AES Dublin 2019
Paper Session P19
P19 - Audio and Games
Saturday, March 23, 09:00 — 11:00 (Meeting Room 3)
Chair:
Dylan Menzies, University of Southampton - Southampton, UK
P19-1 A Framework for Understanding and Defining Quality of Musicians’ Experience in Network Music Performance Environments—Konstantinos Tsioutas, Athens University of Economics and Business - Athens, Greece; Ioannis Doumanis, University of Central Lancashire - Preston, UK; George Xylomenos, Athens University of Economics and Business - Athens, Greece
While there is considerable work on network and system level metrics related to Network Music Performance (NMP), assessing the Quality of Musician’s Experience (QoME) in NMP sessions must also take into account the emotional and psychological aspects of the participants. We propose a research framework that integrates both subjective and objective aspects of musicians’ experience by explicitly considering the psychological state and profile of each musician, the environment acoustic variables, and the performance of the network as the key dimensions that impact QoME. We will use the proposed framework to drive empirical studies designed to explore the QoME of musicians performing musical pieces over the Internet; this paper is a first step in this direction.
Convention Paper 10200 (Purchase now)
P19-2 Aretousa: A Competitive Audio Streaming Software for Network Music Performance—Konstantinos Tsioutas, Athens University of Economics and Business - Athens, Greece; George Xylomenos, Athens University of Economics and Business - Athens, Greece; Ioannis Doumanis, University of Central Lancashire - Preston, UK
Many existing open source systems provide support for Network Music Performance (NMP), with each one catering to a specific system and usage scenario. As our research in evaluating the Quality of Experience (QoE) of NMP systems as perceived by musicians involves widely different scenarios and requires extensive instrumentation of the platform, we built a new NMP system, Aretousa. Our system offers a large number of configuration and monitoring options, without sacrificing latency, the most critical factor for NMP. To show that Aretousa provides flexibility while being competitive with the state of the art in terms of latency, we present measurements comparing it against JackTrip in multiple setups over a high speed research network.
Convention Paper 10201 (Purchase now)
P19-3 Measuring the Impact of Level of Detail for Environmental Soundscapes in Digital Games—Igor Dall'Avanzi, Goldsmiths College, University of London - London, UK; Matthew Yee-King, Goldsmiths College, University of London - London, UK
The design of sonic environments in digital games poses an unanswered question of believability. How much time and resources should be used to replicate an element that is stochastic and unpredictable in nature, in order to convey a satisfactory experience? We analyze the effect on player’s immersion caused by the detail of digital environmental sounds (soundscapes). Two groups of participants are asked to play two different versions of the same game. One processes audio elements on run time for higher levels of detail, while the other one uses looped files. Player’s immersion is measured afterwards using the Immersive Experience Questionnaire [1] and qualitative questions. Results showed no considerable difference between the two groups, and we discuss some possible explanations for this.
Convention Paper 10202 (Purchase now)
P19-4 Augmented Audio-Only Games: A New Generation of Immersive Acoustic Environments through Advanced Mixing—Nikos Moustakas, Ionian University - Corfu, Greece; Andreas Floros, Ionian University - Corfu, Greece; Emmanouel Rovithis, Ionian University - Corfu, Greece; Konstantinos Vogklis, Ionian University - Corfu, Greece
Audio-only games represent an alternative type of gaming genres that continuously evolves following the technological trends that boost the video-games market. Since augmented reality is now a widespread approach for producing new kind of immersive applications, including games, it is expected that audio-only games will be influenced by this approach. This work represents the beginning of an attempt to investigate the process of delivering augmented audio-only games, focusing on specific technical factors that can improve the user interaction and the overall game-play experience. In particular, it focuses on a new augmented reality audio mixing process that is optimized for variable acoustic environments allowing the development of new attractive titles of audio-only games.
Convention Paper 10203 (Purchase now)