Beep to Boom: The Development of Advanced Runtime Sound Systems for Games and Extended Reality

by Simon Goodwin

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138543904
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	02/18/2019
Series:	Audio Engineering Society Presents
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	294
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

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

Editorial Reviews

"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

From the Publisher