Interview with Game Composer Guy Whitmore: "Adaptive music isn't important for games, it's mandatory!" Last month, I had the honour of interviewing game composer Guy Whitmore. We shared ideas on video game music with a specific focus on the use of adaptive techniques in video games. He shared some great insights on the future of music making in video games. Guy has been around in the video games industry for more than 20 years. He has specialised in adaptive music. You can say he’s an adaptive music evangelist and educator! 1) Tell us a bit how you started your career as a composer and how you ended up in the video game industry. I began studying classical guitar at Northwestern University. 2) Why did you choose to focus on adaptive music? Adaptive music kind of happened to me as I was doing my first couple of game projects. Adaptive music kind of happened to me as I was doing my first couple of game projects.
When I went to Monolith, some one said “The stuff you’re doing reminds me of DirectMusic. 4) What are the challenges of having an adaptive soundtrack in a video game? Like this: Dynamic & Interactive Game Scoring with Guy Whitmore. Interview with Game Composer Guy Whitmore: "Adaptive music isn't important for games, it's mandatory!" Guy Whitmore Beep Webisode. Peggle 2 on the PS4 - Plus an interview with Guy Whitmore! PopCap's Guy Whitmore Talks Musical Trials And Triumphs On Peggle Blast. Here’s an unusual suggestion for playing Peggle Blast when it hits mobile devices on December 2: just for the heck of it, take a while to make a shot instead of rushing to the next one.
PopCap’s composer and Sr. Studio Audio Director Guy Whitmore won’t care. In fact he’d probably appreciate the fact that you took the time to enjoy the music, up to two minutes of it, that can play between shots. That might not sound like such a surprise for a franchise like Peggle that is synonymous with music, particularly of the grand, orchestral variety. It just wasn’t so simple to continue that heritage in Peggle Blast due to a very real constraint. That’s 50MB for the entire game, by the way. “That sounded like an impossible task at first,” Whitmore said recently by phone. Without getting too technical, it involved sampling. Or at least that’s how it was explained to this relatively musically uneducated writer.
“If you’re playing quickly, the phrases will walk through quickly,” Whitmore said. Peggle 2 on the PS4 - Plus an interview with Guy Whitmore! New DAW Rising. PopCap Games composer Guy Whitmore discusses the advantages of scoring your game, within the game A common practice for games composers today is to compose and arrange fully mixed music cues in Pro Tools or Logic, then have an implementation specialist drop those files into the game. Music integration, in this case, is seen as a basic technical task. But to score a game with greater nuance, the composer would want to see the title in action while composing and arranging, working in a digital audio workstation (DAW) that includes robust adaptive features. This new DAW exists; it is your game audio engine and its authoring tools. In this scenario, music integration is a highly creative endeavour, where music arranging, mixing, mastering, and even composing takes place. Peggle 2 utilised Audiokinetic’s Wwise audio engine, which became the final stage DAW in the music production pipeline.
Second are the individual audio assets. Exclusive Look: Jimmy Lightning Returns to Peggle 2. Making the secret symphony of Peggle 2. I am standing in a room few people get to see. It's barely a 10 by 10 foot space, crammed to bursting with computers and consoles. A keyboard in the corner, a violin case against the wall. Two huge computers compete for space on a mixing desk, crowded with other equipment. A laptop, some monitors. An Xbox One. This is the audio room, a small, secret room behind a simple, orange door. This room is where the music is made for Peggle 2. Drew Robertson is standing next to me. Microsoft has code names for every game in development for its consoles, whether they're made by Microsoft or not.
Hover over image to see an early concept sketch progress towards final art for Peggle 2. In making video games, the term "secret sauce" is used, frequently, to describe the creative critical mass that forms when a collection of certain individuals works on a certain type of thing. Just over two years ago, Seattle-based PopCap set out to bottle that sauce to make Peggle 2.
The game is out this week. Bjorn. Download The Sound Design of Fable 2: How We Scaled to Beat the Clock from Official Microsoft Download Center. Supported Operating System Powerpoint. Design With Music In Mind: A Guide to Adaptive Audio for Game Designers. There is a growing trend away from detached "linear" scores towards music that is tightly integrated with, and relevant to, gameplay. Game designers are learning that music doesn't have to be merely a detached backdrop to the action on screen - it can ebb and flow, adding emotional depth and soul to scenarios and help maintain the suspension of disbelief that is so crucial for players. We now have the ability to craft scores that adapt to what is going on in the game, in real time. In this article, I'm going to explain ways that game designers can work more closely with composers to achieve a more integrated soundtrack for games. This is important because music is currently underutilized in most games, allowing plenty of room for design innovation which translates to more game sales, while delivering a more meaningful player experience.
"Adaptive audio" is a term used to describe audio and music that reacts appropriately to - and even anticipates - gameplay. The Spectrum of Adaptability. Guy Whitmore - Blood Wiki. Peggle 2 hearkens back to the musicality of classic cartoons. The creators who worked during the “golden age” of American animation harnessed the power of music in a way that’s hard to find in modern works. It’s not just that prolific cartoon composers like Looney Tunes’ Carl Stalling introduced multiple generations to the titans of classical music and the pop standards of the early 20th century.
What makes that era special is the way those pieces and the various expressive elements of orchestral music were integrated into the toons. Every sneaky step that Daffy Duck takes is accompanied by playful strings, and any scene involving cash is scored with “The Gold Diggers’ Song (We’re In The Money).” Music was used to sell jokes, set a mood, and build the characters’ personalities. Since its debut in 2007, PopCap’s Peggle has exhibited a similar understanding of music’s ability to heighten an experience. The game is played on a pachinko-like board covered in colorful pegs.
You aim and launch a ball from the top of the screen. Guy Whitmore. Guy Whitmore has specialized in creating "adaptive music" for video games, using techniques such as cross-fading, location-based music, and techniques to render music "on-the-fly" rather than using "pre-rendered" linear tracks. Interview with Guy Whitmore. By Alexander Brandon Guy Whitmore has been composing game scores as a freelancer, company man, and entrepreneur, since 1994.
He has recently co-founded a music production company called Music Design Network, LLC. Recent titles include Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza, Russian Squares, and No One Lives Forever. After studying music at Northwestern, and Southern Methodist University, he began writing music for regional theater productions in Dallas, Los Angeles, and New York. Corporate clients have included: Amazon.com, Microsoft, Corbis, The Bon Marché, Fisher Broadcasting, Sellen, Real Networks, and the Seattle Aquarium.
Guy is a founding member, and on the board of the Seattle Composers Alliance; an organization bringing awareness and community to professional composers in the Seattle area. www.seattlecomposers.org 1) Let's start with your first title with an adaptive soundtrack (which was it? Well, that depends on how you define adaptive, eh? The analogy is very literal. 'Aliens vs.