New Wine in New Skins - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 389

only way to deal with the tremendous amount of
content required for non-linear, open-world games
like The Sims or Spore . On asked about whether
the decision to follow a data-driven approach to
the audio of these titles was driven by aesthetical
or practical considerations, Kauker answers:

driven approach). According to Farnell, the sys-
tems described here represent a (highly evolved)
“data model” rather than a truly procedural one.
A truly procedural system, according to Farnell,
could do a resynthesis of recorded sound, which
would provide a full real time control over all its
parameters (Farnell, 2007; 2011).
Physical modelling of sound is a technology
that can be understood as a specific type of proce-
dural audio. A significant number of the systems
mentioned come close to an accurate imitation of
physical acoustics, but true physical modelling
systems are still in an early stage of development.
Audiokinetic's SoundSeed 10 is an example of a
software-based technology that creates sound
variations parametrically from a single source.
It uses a physical modelling-inspired method to
process the sound according to various models,
such as impact or air. This very limited example
demonstrates there is a motivation within the
market to push the envelope in this direction.

It's practical because there's really no other way to
make it interesting. We could play a big loop, and
the ambience would go [hums] all the time. That's
lovely and it works for some types of games, but
for our games that are user-developed, we have
to vary the world constantly. With Spore and The
Sims, you don't know what the world looks like
beforehand. You don't know what's going to be in
the world beforehand. The only thing you know is
that there is a world! That makes it different by
the very nature. (Fleming, 2009)

Referring to general sound effect design, Kent
Jolly states:

Aesthetics of “Independent” Games The footstep system is also complicated because

you never knew what kind of foot [the player] will
put on or how many feet a creature will have. The
front two can be humanoid and the back can be
hooves, and the hooves can be huge and the front
feet tiny. (Jackson, 2009)

Now let us have a look at what is often understood
as the hotbed of creativity, the independent (or
“indie”) game developer community. Fuelled by
accessible and widespread digital distribution
systems and by engines like Unity 11 that simplify
development and distribution, this movement
has gained significant momentum since the mid-
nineties, with indie games having an increasing
impact upon on the mass-market industry.
If we look at “typical” indie game titles, 12 we
see a perspective on technology that is quite dif-
ferent from the one described above. High-end
technology is usually not an option for small low-
budget productions. It seems that this limitation
supports an aesthetic that seems oriented more
towards animated movies, abstract representa-
tions, making references to the arcade age and
the first console generations. This can be seen not
only as an involuntary tendency caused by said
limitations but also as an ideology: Independent

All of the character sounds are thus combina-
tions of various sound components depending
upon character configuration. The designers cre-
ated a dynamic system of samples that could be
adapted in real time by filtering and other process-
ing techniques to create the endless combinatorics
that the gameplay affords, for example to make
feet sound bigger or smaller, without having to
change the basic sample.
At this point the attentive reader may note that
I have mentioned the word “sample” several times,
and might wonder whether what I am describing
really is “procedural audio”. In fact, this depends
upon the point of view that can vary slightly from
author to author (a consequence of said discourse-