A Living Forest - Wwise
A downloadable tool for Windows and macOS
website: https://koen.schram.co.uk/
email: schram.koen@gmail.com
'A Living Forest' is the practical part of my graduation research. It is an adaptive ambience system that explores the amazing potential of ambiences in open-world video games to support narrative and provide player feedback! It proposes an overall stronger focus on the usage of ambience in open-world games.
🌳🌳🌲🌲
The application is a result of some very interesting interviews conducted with multiple AAA game sound designers about their work. One of the things that stuck out was that they all shared the view that ambiences in open-world games should never be too expressive. Their reasons for this being:
- The unpredictability of player behaviour in open-world environments
- The risk of causing potential clashes with music tracks
- The risk of distracting the player too much
Ambient sound design being one of my favourite things, I found it hard to accept this and set out to find ways for ambience to take on a more prominent role in guiding and supporting players in open worlds!
Enjoy listening 🎧
Wanna play this yourself ? Please find download links below ⬇️
Are you interested in reading the full research paper? click here 📖
Visit my website for more game audio:
https://koen.schram.co.uk/
Download
Comments
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Would it be possible to reduce the file-size and offer a blank .bnk file where the end-user could substitute their own audio resources? This application could be another way to create music as well as the ambient backgrounds that it was intended for.
It's funny that you mention using the system for music. I have been thinking about this too. I would be very much interested in designing a system that integrates both ambience and music, and manages the 'vibe' of both. In my opinion, the two should always go hand in hand. Like, how can you write music for an environment if you don't know what the ambience of that environment sounds like?
Letting the end-user load in their own files is something I thought about too - however, this is basically what Wwise lets you do already. If making music using a responsive system like this is your goal, you should def check it out. It's capable of building crazy music systems!
Hi there! I hadn’t even thought of it that deeply. I was just pondering semi-generative microsound/lowercase/glitch/granular music - there is a software called “Forester 2.0” that is controllable, but it’s based on the Max/MSP framework and requires that to run.
I don’t make video game music (anymore), so Wwise is not what I’m looking to use. Just kinda wondered what would happen if the size of the file could be reduced by removing the sound bank and opening it up to user material.