Interactive Music part III

Hey guys,

So what I did today on Wwise was limited, was working on some music mostly and waiting for phone calls. However , I did happen to go over the Setting the Ambient Stage, Ch1 of the Wwise Project Adventure and found the Positioning tutorial very enlightening. The PDS project now has a 3D positioning on my XY grid as well, huzzah!

On the X RTPC is shifting from x: 0 left to x: 100 right and on the Y RTPC shifts from y: 0 back to y: 100 forward. Now, you don't quite get the effect through my stereo speakers but at least X works. At the moment hard panning seems a bit much and will likely pull it back a bit. Been also looking at the animation graphs for 3D positioning and curious as to how it could be done via that graph and not the RTPC.

Originally, the music clips were hard panned at their respective points and the XY would only trigger Volume. The movable positioning was found to be much more effective and more to what the project  was aiming for. So you don't get the music clips only when you're close to a definitive point, but rather, hear them where you are on the grid.

Working on the events music now, so you will likely see me dive into events management and interaction in Wwise soon. Delving into unknown territory with these last two, and its refreshing.




Avoid button skipping?

A moment struck me yesterday playing a trad style RPG when the character died and had to fight the boss again and scrolled through a heap of texts. Annoying, slightly. Being able to skip dialogue pulls me out of the game sometimes, Diablo III for example. So thinking along the lines of what Bastions audio did with Darren Korb having the narrator talk while you played, similar to some other games I grant you. But effective, and so why not have the boss monologue/interaction (situations apply) be apart of getting to the boss. Its very case by case, but sometimes its not even considered.

When the boss fight comes, you could plunge into it, having been fed stimuli to nurture your motivation for getting there. A mechanic that is used during the monologue would help, God of War springs to mind. Also, the Batman Arkham series has you able to at least walk when a call comes in, simple yet it keeps the momentum.

This is only in certain cases, like end bosses, or your character has enough motivation to skip talking while you watch and get into it etc. Or it just fits. Limiting play downtime and increasing immersion should be a good thing to strive towards. However, not if it sacrifices story that is essential or atmospheric implications like tension building. Which is immersion on a different level, passive interaction I would call it. Versus I suppose, active interaction. Another discussion for another day perhaps.

Have a good day

SGW