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Towards an Emotion-Driven Adaptive System for Video Game Music

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Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology (ACE 2017)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 10714))

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Abstract

Perfectly adaptive music is a long dreamed goal for game audio designers. Although numerous systems have been developed in both academic and industrial contexts, currently there is no unified method for producing this type of content – not even an agreement on input variables, output variations or assessment criteria. Our research aims to create an audio system for video games that improves the experience by adapting environmental music to emotions associated with the ongoing narrative. This system combines short audio tracks of pre-designed music in real time, using player behavior and emerging feelings as main cues. In this paper, we identify some of the issues that dynamic music faces through the study of current adaptive and procedural techniques, and describe how our sound system architecture attempts to solve them. In the end, we claim that a sonification method like the proposed one could improve player engagement by adapting music to each game situation, driven by a solid focus on emotional storytelling.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.halowaypoint.com.

  2. 2.

    https://www.unrealengine.com/what-is-unreal-engine-4.

  3. 3.

    https://unity3d.com/es.

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Acknowledgements

This article was funded by the Complutense University of Madrid (grant CT27/16-CT28/16 for predoctoral research), in collaboration with Santander Bank and NIL research group.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence, Complutense University of Madrid, c/Profesor José García Santesmases 9, 28040, Madrid, Spain

    Manuel López Ibáñez & Federico Peinado

  2. Artificial Intelligence Research Center, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, 2-3-26 Aomi, Koto-ku, Tokyo, 135-0064, Japan

    Nahum Álvarez

Authors
  1. Manuel López Ibáñez
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  2. Nahum Álvarez
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  3. Federico Peinado
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Manuel López Ibáñez .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. City, University of London, London, United Kingdom

    Adrian David Cheok

  2. University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Masahiko Inami

  3. NOVA University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Teresa Romão

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López Ibáñez, M., Álvarez, N., Peinado, F. (2018). Towards an Emotion-Driven Adaptive System for Video Game Music. In: Cheok, A., Inami, M., Romão, T. (eds) Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology. ACE 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10714. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76270-8_25

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76270-8_25

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-76269-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-76270-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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