BRONA MARTIN
  • About
  • Blog
  • PRACTICE
    • RESIDENCIES >
      • Locus Sonus 2020
      • EMS Residency, Stockholm 2019
      • EMS Residency, Stockholm 2018
      • Atlantic Center for the Arts with composer Natasha Barrett
      • University of Limerick with Darren Copeland and SpADE, March 2015
      • Atlantic Center for the Arts, Florida with Jonty Harrison
    • COMMISSIONS/PROJECTS >
      • Jazz As Social Machine
      • L-ISA: Immersive Hyperreal Sound
      • Seed Studios/Vonnegut Collective Project
      • Full of Noises Commission
      • Hear Th↓s Space and The Octopus Collective
    • RESEARCH OUTPUTS
    • PERFORMANCES
    • TEACHING
  • Portfolio
  • Resources
    • Soundscape Studies
    • Spatial Audio
    • Creative Gaming in Unity
    • Sound Design
    • Women in Sound
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Outside of composition I have been trying to extend my practice into the VR/gaming world. Since the beginning of this year I started working with Unity for the first time during a 3 month residency at Locus Sonus, in Aix-en-Provence, France.  Below you will find some really useful links that I have discovered along the way (Massive thanks to Douglas Edric Stanley who gave me some tutorials and introduced me to the art of creative gaming).
I had an idea where I wanted to create a natural environment (forest, beach, ponds) and then find a way of putting sounds (I have a lot of field recordings) in the environment. Since I had a strong idea for a project it made it easier for me to learn. e.g. Ok I need terrain, grass,  I need trees. How do I get trees? How do I make a pond? How do I put sound in that pond? I also started thinking about how the player would trigger and experience the sounds.
In order to make a game or environment you need assets. Assets are items that you use in the game to create your environment.
The image below (CampSite) is a still from my project. Everything in this scene is an asset. e.g. the tent, logs, lights, background picture, rocks, sounds. These assets are sitting on top of a terrain 3D object. This is the base of the project on which you paint different textures to create, grass, gravel and sand terrains. You sculpt the terrain adding hills and mountains to make it more realistic. You can also paint trees and grass and make them move in wind. Unity has a built in standard asset package that you can download for free. There are also lots of other free asset packages available in the asset store. Others you have to pay for. Or you can build your own in Blender or Maya.
As the project progressed I started thinking about the environment I was creating and how the player would interact with it. I am not a game designer and didn't really want to create a game. I slowly began to realise the creative potential of Unity outside of traditional Game Design. I didn't want the player to move from one end to the other to achieve a goal. I wanted them to observe something, similar to being on a soundwalk or when you are out field recording. The image above is a still from my project which is made up of multiple different perspectives as result of using many cameras. This is when I got really excited about the project!
So this is where I am at, experimenting with the environment that I have created, focusing on the idea of multiple perspectives and generative soundscapes. The idea of creating generative soundscapes began when I started working with Fmod to create the soundscape for the project. Soundscapes and sound design in games change continuously depending on where the player is, which route they have taken, objects they interact with (sound emitters) and the level they are on. As a result you will usually never hear the same soundtrack twice and this is what I am trying to incorporate when I am creating the sound for this project, a soundscape that continuously evolves and changes over time. This is still a work in progress......

​This is a demo of my current project in Unity. I have built a scene in Unity and added multiple cameras each with a different perspective which results in the deconstruction and reconstruction of the environment. I am currently using Fmod to integrate audio into the project. The sound is currently in stereo just for demonstration purposes.
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Resources:

Unity Tutorials
  • Unity is free and so are their online tutorials. Unity has some fantastic tutorials where you can download a project and follow the tutorials. Check out Learn with Unity
  • There are also great tutorials on LinkedIn Learning. Since I am new to Unity I have started with Unity Essential Training. If you are studying or teaching at a University you might have access to LinkedIn learning formally, Lynda.com through the institutions library.
Other
  • ​Build your own Shaders in Unity. Create your own textures, control lighting and shading effects
2D/3D Audio and Unity
Unity has its own audio engine but there are other Audio middleware platforms that you can use with Unity. This will depend on you budget and your experience of sound design and composition:
Reddit thread: Game Audio For Beginners
Masterclass: Using Game Audio Middleware featured in the Electronic Musician online magazine
​
MIDDLEWARE:
I started working with Fmod because it is like a DAW for creating game audio and I thought it be easier for me. Here are some great tutorials demonstrating how to integrate Fmod into Unity. Fmod also has a learning page and you can download some projects and see how they work.
Their Blog is also very good where artists discuss their creations using Fmod.

Other Middleware
DOTS Audio (Part of Unity) DOTS audio Forum
​Resonance Audio: working with 3D sound in VR environments
Wwise

NICE AUDIO MIDDLEWARE COMPARISON from annesoaudio.com
3D Animation
Create your own 3D character in Maximo
Make Human: Opensource for making 3D characters
Blender: Open source 3D creation design. Again you will find lots of tutorials online and for those who have access to LinkedIn Learning there are some courses you can do e.g. Blender Essential Training
Creative Gaming Inspiration: Games that are that bit different
--->experimental, narrative gaming, exploration, storytelling, visual art, creative, environmental, minimal, visual novel<----


Limbo by Playdead Games
Inside by  Playdead Games

Story Telling Exploration Games:
Firewatch Game by Campo Santo Productions. Their blog is really good too!
  • Interview with Firewatch composer and Sound Designer Chris Remo
  • Review here
Gone Home by Fullbright. Review here
​What Remains of Edith Finch by Giant Sparrow.  Review here
Dear Esther ​by the Chinese Room. Review here
Everybody's Gone to the Rapture by the Chinese Room. Review here
Journey  by thatgamecompany
The Stanley Parable
The Unfinished Swan 
by Giant Sparrow. Review here


Puzzle Games
Ustwo Gaming who created Monument Valley

Side Quest by Jordan Wilson
The Graveyard available on Steam
The Intruder by Natalie Bookchin


Book of the Dead created by the Unity team showcasing the capabilities of Unity. You can even download their project into Unity and demo the game.

audio-visual gaming/live game audio composition/interactive music systems/generative music

Game Audio aka Ricardo Climent, Professor of Interactive Music Composition, University of Manchester. Series of projects "focused on game-audio for interactive media projects".

Proteus by Twisted Tree "Audio-visual exploration"
Game Composers
Chipzel
Artistic and Creative Gaming producer and designers
GodArt Game orientated Art and Design
Game Audio and Digital Art Blog
GAME THEORY
Started reading stuff written by Douglas Stanley who is giving me tutorials on Unity. Check out his website here!
Blogs
Atmos Games, Work by game creator, Thomas Brush
The Sound Architect, sharing the knowledge of industry professionals. The have a good Game Audio Section
Fmod Blog, Artists and their creations
Creative Coding:
Coding with Daniel Shiffman: P5 and Processing (thecodingtrain.com/Tutorials/) and Youtube Channel


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  • About
  • Blog
  • PRACTICE
    • RESIDENCIES >
      • Locus Sonus 2020
      • EMS Residency, Stockholm 2019
      • EMS Residency, Stockholm 2018
      • Atlantic Center for the Arts with composer Natasha Barrett
      • University of Limerick with Darren Copeland and SpADE, March 2015
      • Atlantic Center for the Arts, Florida with Jonty Harrison
    • COMMISSIONS/PROJECTS >
      • Jazz As Social Machine
      • L-ISA: Immersive Hyperreal Sound
      • Seed Studios/Vonnegut Collective Project
      • Full of Noises Commission
      • Hear Th↓s Space and The Octopus Collective
    • RESEARCH OUTPUTS
    • PERFORMANCES
    • TEACHING
  • Portfolio
  • Resources
    • Soundscape Studies
    • Spatial Audio
    • Creative Gaming in Unity
    • Sound Design
    • Women in Sound
  • Contact