Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1525212
AI, ROBOT: Film history is "a history of change," Miller says. 52 C I N E M O N T A G E T E C H this resulted in the creation of a unique sound. Ultimately, this "physics system for sound" created an in-game soundscape that mimics the real world. (To learn more, watch the GDC talk "Tunes of the Kingdom: Evolving P hysics and Sounds for ' The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom'" on YouTube: https://youtu.be/N-dPDsL- TrTE?si=tkYQ0ZMIPjQgpdR2&t=2163). Procedural audio is an invaluable tool for game sound professionals because they're dealing with non-linear, interactive media. Players can run back and forth across the screen for ten minutes if they choose. Cutting individual sounds for that would defy reason. But is there room for procedural audio/procedural sound design in linear media? Pink believes there is. He said, "You're stacking effects on effects and tweaking parameters, and it creates sort of a node tree where you can run an audio signal through different sound processing layers to get the sound you want. This is a new avenue for sound editors where they're not just choosing sounds from a library; they're using this software to really f ine tune bespoke sounds into exactly what they want." One example of a procedural audio tool for film sound designers is GameSynth by Tsugi — available for purchase ($390) at tsugi-studio.com. GameSynth is a sound design tool that can be used to create any type of sound — such as impacts, whooshs, particles, footsteps, weather, engines, and more. Sounds can be rendered out and imported into other tools. According to Tsugi's FAQs, "Many features created for interactive media can also be useful for lin- ear media, such as the automatic creation of sound variations. The video playback feature, which can be synchronized to your drawing on the Sketch Pad, offers an intuitive workflow when designing sound to picture. The GameSynth API allows you to remotely control GameSynth from other creative tools via TCP. It can be used from any tool with scripting capabilities: game middleware, DAWs [like Reaper], graphics packages, and more." Also, audio files (samples) can be loaded in GameSynth and used as sound sources or can be analyzed and used to create con- trol signals. Samples can be manipulated using GameSynth's Particles model (gran- ular synthesizer), or the VoiceFX model for creating vocal effects by changing the processing via a collection of effect racks, for example. According to Tsugi's FAQs, "The patching environment of the Modular model provides several generators that will take samples as input: the Sample Player, the Granular Player, and the Wavetable. It is also possible to use a sample for the sound source in the Whoosh model or for the im- pact noise in the Impact model. In addition, features of a sample (amplitude, pitch, nois- iness, events…) can be analyzed to provide control curves and logic triggers." P i n k n o te d t h a t M P E G 's E m e r g i n g Technology Committee often looks at what video game companies are doing because that has had a huge impact on the movie industry. For example, virtual production utilizes game engines — like Unreal Engine 5 — for real-time rendering of backgrounds on Volume stages. "If you're doing your own research on emerging technologies, the game industry is definitely somewhere to look . P rocedural audio engines and synthetic dialogue are the tools that our