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[richardeflanagan]

MOVING EARTHToday I'm refining some massive architecture in the world of FRACT OSC. I'm not sure my workflow is conventional, or even remotely ideal, but by building spaces through varying degrees of parametric control it allows for some flexible (if very inefficient) creations. I won't spoil just what/where this is just yet, perhaps we need to put together some new trailers for you guys?

[richardeflanagan]

OPTIMIZATION, THIS TIME WITH RESULTS!So, today I'm trucking along on some more optimization tasks. Not entirely sexy, but I seem to have crossed some magical boundary of drawcalls that has made the game quite playable in the editor. This magical number is still too embarrassingly high for me to share publicly (it's an open-world game, so cut us some slack, right?) but I'm feeling much better about getting FRACT OSC playable on a wider variety of systems. As far as I understand it (which is limited, that's what Henk's for), OpenGL based systems will require slightly different approaches, but we'll cross that bridge eventually. Either way, it's nice to feel progress!

Higher Res Here

[richardeflanagan]

This went up on the site yesterday, but it might be worth reiterating here

Two presentations by the FRACT team at the GDC this year!

A little late on this annoucement as our year-end was crazy busy, but we're super proud/excited/slightly nervous about the fact that we'll be presenting some talks at the Games Developer's Conference this year!

Achieving Real-time Synthesis in the Musical World of FRACT

Henk's going to be going into detail about how we're doing our synth-magic behind the scenes:

FRACT is a first-person, puzzle adventure game set in a world inspired by electronic music, and the winner of an IGF Award in 2011. The newest iteration, FRACT OSC, is inspired by synthesizers, and allows players to shape sound and compose music within the game. This talk will discuss the approach taken in implementing a dynamic, user-controlled audio system. It will also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using real-time synthesis alongside samples, the challenges encountered while using Pure Data, and the key decisions that were made when a custom sound engine was created for the game.

Taking the Leap from Student to Studio: The Story About Making FRACT

I'm going to be presenting Quynh's and my story of just how we 'decided' to throw caution to wind and make FRACT:

Winning the IGF for Best Student Game was a dream come true - but then what? This talk details the ups and downs, circuitous paths, and the lessons learned along the way while developing the student game FRACT into a commercial release. Learning on the job is challenging enough, and the talk shares what happens when life throws something unexpected your way. It discusses the reality of taking risks, running an indie studio out of your home with a pregnant wife as your producer, and putting out your first game in the midst of juggling big decisions, deadlines, and diapers.

Hope to see you there!

- Richard, Quynh & Henk

[richardeflanagan]

Voices, polyphony and wires aplentyToday I’m working on some pattern sequencer stuff (the sequencers that sequence the sequences – wow, that is not any clearer). We have three primary synths in the game; Lead, Bass and Pad. The Lead and Bass synths are monophonic (1 voice/note played at a time) and the Pad is polyphonic (currently set around 4-5 voice/notes at a time). The pattern sequencers I’m toying with today are the for the Pad synths, thus they’ll be juggling a bunch of voices.

What's tricky about the pads (and kind of cool, it was Henk's idea) is that the Pad sequencers will progressively steal voices as the patterns ask for new notes. This behaviour is a bit like the classic Yamaha CS poly synths (CS-50, CS-80 etc), and with a bit of modulation trickery, we _could_ treat each voice like an individual (and slightly different) oscillator. *Long story short, it should SOUND REEL GUD*. I've posted this sample before, but it illustrates this nicely:

HAVE A LISTEN HERE

Our current voice budget is 10 realtime voices spread accross the various synths - which in software like Live, Reason, Cubase etc is peanuts (especially when you consider that our synths are agruably 'lower' quality).  But they aren't rendering a 3D world with things like physics, laser-beams and fun-emulators. With 6-7 musical voices being used up, it would be fair to ask what the rest are for, and while I'll save the nitty-gritty for another post, we do a lot of the sound effects (especially the reactive/interactive ones) with synth voices.

[richardeflanagan]

CURATING THE STUDIO SYNTHSSo, after much thought and some good feedback, we're moving towards a set set of curated FRACT Synths in the studio. These synths connect more appropriately the world & narrative and are easier to use. The synths have a curated set of controls, but offer a wide variety of sound with little intimidation (the Wall of Knob fear). We drew inspiration from tools like Propellerhead's Figure, which impart tons of user expression, freedom, and playfulness with a few well thought out controls.

LISTEN HERE

Don't worry though Synthheads, for those that still want the Wall Of Knobs - that's still totally an option and just a few clicks away. And trust me when I say the control is quite comprehensive (multiple envelopes, envelope polarity, multiple filters, vibrato, LFO, sub oscillators, variable wave shapes and more!)

[mrfunkyland]

This looks like it's gonna kick so much ass. I love that you guys are using Pd to work it out.

[richardeflanagan]

Thanks! The pd magic is all Henk. I just wave my hands around mumbling 'Make it more analog"

[mrfunkyland]

I've been doing some protyping in Pd. Can I ask, how are you guys incorporating the Pd code into the final product? Will you have a version of Pd running alongside the actual game (communicating via OSC I presume based on the title)? I'm moving forward on a project and am on the verge of figuring out how to do just that. I'm contemplating just porting it over into an audio library, God help me.

[henkboom]

I've been doing some protyping in Pd. Can I ask, how are you guys incorporating the Pd code into the final product? Will you have a version of Pd running alongside the actual game (communicating via OSC I presume based on the title)?

Actually puredata is built-in to the game, no separate program required We're using a library called libpd which lets you incorporate puredata directly into a c program, and packaging that up into a DLL which we can load as a Unity plugin. OSC in our title refers to oscillators, not the OSC protocol :p

I'd love to write more about it (and plan to) when I've got a bit of time, but that time is not now >_< I can say that for prototyping purposes using OSC network messages and a separate puredata is the much simpler way to start. That way you don't as much have to worry about low-level multithreading and stuff.

[mrfunkyland]

Actually puredata is built-in to the game, no separate program required We're using a library called libpd which lets you incorporate puredata directly into a c program, and packaging that up into a DLL which we can load as a Unity plugin. OSC in our title refers to oscillators, not the OSC protocol :p

I'd love to write more about it (and plan to) when I've got a bit of time, but that time is not now >_< I can say that for prototyping purposes using OSC network messages and a separate puredata is the much simpler way to start. That way you don't as much have to worry about low-level multithreading and stuff.

I see. Libpd has crossed my radar before, glad to see it works well in practice.

Thanks for the explanation. I'm really looking forward to seeing this in action!

[_ben]

Glad you decided to make this devlog, it's great to see some more regular info on how the game is coming. Hope you keep it up :]

[richardeflanagan]

Post-GDC, back to work & the FRACT old prototypeSorry for the delay in updates! We had a busy and tiring GDC this year, with two presentations, a ton of hangouts, and a party or two.

GDC:
Henk’s talk on how we do our synthesizer magic went splendidly, and I think my talk about just what the hell we’ve been doing for the past 2 years went OK too. We met with friends, made new ones, and got inspired by what other indies are up to!

A NEW TEASER TRAILER:
I also put together a new little teaser trailer for our GDC presentations, which we published last week and got a ton of great feedback on. This also helped out with our geenlight traffic, thanks everyone!

WATCH THE NEW TEASER HERE

THE OLD FRACT PROTOTYPE:
The presentations and the trailer also brought a lot of new and renewed attention to FRACT, which is awesome! We also have been getting a lot of requests for the old IGF award winning prototype from 2011, and a few questions as to why it’s no longer available.

Basically, we’re in the final stretch of finishing FRACT OSC, which is from the ground up completely new and shares nothing with the old prototype. And while we’re very proud of the old FRACT prototype, it doesn’t paint an accurate picture of where we’re going with FRACT OSC. If you’re still really eager to try it, send us a message by the contact form on the site and we can get it to you.

Otherwise, we’re working hard to finish the game – stay tuned for more updates!