- by Rita Veneziale -
Scoring for Video Games — a new course in the film scoring track for students studying music composition — has opened a whole new world for me. I was never a serious video games person. (I play The Sims a handful of times a year.) But the class is not limited to experienced players and is very accessible to someone not familiar with the lingo (yay).
We’ve learned how to use Wwise software to coordinate music and sound effects to specific game codes. We followed online lessons as a guide and used class time as a workshop for our effects and process. We spent the first half of the semester getting familiar with the software and working on a sample game called Cube (which sounds like a knock-off of Minecraft, but it’s nothing like it). We mainly worked on sounds before moving into the music.
We’ve learned two methods to create high-quality music that will play for hours and you will never hear the same arrangement twice. (So cool!) First, we learned horizontal resequencing involves creating multiple phrases of music with different variations for each section. We can then program Wwise to randomize the order in which the variations are played. Vertical has a similar concept. You create multiple sections of music, but instead of creating multiples of an entire section, you make variations of the instrument tracks of each section. You can then set up Wwise to randomize the individual instrument tracks.
In our final project, we are working with a new game, the Wwise Adventure Game. Our task is to create music for all the terrains of the world and milestones in gameplay. The job is a lot more demanding than assignments we’ve had before. But, in the end, we get to have a finished ‘app’ of the game with our own sound included.
We use our class time to not only work on our projects, but to listen to each other and give critiques. We all want everyone to put together the best music they can, and we benefit from a small, supportive classroom environment. We spend time playing each other’s games in what we call beta testing. Basically, we’re trying to break the game and find all the bugs that could go wrong with each other’s program. That way we can each have the best, fully functioning final game at the end of the semester.
