Event Recap - IAM/CIRMMT Series #1 - Guy Whitmore and Bjørn Jacobson

The Opening Night 

@CIRMMT on December 12th 2017 

Topic: The new frontiers of interactive audio: Procedural and AI driven music and VR/AR/MR

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It was a bit of work to make it happen but it finally hapened and thanks for CIRMMT we had a new partner and a great venue to have first (and subsequent) events at. 

I thought of taking advantage of MIGS to get some guests to talk to the local community about their work and share with us some knowledge !

Big thanks to Bjørn Jacobson (CD Projekt RED, IO-Interactive, Cujosound) and Guy Whitmore (EA, Monolith, Foxface Rubberfish)

Here's a brief recap of their presentations :

Bjørn Jacobsen: Psychoacoustics in the game design process

Through this talk we will explore how the audio design process of game can be influenced when taking into account psychoacoustics. How does the player perceive the game's soundscape and music and what can we gain from that knowledge ? How can you also apply those concepts to game design and to make the game's experience better as to keep the player entertained.

Guy Whitmore: Creating highly adaptive spatial and surround music for nonlinear media

When composers talk about delivering spatial or surround music for nonlinear media such as games or VR, they most often are referring to multichannel (4.0, 5.1, 6.0 etc.) pre-mixed assets. The advantage being, familiarity of format, and the use of an offline linear DAW and all its plug-ins and processing to mix. Yet there are severe limits to this approach; first, the ability to mix/blend the music along with all other audio elements within the game/experience and second, multichannel mixes limit the adaptability of the music. This talk will demonstrate examples of real-time spatial mixing of music using Audiokinetic's Wwise audio engine, leading to an open discussion about the possibilities and potential of these techniques. 

Here are a few photos of the night :