Project Ideas - Game audio quality

Here I have directed an approach towards game audio quality, asset management and implementation methods. This is a more focused mind map for a potential research question, I plan to discuss this idea in more detail with teaching staff to establish its viability.

Research Materials - The Essential Guide to Game Audio

"The Essential Guide to Game Audio" was added to my list of research materials, this book contains a broad overview of game audio in general as opposed to "The Game Audio Tutorial" book which is focused more on UDK. 

I hope to use the book to broaden my understanding of the concepts and theory behind the practical application of audio in games whilst also expanding my vocabulary by learning the correct terminology involved.

Research Materials - Master Handbook of Acoustics

"The Master Handbook of Acoustics" (Everest, Pohlmann, 2009 5th ed) has been added to my research list. I plan to use this book to gain more knowledge about some of the theory behind acoustics and particularly how sound travels and reacts within different spaces.

This knowledge will feed into, and back up decisions made when trying to create an acoustically realistic environment within UDK.

The main chapters that should be read are as follows.

Chapter 4 - The perception of sound
Chapter 6 - Reflection
Chapter 7 - Diffraction
Chapter 8 - Refraction

Research materials - The Game Audio Tutorial

To address the gap in my knowledge regarding game audio implementation I invested in ''The Game Audio Tutorial book'' by Richard Stevens, Dave Raybould. This is a practical guide that is accompanied by tutorial levels for implementing audio into a game using the UDK game engine. 

I plan to use the book to gain a better understanding of the processes involved with all aspects of game audio and importantly to help me implement my own audio assets into a gaming environment as part of the project.

Notes:
The next step will be to download the supporting UDK files along with the game engine and begin working through the tutorial levels.

Game Audio Project - Initial Ideas - Update_01

Here I have expanded a little on the original ideas and possible research questions that could be applied to creating and implementing audio assets into a game environment.

Although there is not a clear path as of yet some key areas of research apply to all or most of the possible routes that could be taken with this project. The next step will be to highlight and obtain some relevant resources such as books, websites, journals ect.

Some key areas to consider whilst searching for relevant documentation are as follows:

• Implementing sound with UDK
• Digital audio theory
• Acoustics
• Coding basics with UDK
• Game audio creation

Semester 1 hand in calendar

Here is a calendar which details all hand in dates for semester 1. This will be used to create a more focused chart which will detail the activities that need to be carried out in order to fulfill each of the deadline requirements. 

Game Audio Project - Initial Ideas

The decision has been taken to focus the honours project on the subject area of game audio, the specifics of which are still being considered but here I have began to highlight areas of potential exploration. 
The project will be aimed at the Unreal Development Kit because much of the audio implementation is carried out using a visual representation of the coding language. This will make understanding and learning the coding aspect of audio implementation much easier given my limited knowledge of coding.

Early research question ideas 

Potential areas of research

Weekly Timetable

An assessment of the time available to me was made in order to establish when I would be committing to work on the project. This timetable will be used as a guide to plan each week's activities into the study blocks available.

I shall be assigning tasks for each of the study blocks with a targeted amount of work to be completed by the end of each week. 

A broader timescale (Gantt chart) will follow, which will identify key submission dates as well as progress reports. This will help to focus and direct the pace at which the project will take.

Notes:
Although Monday and Tuesday are set aside to work, there is flexibility with my employer if these days are required to complete my workload

Initial Planning

Began mapping out some broad subject areas which are of interest in order to highlight areas of research.

Main areas of interest are as follows:

• Game audio
• Film sound effects and music
• Binaural recording
• Sampling/Synthesis

The next task will be to think about a practical application for each area and decide which topic can best represent a viable research question. 

Also to do:

Create a timeline including key dates for semester 1, define a weekly timetable which will be used to efficiently manage study time.