Guitar Heroes - by SNDR

In the design research investigation Listen! the multi-disciplinary collaboration between game design and audio design students is researched. The research focuses on gathering more insight in the creative design process of game audio and presents general recommendations and pitfalls for the development of game audio.

Some of the research outcomes were presented at DiGRA 2011 and the submitted paper can now be downloaded below. This is a Utrecht School of the Arts Creative Design Practices Research Program project.

• Download from the DiGRA library
• Download Listen! – Improving the Cooperation between Game Designers and Audio Designers
• Alternative link: http://bit.ly/gameaudio

The example movie contains an explanation of the music system used in the Xbox-game Shortburst. It’s pretty self explanatory and shows the flexible system in real-time.

The description of the video:
“cell-based music”, or “horizontal resequencing” in a browser-based, simple, nln-player, with the music for the Xbox-game Shortburst.
The web-version of the nln-player was built with the Schillmania Soundmanager 2 library, php and javascript. The idea was to shift the focus from organising the musical material with, often complex, data-structures, to a very simple model in which the limitations for the composer were greater, but the administrative work and the needed understanding of (meta-)data was much less.
This same framework was used for the implementation of the interactive music in XNA5 for an Xbox game, Shortburst.

More information on www.greencouch.nl and www.nln-player.com

The obligatory thesis word cloud about immersive audio

The word is out: I hereby present you my PhD thesis! After the final writeup in 2009, it took some time to get my viva arranged in August 2010. Sorry to keep you waiting…but now, it can be downloaded via this blog.

This thesis addresses the role of audio for immersion. Yep, the I-word…almost just as Impossible as it is Irresistible to designers. Yet, I’ve tried to come up with some useful theory for those who want to know more about the design of sound, music and speech in games and the conceptual decisions that are involved.

Let’s get things straight. This thesis does not:

• tell you which frequencies to amplify in order to make your music more immersive or explain you how to record immersive voice recordings (it’s not a cook book).
• provide you an answer to the question which psychological processes can be linked to immersion. There’s a lot of valuable literature available that investigates this subject.
• give you a final answer what to do when your game isn’t ‘immersive enough’. Game design is a discipline and you normally can’t fix game design flaws with audio!

Now what does it do? This work addresses the design decisions with respect to audio and immersion. I hope it offers audio designers, game designers and design researchers that are interested in the conceptualisation of game audio some illuminating insight into this matter.

Now go and create some Captivating Sound!

PhD award

ABSTRACT
This thesis explores the relation between game audio and (computer) game immersion. The main contribution in this research is a framework for the conceptual design of game audio in relation to immersion. A model for game audio is presented defining the communication by means of game audio during active gameplay. This model, named IEZA (Huiberts & van Tol, 2008), defines four conceptual domains of communication of game audio. IEZA was developed to enable a more detailed and consistent investigation into game audio and has been evaluated as a design resource in educational, academic and practical settings.

Immersion is considered to be one of the key factors making games worthy to play. The unity that seems to exist in the fact that many parties value this phenomenon is more apparent than real: there is a lot of dispute on the scope of immersion. Several classifications of immersion are compared for a better understanding of the nature of an immersive experience. The three‐dimensional SCI‐model by Ermi & Mäyrä (2005) is considered as valuable representation of the multi‐dimensional character of immersion.

Audio is an important constituent of most games and its role for immersion in games has hardly been investigated. In this thesis, audio is studied using the IEZA‐model and the SCI‐model, and several design issues are described. This yields a conceptual framework that describes various audio design issues that can be used to reflect upon conceptual decisions relevant for the design of audio in relation to immersion. This framework can be used for a conceptual analysis of design and is relevant for audio designers as well as game designers.

My PhD was a part-time PhD study at the University of Portsmouth in collaboration with the Utrecht School of the Arts.

Download the PDF here.

View the video files.

Huiberts, S., Captivating Sound: the Role of Audio for Immersion in Games. Doctoral Thesis. University of Portsmouth and Utrecht School of the Arts, Portsmouth, 2010.

A notification about your experience with this subject is warmly appreciated. Please send me a message using the contact form or use the comment form below.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all who supported the writing of this thesis: Jan IJzermans, Richard van Tol, Barbara Lotti, Tony Kalus, Adriaan Braat, Chris Creed, Han Onno ter Hoor, Micah Hrehovcsik, Rens Machielse, Paul Newland, Dan Pinchbeck, Dick Rijken, Hans Timmermans, Gerard van Wolferen, the other members of the Music Design Research Group, the gamers and moderators from the forums (Tweakers Forum, the 3Dgamers Forum, the Insidegamer Forum, the Gamers‐Forum, AudioGames Forum), the participants of PUGS, Espressofabriek and Hans and Riet Huiberts.

Mapping the Field Symposium Music Design

Music Design – Mapping the Field 2010

Vrijdag 12 maart 2010 is om 12.30 uur de aftrap van het symposium
Music Design – Mapping the field 2010 in het Huis aan de Werf te Utrecht.

Deze middag zullen ontwerpers zich vanuit verschillende disciplines buigen over nieuwe ontwikkelingen rond het maken van muziek voor de podia, media, games en de muziekindustrie.

Vragen over de verschillende rollen van de muziekontwerper in multidisciplinaire producties, het dwingende keurslijf van ‘temp track’ en ‘sound-a-like’, de veranderende muziekindustrie en de gevolgen daarvan voor muziekproductie en de veranderende rol van geluid en muziek in game design zullen die middag aan de orde komen in korte en levendige discussies tussen muziekontwerpers en ontwerpers uit de genoemde disciplines (o.a. filmmakers, game designers, choreografen en programmeurs). De middag wordt samengevat en afgesloten met een keynote over ontwerpprocessen vanuit een geheel ander perspectief.

Tijdens de aansluitende borrel & buffet is er volop gelegenheid om te netwerken.

Voor de avond is er in verschillende zalen van het Huis aan de Werf een onderhoudend programma met presentaties, films, optredens en installaties samengesteld door aanstormende ontwerptalenten.

Het symposium Music Design – Mapping the field 2010 wordt georganiseerd door de opleiding Muziektechnologie en het Lectoraat Muziekontwerp van de HKU.

Mapping the Field Symposium Music Design achterkant

Meer en inschrijven op symposium.hku.nl

By the way, it was a great 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.

Saturday June 13. Richard van Tol and I will present developments in game music at the Music@Games Summit of the Utrecht Festival of Games. Attending this summit is free, but registration is required.

Music@Games: new developments in MultiMedia Music

The explosive growth of audiovisual culture in the last thirty years has meant an enormous development for the multimedia music genre. Music can’t be missed while watching television, or visiting theatres, movies, even museums, and of course, while playing videogames. How does the world of multimedia music work? How is it implemented and by whom? And what does adaptivity in music for games mean? Featuring interesting lectures, discussions and musical demonstrations Music@Games will reveal the connection between the music and games industry.

Music@Games is part of the program on June 13th at Ottone (map). There will also be a reception and the concert NLGD Play. The adres of Ottone is: Kromme Nieuwegracht 62, Utrecht.

NLGD Play is the perfect closing event of the Festival of Games 2009! Bring your friends and contacts to have a drink and experience the show. Make sure to register: in combination with Music@Games or directly for NLGD Play (free public event).

More information: musicatgames.nl

Download flyer_music for games as PDF

Download complete program as PDF

Game Audio Lab: an educational framework for research and design of realtime, nonlinear sound and music design. Photo © Sander Huiberts

The Music Design Group of the Utrecht School of the Arts under Jan IJzermans in the Netherlands has developed a lab for academic purposes which enables research and rapid prototyping of nonlinear audio. The system offers designers the ability to construct composite variables based on variables that are available in the original game system. In this paper, the architecture of the hardware and software as well as the motivation for this setup are discussed.

Nonlinear and adaptive systems for sound and music in games are gaining popularity due to their potential to enhance the game experience. The framework enables academics to map composite variables and adapt sound and music design in real-time during active game play. Composite variables were found to be more useful than mapping simple game parameters directly to the sound design. To give an example: mapping the state of an adaptive environment to the health level of the avatar often is too obvious for the player.

The paper also discusses the need for open game systems, which help designers to study sound design in realtime settings. Most game platforms are closed and protected by intellectual property. Interestingly, many academics mentioned this during the conference.

Unfortunately, I can’t publish the article here, so if you are interested it’s probably best to visit the AES website. The reference to the article is:

Huiberts, S. Van Tol, R and Went, K. (2009) GAME AUDIO LAB – AN ARCHITECTURAL FRAMEWORK FOR NONLINEAR AUDIO IN GAMES. In: Kelly, M. Proceedings AES 35th International Conference Audio for Games, 2009. Royal Academy of Engineering, London, UK.

Kees presenting at the AES. Photo: Sander Huiberts

Some video demos of applications (Half-Life 2 Source engine, OSC, Bridge software, FMOD and GStoolkit in Max/MSP) are listed below:

Credits for the game lab and these applications go to Arjen Schut, Mark Doeze, Maurice Alberts, Ramon Kerstens and Rogier Habraken. They truly did a wonderful job in this project.

Full demonstration Game Audio Lab Half Life 2: actual game play (select watch in high quality):

Simple demonstration: gunsound impact changes:

Simple demonstration: atmosphere dynamically changes with health status:

[For more information and the slides of this presentation, head over to adaptivemusicsystems.hku.nl]

To make things clear: we’re not talking about composing a song from the beginning to the end (linear music); the composer makes a large amount of musical ‘cells’ and the system selects new cells based on the rules of the composer (nonlinear music). Such an approach can be highly suitable for games, that mostly have a nonlinear character, as the music is able to correspond with the narrative or the presupposed experience of the player. And at least, we’re preventing the repetitive background track that drives players crazy.

The adeptive toolkit is still being developed, and now the developers have published a demonstration video of the toolkit with music composed by Than van Nispen. This is an interesting annotated video which shows the value of this system. What you see is an overview screen with music cells and a two-dimensional dipolar state diagram, which triggers the music. Notice the real-time “Notepad”-information which shows what is going on (real-time!).

The research focused on a basic nonlinear (adaptive) music structure, with a composer (non programmer) friendly approach to use any audio with a basic data design for nonlinear music, to enable prototyping and communication between game developers and composers.

[Watch the annotated nonlinear game music in Adeptive Toolkit v0.9 video here]

[Visit the Adaptive music systems Research group here]

[1] Vincent Akkermans, Bertus van Dalen, Siebe Domeijer, Than van Nispen tot Pannerden and Pınar Temiz.

Update: the adeptive toolkit has been published here. Read info from the devs below the cut:

The Adeptive Toolkit is an interface to a nonlinear music structure.

At the Utrecht School of Music and Technology, Bernard Herrmann’s flexible film composition methods were researched: a method of ‘cell composition’ – a cell being a small musical element or motif. Cells can be succeeded by different other cells, the choice depending on the demand of the (game/interactive) system (for example: more tension).

Cells are connected by transitions. The connections give the sense of a network, hence the term ‘cellnetwork’. Composers can chop their music into flexible cell-pieces, connect these with conditional transitions and value the cells with some variable, for example: “tension – 5″.

A flexible and responsive continuity in music can be created. A composer will then typically find himself making more and different transitions and ‘musical paths’ when he finds out how to serve the demands of the game better.

A video game engine communicates a request to the music structure, for example: avatar health 1. In this case, the music will transition to the ‘almost dead’ music IF the composer indeed provided a convenient transition network through his material.

Generally the ‘cellnetwork method’, reflected in the Toolkit, has been found an interesting way to deal with nonlinear music in contexts.The use of an open-source Max/MSP elaboration of the Cellnetwork Method could provide quick access to editing and expanding the system, as Max/MSP is used by many music technologists, sound designers and composers.

If you like to evaluate this toolkit, I’d suggest to contact the developers. They are interested in collaborating with other parties in order to expand this toolkit.

In the past years, I’ve designed quite some audio menus for audio games and supervised projects that used audio-only interaction for blind users. Below I share some of my experiences concerning these menus, and include the original recommendations of the thesis.

illustration by zkukkuiz

An updated summary of Audio Menus (2002).

An audio menu is a menu, which utilizes sound as primary feedback mechanic. The user interacts in various ways with the menu system, for example with keys or speech control. Audio menus are mostly found in applications where the user is not able to use the visual alternatives of menus. Also, when the menu is not in sight (controlling the menu of a ‘smarthome’-system throughout the building) or when a visual task is required (e.g. in a car), audio menus can be valuable. At present, audio menus are most frequently found in audio games [2] or games for the blind.

In general, these menus do not seem to be as pleasant and user-friendly as most visual menus are. Current menus found in phone systems often read out all the options, before letting the user make his choice. In this case, the user often feels passive due to this very passive way of interaction. In this case, the user is waiting continuously.
When developing an audio menu, one could choose a ‘more active’ interaction model, in which the user can browse with two keys and listen to each option in his own tempo. In that case, he can interrupt options and confirm his choice. With this model the waiting time is decreased because the menu-system does not have to tell the user which option corresponds to which key every time, which prevents listener-fatigue when used frequently. Also, the user might feel ‘in control’ instead of slaved to the application, while carrying out instructions. Yet, the instructions for a more active interaction model requires more explanation and some players have difficulties, because of their non-existent expectations.

One key issue to acknowledge is that the domain of audio fundamentally differs from the visual domain. The information in the auditory domain is presented in time instead of at the same time on screen. For the user, it can be rather difficult to keep overview. This also has implications for the number of options that can be represented in one menu layer: after 7 options, most users have forgotten what the first options were. A good source on this aspect comes from Buxton, Gaver & Bly (1991) [3]. The following information is abstracted from their article, which shows the strengths and weaknesses of using audio in the interface:

Other considerations to improve usability are:

• decrease the number of choices within one level of the menu, to ease navigation and increase overview;
• rearrange the options in a more logical order so the desired option is found faster, preferably adaptive to the presumed task of the user, following user profiles;
• using background sound to give the user an impression of the menu-layers and the structure of the menu [4]. In a prototype that was made for the menu, most users understood the function of an ambient sound layer that altered when a different layer of the menu was accessed. The main menu can be easily accentuated with sound;
• choosing the correct terminology in the explanation to inform the user about the menu-interaction. Visual references can be misleading when interacting in the auditory domain. To give examples: what is ‘back to top’ when using sound? What is the most right option?

One should also take into account that the user goes through a learning process. Few users have encountered an audio menu, and do not have experiences with audio menus on regular computers. The presence of a computer screen often has high impact on the expectations of the user. It can be desirable to replay the spoken explanation for users that do not interact with the menu and use and alternative – more complete – explanation when they do not seem to understand at all how to interact with the system.

A difficulty with audio menus is that experienced users as well as novice users have to be able to work with the menu. In graphical menus, this is not an issue, as the user knows the location of the button and does not have to wait for the options to appear.
A way of handling this is to assume that experienced users use higher interaction speeds: they know the options and are already acquainted with the controls. A designer can choose to wait for a short period before playing the explanation files, so experienced users do not have to hear “This is an audio menu. Use these keys to browse…”. Also, auditory icons can accomplish this ‘need for speed’, when they replace the function of the speech samples. In the audio game Drive (2002) [5], these techniques were applied to allow the player to navigate with high speed, while hearing only the short and subtle icons (so only the beginning of the files). The short silence between the tones and the speech fragment prevents clicks in the audio. Novice users just listen to the complete sound file and make their choice in their own time.

The short auditory icon at the beginning of the sound file allows fast navigation for experienced users.

A more frequent use of audio menu’s and a (perhaps spontaneously arised) standardization are likely to have a positive effect on the expectation and experience of users.

References

[1] The author would like to express his gratitude to Jan IJzermans, Richard van Tol,Hugo Verweij and Kees Went.

[2] AudioGames.net

[3] Buxton, W., Gaver, W. & Bly, S. (1991). The use of non-speech audio at the interface. Tutorial no. 8. In: CHI’91 Conference proceedings, Human Factors in Computing Systems, ‘Reaching through technology,’ New Orleans, ACM Press: Addison-Wesley.

[4] This technique was implemented in the main menu of the Audio Game Maker by The Bartiméus Accessibility Foundation.

[5] Huiberts, Van Tol, Verweij. Utrecht School of the Arts. Review and research report at AudioGames.net

Reference:

Huiberts, S. (2002). Audio menus. Unpublished thesis. (Utrecht School of the Arts, The Netherlands). Updated abstract, 2008, Retrieved 15 December, 2008, from
http://captivatingsound.com/audio-only-menus/

The moderators of PUGS are Richard van Tol and Sander Huiberts. For the past three years the have been giving a course Game Audio Design at the Utrecht School of the Arts (Netherlands), in which the students were asked to reflect upon game sound, similar to the idea behind PUGS.com (“gather 1 minute of footage of what you consider to be ‘good’ game audio and 1 minute of footage of what you consider to be ‘bad’ game audio”).

Please feel free to contribute to this website either by uploading your favourite example of good or bad game audio, or by commenting the uploaded examples of others!

[visit PUGS]