Busy With the MSc

I was hoping to give an update to this blog earlier on in the academic year, but work quickly piled up. So here we are at the start of my Easter break, about a month away from the end of Semester 2 and I'm going to give a quick run through of some of the projects I have been working on. I'll write more in detail about these projects in the future, probably after the second semester hand-ins.

Semester 1

Unreal Engine Implementation

The academic year kicked off straight into things with an Unreal Engine implementation project. We were given a choice of projects to work on and a pdf explaining how to do some audio implementation techniques, loosely based on the Game Audio Implementation book by Richard Stevens and Dave Raybould (course leader). Whilst I thought this project was going to be fairly straightforward, thankfully it did delve into MetaSounds, something I was curious about before and am now reasonably confident in using. I also was happy to learn some more technical implementation techniques such as using splines for moving sounds with the player and more complex line trace systems for audio reflections.

3 audio splines in UE, moving audio as the player moves along a path.

A very messy blueprint for playing splashback sounds with raycasts

I had fun with this project, especially coming up with an fun story to present to the player and making use of audio to direct and guide the player through a level. The sound design of the area itself could have used some work, though I was more focused on getting the technical implementations working since this was the focus of the module.

Wwise Implementation - An Adaptive Score

I had the opportunity with this module to flex my adaptive score muscles a little and it allowed me to somewhat prove myself since this is something I have also been teaching at Futureworks. The project, much like the one I teach, was fairly open in that it allowed me to decide on a section of gameplay and create an adaptive score using middleware. The only difference being that I teach it in FMOD and this project had to be using Wwise. I did still use FMOD to plan out and test my parameters for this project to help me translate it over to Wwise. I now feel confident in utilising both middleware solutions for creating an adaptive score that supports gameplay - and I got a nice FMOD project that helped alongside teaching.

For this assignment I chose the game A Short Hike, a cute and short game I had recently played at the time. The game itself already utilises adaptive score techniques which helped to inspire my own take on it. Using sample music alongside my own recorded stems allowed me to create a fun and appropriate score using all the main techniques (horizontal/vertical/ornamental) and more.

Interfaces and Interactivity

This assignment had some similarities with the Sonification module that I teach. However, this module required students to use the software Max (something my peers and I were annoyed about since it is a software we had to pay to use but was still mandatory - I'm still annoyed if you couldn't tell). Anyway, the assignment was to create a patch in Max for a chosen purpose. A creative yet broad range of ideas therefore arose from the class, I'd recommend checking out Will Scoones' project as well as Paul Shelley's. I now feel I have an understanding of how Max can be utilised in a versatile range of situations, though do not feel like I would use it again unless required to.

The project I chose to create was a patch named the Sound of Speed - a sonification of gameplay inputs. Since Max already has a 'gamepad' node, it was pretty simple to use and mostly just required me to focus on creating a range of sounds for a user to select from. The idea was mostly to use this patch as a way to hear gaming inputs, record them and output them in order to potentially help with dexterity training or speedrun training. It was an interesting module to complete and while I know there is plenty of room for improvement, I still feel like the project has potential and overall accomplished the main goals I set out from the start.

Research - Literature Review

As part of the overall research module that should hopefully lead into my final project, I chose to write a literature review on the topic of adaptive scoring techniques for video games. The project allowed me to do a lot of reading into this subject which I already knew a bit about, but certainly in more depth. A lot the research into the topic had actually been done and written by the creators of the MSc, Dave and Richard. Their "windows not doors" solution to the problems associated with adaptive scores is an interesting one that I may look into researching further.

SMINT Essay

I also had to write a short essay into a video game of my choosing but in relation to the topic of how video games have addressed the issues inherent in sound design for video games. I chose to write about the Red Dead Redemption series of games, a series I have enjoyed playing and have an appreciation for the use of sound design for making their game world come to life. The essay itself focused on the topics of audio functions (narrative/ludic/emotion induction), ambience, dialogue, procedural sound design, dynamic music and accessibility. The most challenging part of this assignment was actually in that it had to be done in AES or IEEE format, a format I had not used before.

Semester 2

Creative Sound Design

In this semester, CSD has been split into two sections. The first was a project, completed back in March where we had to do sound redesigns of three separate videos, one was creature based, the other vehicle based and the last was weapon based. This module has been very helpful in finally pushing my own sound design skills to a higher level. Dave gave interesting insight in lectures into the history of sound design and the tools that are at our disposal to create interesting work. The module has also been supported by guest lectures from Joe Thom from SweetJustice who has provided us with some detailed insight into his sound design work as well as his workflow for different tasks. Joe has also been a great help to us by providing us with good feedback into our projects and work, I definitely feel as though my projects are a lot better due to his and Dave's feedback.

Example of the vehicles sound redesign I did for this assignment.

The second assignment for this module has been a technical implementation project using FMOD into Unity. The project, a spaceship fighter game, has been a nice refresher for the general implementation techniques of putting sounds into Unity using FMOD and has gotten the C# cogs in my brain moving again haha. I haven't finished all the sounds for the project yet, but I am happy with where it is at and look forward to including it in my technical showreel at some point.

Spatial Audio Applications

This module was one I got to choose from a list and in the first couple of weeks, I was considering changing to a different module. However, I have stuck with it and feel as though I have learned a lot about spatial audio over the past couple of months. Whilst it is very technical and also theoretical, it has a lot of crossover and application to the use of game audio. Quite early on in the project I knew that I wanted to create some kind of spatial audio game, where the player can discern their environment using the reverberation and linetrace slapbacks in the form of a puzzle game. Whilst the project is fairly rudimentary currently, I believe it has potential to be an interesting game. I have also taken some time to learn about spatial recording methods, using an ambisonic recording setup (Zoom H3D) and some binarual recordings using two DPA omni mics.

Negotiated Skill Development

This assignment has allowed me to do some introspection and find out what skills I need to get into this industry. Other than the dreaded three years experience that all sound design jobs seek, I realised that there is a current rise in the creation of Indie game development. I have therefore embarked on creating my own game in Godot. At this moment in time I have managed to do quite a lot, all that is left to do is create some UI splashscreens and win/loss states, then I can get to the iterative process and share the game with my peers for feedback.

Work In Progress

It has been a fun project to work on whilst also frustrating at times, though what project isn't? The game is a simple 3D level where the player has to collect gold from a Keep that is protected by an evil wizard. Godot is fairly rudimentary in comparison to other game engines, though there are definitely some quality of life differences that I wouldn't mind seeing translated over, especially with the simplicity of coding that GDScript provides. I've had fun learning about level design, game design, player control, textures, animations and lighting as well as learning how to implement interesting sound design in a different engine. Unfortunately though, I was not able to use audio middleware alongside the engine, as neither support integration to Godot and the indie dev made integration solutions were not working properly at the time of starting this project.

Research - Case Studies

I am also currently working on research into the methodologies that are used in testing the application of adaptive scoring to video games. This is related to the previously mentioned literature review, but is focused more on how three case studies tested for this whilst allowing me to come up with my own possible methodology as I intend to test the same thing. This should all hopefully lead into my final project over the summer semester.

Phewww. There you have it, that should be all the work I have been doing since the last blog post update. I have also of course still been teaching at Futureworks. My students seem to be doing okay and have not come to me with any difficult issues with Unreal or FMOD that I haven't been able to fix - yet! Like I said, hopefully there will be some more in-depth posts coming that will go into some of the modules I talked about here, so keep an eye out for that. Also I have made some changes to the website inspired by a guest lecture again by Joe Thom and I will probably be making more changes yet. Thank you for having a read of this and well done if you made it this far. Let me know if you have any thoughts or questions on what I talked about here, I'm always happy to chat.

Nick