Lidt omkring brugen af lyd i LBP

Det lyder ret genialt.

"Hi, my name’s Kenny and I’m the audio designer at Media Molecule working on LittleBigPlanet. I got into the games industry about five years ago – after completing a couple of audio related degrees I was picked up by Sony London Studio's audio department to work on their first party titles. I worked on about a dozen titles for Sony, cutting my teeth on a wide range of genres from your AAA blockbusters (like games in the The Getaway franchise, Heavenly Sword and 24: The Game) to your niche social/lifestylee thingamajigs (like EyeToy: Kinetic and its sequel). I moved to sunny Guildford 442 days ago, LBP having caught my attention when it was announced at GDC '07. Good times.



My role at Media Molecule is kinda “the audio department”, so I'm responsible for everything you hear in the game and the audio features you'll be using in create mode. I create the sounds, write a bit of music, choose licensed tracks and commission and brief composers. My 'other half' at MM Towers is audio programmer Matt who helps with the design of audio features before executing them in zeroz and onez in the mysterious 'codez' (whatever that means, I just smile at him when he mentions it).



But enough about us, down to business.



The interactive music in LittleBigPlanet came about as an evolution of the system that the chaps had developed for Ragdoll Kung Fu – in that game there was just one piece of music which played from the moment you started the game up, all the way through the cutscenes and gameplay, and didn't stop until you'd had your fill. What kept it fresh was that the mix would change depending upon the context – triggering a cutscene or progressing through a level would adapt the mix to suit the vibe of what was going on at that particular moment. (As an aside: those of you that played RdKF may have noticed that each time you completed a level you unlocked a channel of the game's mixer which allowed you to mess around with the mix of the music, just for fun). With LBP, the challenge was to come up with an interface which allowed level creators to do the same thing; mould the music to fit their creations.



The way you do this is to select the interactive music track you want to use from your POPIT, slap down its music object, then tweak the mix sliders till it’s got the vibe that suits that part of your level. Now, when a sack person runs past that music object it will start the track playing with your specified mix settings or, if that piece of music is already playing, it will adjust the mix (smooth like, over a couple of bars) to the new mix settings. Simple! This allows you to do things like just play the percussion during an escape sequence before throwing everything in for the end of level boss battle; the choice is totally up to you.





In the developer levels that I’ve worked on here I've tended to use just one piece of music, or musical style in each level, but you won’t face any such limitations. You can't have more than one piece of music playing at any given time (for the same reason that you can't listen to more than one track at a time on your MP3 player; it would sound hideous) but there's nothing stopping you from mixing up different pieces of music in your level or, indeed, mixing up interactive and non-interactive tracks. I can’t wait to hear how the different pieces of music are juxtaposed and mashed up in the myriad user created levels published onto the LittleBigPlanet. Knock yourselves out.



Another way to customise the audio in your creations is with the use of sound objects. As with the music objects, sound objects play when their trigger zones are activated or the switch they're connected up to gets thrown (that's right; you can have the music change automatically when that cunningly hidden trap-door is triggered, accompanied by a big ol' squeak, a ker-chunk and some screams thrown in for good measure, mwu-ha-ha-ha-ha!). There's one slight difference here due to the abstract nature of sound as a resource (and the challenge of representing it nicely in POPIT) – rather than collecting individual sound effects, such as a cow moo, you would pick up an “animals” sound object, each object being a collection of themed sounds.





One of these sound objects, potentially the most interesting, is a collection of musical samples which paves the way for the creation of your own Heath Robinson-esque musical contraptions – drum machines and sequenced melody machines, anyone? Don’t expect a serious composition tool, it’s far from being that advanced, however it is a boatload of fun to play with and I’m particularly looking forward to seeing what people come up with using the sound objects coupled with the insane flexibility offered by the physics and switch systems. GO WILD!



Right now, in this last stage of development, I’m handling the implementation of the localised voice assets for the tutorials, mixing the game and generally just ensuring that everything is up to scratch in audio land. At this time in a project I need to be on the lookout for bug fixes happening in non-audio areas that have knock-ons for the audio, and that means playing the game, then playing it some more (it's a hard life, guv). Which reminds me, I really must get back to testing my drum machine. I swear it sounds totally different depending upon whether it's made from green felt or polystyrene.



I seriously can't wait to see what people come up with using LittleBigPlanet – particularly when it comes to levels. I’ve been playing the levels we’ve designed here for so long now it’d be great to see something completely different. That's where you come in. I'm intrigued to see how the community is going to use the audio features in the game – mixing things up and generally doing all those things I hadn’t thought of!"



Kenny

#593

done for timer siden 8-)

Top ten in software sales for August:

1. Madden NFL 09 – 360 – 1 million
2. Madden NFL 09 – PS3 – 643K
3. Madden NFL 09 – PS2 – 424.5K
4. Wii Fit - Wii – 394.9K
5. Mario Kart - Wii – 328.7K
6. Wii Play w/remote – Wii – 394.9K
7. Soul Calibur IV – 360 – 174K
8. Too Human – 360 – 168.2K
9. Madden NFL 09 – Wii – 115.8K
10. Guitar Hero: On Tour – DS – 111.2K

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/09/11/august-npd-madde...

Damn det er alligevel pænt mange Madden spil der er blevet langet over disken, men ok det har jo så også faldet sammen med starten på virkelighedens NFL sæson så det er vel også her de skal klare det meste af deres salg.

Personligt venter jeg dog på en stabilitets patch inden jeg køber det...

#597 - ja da - ser især frem til Kraftwerk :-)

The full soundtrack for the game is as follows:

MoveYa! & Steve Lavers: Chemical
Stanton Warriors: Tokyo
DJ Fresh: X-Project (100% Pure mix)
Ed Rush, Optical & Matrix: Frontline
Noisia: Seven Stitches
MIST: Smart Systems
Mason: Exceeder - Special mix
Booka Shade: Steady Rush
Kraftwerk: Aero Dynamik

Nothing on that list take your fancy? That's okay, WipEout HD will feature full custom soundtrack support, just like its PSP cousin, Wipeout Pulse. That means you can speed along at 600kph whilst listening to something wholly inappropriate, if you so wish.

#598 - Er der nogen der har et link til det der Wipeout HD, så jeg kan læse lidt om det?

EDIT: Altså, et GODT link og ikke bare en eller anden fesen PS3 side hvor de jo skal være positive for at sælge skidtet. :)