tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-260602042007-02-22T22:50:25.025-08:00dkmfBlogger231tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-50961718165938839142007-02-22T22:42:00.000-08:002007-02-22T22:50:25.057-08:00

A trailer has been posted showing an in-engine pan across a scripted land far away. Music by Boris, and Sound Design by Carsten. Lovely as ever!

dkmftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-35811592278334457392007-02-08T20:27:00.000-08:002006-12-29T22:31:29.868-08:00

Work carries on behind the scenes readying the sound system for 0.a.d. In the meantime, a new cinematic trailer will be out shortly showcasing Carsten's mad sound design skills. Stay tuned, true believers!

dkmftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-1155675990064407782006-08-15T14:00:00.000-07:002006-08-16T11:18:14.296-07:00

Things are starting to come together in the programming department as the higher level workings of our audio engine are built upon the solid foundation of OpenAL. Rather than blither blather about the in's and out of how this is done...something that I am more comfortable leaving in others hands...I'll point you to an old, but still relevant: Devmaster.net OpenAL Sound and Music Programming

dkmftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-1149279514467270932006-06-02T13:10:00.000-07:002006-07-21T14:35:02.216-07:00

So I'm recovering from the ISACT limitations and trying to finalize features in our proposed audio tools. I'm gonna try to boil down everything into easily understandable bullets. Here are some things that have been identified as "must-have" features of the suggested audio tools: 1. OPENAL Parameter editing including: GAIN LOOPING PITCH MIN_GAIN MAX_GAIN PRIORITY SOURCE_RELATIVE 2. Flexible

dkmftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-1148327328966973322006-05-22T12:41:00.000-07:002006-05-22T12:48:48.966-07:00

Word from Creative regarding the file loading issue in response to this: Question: Our game loads all its data from a single packed datafile, and sometimes needs to do some processing (like decompression) after reading it. ISACT only seems to provide interfaces like LoadFile(szFileName), and automatically loads other files (like the referenced Content/Sample Banks), which isn't flexible enough

dkmftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-1146597647817864722006-05-02T11:57:00.000-07:002006-05-02T12:23:37.406-07:00

A coupla things clarified in the last weeks regarding ISACT... OS compatability: ISACT run-time libraries are available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Microsoft's XBox 360. Only PC libraries are available for download; for all other run-time libraries, please contact your Developer Relations representative. ISACT is free for licensing in PC games and other libraries with limited stipulations.

dkmftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-1145644633221625922006-04-21T10:33:00.000-07:002006-04-21T11:45:41.136-07:00

From the Beginning in Chronological Order: 0 A.D. Audio Development - An Introduction to this Delevopment Log So it Begins - Preliminary discussion Getting the Ball Rolling - String to pull together threads Sound Doc v.01 - A first peak at the soon to be sprawling spreadsheet OpenAL Primer - A quick intro to some functionality Readable OpenAL Specifications - Like it says Sound Doc v.03 - The

dkmftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-1145023147303433152005-05-16T06:58:00.000-07:002006-04-21T11:11:42.450-07:00

Hi LCL, Sorry to jump in on your blog, but I wanted to ask you a question about the example spreadsheet ... In most of the games I've played I would have expected the duration of the FX files for footsteps to be quite small (e.g. single footsteps) that were repeated so the sound could start and stop according to the on-screen action and input of the player. The only time I've encountered the

dkmftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-1145022927806779452005-04-05T06:49:00.000-07:002006-04-21T10:39:18.646-07:00

Today, a quick OpenAl Primer. From the OAL Fundamentals: Quote: The AL has three fundamental primitives or objects -- Buffers, Sources, and a single Listener. Each object can be changed independently, the setting of one object does not affect the setting of others. The application can also set modes that affect processing. Modes are set, objects specified, and other AL operations performed by

dkmftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-1144961737239860732005-03-10T13:55:00.000-08:002006-04-21T10:22:52.093-07:00

I signed on as Sound Designer for this Historical RTS currently in production at WildFireGames called 0 A.D. ("zero ay-dee") in March of 2005. This freeware project is made up of a dedicated staff of volunteer individuals who have been working on the project for sometime, and involves every aspect of game development. The scope of the project is massive in comparison to the smaller titles I

dkmftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-1145559195660236012006-04-07T11:47:00.000-07:002006-04-20T12:25:32.840-07:00

Carsten Rojahn (aka carsten) and I (aka LostChocolateLab), recently arrived back safe and soundly from the Game Developers Conferance in San Jose, California. We had a great time, and are quite excited to put all of what we learned into practice. Carsten also won a prize for Sound Design in the G.A.N.G. Student/Apprentice Competition! Click here and here to read more, and then download this to

dkmftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-1145559963790185432006-04-20T11:53:00.000-07:002006-04-20T12:17:50.296-07:00

ISACT One of the spoils of GDC this year was a chance to see 4 sets of tools used in the implementation of interactive audio. For the record they were: FMOD (FMOD) XACT (XBOX) wWise (Proprietary) ISACT (OpenAL) All of them were up to the task of bringing game audio accessibility to the next level. While they all shared a base level of parameter adjustments and interactive tweaks, they also

dkmftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-1145543485837578292006-01-07T07:08:00.000-08:002006-04-20T09:30:25.736-07:00

During one of the recent programmer meetings, the idea's for how to handle the playing of ambient sounds was discussed and what follows is a bit of my response to the thinking that went on during that meeting. While I've been digesting this fantastic programming discussion regarding audio...I realized that it is much like hearing someone speak a foreign language: very beautiful sounding, but at

dkmftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-1145538393594366612005-07-20T05:55:00.000-07:002006-04-20T06:41:29.023-07:00

Today we're looking at a few different tools that might be of help to us here on the audio team, with regards to the management of audio parameters in relation to 5 different areas where sound properties need to be adjusted. I'm gonna shoot from the hip with what I've been able to discern through conversations with educated team members, design document information and discussions. By no means

dkmftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-1145469670059165082005-09-13T10:21:00.000-07:002006-04-19T11:58:23.353-07:00

Interface SFX The sound of tactile feedback, an interactive response that adds an audio cue to an executed command, sometimes directly related to the action, other times at odds. The sound of the user interface alive and kicking out the jams, making it's presence known. It is at once, the most immediate and also the most subliminal aspect of intense gaming, subtle at times and grating at others.

dkmftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-1145471531154703292006-01-01T11:31:00.000-08:002006-04-19T11:51:45.090-07:00

I've been thinking about what the top level bullet points are regarding what we would like to accomplish in the audio department with regards to the implementation, and thought it would be a good idea to summarize for posterity the goals of the audio team, from a "back of the box" standpoint. With out further adeu: * Original Cinematic Orchestral Music Score * 3D Positional Audio (

dkmftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-1145022561170799522005-03-30T06:48:00.000-08:002006-04-19T08:07:11.120-07:00

Well, time marches on! Progress on the Design spec for the sound effects on this project are humming along well. Have a peep at the updated one here. Still to be determined are some of the expected uses and parameters for various in-game effects. Setting a naming standard that is good for everyone involved, not too long, somewhat descriptive, easy to grok...still weighing in on what's best.

dkmftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-1145022451091551082005-03-11T06:46:00.000-08:002006-04-19T07:38:29.990-07:00

This is a roundup of some of the preliminary thinking that I had been doing with regards to pulling the audio side of this project together. The initial challenge was laying the foundation for managing the audio assets, and charting a straight path to audio implementation for the programming department. (I say challenge with a smile, as I head deep into the recesses of my organizational mind...

dkmftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-1145022497410785332005-03-15T06:47:00.000-08:002006-04-19T07:27:02.566-07:00

Good ideas from the team that came out of this discussion include: Naming Convention: Agreed. There are no spaces in the path and everything is in fixed format lowercase and easy to interpret programmatically. Pitchshifting: Sounds like a good way to increase the # of unique sounds. I will have to mark sounds that will be pitch shifted and specify a range with which they can be shifted within.

dkmftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-1145025540604473112005-08-07T07:18:00.000-07:002006-04-14T09:41:19.943-07:00

Recently we've been tackling the management of audio file properties and how to adjust specifics so sounds play the WAY they shoul, WHEN they should. This isn't too big a deal when you're dealing with simple call and response triggered events with around 30-60 files, but can swiftly get out of control when you're dealing with scripted actions and multiple animations triggering multiple sound

dkmftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-1145023005139612902005-05-16T06:55:00.000-07:002006-04-14T07:17:45.830-07:00

OpenAL Basics: The OpenAL has three fundamental primitives or objects: Buffers, Sources, and a single Listener. Each object can be changed independently, the setting of one object does not affect the setting of others. Listener AND Source Attributes: POSITION specifes the current location of the Object in the world coordinate system. VELOCITY specifies the current velocity (speed and direction

dkmftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-1145023057019707882005-05-16T06:57:00.000-07:002006-04-14T07:14:55.816-07:00

Altogether the pre-dev on this is starting to wrap a bit. Here's an excerpted example of the spreadsheet currently used to communicate audio file detail and implementation specifics: 0ADSOUNDPRELIMEXAMPLE3.xls Decisions have been made as to how to handle file randomization, priorities, intensities, and various concepts are being tossed around regarding how to hande the scaling of entites/

dkmftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26060204.post-1145023431625096732005-06-03T07:00:00.000-07:002006-04-14T07:07:40.696-07:00

Sound Sphere Concepts Intensity thus far defined as: If number of sources on screen is less than 4 then play intensity 1 (mono) If number of sources on screen is 4-9 then play intensity 2 (stereo) If number of sources on screen is 10-20 then play intensity 3 (stereo) If number of sources on screen is 21-40 then play intensity 4 (stereo) and so on... *Edited: replaced severity with intensity

dkmf