Beginning Game Audio Programming

Summary

Make your games sound as good as they look and play! This comprehensive title is designed to take readers through all aspects of integrating professional quality audio into their games. Detailed examples and instructions are centered around, but not limited to, DirectAudio technology (DirectMusic for game music and DirectSound for sound effects). In addition to creating a complete game audio engine, the reader will explore other topics important to game audio, such as playing MP3s and playing music directly off an audio CD.

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1: The Lay of the Land
  Capabilities of audio hardware
  Dos and Donts of Game Audio
  Lay of the Audio Land
  Buying or Building an Audio Engine
  
• Part 1: A Basic Audio Engine
  
• Chapter 2: Intro to DirectAudio
  Creating primary / secondary audio buffers
  Generated sound playback
  
• Chapter 3: WAV audio playback
  Overview of DirectMusic
  Audiopaths
  The Start of the Audio Engine
  
  Manager Singleton
  
• CSound
  
  Smart Pointers
  
• Chapter 4: Engine Must-Haves
  Anatomy of a WAV file
  Loading a WAV file
  
  from Disk
  
  from Memory
  
  from Resources
  Specifying a Search Directory
  Streaming?
  
• Chapter 5: Control Freak
  Playing Sounds Concurrently
  Volume / Muting
  Knowing when a sound has completed
  
• Chapter 6: MIDI / DirectMusic Playback
  Architecture of DirectMusic
  Loading a DirectMusic song
  Playback of a DirectMusic song
  Determining where you are in a song
  Beat detection
  
• Chapter 7: MP3 / WMA Playback
  Loading an MP3
  Playback of MP3s
  Determining Where you Are in a MP3
  Licensing and Royalty Issues
  Windows Media audio playback
  
• Chapter 8: Ogg Vorbis Playback
  What Is Ogg Vorbis?
  Loading
  Playing
  Determining Where You Are in a Song
  
• Chapter 9: CD Audio (Redbook Audio) Playback
  MCI interface
  Opening a Device
  Telling a Device to Play
  Seeking
  
• Chapter 10: Playing Tracked Music
  What is mikmod?
  Playback using mikmod
  
• Part 2: Advanced Audio Engine Features
  
• Chapter 11: Dynamic Music
  
• Chapter 12: DirectAudio goodies
  Audio Scripting
  Real Time Effects in DirectAudio
  
• Chapter 13: 3D Sound with DirectX Audio
  Doppler Effect
  Reverb
  Obstruction
  DirectAudio 3D Listener
  
• Chapter 14: 3D Sound with OpenAL
  
• Chapter 15: Environmental Modeling using EAX
  
• Chapter 16: Voices and Speech
  Real time Chat via DirectX Voice
  Recording Sounds
  Speech Detection / Voice Commands
  Lip-Sync
  
• Chapter 17: Audio Visualization
  Spectrum analysis
  Graphic equalizers
  Oscilloscopes
  
  Conclusion: Features to add from here
  Audio file management
  Cross-platform-ness
  Performance optimizations
  
• Appendix A: Creating Dynamic Music with DirectAudio (tutorial)
• Appendix B: Content Creation Tips