With funding support from Creative Australia, the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA AMCOS), and UniSA Creative, this project explores the potential of automation for composers and musicians in games by commissioning research and development in collaboration with game designers, a composer/producer, and major industry partners and stakeholders.
This project will produce creative work, freely share knowledge, findings, and system developments for other music creators, and examine the potential role for new forms of automation in the production of music for games.
Outputs/Outcomes
- Interview-based qualitative research on product development opportunities for Australian games studios interested in musical automation. Interviews will engage with stakeholders and focus on the implementation and effectiveness of generative music in game development, as well as the benefits and challenges of these approaches.
- The production of a small game – a kind of interactive 5-track album - where each track takes place inside a virtual environment created in Unreal Engine. The tracks will play out while the “player” is in this room, however the musical composition, instrument design, and audio effects all change based on how the player interacts with objects in the room, with other characters, and in response to the player moving around the room itself. Key narrative events will occur at set times during the music track, and manifest in the room accordingly. This creates a multi-sensory, changing, interactive album experience, grounded in video game and interactive narrative theory.
- A demonstration of what can be achieved with live adaptive compositional and sound design systems in a video game context, with the design framework and project code freely available for other composers and musicians to utilize for their own projects.
- The game's development will be captured through regular video diaries and compiled into a short documentary.
- Translation of research findings will be published as an industry white paper.
Research team
Dr Sam Whiting is a leading researcher in cultural policy and creative industries specifically the intersection between technology, markets, and creativity. Dr Whiting's previous research experience has included work with the SA Music Development Office, the National Live Music Office, the City of Melbourne, Monash University, RMIT University and the University of Tasmania.
Dr Susannah Emery has extensive scholarly and creative practice expertise in video game design and narrative, and will be able to bring a great understanding of prior game design / interactive narrative research into the project. Dr Emery has won and been a finalist for several international awards for her game design and teaching in this area.
John Oestmann has created reactive music for several Adelaide video game projects in the past (including the recently released Rooftop Renegade, and nominated for Best Sound at the GDEX conference).
Funding support
Key contact
Sam Whiting
