Audio Scripting and Advanced Content Creation

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Audio Scripting andAdvanced Content Creation
Microsoft Corporation
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Audio Design Criteria

• Great Audio Results
• Immersive
• Responsive
• Dynamic
• Variable
• Appropriate
• High quality
• Smart Development Process
• Separate audio design from game coding
• Reduce development and audio design obstacles

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Where to begin?

• Start with Donuts Demo
• DMusic for EVERYTHING!
• NOT!
• DirectMusic latency unsatisfactory for Immediate
  Twitch sounds
• DirectSound for Immediate Sounds
• DirectMusic for Persistent SFX and Music

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DirectSound Development

• Variability in DirectSound delivered content
• Modification of Donuts audio engine
• Event based parameters
• Volume
• Pitch Shift and range
• Asset
• of buffers allocated for event
• Doppler
• Rolloff Factor

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DirectSound Development

• Designer accessible tuning parameters
• .INI style parameter lists
• Expose variables to designer without need for
  code changes and recompile.
• Content and Tuning

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DirectSound .INIDemo
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DirectMusic Development

• What drives variability?
• DONUTS Variability
• Number and type of targets on screen
• Number of targets destroyed
• Engine type, direction and speed
• Content Creation
• Began with loops in DLS
• Loops limit variability
• Custom DLS

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DirectMusic Development

• AudioScript used to define behavior
• Donut objects 3D audiopath
• Dynamically defined musical form - governed by
  user input and game state.

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AudioScriptDemo
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GDC DonutsIn all its sonic glory
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What we didnt do

• Optimize for size
• DLS collections include many .wavs that arent
  used
• DirectSound .wav files are all 44.1
• The overall size of the project could be reduced
  significantly with only these two things.
• Exploit all the variability possible
• However, most of the functionality is there, it
  would only take the creation of more content.

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DirectX Audio plays nice

• DirectMusic and DirectSound play well together
• Tuning was simple due to .ini and AudioScript for
  DirectSound and DirectMusic parameters.
• All tuning parameters available to Sound Designer
  with no code changes.
• Code hooks were relatively easy to implement.

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The End

• All audio content, including code, is available
  on your Meltdown CD!