Music for Nexuiz

Here is the link to my music file
https://sites.google.com/site/audiofiles114/music

This music file is for the menu theme in the game Nexuiz.  It is called brokenlight, but originally it was called Icarus.  I found this sound in Firstcom from the online library, and decided to use this sound for the game. 

I believe this works great for the menu music because it gets you excited and eager to play the game.  I prefer this to the original music because I feel it is more thrilling, and makes you want to play the game.  In a game such as Nexuiz where there is a lot of action you need a sound to fit that kind of genre.  That is why this music works so well.

Audio Project Samples

 This is a link to my audio files.
 https://sites.google.com/site/audiofiles114/mp3

air
found in freesound.org then edited in audition.
duration- 10.402
file type- OGG
BD- 32
sample rate- 22050
channels- mono

machine1
found in FX Library then edited in audition
duration-4.400
file type- OGG
BD- 32
sample rate- 22050
channels- mono

sparks
found in freesound.org then edited in audition
duration-3.914
file type- OGG
BD- 32
sample rate- 44100
channels- mono

water
found in freesound.org then edited in audition
duration-3.270
file type- OGG
BD- 32
sample rate- 22050
channels- mono

Cutscenes

Legend of Zelda, in my opinion, has some of the best cut scenes.  There isn't really a particular one that I would pick as the best, but for the purposes of this blog I will choose the most recent game: Skyward Sword.  What I love about the Zelda series in general is that there is no voice acting.  Now some people might prefer actual voices, but I think for this game it works, and I couldn't imagine any Zelda game with voice actors.  In a way, it provides the audience with the ability to give the characters their own personality.  Aside from the grunt sounds, or other simply noises to give added characteristics to the characters there is no actual dialogue being spoken (minus Navi's annoying "Hey Listen!").  Because the cut scenes are done so brilliantly, the voice acting is not missed.  Just by the reactions of the characters you can almost tell what they are thinking anyway.  Plus all of the conversations are written out so you will always know what's going on.

With Skyward Sword we are able to get a more interactive feel with the added audio effects.  You are also able to make choices during the cutscenes, which normally is not done in Zelda.  With this kind of style of cut scenes, the audio is really important.  This is another reason why I enjoy SS (Skyward Sword) cut scenes.  The soundtrack is done wonderfully, so each sound really reflects what's going on. I feel SS has some of the best cinematics for these reasons because despite the lack of voice acting it still works.

Below is a link to a cut scene from Skyward Sword.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06LIi3jh9ME

Final Fantasy X was an amazing game to me, but this particular cutscene was so bad (yet extremely funny) that I sometimes could not watch it, except to get a good laugh.  I really felt that Square Enix could have done this in a better way.  I suppose it was meant to be funny, but it really was not good to me.

Below is the cut scene.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-5FTJxfV3pc#!

Square Enix

Square Enix is a Japanese video game developer, publisher, and distributing company.  They are widely known for their role-playing games.  Its headquarters are located in the Shinjuku Bunka Quint Building in Yoyogi, Shibuya, Tokyo.  It was formed from the merging of both Square and Enix on April 1 of 2003, and has since released many game titles.

Square Enix uses a polymorphic content method in order to not restrict themselves from developing for only one console.  By doing this they can expand to all gaming platforms.  Some of their widely known games are the Final Fantasy series, the Dragon Quest series, and Kingdom Hearts series.  Each have proven to be very popular and successful.  Square Enix is also in charge of publishing all of Eidos' IPs and runs Eidos' development studios.  The standard game design model of Square Enix is to establish the plot, characters and art of the game first. Battle systems, field maps and cut scenes are created next. A typical game of the company involves a team of at most 200 people.  Another interesting aspect is that they prefer to code their own engine from scratch instead of using a pre-existing one.

Square Enix originally had its' own sound team, but have since made a budgetary cut.  They will now rely primarily on independent composers and production studios to create the scores for their games.  This will most likely come from their own studios operated by former Square Enix composers Nobuo Uematsu, Hitoshi Sakimoto, Yoko Shimomura, and Kenji Ito.  Recently Masayoshi Soken used Sound Forge Pro and Vegas Pro for Funal Fantasy XIV.  Although it is sad to see a good sound team disappear, hopefully we can still expect great sound coming from future titles by Square Enix.

Overall,  Square Enix has been very successful throughout the years, and will most likely continue their success.  I will certainly look forward to their upcoming games.

Unigine (Game Engine) Analysis

Unigine is a cross-platform real-time 3D engine. It allows its' users the ability to create interactive virtual worlds on both modern games and virtual world games. It was developed by Unigine Corp. and works well with many platforms.  The most popular Unigine powered product would be Heaven DX11 benchmark.

The major features of this engine is its advanced renderer which currently supports OpenGL 4.0 and DirectX 11.   An updated Unigine SDK is released monthly.  It also comes with many inside features such as, scenery and lighting. The benefits of using this is that it works well with many systems since it is a cross-platform engine.  Currently it can be used for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, PS3, Android, iOS, and Windows RT.  However, this engine is quite expensive, costing anywhere between 20,000 to 40,000 depending on whether you have the source code in it or not.  This product is mainly sold to companies due to the fact that you must have a license to get it, and the fact that some of their units are sold to military based industries makes it unavailable to the public.  There are, however engines based off of Unigine made by the same company. The audio of this engine is based on OpenAL, which is also a cross-platform audio API.  It's a pretty advanced system so you can expect great sound quality from Unigine, which you might not get from other engines.

Overall, it is a cool engine, but the fact that the public cannot simply own this product limits it from being something that everyone can enjoy.