio games that already support the 6 channel sound cards on the market. It also reads like he is working with a specific piece of hardware. Rather than speculate further, we will try to get some specific answers around the Doom III audio.
Source: 3dsoundsurge.com
05/19/02 - An article on the official Asheron Call 2 site titled An Interactive Symphony: Music in AC2 the developer “spill the beans” on the music system in the upcoming Asheron Call 2. Here's a bit from the intro
To understand what I'm trying to achieve with the system it's important to definite a common set of terms, review the problems, and discuss potential solutions to those problems.
Source: 3dsoundsurge.com
Music For Games reports that Microsoft will distribute and market the audio soundtrack from Halo.
Source: 3dsoundsurge.com
As we mentioned previously Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast takes advantage of Creative Labs EAX Advanced HD. Lucas Arts has now posted a page with some details of what EAX Advanced HD technologies they now take advantage of with the latest patch. Gamers using other soundcards (e.g. Live and soundcards using QSound or Sensaura) will still get 3D sound but not any of the reverb effects. Jedi Knight II and EAX ADVANCED HD
Source: 3dsoundsurge.com
The latest chapter in the critically acclaimed Myst saga, Myst III: Exile, has been awarded the Soundtrack of the Year by Game Industry News. "It's a great soundtrack and Jack Wall should be very proud of his work," said John Breeden, Chief Editor of Game Industry News. "The goal of a soundtrack is to set the mood of the game and Myst III: Exile excels at this.". For quotes from a number of reviews and for further information on Jack Wall you can check out the full press release.
Source: sonify.org
05/01/02 This article by Hayden Porter demonstrates the process of converting a MIDI loop mix into a Flash-based loop mix. Flash loop mixes are bandwidth-friendly (40 to 100 KB downloads) long-form compositions (typically 30 seconds to 2 minutes in length) which offer more musical interest than simple loops and don't suffer from streaming audio dropouts.
Source: 3dsoundsurge.com
04/30/02 - Analog Devices has announced that its advanced audio rendering technology, SoundMAX(R) SPX, has been incorporated into Fox Interactive's new PC game Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza, developed by Piranha Games of Vancouver, Canada. SoundMAX SPX is a cross-platform audio rendering solution that provides highly realistic interactive audio for game titles. Based on both physical and event modeling technologies, SoundMAX SPX alleviates the repetitive nature of sound-effects processing by using advanced audio rendering and manipulation techniques. This results in more organic sound effects that reflect user input in real time. Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza shipped to stores last week. You can find more details in the press release.
Source: 3dsoundsurge.com
04/30/02 - In an interview on TeamXbox Randy Greenback from iRock reveals that their upcoming Xbox port of their fantasy combat game, Savage Skies will support Dolby Digital 5.1, that is feature 3D sound. Here's what he said:
Will Savage Skies support advanced features such as 5.1 surround or HDTV capabilities.
Randy G: Yep, we will be offering support for Dolby Digital Surround Sound as well as some options for those lucky rich bastards who own an HDTV.
At the end of the interview you will find 2 samples from the soundtrack in the MP3 format.
News Source: Blue's News
Source: sonify.org
04/24/02 - Beatnik published a new FAQ updating the current status of the Beatnik player and its future open source release..
04/22/02 - I would like to announce the addition of a new member to the IASIG steering committee.
Jan has been an influential member of the WAWG for the past year and will also be webmastering the IASIG site from now on, this is his handy work you are viewing at the moment. It is an understatment to say that we all appreciate his hard work very much and are extremely lucky to have him on board.
-Steve
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Source: 3dsoundsurge.com
04/22/02 - Dolby Laboratories' Dolby® Surround Pro Logic® II technology is now available for all Nintendo GameCube(TM) developers through Factor 5's MusyX development tool, which is offered exclusively by Nintendo.
As we previously mentioned Factor 5 used Dolby Pro Logic II in its Star Wars Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron 2. What's new now is that other GameCube developers will be able to easily take advantage of Dolby Pro Logic II. You can find more details in the press release. As you may recall Dolby has previously announced Pro Logic II For PlayStation 2 developers.
Source: sonify.org
04/01/02 - Meditation Music allows you to play the Indian Flute and Sitar along to the Tabla beat to produce a blissful calming music by simply 'rolling over' the instruments. Fun for non-musicians and musicians alike. For Mac OS X. An online Flash version of this app can be found on musicufo.
Source: sonify.org
03/28/02 - The Tao's "intent" is a graphics and Java engine for phones, PDAs and set-top boxes, and forms the core of the Open Contents Platform Association (OCPA), which now includes sixty of the world's leading consumer electronics manufacturers, content developers and software vendors. The acquisition of SSEYO (the makers of text based Koan vector audio) adds the audio component, which will become increasingly critical in the mobile space over the next 18 months in client devices as the interactive services mature from carriers.
Source: 3dsoundsurge.com
03/05/02 - The second entry in the upcoming EAX Advanced HD supporting Soldier of Fortune II Sound Designer Diary on IGNPC has been posted. It's of course written by Sound designer Zack Quarles. Here's an interesting snip:
Here are a few facts and features regarding sound/music in SOF2:
We are incorporating the dynamic music system that made its first appearance in SOF1. There have been some modifications to this system to allow for MP3 support and give the ability of crossfading, but essentially it does the same job - it goes from a slow/exploration version to a high-action/crazy version when the enemy sees you.
EAX 3.0 (Environmental Audio) will be incorporated. This means that SOF2 will take full advantage of Creative's new Audigy card. But worry not! It will still be completely compatible with a wide variety of the sound cards you know and love.
The game was designed with spoken English and English subtitles in mind, but is being localized into English, American, French, German, Korean, Taiwanese, Spanish and Italian. Japanese may also be added before all is said and done.
You will hear monkeys in the Colombian Jungle levels.
Source: 3dsoundsurge.com
03/05/02 - Sensaura has announced the launch of GameCODA, a cross platform audio middleware solution. It will be available for all of the major console platforms including Xbox(tm), PlayStation®2 and Nintendo GameCube(tm), as well as the PC
GameCODA is a scalable and modular product that enables the incorporation of audio effects, such as, 3D sound, environmental reverb, streaming, pitch shifting and scalable voice channels. GameCODA will be launched at the Game Developers Conference, San Jose (USA) next week (21st March). You can find more details in the press release
Source: sonify.org
02/27/02 -
The new version 1.3 of Pulse Sonifier adds an easier publish mode called 'Single
Script Source' publishing which lets you paste a small piece of sonification
code into your Web site using your favorite HTML editor (Dreamweaver, Front
Page, Home Site, etc.). Once you add the code to your page, you can make
repeated changes and updates to your sonification without ever touching code
again! This eliminates the need to post HTML every time you make a change
to your site sonification.
Source: sonify.org
02/08/02 - In collaboration with a group of blind Dutch kids, Eargames has made this Flash Remixer, which is totally accesible from the keyboard. Fast connections can remix in hi fi stereo, slower connections in low fi mono.
01/15/02 - Alex Brandon says "XMF is the largest step forward in audio file formats
in years".
Check out what this format can do at www.midi.org/xmf...
The purpose of this workgroup is to design an interactive audio system that puts creative control in the hands of the author, ensures implementation of the author’s intent, works on virtually any platform and is available to everyone. Interestingly, the file format to facilitate this legendary goal already exists! It’s called XMF and it’s brand new on the scene, fully worked out.
This group will design an interactive (or “adaptive”) audio system that utilizes the open XMF standard. The goal is to define the specification of features and functionality at a relatively high level but with enough detail to submit to the MMA (MIDI Manufacturers Association) and for a developer to actually build it. With XMF being an open, published standard, anyone can create XMF authoring tools or players for in-house or commercial use.
XMF is essentially a sophisticated file format that can contain various types of data and metadata, organized like a container of files, folders and special information. It’s that special information part that points the way toward this format’s suitability as a vehicle for audio and MIDI assets along with instructions as to their implementation.
01/01/02 - Let's all welcome Clint Bajakian to the Steering Committee of the IASIG. His energy and experience will be a great asset, and we are lucky to have him on board.
His bio follows:
source: 3dsoundsurge.com
01/08/02 - QSound Labs has announced that it will be performing technology demonstrations of its patented 3D audio algorithms in the Intel both during CES.
One important new technology QSound will be demonstrating at CES is QImmersion. This is how QSound describes this new technology:
By combining localized 3D effects heard through headphones with an enhanced sound field through regular stereo speakers, QImmersion presents a layered audio effect that puts the player into the heart of the action.
No mention of when/if any of the current companies using QSound technology (Philips being the most well know with their Edge series of soundcards) will licensee QImmersion.
source: sonify.org
12/11/01 - The Danger hiptop is a mobile device that seamlessly connects to wireless networks as a phone, to browse the Internet, exchange instant messages, entertainment apps and send and receive email with attachments. Using Beatnik Audio, Danger will be able to create and deliver rich musical ring tone services and peer to peer multimedia messaging.
11/29/01 - Check this out... now. You'll thank Jeff for it.
Jeff Essex, Creative Director of audiosyncrasy, creates music, sound effects and voiceover for multimedia. He is credited on over 50 CD-ROM titles,including products from Disney Interactive, Virgin Sound and Vision, Mindscape and 3DO. For the past five years he has worked primarily in online entertainment and audio interface design with clients including Disney Online, Nick Online, shockwave.com, Beatnik, Sun Microsystems, digeo, Apple Computer, Red Sky Interactive, and @Home. His book, "Multimedia Sound and Music Studio", (Random House/Apple New Media) won the prestigious Computer Press Award for Best Advanced How-To Book of 1996.
"The goal of this piece was to create audio landscapes that evoke the setting of a Napa Valley winery. The challenge was achieving this in a relatively small file size without becoming repetitive or predictable. I built a library of samples that were saved as RMF files. Using Beatnik Xtra and Director, the programmer and I designed several complex algorithms to drive the playback of the samples. We were able to control the randomization of pitch, volume, pan and duration for each sound to maintain the illusion of an ambient field recording. Best of all, we were able to let users customize the settings to create their own experience. Our work paid off better than we expected. Moodmaker won several awards including the Communication Arts Award for 2001."
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