When we design spaces, we want our worlds to be *alive*.

A key component of this sense of vitality is dynamic audio. In a nutshell, dynamic audio is physics-based, player-generative audio signals. The two challenges we are working on are:

1. the sound of the lightsaber as the player swooshes it around them in the environment. buzzzzzzz…. hmmmmm… zap! Obviously, this is dynamic, based on the velocity and acceleration of the ‘blade’.

2. the sound of wind in the player’s hair as they fly high above the city… modulated by airspeed, gusts, and hopefully, near-miss-objects.

Solution? Hard work, creative sample bases, and sweet code. I’ve found this awesome resource: Programming Sound with Pure Data, by Tony Hillerson.

Can’t wait!

Stay tuned…

PS – here’s a little extra on the actual components of the original lightsaber sounds, circa 1977: doppler microphone swinging 🙂