Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
LEVEL 8
Meet the Middleman
Understanding Audio Middleware
The Old School •
Why Do We Need Middleware? •
Audio Middleware Lets You. . . •
3D Sound in Games •
Audio Engine Needs •
Audio Middleware Structure •
The Other Side of the Fence—The API •
Current Middleware Tools •
Other Middleware of Note •
Learning Outcomes:
Recognize the role and functions of middleware •
Identify common elements in dif erent tools and programming systems •
Understand 3D sound concepts •
A typical game engine has an awful lot of things it has to do. In essence,
it has to run an entire virtual world, complete with animations, shading
and rendering, visual ef ects, and of course, a lot of audio as well. It must
coordinate the overall interactive logic of a game. It needs to know both
the location of all the rich media assets (including music, sound ef ects
and voice-over i les) as well as when (and when not) to call them. Even in
a small game, this can add up to a large amount of data that needs to be
coordinated. In a large game the scope can be most impressive, verging
into tens or hundreds of thousands of assets. In all cases, game engines
are software packages that make games possible, and it takes a talented
and dedicated group of designers to program the engine to do all this
work ei ciently.
Now, in the case of audio, all game engines are not created equal—
dif erent game platforms have dif erent audio capabilities. As we have
