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From Interactive Audio Wiki

The IASIG Interactive Audio Wiki is dedicated to assisting the audio community to learn about audio for electronic games and other interactive media and applications.

This site contains resources for educators and students as well as information for the community of composers and sound designers. In addition to tutorials, case studies, and interviews, you'll also find many links to other websites as well as book recommendations and educational programs that may provide additional help in learning about interactive audio.

Contribute

This site is a continuous work in progress. We encourage anyone with experience in developing audio for interactive platforms to contribute to this site. Registered Users may update content in real time directly on the web.

If you would like to help edit or create content for this site, please contact the IASIG.

Contents

This site is separated into primary topics. Students, faculty, professionals and amatuers are welcome to browse through any section.

• Introduction - This section gives you an orientation to this website as well as a brief history of gaming audio, some pioneers in the field, the future of game audio, and what resources you can find here.

• Glossary -This section contains an explanation of common terms used in game audio production.

• Studio Skills - This Studio Skills section deals with the beginning of the extradordinary set of knowlege that game audio sometimes requires. Studio skills are an important stepping stone to being able to create game audio and this section provides a basic understanding of the amount of knowlege to record, mix, and edit audio.

• Music - The Music part of this web site discusses that bridge from writing linear music to music that can change dynamically based on user and game devices. Many additional factors need to be taken into account when producing music for interactive games, this section tries to sort out some of the approaches that composers use to create music for games. Also composition tools for games are overviewed.

• Sound Design - Sound Design refers to all the audio effects for a game including sfx, foley, sound design and mixing. Like the music section this section tries to bridge the gap between linear production (like movies or songs) to creating dynamic changing aural worlds based on interactive changes in the game. Various approaches to using dynamic toolsets are also described.

• Dialog - Dialog production is another key element in game audio. This section teaches a lot about asset management and production as well as hiring and producing talent. Also bridging the gap for typical recording studios from linear to interactive is a key issue.

• Implementation - The delivery of content from the musician or sound designer to the implementation team is essential in understanding how your music and audio content will be used. This section deals with communication between your teams and understanding your final product and what happens onces the audio leaves your hands.

• Platform Delivery - Whether you're dealing with a handheld platform or a console title each game machine has its own capabilities and limitations. In creating content it is important to know before you start what kind of content needs to be created. This section talks about capabilities and limitations of each of the modern platforms and strategies for how to create audio for different platforms.

• Game Audio Curriculum Project - (in progress). An on-going project to suggest curriculum guidelines for a game audio degree.

• Syllabi - The Syllabi section is mainly for educators that want to teach game audio design to their students. The syllabi themselves are a basic guide that is meant be a starting point for educators in various courses that might be offered in a game audio program.

• Adaptive Audio Case Studies - 'Adaptive Audio' is music and sound effects that change according to user input. Initially this section contains post mortem articles about recent game scores and current technology. Over time we hope this section will evolve into a public forum that follows and encourages adaptive audio by offering everyone the opportunity to learn and exchange ideas and best practices.

• Workflow Examples - Individual developers share their specific audio development setups, tips, techniques, and experiences.

• Creative Tools - A list of software tools game audio professionals use to create all the sound for a game.

• Resources - The final section has many online links and other resources for game audio, including organizations, educational institutions, books and newsgroups.

Credits

Many people participated and contributed in the production of this web site. Thanks to all that have helped out so far. Please sign the Credits page if you want to be mentioned.