New Wine in New Skins - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 388

Interactive, Procedural Audio
and Physical Modelling

and active, script-driven mixing techniques and a
more game-specific use of snapshots. Bridgett also
stresses that game sound requires specific artistic
techniques. Again, these are mostly inspired by
film sound (Bridgett, 2009a). He also discusses the
application of these technologies and methods in
titles like Scarface: The World Is Yours , Heavenly
Sword (Sony, 2007), Fable II (Microsoft, 2008),
LittleBigPlanet and Prototype (Activision, 2009).
Scott Morgan provides an example of how
advanced mixing engines can be used to create
more dynamic interactive soundscapes basing
on the smart selection and mixing of 18 parallel
channels of audio and the application of runtime
reverb and filtering to change the overall feeling
of the atmosphere when needed (Morgan, 2009).
The potential of interactive mixing also raises
the question as to whether this technology could
be used to manage more advanced narrative func-
tions, which are often inspired by film conventions,
to control sound in games. A report put together
by the group dealing with interactive mixing at
the Project Bar-B-Q Interactive Music Confer-
ence raises the following question: How can we
introduce a high-level mixing aesthetic to games
which would allow for the control of sounds dy-
namically to create narrative mixes that compare
with the best musical and cinematic examples
(Grigg et al., 2006). Drescher, one of the group
members, provokingly proposes a fictional tool
called “THE Homunculonic AEStheticator”, an
“interactive audio mixing engine with real-time
Haptic Applicators, capable of producing multiple
adaptive soundtracks encoded with True Human
Emotions™, using T.H.E. algorithm.” Describing
the fictional product, Drescher points out a few
issues that should in fact be addressed by the game
sound community: dramatic tension, intelligibility,
focus, scale, romance, comedy, dynamic volume
control, and automatic mastering for various
output media. He also notes that, in principal, all
the required technologies would be available to
address these issues (Drescher, 2006b).

Another “hot topic” in the game sound community
concerns procedural audio (see Farnell (2011)
and Mullan (2011) for an extended discussion).
This technology partially overlaps with interac-
tive mixing and DSP, but is less concerned with
traditional studio metaphors like channels, faders,
and effects. Procedural audio describes a broad
array of systems that are able to produce a range of
sound outputs for a range of inputs. This includes
synthetic, generative, algorithmic, and AI driven
systems, among others. According to Andy Farnell,
“it is better to describe procedural audio by what
it is not. It is not pre-sequenced, pre-recorded
sound and music” (Farnell, 2007, p. 12). There
are not many examples of games that follow this
approach thoroughly, but some titles, such as
LittleBigPlanet or some games by Will Wright,
in particular Sim City (3000 and later versions,
Maxis 1999 - 2007), the Sims series (Electronic
Arts, 2000 -) and Spore (Electronic Arts, 2008)
closely adopt this principle. The design of such
games was strongly driven by generative design
principles and the contribution of programmers
from the Demo scene, a computer art subculture
that specializes in producing generative, non-in-
teractive audio-visual presentations. For example,
while there is a significant amount of audio mate-
rial in Spore (over two gigabytes of compressed
audio, according to Kent Jolly in (Jackson, 2009)),
the music (which was produced in collaboration
with Brian Eno) is mostly composed of short
phrases and samples, which are synchronised in
different ways by the audio engine. The criteria
for the composition and the mixing are partially
event driven and mostly generative. The result is
reminiscent of minimal music by Philip Glass or
Steve Reich (albeit nowhere near the quality of
said composers 9 ), providing an adequate back-
drop for an open-ended game, the pace of which
fundamentally depends upon how it is played.
Robi Kauker states that procedural audio is the