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VORPAL: An Extensible and Flexible Middleware for Real-Time Soundtracks in Digital Games

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Bridging People and Sound (CMMR 2016)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 10525))

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Abstract

Real-time soundtracks in games have always faced design restrictions due to technological limitations. The predominant solutions of hoarding prerecorded audio assets and then assigning a tweak or two each time their playback is triggered from game code leaves away the potential of real-time symbolic representation manipulation and DSP audio synthesis. In this paper, we take a first step towards a more robust, generic, and flexible approach to game audio and musical composition in the form of a generic middleware based on the Pure Data programming language. We describe here the middleware architecture and implementation and part of its validation via two game experiments.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A recursive acronym.

  2. 2.

    love2d.org.

  3. 3.

    puredata.info.

  4. 4.

    See Firelight’s FMOD Studio (www.fmod.org), Audiokinetic’s Wwise (www.audiokinetic.com/products/wwise), and Elias Software’s Elias (www.eliassoftware.com).

  5. 5.

    libpd.cc.

  6. 6.

    See www.openal.org and kcat.strangesoft.net/openal.html.

  7. 7.

    stabyourself.net/mari0.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Institute of Mathematics, University of São Paulo, Rua Do Matão, 1010, São Paulo, 05508-090, SP, Brazil

    Wilson Kazuo Mizutani & Fabio Kon

Authors
  1. Wilson Kazuo Mizutani
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  2. Fabio Kon
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wilson Kazuo Mizutani .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire PRISM, CNRS-AMU, Marseille, France

    Mitsuko Aramaki

  2. Laboratoire PRISM, CNRS-AMU, Marseille, France

    Richard Kronland-Martinet

  3. Laboratoire PRISM, CNRS-AMU, Marseille, France

    Sølvi Ystad

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Mizutani, W.K., Kon, F. (2017). VORPAL: An Extensible and Flexible Middleware for Real-Time Soundtracks in Digital Games. In: Aramaki, M., Kronland-Martinet, R., Ystad, S. (eds) Bridging People and Sound. CMMR 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10525. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67738-5_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67738-5_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-67737-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-67738-5

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