31,19 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Audio plays a fundamental role in video games. From music to sound effects or dialogue, it helps to reinforce the experience, convey the mood, and give feedback to the player. Presently, many games have achieved commercial success by incorporating game sounds that have enhanced the user experience. You can achieve this in your games with the help of the FMOD library. This book provides you with a practical guide to implementing the FMOD toolkit in your games.
Getting Started with C++ Audio Programming for Game Developers is a quick and practical introduction to the most important audio programming topics that any game developer is expected to know. Whether you need to play only a few audio files or you intend to design a complex audio simulation, this book will help you get started enhancing your game with audio programs.
Getting Started with C++ Audio Programming for Game Developers covers a broad range of topics – from loading and playing audio files to simulating sounds within a virtual environment and implementing interactive sounds that react to events in the game.
The book starts off with an explanation of the fundamental audio concepts, after which it proceeds to explain how to use the FMOD Ex library, how to implement a 3D audio simulation, how to use the FMOD Designer toolkit, and how best to work with multi-layered sounds with complex behaviors attached to them. The final part of the book deals with working with audio at a much lower level by manipulating audio data directly.
This book will provide you with a good foundation so that you can successfully implement audio into your games and begin pursuing other advanced topics in audio programming with confidence.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Seitenzahl: 142
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013
Ähnliche
Table of Contents
Getting Started with C++ Audio Programming for Game Development
Getting Started with C++ Audio Programming for Game Development
Copyright © 2013 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: August, 2013
Production Reference: 1190813
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-84969-909-9
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by Suresh Mogre (<[email protected]>)
Credits
Author
David Gouveia
Reviewers
Tomas Pettersson
Daniel Varela
Acquisition Editor
Edward Gordon
Commissioning Editor
Shreerang Deshpande
Technical Editors
Larissa Pinto
Nitee Shetty
Project Coordinator
Suraj Bist
Proofreader
Lesley Harrison
Indexer
Tejal Soni
Graphics
Abhinash Sahu
Production Coordinator
Melwyn D'sa
Cover Work
Melwyn D'sa
About the Author
David Gouveia is a Software Engineer and Game Developer from Portugal, Madeira Island. He recently finished his MSc in Computer Science, with a specialization in graphics and multimedia, and is currently working full-time as a game programmer for a local company. He runs an educational blog about game development and enjoys sharing his knowledge with the community whenever possible. His main interests in game development are graphics and audio programming. He also has a strong interest in music and synthesizers, having played the keyboard most of his life.
About the Reviewers
Tomas Pettersson is a creator of the freeware audio tools SFXR and Musagi.
Daniel Varela was born in Trebujena, Spain, in 1980. His strong passion for music and technology led him to obtain a Bachelor's degree in Sound and Image Engineering from the University of Málaga, Spain, in 2004.
From very early on in his education, he focused on digital audio signal processing, designing and developing software simulations for audio signals quantification noise modeling, experimental reverb effects, and culminating in an application for the digital audio editing as his final project of studies.
After graduating, he worked for six years in the software consultancy area as an Applications Programmer and Analyst. During this stage, he improved his Object Oriented Programming skills and working methodology, but however, he felt like something was missing.
In 2010, he joined TheGameKitchen, a just born indie videogames development company, as a Generalist Programmer. During this period, he made familiar game engines, such as XNA or Unity3D and developed some audio application prototypes, such as a MOD tracker player for XNA or a scratching application for Windows Phone.
In 2011, he started working at BlitzGamesStudios in the UK as Audio Programmer, developing a successful career in the area of audio programming for videogames. He is responsible for maintaining and improving an existing cross platform end to end audio pipeline, as well as working with third party audio middleware such as FMOD and Wwise.
www.PacktPub.com
Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more
You might want to visit www.PacktPub.com for support files and downloads related to your book.
Did you know that Packt offers eBook versions of every book published, with PDF and ePub files available? You can upgrade to the eBook version at www.PacktPub.com and as a print book customer, you are entitled to a discount on the eBook copy. Get in touch with us at <[email protected]> for more details.
At www.PacktPub.com, you can also read a collection of free technical articles, sign up for a range of free newsletters and receive exclusive discounts and offers on Packt books and eBooks.
http://PacktLib.PacktPub.com
Do you need instant solutions to your IT questions? PacktLib is Packt's online digital book library. Here, you can access, read and search across Packt's entire library of books.
Why Subscribe?
Free Access for Packt account holders
If you have an account with Packt at www.PacktPub.com, you can use this to access PacktLib today and view nine entirely free books. Simply use your login credentials for immediate access.
Preface
Audio is certainly one of the most powerful tools at our disposal when it comes to making the players feel something from a video game. Audio can serve many different purposes in video games, such as giving feedback with sound effects, increasing immersion with ambient tracks, telling stories with recorded speech, or conveying all kinds of emotions through background music.
Video games have been making use of sound since their earliest days. For instance, the 1972 classic, Pong, used a beep sound effect to provide feedback whenever the ball collided with something, with different pitches used to distinguish between collisions with the walls, collisions with the paddles, or the ball leaving the game court.
Space Invaders, on the other hand, made a very clever use of its rudimentary background music by progressively increasing the speed of the song as the danger of the alien invasion drew closer, thus enhancing the feelings of tension within the player. Studies have shown that gamers that played the game without sound did not feel the same sense of urgency, and their heart rates did not rise like the ones that played the game with the sound turned on.
Since those days, there have been many advances in technology, which allowed audio in games to evolve considerably. Most games began using recorded audio instead of crude synthesized tones, and new techniques such as 3D audio now allow the players to feel like the sound is coming from all around them and interacting with the game environment.
Music has also played a very important role in video games. The popular Final Fantasy games owe a great portion of their emotional impact to the sweeping, cinematic soundtracks composed by Nobuo Uematsu. The most memorable scenes in the series would have not been the same without the music that accompanied them.
Many developers and composers have also looked into ways of making the music react to the game play. For example, starting with Monkey Island 2, LeChuck's Revenge, every graphic adventure game that LucasArts created uses a custom interactive music system called iMUSE, which among other features, allows seamless musical transitions between themes as the player moves from one room to another.
There are even games that incorporate audio concepts directly into their main gameplay mechanics, such as the songs that the player has to memorize and play in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and games that revolve entirely around sound, with the most popular examples being rhythm games, such as PaRappa the Rapper, Dance Dance Revolution, or Guitar Hero.
However, despite being such an important part of video games, many game development books skim through the subject of audio programming. Even the ones that dedicate a chapter to audio, often only teach you the very basics, such as loading and playing audio files, or use outdated audio engines instead of the ones used by the industry nowadays. Additionally, other game development topics, such as graphics, physics, or artificial intelligence tend to be more enticing to beginner level game developers and learning about audio becomes less of a priority.
The main goal of this book is to give you a crash course on audio programming for games by using a popular and well-established audio engine, and covering the subject from several different levels of abstraction. It is my hope that this approach will give you enough knowledge to implement most of the audio features that are normally required for a video game, and form a foundation so that you may pursue other topics that are more advanced.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Audio Concepts, covers some of the most important audio concepts, such as sound waves, analog and digital audio, multi-channel audio, and audio file formats.
Chapter 2, Audio Playback, shows how to use FMOD to load and play audio files, and how to begin creating a simple audio manager class.
Chapter 3, Audio Control, shows how to control the playback and parameters of a sound, and how to group sounds into categories and control them simultaneously.
Chapter 4, 3D Audio, covers the most important concepts of 3D audio, such as positional audio, reverberation, obstruction/occlusion, along with a few DSP effects.
Chapter 5, Intelligent Audio, provides an overview of high-level sound design using the FMOD Designer tool, with examples of how to create adaptive and interactive sound events and music.
Chapter 6, Low-level Audio, provides basic information on how to work with audio at a very low-level, by manipulating and writing audio data directly.
What you need for this book
For this book, you will need the following software:
Who this book is for
This book is oriented towards C++ game developers who have little or no experience with audio programming and would like a quick introduction to the most important topics required to integrate audio into a game.
You will need an intermediate knowledge of C++ to be able to follow the code examples in the book, including an understanding of basic C++ Standard Library features, such as strings, containers, iterators, and streams. Some game programming experience is also recommended, but not mandatory.
Reader feedback
Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book—what you liked or may have disliked. Reader feedback is important for us to develop titles that you really get the most out of.
To send us general feedback, simply send an e-mail to <[email protected]>, and mention the book title via the subject of your message.
If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, see our author guide on www.packtpub.com/authors.
Customer support
Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.
Downloading the example code
You can download the example code files for all Packt books you have purchased from your account at http://www.packtpub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly to you.
Errata
Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books—maybe a mistake in the text or the code—we would be grateful if you would report this to us. By doing so, you can save other readers from frustration and help us improve subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, please report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/submit-errata, selecting your book, clicking on the errata submission form link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata will be uploaded on our website, or added to any list of existing errata, under the Errata section of that title. Any existing errata can be viewed by selecting your title from http://www.packtpub.com/support.
Piracy
Piracy of copyright material on the Internet is an ongoing problem across all media. At Packt, we take the protection of our copyright and licenses very seriously. If you come across any illegal copies of our works, in any form, on the Internet, please provide us with the location address or website name immediately so that we can pursue a remedy.
Please contact us at <[email protected]> with a link to the suspected pirated material.
