Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

International Symposium on Computer Music Multidisciplinary Research

CMMR 2016: Bridging People and Sound pp 219–228Cite as

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

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:

  • 846 Accesses

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

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.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

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.

References

  1. Bonneel, N., Drettakis, G., Tsingos, N., Viaud-Delmon, I., James, D.: Fast modal sounds with scalable frequency-domain synthesis. ACM Trans. Graph. 27(3), 24:1–24:9 (2008). doi:10.1145/1360612.1360623

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Collins, K.: Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory, and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design. The MIT Press, Cambridge (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Farnell, A.: An introduction to procedural audio and its application in computer games (2007). http://cs.au.dk/~dsound/DigitalAudio.dir/Papers/proceduralAudio.pdf

  4. Farnell, A.: Designing Sound. The MIT Press, Cambridge (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Gregory, J.: Game Engine Architecture. A.K. Peters/CRC Press, Boca Raton (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  6. James, D.L., Barbič, J., Pai, D.K.: Precomputed acoustic transfer: output-sensitive, accurate sound generation for geometrically complex vibration sources. In: ACM SIGGRAPH 2006 Papers, pp. 987–995. SIGGRAPH 2006. ACM, New York (2006). doi:10.1145/1179352.1141983

  7. Lago, N.P., Kon, F.: The quest for low latency. In: Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference, pp. 33–36 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  8. LucasArts: Method and apparatus for dynamically composing music and sound effects using a computer entertainment system. United States Patent 5315057 (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Matos, E.: A Arte de Compor Música para o Cinema. Senac, Brasília (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Meneguette, L.C.: Situações Sonoras e Jogos Digitais. Simpçõrio Brasileiro de Games, pp. 30–33 (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Mizutani, W.K., Vicente, D., Kon, F.: Sound wanderer: an experimental game exploring real-time soundtrack with openda. In: Demonstration at the 12th International Symposium on Computer Music Multidisciplinary Research, São Paulo (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Nystrom, R.: Game Programming Patterns. Genever Benning, Mahwah (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Schell, J.: The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, 2nd edn. A.K. Peters/CRC Press, Boca Raton (2014)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  14. Scott, N.: Music to middleware: the growing challenges of the game music composer. In: Proceedings of the 2014 Conference on Interactive Entertainment, pp. 34:1–34:3. IE 2014. ACM, New York (2014). http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2677758.2677792

  15. Weiner, K., DiamondWare Ltd.: Interactive processing pipeline for digital audio. In: DeLoura, M. (ed.) Game Programming Gems II, pp. 529–538. Charles River Media, Revere (2001)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

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
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Fabio Kon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

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

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this paper

Cite this paper

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

Download citation

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

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-67737-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-67738-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation