Halo 3 Uses Waves plugins in realtime

[sgx]

This was just something I heard and thought it was interesting. Not really remixing, but has to do with games and audio software tech.

I listen to Major Nelson's XBOX podcast occasionally and today he had a long, very interesting interview with Marty O'donnell - the Halo composer and sound design dude.

http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2007/10/06/Show-246-The-one-about-Halo-3-music-with-Marty-O-Donnell.aspx

He mentions that they've got some versions of Waves' compressors and EQ's running as DSP in real time during gameplay. I thought that was pretty spiff.

[suzumebachi]

ok, but what's the point? seems like a waste of CPU time when you could just apply the effects and mix down.

unless they're using the EQ for room effects or something.

in which case that is cool.

(note that i didn't actually listen to the podcast, nor will i. i have shit to do.)

[Harmony]

ok, but what's the point? seems like a waste of CPU time when you could just apply the effects and mix down.

unless they're using the EQ for room effects or something.

in which case that is cool.

Yeah, it sounds like that's exactly what they're doing; using triggers and environment to control limiters, eq, etc. Very cool.

Here's a rundown of the first 50min (total 117min) of the podcast in case anyone wants to skip to the music related stuff:

16:50 Marty interview starts
23:36 Marty talks about his part in Halo 3 audio production and vg music in general.
31:20 Talks about his creative process as a composer in general and for the E3 trailer
35:30 Gives his 2 cents on vg audio from other composers/games
37:20 Marty discusses what he calls the "mistake" of the "non-stop" music in Japanese games
38:55 Discusses writing music thats not annoying when looped, and designing interactive music
47:11 Talks about how music has changed over the past 15 years and the dawn of the digital age
47:55 Starts talking about Halo 3's use of Waves plugins.
53:15 While Marty is talking about designing environmentally accurate audio, Brandon gets tired and stops the podcast

[sgx]

ok, but what's the point? seems like a waste of CPU time when you could just apply the effects and mix down.

unless they're using the EQ for room effects or something.

in which case that is cool.

(note that i didn't actually listen to the podcast, nor will i. i have shit to do.)

Because they can apply it on the whole mix in real time.

I think some specific times they employ it is when your camera goes underwater, it does that whole lowpass filter sounding thing to the whole audio, and how when shots are off in the distance they sound muffled.

[dannthr]

It's just paving the way for more dynamic sound--perhaps even dynamically modeled soundtracks--in games.

Things like Wallander Instruments Virtual Instruments, where they have a 300mb footprint and synthetically model decently (not great, but they're working on it) brass instruments, that could mean that game composers could go back to the days of writing MIDI for games and procedural algorithms for implementing musical concepts in the real-time score.

Very cool things are beginning to happen with music and games are at the forefront because of their interactivity.

[M@DM@X]

Marty O'donnell - the Halo composer and sound design dude.

OMG! He is da Bomb!

[zircon]

It's just paving the way for more dynamic sound--perhaps even dynamically modeled soundtracks--in games.

Things like Wallander Instruments Virtual Instruments, where they have a 300mb footprint and synthetically model decently (not great, but they're working on it) brass instruments, that could mean that game composers could go back to the days of writing MIDI for games and procedural algorithms for implementing musical concepts in the real-time score.

Very cool things are beginning to happen with music and games are at the forefront because of their interactivity.

I think WIVI is actually REALLY realistic. Too expensive though. It's partially their reverb model that makes the sound so awesome.

[dannthr]

I guess I think it's good, but there are things that bug me about it at times--just little spots that sort of irk me when I listen to their demos.

It's not like anything IS perfect, it can't really be, and I'm really optimistic about where virtual instrument modeling can and probably will go.

But I don't feel like it's there yet, personally.