If audio evokes emotions… can we reverse engineer the process and Control audio using the desired emotions?
Audio History
Historically, audio has often been overlooked in videogames. However, with the advent of true cinematic game experiences, the proliferation of home cinema hardware and a growing recognition that audio contributes up to 50% of the whole emotional experience, more and more developers and publishers are devoting more time to how a game sounds.
Yet audio can be incredibly resource intensive. Licensing music can be costly and lead to music which is only appropriate within very tight constraints. Composing, recording, producing, arranging and integrating music provides more creative freedom, but can again, be costly and is far more time intensive.
More recently the interactive entertainment industry has explored the concept of adaptive or dynamic music, in which the score, sound effects and overall soundtrack are introduced, mixed and generated dynamically. However, these solutions have tended to be resource intensive, expensive and customised for that specific game. Developers have to carefully script and plan the various triggers and events which will introduce and play specific pieces of music based on the player’s actions.
A better solution would be a technology which can be used across a wide range of games, which doesn’t require the same scripting and integration as the individual project solutions. Musemantik has created just this technology.
Emrzr Arrange
Musemantik has created a product which benefits from the company’s innovative Emrzr Sense technology to create emotionally appropriate music and integrate it into the game so it responds and reacts – appropriately – to the player’s actions and activities. Musemantik has also created a separate product, Emrzr Arrange Lite, which creates emotionally appropriate music according to the designer’s precise instructions.
Integrating Audio
To date, game audio experts have integrated the music, sound effects and score into the game, via triggers. These are scripted to specific locations, characters (NPCs for example) and events within the game (e.g. initiating a fight). The link to the player’s desired emotional state may, or may not be a consideration and often, conflicting triggers can make the soundtrack cut or jump awkwardly, breaking the player’s attachment to the game.
Look To The Future
As games become more complex and sophisticated, integrating a soundtrack into the numerous interactions, options and alternatives becomes increasingly challenging. Ensuring coherence and quality across all situations becomes increasingly resource intensive.
Emrzr Arrange removes the requirement for expert scripting and musical knowledge to manually synchronise the soundtrack to game events. The expert AI system instead uses the player’s inferred emotions to key the score, sound effects and music in appropriate ways.
Dynamic, Emotionally Aware
The audio elements within a game respond dynamically to the game’s emotional content and the events and activities taking place within the virtual world of the game, creating a responsive, fluid and relevant soundtrack, which adapts and evolves over the course of the player’s experience. This allows themes, signatures and different aspects of the soundtrack to be mixed and adapted on the fly without the composer or audio engineer having to script multiple interactions. It also removes a huge amount of QA overhead to ensure each element is introduced and played appropriately.
Emrzr Arrange Demo
Here is a demo video of the Emrzr Arrange Emotion Mixer. The Emotion Mixer allows you to test the configuration of Emrzr Arrange by playing the loaded emotion score.
Benefits of Emrzr Arrange
| DEVELOPERS | PUBLISHERS | PLAYERS |
|---|---|---|
| Conveys desired musical vision for your game | Simpler, faster cheaper means of creating a soundtrack | Enhanced emotional experience |
| Gives full control over music while preserving its natural rhythm and feel | Increased quality means every game sounds incredible | AAA game music – for every title |
| Visualization of your musical structure | Far less resource intensive | Greater immersion |
| Minimizes repetitions and looping of music | Less QA overhead | Unique soundtrack reflecting player’s own choices and activities |
| Comes with an Emotion Mixer as a real-time test environment | Fewer or no licensing fees for professional soundtrack | Increased fun |
| Ensure optimal utilization of limited resources and budget constraints | Greater player immersion and increased review scores | Less repetition of soundtrack elements |
| Ensures AAA game music at a fraction of the cost | Allows every game to implement the best possible soundtrack, regardless of budget/time. | No glitching or awkward cuts within the soundtrack |
The process – and benefits – of using Emrzr Arrange can be illustrated like this:
For more information on Emrzr Sense or Emrzr Arrange, to arrange a technology showcase, or to talk to us about using our technology, please get in touch.