Task 19: Elements of Game Technology, part two: sound for games

Artwork can leave a personal affect on ones-self and the same applies for music.

Useful to understand other then hearing, is our eye sight. Our eye sight can detect and decode a narrow portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible. The Electromagnetic radiation is an range of wavelengths that is called 'visible light'. We only perceive an infinitely small sliver of all the electromagnetic octaves.

Newton's color circle, from Opticks of 1704, showing the colors correlated with musical notes. The spectral colors from red to violet are divided by the notes of the musical scale, starting at D. The circle completes a full octave, from D to D. Newton's circle places red, at one end of the spectrum, next to violet, at the other. This reflects the fact that non-spectral purplecolors are observed when red and violet light are mixed.

A lot of people believe that this reality is all that we know of it and  believe so strongly that their senses of; see, hear, taste, and touch'  is all there is, but they are wrong. Ask your self this, can we see ultraviolet, infra-red,  gamma rays, radio waves? Our equipment sure does, even at this moment whist we can't pick up on interact with them completely, they are everywhere and does affect us even with or without our awareness.

Limitation doesn't include an attachment called ignorant, that is an choice. and so with practise by meditating, training and developing your entire physical, spiritual self,  and for this case our senses, we can be more equipped and tune into these higher vibrational levels to gain much higher state of awareness. 

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Newton%27s_color_circle.png)

Many people are unaware of the special properties of music/ sound. They just see/ hear it,  in it's one dimensional form, but by looking into the science behind it you can appreciated and be aware to a lot more. That sound is another expression of energy, which is a movement of energy through substances in longitudinal.

By sound being a mechanical wave which requires an medium to travel through, the sound wave can propagates through compressible media such as air or water. (it can propagate through solids as well.)

It's very important to understand frequencies, because our physical self, is an receiver-transmitter, just as an television and radios receive informations of the station and then transmits what it was tuned into. For us humans, we have a frequencies from about 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, and for other species on the planet they have their own 'range of stations' that they can tune into. There are benefits to have an higher vibrational senses such as; detecting danger, navigation, predation and communication, which on the medium it can be reflected, refracted or attenuated.

I would love to research and go into more detail, to improve my own knowledge on the subject and to share great information for your consideration such as; the properties of sound and how ancients understood sound waves and vibration that they knew how to harness this and with an small army of people, chanting, drumming and others, to a specific octave, this allowed them to be able levitate large objects.

An great way to give an game extra spice is to make it interesting by adding excellent sound effects to it. Almost all past and present games come with attractive sounds effects. Modern video games, sound effects basics are similar to those of films. Generally, the sound effects part of a video game project involves 2 jobs. Firstly the required sound must be selected and this can be done by recording a new sound or selecting available sound from a library of sounds. After that a sound engine should be programmed in such a way that, the sounds could be included in the game's environment  Sound effects are extreamly important in the production of video games. 

In the yesteryears of the retro consoles. Sound effects for video game systems and computers, were produced with the help of sound synthesis.  In modern day video game systems, there is an increase in quality of playback and in storage capacity which has permitted the use of sampled sound. The modern day systems often use positional audio, accompanying hardware acceleration, and audio post-processing, which could also be attached to the development of 3D graphics. Depending on the inner nature of the video game, various calculations can be made. This may permit echoes, realistic dampening of sound and Doppler Effect.

I have an friend who work at code masters,

 Brad Porter - Blog
http://leavelucktogames.wordpress.com/page/2/

 Though his not employed as an concept artist, (where I would like to head into the industry as) but he is an 'Audio Designer'.

He has worked on a  few titles in code-masters, the one he was working on at the time was Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising which was some time ago.

He said that he has to record all fresh sound effects of guns and others for the game.

I said can't you just reuse ones you already have, or if you can from other games?

One of his replies made me laugh when Brad said "no because there are nerds out there that know which sounds are from which game, for example the gun fire, they would know which ones are from Call of Duty and ones from BattleField. 

Just example of how they can record sound. 

Medal of Honor - Recording Weapons Sounds

Makes obvious sense really but at the time, I didn't know lol. To think of it, even myself could know which sound effects are from what games, even the old retro games. I'm sure some of the Sonic sound effects were used in other games released on the genesis lol. He was also explaining to me the type of jobs he has to do, to record sound and how the team go a bout collecting sound.

 Just as a concept artist, 3D modeller, animation, are very crucial and important for video games and have shit tons of work to do, so does the sound techs. At times they probably don't get as much  recognition as far as I am aware of then the art-side of the video game, but there are people out there and many of us now are noticing the quality of sound effects in games.

think that  over the years, the video game industry has gone on to become one of the biggest industries in the world. Gaming giants like Electronic Arts, Sega, Codemasters, Nintendo, etc have taken the global market by storm. Because of the sense of competition, the need of sound designers has increased eightfold. The demands put on them sometimes reach those of medium-budget films.

Heres an video of synthesizes music

Role of an sound director

http://designingsound.org/2009/11/rob-bridgett-special-the-role-of-an-audio-director-in-video-games/