This is the first in a series of posts I’ve got planned since my recent work using FMOD (fmod.org) for creating audio. FMOD is a powerful cross-platform audio toolkit, developed by Firelight Technologies. I’ve used it previously on Windows platforms and in Unity 3D as well, but most recently I’ve been playing with it in iOS for a recent app contract (Carmina Avium).

So, this is creatively designated “T1″, the first Tutorial for FMOD. There are a bunch of other tutorials planned for the future, to cover how to incorporate various audio effects and features. If you have a particular request, feel free to email me or leave a comment.

This post will tell you how to download the FMOD audio library, and add it to your iOS app project. It won’t cover any actual FMOD code, that will be handled in later tutorials. Another tutorial will cover some additional settings to be aware of to make it play nicely with other audio systems on the device, for example the iPod media player.

1. Download “FMOD Ex” from http://fmod.org/fmod-downloads.html
2. Unzip the package to a folder on your mac. I prefer not to include it directly in each project, but put it in a nearby folder (e.g. within the “Documents” folder), and then it’s straightforward to update FMOD to a newer version if needed, don’t need to include it in source control, etc.
3. Create a new Xcode project, or open your existing project.
4. In “Build Phases” reference the following libraries to your project: CoreAudio.framework and AudioToolbox.framework.
5. Set up your Xcode project to compile C++. FMOD is written in C/C++, rather than objective C. Xcode won’t have a problem handling that, but all of the “.m” files in your project must be renamed to “.mm” for them to compile as Objective-C++. This is required for all source files that will reference any FMOD headers (or headers that reference FMOD, etc). You might need to keep an eye out for this later on if you add/change files within your project. If you start getting compiler errors saying “Invalid Namespace” or something similar, it’s a good bet you need to make that file “.mm”.
6. Add the Header and Library include directories in the project, under “Build Settings” (Modify the path depending on your folder structure. Feel free to include FMOD within your project folder if you prefer):

HEADER_SEARCH_PATHS ../../api/inc
LIBRARY_SEARCH_PATHS ../../api/lib

7. Include these files in your header:

#import "fmod.hpp"
#import "fmod_errors.h"


8. Lastly, under “Build Settings” under “OTHER_LDFLAGS”, you need to specify the FMOD Libraries:

Release: -fmodex_$PLATFORM_NAME
Debug: -fmodexL_$PLATFORM_NAME // supports debug logging

And that’s it! Your project will compile, meaning that Xcode is successfully accessing all the headers and libraries for FMOD. Obviously though, it won’t be playing any sounds yet, but we’ll get there shortly. This tutorial doesn’t cover any FMOD Code, but I’m currently working on a number of tutorials that will get into that side of things, and I’m aiming to cover as many platforms and languages as I can for those. Again, if you have any questions or things you’d like me to cover specifically, leave a comment below or send me an email.

Cheers,
Craig.

Had a great meeting with IGDA Melbourne last week, with fantastic presentations from Tin Man Games on the reality and honest financials of being an indie game developer. Stephan Schutze and Trent Kusters spoke about personal branding, marketing, online presence and portfolios, and preparation for job applications and interviews. It ended up being a long night, but with a huge amount of information being available for people, and I was madly taking fown notes for myself – hopefully soon you’ll see some updates to this website to reflect some of the suggestions given on the night. I’ve written a piece on the IGDA website about the night, and you can check it out here.

Next month’s IGDA Meet is a ‘Post Mortem’ discussion of “AFL Live”, developed in Melbourne by Big Ant Studios (X360 and PS3) and Wicked Witch Software (Wii), and while I’m not exactly a footy fan, it’s looking to be a really interesting glimpse behind the scenes in development.

Cheers,

Craig.

Well, it’s been a busy few weeks since we got back from our trip. We’ve had lots to organise and plan, both with personal stuff and work stuff. In amongst all of that though, I was recently asked to talk (or mutter inanely as the case may be) on the Drop Bear Gaming podcast, which you can check out here:

http://www.dropbeargaming.com/archives/1209

It was lots of fun being on the show, nattering away about my previous career as an Aerospace Engineer (Rocket Scientist), making the choice to go back to school to learn game programming, and my current work as an independent game programmer, and my work with (Moving Target Games. Lucas and Susie were great hosts, and lots of fun to chat to, and they did well to put up with my ramblings for my first podcast. If you haven’t heard Drop Bear Gaming, you should check them out, and you can subscribe to them on iTunes.

As far as the other stuff that’s been going on lately, I’ve been doing a bit of work on some independent iOS projects (which I can’t talk about yet, but will announce later when I can), other work to pay the bills, and also catching up with the boys for some 40k games. I also received a nice shiny iPad 2, which is very exciting (and I’m writing this on it actually). This is my first iPad, and I’ve got a few game/app ideas to try out for this, so I’ll keep you posted on how those go as well.

Anyways, I’ll do another update shortly to go into more details, but mainly wanted to announce the podcast, as it was just released today.

Cheers,
Craig.

Well, I stumbled on some streaming links for ‘Level 3′s TV coverage of our recent Global Game Jam event, run by IGDA Melbourne last January. There are two segments, and the links for the episodes are below.

Part 1: Episode 210 is HERE. GGJ stuff is from around 10:00.

Part 2: Episode 211 is HERE. GGJ stuff starts from around 10:20.

It was lots of fun putting together the GGJ event, and we’re stoked that there was so much interest in the event, and that all the jammers were so enthusiastic about it. We can’t wait to see what comes out of the GGJ next year – it’s amazing what all the teams were able to put together in just a single weekend.

Cheers,

Craig.

EDIT: Level 3 have made a special “Game Jam” feature episode, containing all the GGJ footage from both of the above videos. You can check it out here.

Posts have been a bit quiet, seeing as since the hectic preparations for Global Game Jam, I had just a couple of weeks of quiet before heading off on a trip to the USA. In that time, I was hoping to make progress on some personal project, some Moving Target Games stuff, have a few meetings on some freelance projects and other related stuff, but it was still a very busy couple of weeks, so some of that will happen when we get back (oh well).

So I’m sitting here typing away late at night after day one of the Main proceedings of GDC 2011 (Wednesday). I’ve got a main conference pass, so will be here until Friday, chatting with developers and learning lots of cool stuff in the sessions. This is just such an amazing atmosphere here, with so many people from so many different backgrounds and levels of experience, but more than anything, GDC has shown me just how ‘green’ I am, having just graduated, and there’s so much yet to learn. This was one of the things that drew me to Game Dev in the first place after leaving Engineering, in that it’s such a technical field, and one where people never stop learning or wanting to learn.

Anyway, I’ll post more here later on (I’m tired) but wanted to make a quick post. I’m hoping to head around to lots of the developers booths tomorrow to say hello and introduce myself, so this post is mainly to provide some handy links to them so they can find some important info on me without having to hunt around the site too much. Here you go:

My Resume.

LinkedIn.

Twitter.

You can find more info on myself and my portfolio here, but this is just so there’s a quick list so you don’t need to hunt to find the important info. If I’ve found you and given you my card, I’ll be in touch regardless shortly, but it may be once I return to Australia, depending on availability of local Wifi in hotels, etc.

Cheers,

Craig.

It was lots of fun chatting about what the Global Game Jam is, the games that were made, and the energy of the weekend. You can download a podcast of the episode here (Feb 2) – I’m on from about 17:00.

I joined up in October, and primarily helped initially with setting up the Xmas Party, held on the rooftop at Big Ant Studio in the city. We had a great turnout, and everyone enjoyed themselves. It was blowy up on the roof, but the rainclouds held off for the day, and everyone had lots of fun.

In the lead up to Xmas, we were also discussing preparations for the Global Game Jam. I’d asked some of the committee members about whether IGDA could do a Game Jam at at an earlier meet, so I knew they were already planning on setting something up like this, but I’d only find out the details and the sheer awesomeness that is the Global Game Jam later on. We started planning it just before Xmas, with lots of emails, google docs and meets at the pub to work out the details.

The Global Game Jam was held just last weekend, at La Trobe University, and sponsored by Firemint. It was a roaring success, with 70-odd people coming along to let us lock them in a cold, airconditioned room over a weekend to make games based on the theme ‘Extinction’. It was amazing seeing just how much energy and excitement can be contained in such a small space, and there was a lot of interest in it from industry and media, with lots of visitors coming along to see, and Level 3 from Channel 31 coming along to interview as the weekend went along. I’m also going to be on radio 3RRR later tonight to talk about it as well. I’ve made another brief post on the IGDAM website, and will soon update there with a list of all the 18 games made during the weekend, which won awards, how to download them, etc.

It was an amazing weekend, with people remaining excited even when totally exhausted at the end. I can’t wait to get ready for Global Game Jam 2012!

Well, it’s been a while since my last update, mostly because a lot’s been happening lately. I’ll try and summarise the main details briefly, and update further in other posts.

Firstly, I finished and graduated from my programming course, and am very happy with how everything turned out. Our major game project (based on my game idea) was successful, and we presented the game to industry and at the graduation. You can see a gameplay trailer at the Degradation page. I’ve updated the other pages to reflect recent changes in my school projects.

Secondly, you’ll notice that the site looks a little different. This one has had me tied up for a bit. I was hoping to learn some proper web development, and make all my own pages, however it was taking time to learn, and I was getting frustrated that that was time I couldn’t be working on my own game projects. Having had some experience using wordpress with IGDA Melbourne recently (more on that soon), I decided that WordPress would be a good way to present the site, have the blog, and also be able to make project pages, also incorporating YouTube clips and pictures without too much extra work. I’m keen to get back into web dev at some point, but this is a great way to be able to tell everyone everything, without too much overhead.

Going back to the IGDA comment, I’ve also joined the committee for IGDA Melbourne. I’m also putting in lots of time at the moment planning the Melbourne site for the Global Game Jam 2011. It’s lots of fun, and looking to be a great event.

As far as my current plans post-graduation, I’m experimenting with some iOS development with Unity3D. I’m still getting used to the iOS/Mac side of things, but getting the hang of it all. I’m working on an iPhone game with a melbourne-based partner which is progressing well, and also investigating my own game ideas, and looking at ways to incorporate my previous audio analysis work with FMOD to that platform.

Moving Target Games-wise, I’m still working with them on some projects. Main concentration is further refinement of the Audio Analysis systems, and also working on a few of my own game designs, currently fleshing out the designs to hopefully become future MTG projects.

Anyways, I want to leave it there, or I’ll just waffle on as I usually do. I’ll leave further specifics to later blog posts.

Cheers all,
Craig.

Please view the full post to see the Unity content.

Go here for more details on the game and its future development.

We had about 10 days for the gamejam, but with school work and other related distractions, actual dev time was around 3 days. It’s not finished, but has a basic implementation of the main elements. I’m going to put some more polish on it later, and will update the game when done.

Cheers,
Craig.

Well, we gave our presentations for game prototypes last week, and it all went very well. We had lots of awesome concept art to show off, a nicely polished game design and backstory, and a brief game prototype demonstrating some of the gameplay. We received some very positive comments, and also some very constructive criticism, which we’ve been incorporating this week. We’re now fully into Alpha development.

This week, and I mean pretty much all of this week, has been pretty much dedicated to level design, refining some of the game-play choices, and setting specific puzzles for each level. It’s been a rough week, with not a lot of sleep, but I’m really glad we’ve gotten through it, as we’ve refined the amount of content we’re going to make for the game (greatly reduced it, but we now have a reasonable amount given the project duration), and condensed the puzzle ideas we had so that each level is a growing mixture of several puzzle elements, which makes for much more interesting levels (I hope – we’ll see in a week or so once we’re testing them in the game!).

Now that we’ve got all the levels defined and on paper, the artists have been given the task of creating basic 3D models of them, and hopefully this time next week we’ll be playing them in the game. My current project for the weekend is to re-visit an old GameState manager project I did last year, and get that working in Gamebryo. That way we can import each level model into the game, and have people building all levels in the one project. Also, if we have the basics of our menu system in place, Level Select etc, it will make it feel like much more of a game.

Anyways, it’s progressing, we’re receiving lots of constructive reports from people at school and teachers on how the game’s looking, and the amount of content we’re aiming for (I must admit I got a bit over-zealous in my initial game design – live and learn I guess).

I’ll see if I can put up our demo apps here, and maybe a Youtube vid of our presentation video. If we can get that going, I’ll post an update with links to that.

Cheers,
Craig