Eclectic I

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

AA wk4


When I went to find information on Fable I discoveredthat Lionhead studios are very secretive and found it virtually impossible to get information on their Audio/Development Engines. These are links to the little information I did find.

http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/Games_that_use_Vorbis


http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/Vorbis

http://www.vorbis.com/

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/f/fable/behindthegame3.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fel64/Fable_2#Technology


So instead I've done my Audio/Development Engine research on the game Shadowrun. I choose this game as it was quite simple to find information on the Audio and Development Engine, and as I spent 3 hours or so looking for information on Fable, I felt this was justifiable.





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun_%282007_video_game%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wwise

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audiokinetic

Shadowrun uses the Sound Engine Wwise, which was developed by the Company Audiokinetic. It is a middleware product designed to interface with any game engine. From the information I sorted through, Wwise comes accross as a Audio made easy for games.



http://www.audiokinetic.com/4105/wwise-introduction.asp

The basic selling point of the product is that it is designed as with an intuitive interface so that Sound Designers and programmers can readily test and implement sounds. It also claims to leave itself open to programmers creating custom plugins to extend the functionality of the engine.

From looking through the website information, it reminds me greatly of 'ProTools' or 'Cubase.' These are both great programs, but are obviously constantly being upgraded as technology and features improve. I can't help but wonder whether Wwise will become similar. Obviously any Sound Engine will dictate the way in which creative ideas are realised and implemented, but would game developers prefer to maintain a higher level of control and avoid a program which seems to make features generic by packaging them?

http://www.audiokinetic.com/4105/wwise-introduction.asp

http://www.audiokinetic.com/4105/file.asp?file_id=400.


There is very little information on the Development engine that was used, but I did discover that the engine was modeled closely after the "source" engine used in Halo2.

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2006/11/02/Multi_core_in_the_Source_Engin/1

I also discovered that they had to build the game engine from scrap to interface Xbox and Windows Vista

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/tech/shadowrun.html


http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2006/11/02/Multi_core_in_the_Source_Engin/1

Reference:

Haines, Christian. “Audio Arts – Week 4 – Game Engine Overview.” Lecture presented at Tutorial Room 408, Level 4, Schultz building, University of Adelaide, 14th of August 2007.

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