Tag: coding

https://audio.dev/ -- @audiodevcon​
ADC Japan - 1st - 3rd June
ADC Bristol ​- 9th - 11th November
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Level Up! Procedural Game Music and Audio - Towards Richer, More Dynamic Soundtracks for Games and Interactive Audio Experiences - Chris Nash - ADC 2025
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What if games had access to (and control of) every note in the soundtrack?
What are the limits for gameplay-driven music and music-driven gameplay?
How do you craft a soundtrack that dynamically adapts to the game world?

This talk presents new techniques and technologies for crafting richer, more dynamic music and sound FX to develop more immersive and interactive game soundtracks in both Unity and Unreal – and marks the launch of game music development kits for Manhattan and Klang (C++) on the Unity Store and FAB.com, which will be provided free to ADC 25 delegates.

DETAIL
After a brief moan about the state of the art, the session will provide a practical introduction to technologies for procedural music and audio (see below) before showcasing and deconstructing new game music and audio mechanics, demonstrated through two example games, developed as technology demos (playable at the nash.audio arcade, throughout the conference):

Ars Arcus (2023; video on YouTube; demo on Steam)
As featured at ADC 23 and 24, this defend-the-castle bow-and-arrow VR game was developed in Unity as a test ground for different music mechanics, from simple part layering and stingers, to significantly more sophisticated music generation and dynamic arrangement, including live data sonification (scene-driven musical cues and arrangements) and direct integration between the game and soundtrack (""diagetic"" music for games, affected by player interaction) - notably placing a virtual, and somewhat mortal, NPC orchestra at the mercy of the player, inside the game world.

Future Sound of Bristol (2025; video - playable at ADC 25)
Grander in scale, in every respect, this open-world game features a 1:1 recreation of Britain* - every road, building, and tree, accurate to the metre – developed in Unreal 5. The player starts on foot with the country in ruin and must explore, connect, rewild, and rebuild the land. The entirely procedural soundtrack for the game is driven by the environment: the tone changes from day to night, town to country, and as the player restores harmony to the land, so to the music - haunting, dissonant soundscapes are transformed to tranquil, tonal symphonies. Gameplay, too, is led by the music, providing cues (dynamic leitmotifs) players must use to find resources, vehicle parts, etc., not always visible to the eye, and subtler musical devices that portend to impending events, such as nightfall or storms. For SFX, the game uses procedural audio (in C++, using Klang) to live generate sounds for dynamic elements such as rain, wind, engines and other interactive game elements. The linked video not provides a brief preview of the game world, but demonstrates the procedural soundtrack - let the video loop and keep listening... (* 'limited' to Bristol and the surrounding 10,000km² for the ADC)

Discussion will provide a behind-the-screens look at how the games and their soundtracks were developed, edited, and integrated using Manhattan, Klang, Unity and Unreal, with emphasis on the musical processes and creative workflows.

Both games are being developed as platforms to explore new directions in game audio and music, and our hope is to provide them as a resource that other game developers, composers, and sound designers can explore, play with, and develop for.

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Chris Nash

Chris Nash is a software developer, composer, educator and researcher in things that go beep in the night. Following a PhD on music software design at Cambridge, he has worked on technology and music projects across academia and industry, including for the BBC, Steinberg/Yamaha, and multiple start-ups

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ADC is an annual event celebrating all audio development technologies, from music applications and game audio to audio processing and embedded systems. ADC’s mission is to help attendees acquire and develop new audio development skills, and build a network that will support their audio developer career.
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Streamed & Edited by Digital Medium Ltd: https://online.digital-medium.co.uk
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Organized and produced by JUCE: https://juce.com/
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Special thanks to the ADC25 Team:

Sophie Carus
Derek Heimlich
Andrew Kirk
Bobby Lombardi
Tom Poole
Ralph Richbourg
Jim Roper
Jonathan Roper
Prashant Mishra

#adc #audiodev #dsp #audio #conferenceaudio #audioprocessing #audioproduction #audioprogramming #sound #music #musictech #soundtech #audiotech #audiotechnology"