Tag Archives: game development

Game Music Middleware, Part 3: Fabric

Posted by Winifred Phillips on

Middleware-Blackboard

Welcome back to my series of blogs that collect some tutorial resources about game music middleware for the game music composer.  I had initially intended to publish two blog entries on this subject, focusing on the most popular audio middleware solutions: Wwise and FMOD.  However, since the Fabric audio middleware has been making such a splash in the game audio community, I thought I’d extend this series to include it.  If you’d like to read the first two blog entries in this series, you can find them here:

Game Music Middleware, Part 1: Wwise

Game Music Middleware, Part 2: FMOD

Fabric is developed by Tazman Audio for the Unity game engine (which enables game development for consoles, PCs, mobile devices such as iOS and Android, and games designed to run within a web browser).  Here’s a Unity game engine overview produced by Unity Technologies:

The Fabric middleware is designed to expand the audio capabilities of the Unity game engine.  The complete product manual for the Fabric middleware is available online.  The video tutorials that I’m featuring below were created by two game audio professionals who have very generously walked us through the use of the software.  If you’d like a more nuts-and-bolts overview of the software features of Fabric, you can find it here.

The first video was shot in 2013 during the Konsoll game development conference in Norway, and gives an overview of the general use of Fabric in game audio. The speaker, Jory Prum, is an accomplished game audio professional whose game credits include The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, Broken Age, SimCity 4, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and many more.

Making a great sounding Unity game using Fabric

border-159926_640_white

In the next two-part video tutorial, composer Anastasia Devana has expanded on her previous instructional videos about FMOD Studio, focusing now on recreating the same music implementation strategies and techniques using the Fabric middleware in Unity.  Anastasia Devana is an award-winning composer whose game credits include the recently released puzzle game Synergy and the upcoming roleplaying game Anima – Gate of Memories.

Fabric and Unity: Adaptive Music in Angry Bots – Part 1

Fabric and Unity: Adaptive Music in Angry Bots – Part 2

Game Music Middleware, Part 1: Wwise

Posted by Winifred Phillips on

Middleware-Blackboard

 

The use of third-party audio middleware in game development is a slow-growth trend that will doubtless become more influential in the future, so I thought I’d devote my next two blog entries to some recent video tutorials produced by a few intrepid game audio pros who have stepped forward to help the community.

This first blog is devoted to Wwise, and the tutorials come to us courtesy of Michael Kamper, Senior Audio Developer at Telltale Games.  With over 16 years of experience in audio production, Michael has served as Audio Director for The Bureau: Xcom Declassified, Bioshock 2 DLC, and Bioshock 2, among others.  Michael has also enjoyed a successful career as a feature film sound designer for such movies as Mission Impossible III, The Day After Tomorrow, Legally Blonde, and many more.  His experience in television includes sound design for Xena: Warrior Princess, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Profiler.

In the following two-part video tutorial, Michael generously details his Wwise workflow during music implementation for The Bureau: Xcom Declassified:

Wwise Interactive Music Demo – The Bureau – Part 1 – Switches

border-159926_640_white

Wwise Interactive Music Demo – The Bureau – Part 2 – Segments/RTPCs

 

 

Video excerpt from my game music talk at the Montreal International Game Summit

Posted by Winifred Phillips on

migs_en

Last week, I spoke at the Montreal International Game Summit.  It was a fantastic experience, and I wanted to share a video excerpt of my speech with you!  The speech was called, “Music, the Brain, and the Three Levels of Immersion.”  I’m grateful to Clement Galiay and Nicolas Bertrand-Verge of the MIGS for the opportunity to speak at this great event!  Also, I’d like to give a shout-out to Jean-Frederic Vachon for the tremendous support and encouragement for me to get involved in the MIGS — thanks, JF!!

More about the Montreal International Game Summit:

MIGS was founded in 2004 to meet the needs of the video game sector, which currently represents close to 9,000 workers in Quebec. Ten years later, its mission remains: developing the transfer of knowledge and expertise, increasing exposure for Quebec players abroad and promoting exchanges and communications between stakeholders, making MIGS the East Coast’s leading professional-only event for the games industry.

Talk Description:

Music, the Brain, and the Three Levels of Immersion
Music has the power to deepen player immersion through psychological effects documented in scientific research. This talk explored the influence of music on the brain, and how these effects can aid game designers in meeting the criteria necessary for the “Three Levels of Immersion.”