Behaviour, Structure and Causality in Procedural Audio - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 339

physically informed parts or (small scale) physi-
cal models. The parts of a physically informed
model don't necessary have to be physical models
but could be parametric. It is the overall system
model that embodies the physical relationships.
Physics Engine: Part of a computer game re-
sponsible for modelling the large scale behaviour
of solids, fluids and gases according to heuristic
Newtonian physics. For example the bouncing,
rolling, and deformation of meshes according to
mass, gravity, kinetic energy, and buoyancy. This
code is usefully seen as distinct from modules re-
sponsible for the appearance and sound of objects.
Reactive Audio: Live synthesised sound that
requires user input. Most sounding objects are
reactive.
Replication: In computer games, replication
is the problem of keeping networked clients in a
multi-player game in synchrony so that each player
on their gaming system feels they are experienc-
ing the same instant in time and causality as other
players (even though the clients are separated by
significant and unpredictable packet latency). This
is a hard problem (and in some senses, because
of the speed of light, unresolvable).
S+S: (Sampling Plus Synthesis).: A synthesis
method using a combination of stored wavetables,
mixing, and post-processing (mainly consisting of

time-variant filters and basic amplitude modula-
tion). Popular in 1990s music synthesisers.
Sound Object (Also Sounding Object):
Object oriented computer code implementing a
virtual sound source with methods which activate
parameters to DSP code. Musically, the analogy
is a musical instrument.
Statefulness: Having, and being in, one of
two or more discrete and exclusive states; such
as existing or not existing.
Tensor: A way of representing a complex
vector of forces (relationships between vectors).
Waveguide: A physical model where time de-
lays and filters are used to simulate the motion and
edge reflection of a wave in a bounded medium.

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A note on terminology relevant to imple-
mentation: In computer science, we have
the notion of a procedural language . A
procedural sound will exist as happily on a
computer running a functional language, a
quantum computer if such a thing existed,
or a Turing machine made of tin cans and
string. The word “procedural” does not apply
to the implementation, rather to the treatment
of sound as process.