I'm just getting back to my hotel from the first day at GameSoundCon. Great day! Totally lifted my spirits from the fact that my flight in yesterday was delayed, the hotel oversold, and I was moved into a craphole where I feel like the sheets are going to give me Ebola. As I walked into GameSoundCon this morning, George Sanger was lugging his suitcase up the steps in front of me and we started chatting. When I got to the registration table, Alexander Brandon was passing out the registration information for the N-Z folks, which of course included me! These are two great composers whose music I admire and whose books I love and have written about (George and Alex). A great start to the day to help wash away the rough arrival yesterday.
After a mass meeting, I spent the morning in FMOD sessions with Stephan Schutze. I felt a bit awkward initially when Stephan asked everyone how they identified as a sound designer or as a composer. Then he asked who didn't raise a hand-- just me-- and I said I identified as a teacher of game music. He went on a bit of a tirade about how there were a lot of "Bobs" who were teaching game audio and had no business or knowledge to be doing so and it was fraud. Then quickly followed this with the caveat that he was glad I was seeking out the training that many didn't know they needed or care to get. After that bump and a technical problem with the projector, the sessions progressed quickly as he showed many of the features of FMOD. While the class wasn't the sort of FMOD 101 I was hoping for, it was interesting to watch what was possible in the software. One of the main points he stressed was that folks used to linear media need to get out of the mindset of "get your sounds in ProTools, mix them, and export them off to the game." Instead, technology today allows for the game engine to mix the sound interactively in the game. Principles I understand already from readings, but cool to see how he applied them with the software.
After lunch at a gastro-pub, I headed to Alexander Brandon's session discussing his work on the Wasteland 2 and Pillars of Eternity. Most cool about this session was hearing how he worked in Unity 4 on this game and used various techniques and softwares to conquer audio problems. Alex seemed to be a fan of Wwise, which was not used in these games, but he is hoping to use in future games. He also discussed the differences in updates to Unity 5 that are improvements to how the audio works. While I haven't used Unity much at all except for exploring just a bit of Steve Horowitz' book, it was cool to see that the interface wasn't so much different from the Unreal demos I've seen in The Game Audio Tutorial. At the end of this session, I was sitting close enough to Winifred Phillips to get her to autograph my copy of her superb book, which I've been reading on this trip.
I was planning to head back to the FMOD session for some talk about generative audio, but instead I headed down to chat with some of the sponsors. There were numerous tables set up by different groups and products: IAsig, Wwise, RealSpace VR Audio, and ProSoundEffects. I'm planning to join IAsig next year as this year is my year of GANG. Wwise and ProSoundEffects are both things that I think could enhance my teaching at UM, so I chatted with them about possibilities for students and educational packages. The hardest of these for me to describe is RealSpace VR audio. They had headphones where the audio changed in relation to the placement of a second device around you, changing the mixing as you were stationary in the headphones and the device was moved around you. Next, they had me put on enormous goggles and a second set of headphones that looked into a beautiful 3D environment and it was possible to move through the environment by looking at various objects in it and hear the sound change in relation to your position in the virtual environment. I'd never seen or heard anything like that. Definitely something to keep an eye on in the future!
Marty O'Donnell gave the keynote address. I forget that he wrote that memorable Flintstone Kids jingle from my childhood. Never knew it was his daughter who sang the final "and growing!" I never played Halo, but of course know the music anyway. I played a bit of Riven, but was way more into Myst-- didn't realize he got into the later sequels in this series. Anyway, fascinating to hear about his journey and some of his advice. I may use some of his points and examples in my own teaching. His three main points were: 1-practice, 2-take risks, and 3-have friends. Good advice in any field, certainly any musical one! The end of the talk was a bit of a downer as he talked about abuse in the game audio field and how to protect yourself and your creations. Again, good advice, but too bad that folks get burned enough to make that a front and center issue in the field.
All in all, a wonderful, tiring, busy day. Looking forward to tomorrow with some Wwise training and audio roundtables.
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