1st Edition
Beep to Boom The Development of Advanced Runtime Sound Systems for Games and Extended Reality
Drawing on decades of experience, Beep to Boom: The Development of Advanced Runtime Sound Systems for Games and Extended Reality is a rigorous, comprehensive guide to interactive audio runtime systems.
Packed with practical examples and insights, the book explains each component of these complex geometries of sound. Using practical, lowest-common-denominator techniques, Goodwin covers soundfield creation across a range of platforms from phones to VR gaming consoles.
Whether creating an audio system from scratch or building on existing frameworks, the book also explains costs, benefits and priorities. In the dynamic simulated world of games and extended reality, interactive audio can now consider every intricacy of real-world sound. This book explains how and why to tame it enjoyably.
Chapter 1 The Essence of Interactive Audio
Chapter 2 Early Digital Audio Hardware
Chapter 3 Sample Replay
Chapter 4 Interactive Audio Development Roles
Chapter 5 Audio Resource Management
Chapter 6 Loading and Streaming Concepts
Chapter 7 Streaming Case Studies
Chapter 8 The Architecture of Audio Runtimes
Chapter 9 Quick Curves - Transcendental Optimisations
Chapter 10 Objects, Voices, Sources and Handles
Chapter 11 Modelling Distance
Chapter 12 Implementing Voice Groups
Chapter 13 Implementing Listeners
Chapter 14 Split-Screen Multi-Player Audio
Chapter 15 Runtime System Physical Layers
Chapter 16 Mixing and Resampling Systems
Chapter 17 Interactive Audio Codecs
Chapter 18 Panning Sounds for Speakers and Headphones
Chapter 19 Ambisonic Surround-Sound Principles and Practice
Chapter 20 Design and Selection of Digital Filters
Chapter 21 Interactive Reverberation
Chapter 22 Geometrical Interactions, Occlusion and Reflections
Chapter 23 Audio Outputs and Endpoints
Chapter 24 Glossary and Resources
Acknowledgements
Index
Biography
Simon N Goodwin is an Interactive Audio Technology Consultant who lives and works in Warwick, UK. His game-development career started in the 8-bit 1970s, latterly including a productive decade as Principal Programmer in the Central Technology Group at Codemasters Software Company, where he designed and implemented advanced Ambisonic 3D audio technology in multi-million-selling games, including six number 1 hits in the UK and major EU territories and two BAFTA award winners, RaceDriver Grid and F1 2010. Simon has professionally developed games, tools, audio and VR technology for Amiga Inc., Atari Corp., Attention to Detail, Central ITV, Codemasters, Digital Precision, dk’tronics, Dolby, DTS, Electronic Arts, Quicksilva, Racal and Silicon Studio Ltd., and written regular technical columns for many magazines including Amiga Format, Crash, Linux Format and Personal Computer World. Simon is expert in console, mobile and PC audio and streaming system development, variously working as an inventor, sound designer, game audio programmer and audio systems engineer. He has been granted five US and UK patents, advises on AHRC and EPSRC research programmes and gives talks at GDC, AES and university conferences.
"Simon N Goodwin is one of the most knowledgeable and decent people you can meet in the Games industry. A true unsung hero, who has helped revolutionise audio."
Murray Rigluth, former Director, Sony DADC
"Simon Goodwin has used Ambisonics in game development probably longer than anyone else."
Stephan Schütze, Sound Librarian, award-winning sound designer with Oculus, Magic Leap and Facebook Spatial Audio teams, author of New Realities in Audio, A Practical Guide for VR, AR, MR and 360 Video (CRC Press)
"What he doesn’t know about audio engineering is not worth knowing. [...] If you have even a passing interest in audio and audio for games, you should take a look at getting a copy."
Justin Andrews, Senior Audio Programmer, Codemasters
“For anyone who's interested in gameaudio, dsp, gamesound or any other aspect of videogame audio, this book is pretty special. Straight from of one of the games industry's most respected audio minds."
Jason Page, Console Support Manager at Unity3D
“Years of wisdom from the best audio programmer I've known.”
Ethan Larson, Game Designer on Dead by Daylight at Behaviour Interactive
