Julian Smith posted this video of a percussion performance with the help of the sounds coming from a Jeep. He claims that all the sounds in this video are the actual sounds from the Jeep and that it took 7 hours of filming to get a solid take. Pretty amazing!
You probably know the Wilhelm Scream. According to the Wilhelm Scream entry on Wikipedia, the sound effect that was recorded in 1951 has been used in about 149 films. A recent example is Inglourious Basterds…but we also find the sound effect cliche in games. The following video shows some of the most common examples of the Wilhelm Scream in movies:
Last week, Creative Heroes released the Helmut Scream, which can be used freely. You’re invited to download and use Wilhelm’s jealous brother in your projects.
Yesterdag Richard and I presented at the Music Summit of Festival of Games in Utrecht. After visiting many international conferences on audio for games, it’s great to meet all the local peers and professionals. At the bottom of this page, you can find a link to the slides and a special link page.
By the way, it was a splashing venue, featuring a truly wonderful performance installation by Matthias Oostrik. See the two pictures below I made before the summit started:
Festival of Games in Ottone
Festival of Games in Ottone
[Download the Slides as PDF]
More information and weblinks at FoG.AudioGames.net
See a slideshow below the break.
My colleage Kees Went and I attended the AES International Conference Audio for Games 2009. We presented a paper about the Game Audio Lab that was developed in 2008 at the Utrecht School of the Arts.
Game Audio Lab: an educational framework for research and design of realtime, nonlinear sound and music design. Photo © Sander Huiberts
PrettyUglyGameSoundStudy (or PUGS) is an experiment to gather as many examples of audio in games that people consider either to be ‘good’ (or ‘pretty’) and ‘bad’ (or ‘ugly’). On one hand we wish to get a better understanding of game audio that people consider to work well in games and on the other we would like to get an overview of (typical) game audio blunders, from which the field can benefit. We hope that eventually this archive can grow out to be an inspiration (as well as the occasional good laugh) for those working in the field of game audio.
The IEZA framework defines the communication by means of audio in games. Richard van Tol and I published the theory of IEZA in an article on Gamasutra.
Based on our review of literature and repertoire we have formulated a framework that uses an alternate approach to classify game audio: the IEZA framework. The primary purpose is to refine insight in the communication by means of game audio by providing a coherent organization of four domains belonging to two dimensions.
The authors would like to thank Jan IJzermans for his conceptual contribution to IEZA, as well as the feedback to the article.
[Read the article about the IEZA framework at Gamasutra]
[PDF]
My PhD thesis on game audio and immersion will be published on this site (expected fall 2009). Enter your email address and you'll be informed of future updates on captivatingsound.com.
