Bungie has released the slide presentation for the Halo 3 post mortem. Jay Weinland, C Paul Johnson and Marty Odonnell gave a great presentation and now you can check it out for yourself. Download the pdf now from the Bungie site.
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at Sunday, 02 March 2008 (201 hits)
Tom and Chris, the Engine Audio Team visited the Game Developers Conference in Feburary in San Francisco. We met lots of very cool people, the tops in the gaming industry, and made some great connections. Interested in what went on? Here is our trip in pictures...
Tom gears up for the conference to start
The first two days were called Audio Boot Camp. Thanks to Scott Selfon from Microsoft Game Studio and Dan Bardino from SCE for putting on such a good start to the conference
We attended the Crysis of Audio presentation and a few demostrations all by Crytek's Audio team, Tomas and Christian. These guys were great to meet and were very helpful.
We went to the Bioshock Audio Post-Mortem. Amazing what they can do with a small team of audio wizards and a lot of outsourcing
The Halo 3 Audio Post-Mortem. These guys are at the top of their game and it shows. They displayed all of their own in-house tools for gettting the audio into the game. Their demonstration was fast and informative. Interesting stuff!
Met the team from Audiokinetic. It sounds like their are wonderful new things to look foward to from them. It was great to finally meet Genevieve after she has provided such great support over email.
The FMOD booth was real popular with the Guitar Hero setup in front. We met Andrew and Brett the genius' behind FMOD. The gave us copious amount of information and gave us hint of things to come.
Chris got schooled by Bunny one of the Guitar Hero developers we met on the floor. Its OK though he programmed the song. These guys were nothing but cool the entire time we hung out.
We went to G.A.N.G. Audio GDC meet n' greet and The Chieftan. How many audio developers can you spot from your favorite games?
The Independant Game Festival finalists were displaying their games
Skitch shows off his composistions to Brian Schmidt, XBOX audio guru and recipient of the G.A.N.G. Audio Lifetime Achievement award.
Giant Playstation booth in main hall!
THX Was showing off some great new products at thier booth this year
The audio middleware and tools panel. From left to right: Craig Belliston from Fonix, Simon Ashby from Audiokinetic, Tom Miley from CRI, Andrew Scott from FMOD, Scott Selfon from MGS and Brian Schmidt former Microsoft audio guru. The Justice League of Game Audio.
Tom takes some time to play a new XNA game
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at Saturday, 01 March 2008 (162 hits)
"The Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.), the non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement and recognition of game audio, has announced the finalists for the 6th Annual G.A.N.G. Awards to honor outstanding creative, technical and artistic audio achievement in the world of interactive entertainment."
Finalists for the 6th annual G.A.N.G. Awards are listed below by category.
MUSIC OF THE YEAR
Assassin’s Creed
BioShock
God of War II
Halo 3
The Golden Compass
AUDIO OF THE YEAR
BioShock
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
God of War II
Halo 3
Mass Effect
SOUND DESIGN OF THE YEAR
BioShock
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Crysis
The Orange Box
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune
BEST INTERACTIVE SCORE
BioShock
Flow
God of War II
LOTR Online: Shadows of Angmar
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune
BEST HANDHELD AUDIO
Dead Head Fred
MLB 07: The Show
Shrek The Third: Shrek’s Way
Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow
Transformers
BEST AUDIO – OTHER
Grim’s Downfall (online game)
Jewel Quest II
Nine Billion Miles From Earth (online game)
Treasure Tunes (online game)
Website for Halo 3 Soundtrack
BEST CINEMATIC/CUT-SCENE AUDIO
BioShock
Halo 3
Heavenly Sword
Hellgate: London
Mass Effect
BEST DIALOGUE
BioShock
God of War II
Halo 3
The Orange Box
The Simpsons Game
BEST ORIGINAL INSTRUMENTAL
"Welcome To Rapture" – BioShock
"Infiltrating The Eagle’s Nest” – Blazing Angels 2
"Main Menu” – The Golden Compass
"Epilogue” – Lair
"The Citadel" – Mass Effect
BEST ORIGINAL VOCAL – CHORAL
"City of Jeruslaem" – Assassin’s Creed
"Joan of Arc" – Bladestorm
"Luck" – Halo 3
"Main Titles" – God of War II
"Divine Intervention" – Universe At War: Earth Assault
BEST ORIGINAL VOCAL – POP
"Jerusalem Horse Ride" – Assassin’s Creed
"Beowulf’s Army" – Beowulf
"M4 Part II" – Mass Effect
"Still Alive" – Portal
"Lament of the Highborne" – World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
BEST ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK ALBUM
Dead Head F red
God of War II
Halo 3
Mass Effect
Red Steel
BEST USE OF LICENSED MUSIC
BioShock
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80’s
Rock Band
Skate
BEST ARRANGEMENT OF A NON-ORIGINAL SCORE
Pirates of the Caribbean Online
Purr Pals
The Simpsons Game
BEST GAME AUDIO ARTICLE, PUBLICATION OR BROADCAST
- The Golden Compass Composer Diary – GameSpy
- "The World of Game Composing” – Film Music Magazine
- "What’s The Score?” – British Academy Magazine
- "Video Games Live" – Eurogamer TV Show
- "Does it Sound Next-Gen?" – Game Developer Magazine
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at Tuesday, 29 January 2008 (255 hits)
Welcome Back! We hope your holidays we full of games and lots of audio. The EngineAudio team has been on hiatus through the break but we are back to take over in '08. With record numbers of sales and dollars brought in by games throughout 2007 it is exciting to see the new possibilities of game audio. We are full of new ideas and projects that we will be discussing out our next gathering. If your New Years resolution was to getting started game audio business come and join us:
Sunday January 20, 2008 in Room 124A at 11amfor the next GAS meeting.
- We here at EngineAudio have been hard at work on our version of the fps shooter AKCube, have you? We will be demoing the work we have completed and discuss the workflow we used for sound design and implementation with WWISE
- We will be demonstrating all versions of AKCube in various stages of completion. If you would like to show the work that you have done for any projects that you are working on please bring them with you. We would like to see the progress that everyone is making and what people are working on.
- We have many fun new tips and tricks to show off in WWISE such as... How to use different containers. How to connect AKCube and WWISE in realtime. How to add sounds and objects to a map. How to edit and change simple audio code.
- What's next? Which direction will the Game Audio Society be heading? And what future projects lay in store for you?
Next Meeting: Sunday January 20, 2008 Room 124A 11am
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at Monday, 07 January 2008 (327 hits)
The newest podcast is up. Episode 3B explains how to accomplish a "Random" event. This is an effect which will allow you to assign several variations of a sound to an event, and switch between them (randomly). This is essential for repetitive sounds (I.E. footsteps, jumping, etc) and allows us to create a more realistic environment for our Game. Please let us know how this one works out for you, and if you have any question or comments you may post them in the forums. We would love to see (and hear) what you are able to come up with, so please post your results.
Remeber: Don't play this interactive podcast directly in iTunes, it won't work properly. Right click on the podcast inside iTunes and select "Show in Finder". Then make sure to open the file directly in Quicktime Player.
To get this podcast through iTunes click:
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at Wednesday, 12 December 2007 (220 hits)
If you have played Portal, included with The Orange Box, you most certainly remember the sound of the voice of the computer that taunts you throughout the game. The computer, named GLaDOS, is voiced by Ellen McLain a classically trained opera singer. Her lines were orignally sent through a text-to-speech program, she then mimiced the tone of the computer voice while recording her part. The recording was then run through a series of pitch and modulation effects to enhance the robotic sound. The video that follows describes the entire process.
One of the best features of the The Orange Box, and most Valve games since Half Life 2, is the developer commentary feature that can be turned on from inside the audio options menu. It is like the extras features on most DVD's, with the developers of the game describing the process of creating the final product. The game has icons that look like thought bubbles placed throughout the story that can be triggered. If you haven't tried it you should definately check it out. This video describes how the voice of GLaDOS was created by compiling togeather all of the commetary into one video. Enjoy!
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at Tuesday, 11 December 2007 (1473 hits)
Charles Martinet is the original voice for Mario since the mid 90's. Super Mario 64 for Nintendo 64 gave Mario a voice and Charles has been that voice for every game Mario has appeared in. He has lent his voice to characters such as Mario, Wario, Luigi, Waluigi, Baby Mario, and Baby Luigi in over 100 games.
Here is a quote from an interview with Game Informer magazine where Charles reveals a little of how the recording process is done.
GI: So for the job of voice work, so back in the day with Mario 64, did you go to Nintendo to record your voices? Was it all taped?
CM: We still, to this day, I fly up to Seattle from San Francisco, and I arrive first thing in the morning, get a taxi, or in the old days I rented a car, and drove to the studio and we’d talk about the script and watch some movies, and these little top-secret tapes and things, and then we’d have sushi lunch and then we’d record. We’d order sushi, start recording, sushi would come, have lunch, and then continue recording all through out that day, and then next day, as well.
GI: Do they give you lines or do you improvise?
CM: Both. We do a script, and the guys that I work with – the creative team at Nintendo – Bill Trinen, Leslie Swan, and all those great guys, they have so many ideas, I come up with ideas, and of course there’s the script to go off of. So we go to the script first, and then bounce some ideas and start playing, and they hear me do something and think of something new, and I hear them, and think of something new. We have this great playtime. It’s really fun. (laughs)
Here is a great four part video series from Game Head about the man and the voice
Game Head: Charles Martinet - Voicing the Mario Family
The newest podcast is up. Episode 3A talks about the best websites for sources of audio files and plugins. There are links scattered throughout the presentation, if you click on them they will take you directly to the site mentioned. There is also a description of what is needed for a good field recording kit. The list is divided into three parts from the least expensive, to professional, to money is no object. Take a look it and get started finding and creating as many sounds as you can.
Remeber: Don't play this interactive podcast directly in iTunes, it won't work properly. Right click on the podcast inside iTunes and select "Show in Finder". Then make sure to open the file directly in Quicktime Player.
To get this podcast through iTunes click:
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at Monday, 19 November 2007 (202 hits)
Next G.A.S. Meeting:
Welcome Back! We hope your holidays we full of games and lots of audio. The EngineAudio team has been on hiatus through the break but we are back to take over in '08. With record numbers of sales and dollars brought in by games throughout 2007 it is exciting to see the new possibilities of game audio. We are full of new ideas and projects that we will be discussing out our next gathering. If your New Years resolution was to getting started game audio business come and join us:
If you have played Portal, included with The Orange Box, you most certainly remember the sound of the voice of the computer that taunts you throughout the game. The computer, named GLaDOS, is voiced by Ellen McLain a classically trained opera singer. Her lines were orignally sent through a text-to-speech program, she then mimiced the tone of the computer voice while recording her part. The recording was then run through a series of pitch and modulation effects to enhance the robotic sound. The video that follows describes the entire process.
