Beep to Boom

Drawing on decades of experience, Beep to Boom: The Development of Advanced Runtime Sound Systems for Games and Extended Reality is a rigorous, comprehensive guide to interactive audio runtime systems. Packed with practical examples and insights, the book explains each component of these complex geometries of sound. Using practical, lowest-common-denominator techniques, Goodwin covers soundfield creation across a range of platforms from phones to VR gaming consoles. Whether creating an audio system from scratch or building on existing frameworks, the book also explains costs, benefits and priorities. In the dynamic simulated world of games and extended reality, interactive audio can now consider every intricacy of real-world sound. This book explains how and why to tame it enjoyably.

Simon N Goodwin is an Interactive Audio Technology Consultant who lives and works in Warwick, UK. His game-development career started in the 8-bit 1970s, latterly including a productive decade as Principal Programmer in the Central Technology Group at Codemasters Software Company, where he designed and implemented advanced Ambisonic 3D audio technology in multi-million-selling games, including six number 1 hits in the UK and major EU territories and two BAFTA award winners, RaceDriver Grid and F1 2010. Simon has professionally developed games, tools, audio and VR technology for Amiga Inc., Atari Corp., Attention to Detail, Central ITV, Codemasters, Digital Precision, dk'tronics, Dolby, DTS, Electronic Arts, Quicksilva, Racal and Silicon Studio Ltd., and written regular technical columns for many magazines including Amiga Format, Crash, Linux Format and Personal Computer World. Simon is expert in console, mobile and PC audio and streaming system development, variously working as an inventor, sound designer, game audio programmer and audio systems engineer. He has been granted five US and UK patents, advises on AHRC and EPSRC research programmes and gives talks at GDC, AES and university conferences.

Chapter 1 The Essence of Interactive Audio Chapter 2 Early Digital Audio Hardware Chapter 3 Sample Replay Chapter 4 Interactive Audio Development Roles Chapter 5 Audio Resource Management Chapter 6 Loading and Streaming Concepts Chapter 7 Streaming Case Studies Chapter 8 The Architecture of Audio Runtimes Chapter 9 Quick Curves - Transcendental Optimisations Chapter 10 Objects, Voices, Sources and Handles Chapter 11 Modelling Distance Chapter 12 Implementing Voice Groups Chapter 13 Implementing Listeners Chapter 14 Split-Screen Multi-Player Audio Chapter 15 Runtime System Physical Layers Chapter 16 Mixing and Resampling Systems Chapter 17 Interactive Audio Codecs Chapter 18 Panning Sounds for Speakers and Headphones Chapter 19 Ambisonic Surround-Sound Principles and Practice Chapter 20 Design and Selection of Digital Filters Chapter 21 Interactive Reverberation Chapter 22 Geometrical Interactions, Occlusion and Reflections Chapter 23 Audio Outputs and Endpoints Chapter 24 Glossary and Resources Acknowledgements Index