From Pac-Man to Pop Music: Interactive Audio in Games and New Media

224 Pages·2008·2.728 MB·English

by  Karen Collins, Karen Collins

From Pac-Man to Pop Music
Interactive Audio in Games and New Media
Edited by
Karen Collins
From Pac-man to PoP music
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From Pac-man to Pop music
interactive audio in Games and new media
Edited by
Karen collins
University of Waterloo, Canada
© Karen collins 2008
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Karen collins has asserted her moral right under the copyright, Designs and Patents act,
1988, to be identified as the editor of this work.
Published by
ashgate Publishing limited ashgate Publishing company
Gower House suite 420
croft road 101 cherry street
aldershot Burlington, Vt 05401-4405
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england
ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
collins, Karen
From Pac-man to pop music : interactive audio in games and new media
1. computer game music – History and criticism 2. sound effects music – History and
criticism
i. title
006.5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
From Pac-man to pop music : interactive audio in games and new media / [edited by]
Karen collins.
p. cm. – (Ashgate popular and folk music series)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 978-0-7546-6200-6 (alk. paper)
1. Video game music–History and criticism. 2. Popular music–History and criticism.
I. Collins, Karen, 1973–
ML3540.7.F76 2007
781.5’4—dc22
2007033749
ISBN 978-0-7546-6200-6 (Hbk)
ISBN 978-0-7546-6211-2 (Pbk)
Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd. Bodmin, Cornwall.
All copyrights and trademarks used as examples or references in this book are retained by
their individual owners. V
contents
List of figures vii
About the contributors ix
General Editor’s Preface xiii
Preface xv
introduction 1
Karen Collins
PART 1 Industries and synergies
1 The new MTV? Electronic Arts and ‘playing’ music 13
Holly Tessler
2 Marketing music through computer games: the case of Poets of the Fall
and Max Payne 2 27
Antti-Ville Kärjä
PART 2 Ringtones and mobile phones
3 could ringtones be more annoying? 47
Peter Drescher
4 indeterminate adaptive digital audio for games on mobiles 55
Agnès Guerraz and Jacques Lemordant
PART 3 Instruments and interactions
5 Theoretical approaches to composing dynamic music for video games 75
Jesper Kaae
6 Realizing groundbreaking adaptive music 93
Tim van Geelen
7 the composition-instrument: emergence, improvisation and
interaction in games and new media 103
Norbert Herber
PART 4 Techniques and technologies
8 Dynamic range: subtlety and silence in video game sound 127
Rob Bridgett
9 an introduction to granular synthesis in video games 135
Leonard J. Paul
vi FRoM PAC-MAN To PoP MUsiC
PART 5 Audio and audience
10 chip music: low-tech data music sharing 153
Anders Carlsson
11 Left in the dark: playing computer games with the sound turned off 163
Kristine Jørgensen
12 Music theory in music games 177
Peter Shultz
selected annotated Bibliography 189
Erica Kudisch
Bibliography 195
index 203
List of figures
4.1 content development 58
4.2 3D audio rendering 61
4.3 iXmF model 62
4.4 amml interactive audio model 65
4.5 amml Xml-schema 66
4.6 Breakout game screenshot 67
4.7 Programmatic control 71
5.1 cyclic-hieratic form as rhythmic pattern 83
7.1 77 Million Paintings by Brian eno 109
7.2 Eden by Jon McCormack 113
7.3 The composition-instrument framework 115
7.4 Sound Garden: (photograph by Elizabeth Raymer) 117
8.1 The 5.1 waveform for a recent Hollywood film 128
8.2 The 5.1 waveform from a recent Xbox 360 title 128
9.1 Grain generation in granulation 136
9.2 auto-segmentation in WaveLab 140
9.3 Basic granular synthesis flow chart 141
9.4 Example of a crowd engine for a roller coaster ride from
Wwise blend groups 144
12.1 The flow region (adapted from Csikszentmihalyi) 178
12.2 Different players have different flow regions (adapted from Chen) 179
12.3 reading mode 182
12.4 Driving mode 182
12.5 Falling mode (Dance Dance Revolution style) 183
12.6 ‘Less Talk More Rokk’ in Guitar Hero notation 186
12.7 ‘Less Talk More Rokk’ in transcription 187
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about the contributors
Rob Bridgett is currently Sound Director at Birmingham-based Swordfish
studios in the uK. Prior to that he spent four years as sound Director at radical
entertainment in Vancouver, where he was responsible for the audio on Scarface:
The World is Yours (PS2, Xbox, PC); a project in which a full post-production sound
design and mix was undertaken at Skywalker Ranch with Randy Thom. Work on
other titles includes Sudeki (Xbox), Serious Sam: Next Encounter (Gamecube) and
acclaimed Dreamcast racer Vanishing Point. www.sounddesign.org.uk. email: rob@
sounddesign.org.uk
Anders Carlsson has been composing chip music for 15 years. He grew up active
in the swedish demoscene but is now more involved with records and live shows.
He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Media and Communication Studies and has used
his studies in pedagogy to create workshops and lectures about chip music. www.
goto80.com
Karen Collins is canada research chair in technology and communication at the
Canadian Centre for Arts and Technology at the University of Waterloo, where she is
developing software tools for dynamic audio and teaching sound design and games
development. www.GamesSound.com. email [email protected]
Peter Drescher is a musician and composer with 20 years of performance experience.
He has produced audio for games, the Web and mobile devices, and is currently
Sound Designer at Danger, Inc., developers of the T-Mobile Sidekick. He lives in
the san Francisco Bay area.
Tim van Geelen is an aspiring sound designer and interactive music composer.
amongst other things, he has created interactive music and sound effect systems for
the architects of air luminaria sculptures and arteZ school of the arts website. He
is an active member of the Game Audio Network Guild and the Interactive Audio
special interest Group. www.timvangeelen.com
Agnès Guerraz obtained her PhD in computer science from the university of
Grenoble in 2002. Her research focuses on applying computational techniques to
human interactions and developing novel interface technology. Her postdoctoral
position at University College London examined haptic rendering algorithm based
on texture data. Her recent focus at Xerox Research Center Europe has been on the
development of statistical models to categorize documents. she has been a temporary
Research Lecturer at INRIA France since 2006. In the Project WAM (Web Adaptation
Multimedia), she focuses on rich graphic applications using interactive audio and