KVR Audio

Diego_C · Post by **Diego_C** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 3:42 pm

Hi ,there!

Again here asking informations about sound designing and the audio production professional world.

Any video games sound designer around here?

When looking for video games companies hiring sound designers they require you to be keen on the use of non conventional audio software, they are never mentioning pro tools, or Nuendo, or other, but who is asking for knowledge about Fmod, who Fmod studio, who WWise, who is speaking about other software connected with the Unreal engine and so on...

So my question is:

among all these which one is more spread?
or considered as standard ?
(as for music editing and mixing is Pro tools often - though I love Reaper

)

or the most used in your opinion/experience if you are working or worked as sound designer for video games ?

I'm asking this as it takes time to be good at one of them so, without trying to learn all of them at the same time - which by now is too much... - I'd like to figure out which one is the most useful to start learning in case of need.

Any reply is welcome. Thank you !

No_Use · Post by **No_Use** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 4:10 pm

Wanting to get into this area also, I once had a conversation with an experienced game sound designer asking a similar question.
Here's what he replied.

On your question for Audio Engine Middleware for Games, been an educator on the field for almost 10 years and also a professional I would suggest you go with Fmod, this is the industry standard and the next release will be full of features like "sequencer-like" mixing boards and grouping, auxiliaries and everything. Also this game engine is everywhere, you can see that on their site. And the next release will have dsp from iZotope which is great.

Also the is FmodTV on youtube and you can learn many things from the documentation. This engine is also the only one that supports all major platforms and they are going that way so you don't have top be afraid that the tool that you will learn will be obsolete on some platform. The Fmod is also now the default audio engione for Unreal and many other including the very new and successful Unity3D and Shiva3D.

Wwise has some great video tutorials and their interface is very nice but I would say that they are new but growing fast.

For now I would suggest Fmod and take a look later on Wwise also.

And don;t forget that many game developing companies have their own proprietary tools, but you will have a right foot into this industry by knowing Fmod.

edit:
This reply is now about a year old, don't know if anything changed since then. Myself, I'm still very green in this field, only playing around/trying to learn FMod designer from time to time.

Diego_C · Post by **Diego_C** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 4:53 pm

Hi!
Indeed I found a bit more request about Fmod than wwise, but lately here and there is popping up also this second one.
Anyway at the moment, as I started long time ago as musician, I am focusing since more than 1 year on sound design, though in the past I already studied the basic of sound design and did sound engineering too.
Now I am into learning more Alchemy and Kontakt, besides many very very good freeware stuff as Hourglass, Mammut , some other spectral and granular audio tool and several other samplers, virtual synth, various vst, eating a lot of tutorials, recording and editing in all the way I can and so on..
These are all good ways and tools to record, create, edit and design your samples or presets, creating your own libraries too, but then, as said, we come to the point that in the video games area the sounds are interactive so the software to build up the audio environment, in synch with what's going on in the video, is no more a common daw. I found me too all the Fmod channel and tutorials, but right after I found other companies asking for WWise, so that's the why of my question.
Anyway, step by step, I'm green me o about these software...we'll see. many things to learn, get acquainted too and use,
Thanks a lot for your reply

@midnight · Post by **@midnight** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 5:14 pm

I'm uneducated in this field, but interested in it.

So people doing sound design for video games must use specific software for that purpose?

You cannot use a standard DAW + Plugins for sound design?

teomi · Post by **teomi** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 5:40 pm

As a professional sound designer and a leader educator in Game Audio I can tell you that both fmod and WWise are widely used application for sound design, interactive music, and dialogue.

fmod was very popular and since a few years ago Wwise is becoming more and more powerful and popular. There are TONS of new AAA games that use WWise as the main implementation tool to integrate music sfx and dialogue into any platform and console.

Another huge tool in its popularity is UDK (Unreal). So knowing these 3 platforms is key.

Using a regular DAW is always going to be part of the design but there is no way to author interactive and adaptive audio structures that responds to game events, syncs, and has the ability to create complete interactive structures with their own logic, spawn mechanisms, and most of all with the ability to connect and author sound banks to virtually any game console and platform out there.

The Video Game Sound Design program at Pinnacle College (in LA) is specializing in this area of sound design and its got all the latest and greatest in interactive audio design tools.

www.pinnaclecollege.edu

elxsound · Post by **elxsound** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 5:58 pm

I saw this yesterday regarding FMOD training... I haven't looked into it yet, though:

http://designingsound.org/2013/03/sound ... more-22056

arkmabat · Post by **arkmabat** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 6:19 pm

Unreal was written on a tracker. Try http://www.modplug.com/ and http://www.filearchivehaven.com/music/t ... andbook-2/

The file formats discussed here http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FMOD .xm .it .mod .s3m are all tracker formats, FMOD seems to be a player (like iTunes) compatible with them.

Diego_C · Post by **Diego_C** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 6:36 pm

Thanks A LOT to everyone for discussing with me this topic!
Surely a regular daw is part of the process as may be every audio vst instruments and fx, when we are preparing sounds, or soundtracks, or music pieces, but then speaking about interactive audio the platform are others indeed as said.
I knew already the link:
http://designingsound.org/2013/03/sound ... more-22056
and the
Pinnacle College (in LA)
as lately I am often looking for any possible kind of info about it when I am not busy doing my music or audio editing material in my place.

Unfortunately the question still is to be answered.
I mean, surely having more time (and being younger, I'm 38

... )it makes totally sense to learn all of them,maybe in the same time, and become good at, but I am starting from living in Poland (Europe) so I cannot take part of any courses mentioned above, but luckily I'm good at learnig on my own, and helping my self with tutorial and practice of course.
Many software house around here are doing video games and some ask for Fmod, other for Wwise, so being in lack of time I have to chose which one start/try to learn at first, in the meantime that I am also working on other stuff and learning other software to produce music and sounds and scapes mentioned above.
Maybe I have to have a better look at all the companies and see which software is mentioned more in the production and go for it...

arkmabat · Post by **arkmabat** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 6:55 pm

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_music This article sums it up nicely. Basically, "whatever works" is the answer I get from it. Unless I'm terribly wrong, FMOD is only a playback library.

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 6:59 pm

arkmabat wrote: Unless I'm terribly wrong, FMOD is only a playback library.

You're terribly wrong.

arkmabat · Post by **arkmabat** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 7:15 pm

So individual note composing can be done in FMOD?

Anyway, considering fmod is free to download I'd check that out first.

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 7:22 pm

arkmabat wrote:So individual note composing can be done in FMOD?

Have you actually looked at the FMOD site?

Have a look for yourself what the FMOD system comprises; there's more to it than just the playback library. The latest incarnation, FMOD Studio, looks more like a full-blown DAW than anything, but yes, FMOD Composer let you do 'individual note composing', amongst everything else a game audio middleware environment would be expected to deliver.

http://fmod.com/

arkmabat · Post by **arkmabat** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 7:42 pm

http://www.soundsonline-forums.com/arch ... 37363.html

Diego_C · Post by **Diego_C** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 8:54 pm

arkmabat wrote:http://www.soundsonline-forums.com/arch ... 37363.html

reading this one right now...thanks for sharing

No_Use · Post by **No_Use** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 10:38 pm

@midnight wrote:I'm uneducated in this field, but interested in it.

So people doing sound design for video games must use specific software for that purpose?

You cannot use a standard DAW + Plugins for sound design?

You do the composing/sounddesign in DAWs, then comes the so called 'Audio middleware' like FMod, Wwise into play, the 'bridge' to create adaptive music for games so to speak.

(skip to 8:00 to get to the adaptive music part)

Video games sound designing: Fmod, Wwise and other similar, which one is the most used?