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What may not be well known in the
mainstream pro-audio community is that there
are a couple of dominant third-party middleware
tools that you can download and use for free on
a non-commercial basis, simply as an educational
experience and thus another stamp in the game
audio passport. The current frontrunners are
Audiokinetic’s Wwise, and Firelight Technologies’
FMOD – see the ‘Start Playing’ box for more
specific details.
In essence, audio middleware is an interface
to game events – a way of managing sounds and
the way sounds react to game event variables
in a friendly manner that isolates the content
from the realities of code. The bit that connects a
middleware project to the game is the Application
Programming Interface (API) – a set of objects that
give the game programmer convenient ways to
talk to the middleware, and hence take advantage
of the sound designer’s hard work.
Mellroth estimates that about 50 percent of
games developers use third-party middleware for
their audio design, while the others use in-house
tools. The choice depends on resources, the project
in hand, and somtimes the devlopers' attitude
to the generic nature of third-party solutions.
Middleware developers have staff dedicated fulltime
to progressing and supporting these tools
– a development Studio doesn't have that luxury.
Also, you can concentrate on the content rather
than the code, and integration of a middleware
solution is much quicker.
Reasons to go down the in-house route can be
as logical as the need for a proprietary solution for
a very specific game engine, which in turn brings
long-term gains for a greater initial investment.
Mellroth acknowledges that it can be difficult to
acquire the middleware skill-set unless someone
has worked “in the front lines of a developer”, but
also that it is possible. “The people who pick up
game implementation and middleware really
quickly, tend to be people who are well versed in
Ableton,” he says. “…Ableton has a lot of concepts
that map well to doing interactive audio for games.”
Similarly, if you got experience with something
like Flash creation the event-based nature of
middleware will be relatively simple to pick up.
DEVELOP CONFERENCE – BE THERE
Between July 14 and July 16 this year, Develop Conference
and Expo (Brighton) will be opening its doors in July to
all interested games development. Audio Media will be
the media sponsor for the Audio Track (16th July) for the
second year running. To attend, you can either go to www.
develop-conference.com and book your tickets, or you
could give our competition a go. Just answer the incredibly
difficult question below and email your answer, along
with your contact details, to developcomp@audiomedia.
com (preferably with the subject ‘megapass’)...
Which game won Best Use Of Audio at this year’s BAFTA
Game Awards?
A: Manic Miner; B: Pong; C: Dead Space
Entries must be in before June 1, 2009; no NewBay
Media or Tandem Events employees (or their immediate
families) are eligible.
An Opened Door
The good news for anybody not on staff at a
development studio is that the same skills and
experience that are valued in linear media are
becoming appreciated in non-linear. “We need
the higher skill-sets of guys who are peer sound
designers,” says Mellroth. “I’m a game sound
designer, that’s where I started, and where I’m at
my best. But I’m not even close to the guys that
we’re working with out of LA, who have been doing
sound design for 20 years, day in day out, on big
Hollywood pictures... I felt pretty confident in my
own abilities until we started getting sounds from
these guys.”
There is undoubtedly a large helping of modesty
in these last words, but the clear message is that
the doors are open for collaboration in game audio
at all sorts of levels. Don’t ever think that film is
somehow superior to game – that is absolutely
not the case. The word is ‘different’ – and each has
much to teach the other. The fact that the dialogue
between the two is finally in full swing is great – all
we have do now is make sure we’re speaking the
same language. �
THE ANATOMY OF AN EVENT
An event is something than happens, and the concepts
in event-based architecture are based on that definition.
Take an example from Mellroth – the body fall.
Along with the basic event come variables such as the
character type, material, and fall intensity (weight of
body, height, and so on). That event can be catered
for by layered audio elements whose relative mix, and
processing, can be mapped to the event’s variables.
In the production flow model proposed by Mellroth,
by the time the sound designer gets to work, the event,
the layers, the variables, and so on will already be in
place. Familiarity with the middleware is still desirable,
but more intimate involvement in the game engine is a
distraction that has already been taken care of.
The fall event might additionally be sent to other game
elements – to other characters for reaction, character
graphics, environment graphics, game stats, and more).
Once you get a grip on this, it’s easy to see a game as a
big bundle of individual elements, united by a common
interest in events and what to do about them.
AUDIOMEDIA MAY 2009 49