Comments on: Audio, Music Gems from the Upcoming Game Developer Conference

By: ws

ws — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 05:27:56 +0000

this is an interview of Guy Withmore by Develop magazine. I'm now at the very beginning point of game audio but I like what Guy was talking in this interview. it's interesting.

By: interim_descriptor

interim_descriptor — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 22:58:43 +0000

The best series of audio lectures I attended at GDC were by Leonard Paul, on granular synthesis.

The generative soundtrack lecture for Spore, last year, was also excellent.

I’ll be attending this year, but I’m not convinced any of the audio lectures will be breaking new ground…

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:52:48 +0000

Heheh… well, my carbon footprint is significant, let’s put it that way. (Hmmm… lower emission planes anyone? Maybe props? Blimps?)

Multitouch on laptops: yep, already here, indeed. Note that this isn’t entirely fair to compare to the Lemur in that the touch method and other critical details are different. But on a basic level, we’re seeing a democratization of multi-touch.

By: mr. tunes

mr. tunes — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:48:22 +0000

ha my bad, either i’m not following the blog close enough, or you seem to show up in every city peter ;)

as for multitouch, i think HP did a big firmware update this year on their touchscreen laptops, not sure if it is multi yet, but i think eventually we won’t have to look to mobiles for this technology.

By: Brad Fuller

Brad Fuller — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 01:48:55 +0000

@foosnark:
What type of applications would you like on Android?

By: foosnark

foosnark — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:44:28 +0000

I certainly hope we hear some more from Android. I got a G1 for Christmas and love it, but am somewhat jealous of the musical toys available on iPhone since there are so few for Android thus far.

I realize the G1 doesn’t do multitouch (at least not without uber-leet hax), but neither does the Nintendo DS and it has a healthy set of musical toys.

I’m trying to be patient on that front… :)

By: David

David — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:06:08 +0000

I should be there this year. Definitely keep going with these updates–I’ll be excited to attend any sort of CDM event!

Also, for those of you who think the price is a bit steep but still want to go (like me): for the last two years, I’ve gone through the CA program, which cuts costs dramatically: http://gdconf.com/volunteers/index.html

Basically, you work 20 hours at the conference, and get an All Access pass for your work. This reduces the price of the event to just travel, hotel and food.

I’m a student, and a lot of the others doing the CA program are also young, but there’s no age limit, and there are plenty of older folks who do it, too!

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:49:11 +0000

Yep, iPhone is nice, and I think we’ll see more from Android, as well. Flash is showing up on Windows Mobile for the first time, and JavaFX promises to give us even more compatible mobile/desktop design. So there’s lots of potential. I’m impressed that iPhone, for now, is the one that can most easily do live synthesis and effects, but I’m hopeful some other platforms will follow suit.

I don’t exactly live near San Francisco, though; I’m in New York! (I’ve always wanted to go to Toronto!) We do get a break on airfares to … well, everywhere, really.

By: mr. tunes

mr. tunes — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:46:28 +0000

as for what you’ve written me above, i agree with you. i think on the indie dev side of things, that damn iPhone is going to be of big discussion this year(lol).

i know you’ve covered it a lot this year so i imagine that’s why you left it out of your post, but for indie houses this thing is really inspiring people.

my friend who’s a software engineer has never been more inspired to make his own games until now.

you’re lucky you live near the action there – i’ve always wanted to go to a GDC but coming from Toronto it’s a bit of a hit on the bank account, especially since I have to save me money for another WMC.

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:56:25 +0000

@foosnark: exactly — there is a lot happening in the indie scene. Thanks for the reminder, because I actually hadn’t yet taken the opportunity to download that! (will take a break later this evening!)

Of course, not everyone can go to SF. But it would be great to see an event highlight more of this stuff. Maybe we’ll see some music hit the agenda for PAX. And of course, I actually don’t feel I’ve done nearly the job I could covering this, so *please* — keep the tips coming! More game coverage is way up on my new year’s resolutions for the site. And hopefully we’ll look at some of the technical issues to give people some tools to make their own futuristic game music!