It’s this time of year again when the game industry prepares for the quickly approaching Game Developers Conference. 

GDC17’s schedule is robust, and the Audio Track line-up is incredible. Our team at Audiokinetic is certainly excited and we’re anticipating a big year for game audio! In preparation, we thought we’d highlight 2 presentations that will be showcasing their audio systems in Wwise.

 

"'Gears of War 4', Project Triton: Pre-Computed Environmental Wave Acoustics," by Microsoft Research researcher Nikunj Raghuvanshi and Microsoft technical audio lead John Tennant, is one you won't want to miss!

In their GDC 2017 session, they will break down Project Triton, which they call the first successful effort for detailed scene-dependent wave acoustics in games. Triton shipped in 'Gears of War 4', resulting from a collaboration between The Coalition and Microsoft Research. Triton robustly models complex wave phenomena such as diffraction, scattered reflections, and reverberation on static 3D level geometry. In doing so, it captures important effects like smooth occlusion around obstacles or longer reverberation in large halls, as well as how these effects change when source and listener move through the environment.

The speakers will discuss both the technical and design aspects of the system, providing details on its integration in Unreal Engine 4 and the Audiokinetic Wwise audio engine. They will also discuss how interpreting the Triton data forced them to define stylized cinematic and emotional acoustics for 'Gears of War 4' to navigate their way out of an uncanny valley of game audio.  

 

  

“Unscoring the World of 'Kenshi',” by Kole Audio Solutions Composer & Sound Designer Kole Hicks, and Lo-Fi Games Ltd. Creator Chris Hunt, is another important presentation that will demonstrate the project’s audio system in Wwise.

Traditionally, game audio has served a role of enhancing the heroism of the player, but what do you do when a game treats them like a regular NPC in the world? When your primary goal is surviving in a harsh land and barely hanging on each night, stereotypical player heroics seem like a distant dream. They will share the details behind crafting the music and sound for their gritty, unforgiving, and indifferent world. You'll learn about their unique approach to creating appropriate audio for 'Kenshi', the unique tools used to craft Kenshi's aural world and why certain decisions were made, as well as how they designed the audio system in Wwise.

 

  

Interested in presenting your Wwise-built project at the Game Developers Conference?  Join us this GDC17! 

Audiokinetic will be selecting a few projects to demo at the Audiokinetic booth.

 

 

 

Audiokinetic GDC booth number 524 

We look forward to seeing you there ! 

 

 

See complete #GDC17 Audio Track schedule

The 2017 Game Developers Conference will take place February 27th - March 3rd at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.
For more information on GDC 2017, visit the official website. 

Register early!  The deadline to register for passes at a discounted rate is January 18, 2017

Some of this blog's content was originally published on gdconf.com and gamasutra.com.