vIdEO gAmE AUdIO

Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2003 4:42 pm

Greetings Earthling!
Does anyone here edit sound for video games? I would be interested in hearing about the differences and similarities between editing SFX for both video and video games. I understand that proprietory looped based software is very common for music scores. Can anyone elaborate on this? I assisted a man who wrote some techno on contract to a local video game company about a year ago. He used Acid to create the loops, then he handed those loops over to the company. Although he was not at liberty to discuss all of the software details, he said that he was able to write his loops in Acid because the game software that triggers the right loops at the right time in the game was similar in nature to Acid. Someone give me input.......PPPPPPLLLEEEAAASSSEEE!
mIchAEl

Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2003 7:19 pm

Hey man, I read your thread over in "AudioFilm" and I am a sound designer for a video game company. Though I mostly only do the actual sound effects and implemetation of them I have tinkered around in the music dept now and then. What you are talking about is a type of software that can be programmed to playback certain loops at certain key points of a game or can be generated randomly. This offers a whole lot more "bang for you buck" for the developers and the players. A lot of times a game developer will write their own software to handle audio, but there are some companies that do it for you. The only one I can come up with right now is called FMOD . I hope that this helps.

Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2003 7:46 am

It really depends on the game-engine that's being used. Some can import a combination of midi, .mod, or audio files.

I have some CD-ROM experience, both projects were using Macromedia Director.

It's a timeline-based authoring tool. Also has a scripting launguage to provide interactivity.

Several methods exist for handeling audio. You can place audio directly on the timeline. Have audio triggered as a response to a keystroke.

Here is a link to a project, it's an interactive music toy.
Music background loops, rolling over the graphic elements triggers audio.
http://www.bohem-int.com/stage/Site01/home.html

There are some crappy quictime examples there.
Cool

Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2003 11:14 am

It really depends on the platform (console, PC, etc), hardware, software, etc. But it also depends largely on the ingenuity of the people who write the games - The tools are there, the stage is set. It's just how well the programmers understand music and/or what you want to achieve in the video game sound-wise.

Most games nowadays have soundtracks that are actually audio streams (redbook, .wav, even .mp3 or sub-formats recently in quite a number of games). Generally, an area or character or event is tied to a certain track of music.

Sound effects? Heck, the sky is the limit.

All you need is good rapport with the programmers and being able to communicate your ideas about how the sound/music should function effectively. If the guy is worth his salt, he should be able to get it going pretty easily.

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