Baba Yaga (2021 Emmy Award Winner)

Aug 24, 2023
caesar

For this Emmy award winning VR experience for Quest and PC VR by Baobab Studio, I worked with the Pollen Music Group to script and prototype the audio behavior of a swinging lantern using Unity internal audio, as well some consulting work for other sections of the experience. Although this was a brief contract, the team found my script useful and their final version was mostly based on my previous work.

This game continues the award winning tradition of Baobab, winning an Emmy for Outstanding Interactive Media for a DayTime Program as well as a Golden Reel Award for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing and the Fan Award at the Venice Film Festival.

Jeff Koonse – Garden Test

Oct 22, 2022
caesar

This was a really interesting job I did for a startup called AcuteArt subcontracting with Intonic Audio and composer Richard Warp, who I previously worked with on the Kizoom Brainventures game. The goal of the website is to serve as a hosting service for VR art experiences, and for their debut they contracted work by several well-known artists – Marina Abramovich, Olafur Eliasson, and Jeff Koonse.

I worked mostly on the project for Jeff Koonse. This was a virtual garden setting for Vive headset on PC, with butterflies that the user could touch and interact with. The butterflies would trigger a generative music system and play notes. This system was adapted from an earlier one devised by Charlie Hugenard and the output was spatialized using Steam Audio.

Unfortunately the garden idea ultimately did not get approved to go forward, so this video demo recorded from the Vive is the only evidence that exists for it. I did also consult on the other two projects in terms of audio mastering and last minute interaction tweaking. Overall a really fun job, just a bit disappointed it never saw the light of day.

EagleDiveVR

Oct 22, 2022
caesar

This VR based game lesson from the Game Audio Institute in Unity with spatial audio handled by Steam Audio was adapted from a Oculus Rift based Unity Asset. Using VRTK for a Vive version and subsequently Unity’s XR Interaction Toolkit, I revised the game code to run on Oculus Link in Windows as well as Mac and Windows standalone. I was responsible for all code revision and adapting to these platforms and overhauled the entire music management system as well. I also wrote the documentation and produced video tutorials for the implementation.

Death’s Feather

Aug 25, 2023
caesar

This project published on Itch.io is another collaboration with Grammy winning engineer and composer for the film ‘Super Size Me’ Steve Horowitz, and it’s an homage to a Randy Hostetler, a composer of promise who attended California Institute of the Arts but whose life was cut short only a few years after graduating with a Master’s degree. Steve had earlier written a piece dedicated to his memory called ‘Death’s Feather’ after a short poem by Dylan Thomas, but rather than a basic recording or recorded concert video he decided an interactive setting would be an interesting and engaging experience that would bring a different audience’s attention to Randy’s music and aesthetic.

We discussed various possibilities and settled on a FPS setting in a 3D maze environment. The piece would be the basic soundtrack, which would temporarily end musically by entering into special areas where players could experience a video of a performed piece by Randy or examine his influences. Once the player left the area the music would return. Eventually by visiting all four of these areas you were allowed to leave the maze by falling through it, which would trigger the ending and credits.

I handled all the level design and C# scripting for this in Unity which involved some usage of the Unity Timeline in the intro, as well as the ending and music management along with video clip playback playing on textures in special rooms. Also managed to find a text animation asset that created spooky floating text which was typed out for an introductory poem as well the basic directions. Overall a brief but fun project!

SoundInMotion

Oct 22, 2022
caesar

This was a slightly unusual contract job for an Israeli startup that did NOT involve Unity but instead used the low level FMOD Studio API running in Xcode. The team wanted to create an application for iOS that would allow the user to perform different kinds of foley to existing videos by triggering and manipulating parameters of the sound using touch. A few different panels allowed control of car foley, or of weather or other sounds. This was my first experience dealing directly with Xcode and ObjectiveC and it was a challenge but ultimately resulted in a shipping product that’s still available.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sound-in-motion/id1167935147

https://www.soundinmotionapp.com/soundinmotion

Essential Game Audio App

Mar 08, 2016
caesar

I designed all of the music and sound effects for this title to accompany our book The Essential Guide to Game Audio. Both the book and the app were published by Focal Press. I also programmed all of the interactive game examples in the app (The Holodeck section) in Unity which also featured videos and quizzes by the developer Zephyr Media and Teravision. Last, I ended up in charge of creating and testing the final build in Xcode and delivering it to Teravision.

Due to the application being 32 bit and there being no desire to update it by Focal, the app is unfortunately no longer available.

Play

Stop

HIDE PLAYLIST

Popout

Shadow Puppeteer

Mar 05, 2016
caesar

Metaphysical Media was privileged to work on this critically acclaimed co-op physics based puzzle platformer from developer Sarepta Studios. We provided audio implementation assistance to the main contractor, my good friend Jory Prum and his Studio Jory, in this Unity based PC and Wii U title using Fabric audio middleware. Duties Included light scripting, configuring of scripts, configuring trigger objects in the Unity scene, and communicating more complex needs to the programming lead.

Sadly, this was the only time I was able to work with Jory on a project, due to his untimely death in a motorcycle accident in 2016.

Awards & Recognition:

“Winner «Shadow Puppeteer – Indie Prize Europe: Director’s Choice Award»” – Amsterdam, February 2015
“Winner «Shadow Puppeteer – Game Connection Development Awards: Most Promising IP»” – San Francisco, March 2015

Ruby Isle Adventure

Oct 22, 2022
caesar

This game lesson using Unity and Wwise is a 3rd person point and click puzzle based adventure game somewhat in the tradition of Myst. For this project I was assisted by a talented student, Brent Heatherwick, who designed the 3D models as well as the C# logic for the puzzles, while I handled all of the camera management, animation controls, in-game object interaction, inventory management and UI in Unity, as well as the sound design, implementation in Wwise, and documentation.

Smuggler’s Dilemma TPS

Oct 22, 2022
caesar

This third person Unity and FMOD Studio sci-fi shooter game lesson for GAI started life as a brief collaboration and ended up largely a solo dev project, starting first from an existing free FPS framework and then changing over into various other TPS frameworks, along with supplemental scripting filling out the interaction. I handled all the level design, player/enemy and weapon setup, and the audio system, starting with Unity audio and then transitioning into FMOD Studio event and parameter triggering. The code was revised and classroom tested several times over the years, and its usefulness as an advanced game lesson covering all of the major audio categories as well as several features of FMOD Studio, has been well-proven. I also wrote the documentation, and produced tutorial videos on the implementation.

DangerousDungeon

Oct 22, 2022
caesar

Dangerous Dungeon is a third person 3D top down dungeon crawler adventure featuring procedurally generated architecture with randomly selected rooms with items, puzzles or traps. Guide your intrepid adventurer to success in this Unity based game lesson with music, sound effects and VO.

For this project I handled nearly all of the coding for the C# scripting for player animations, object interactions, notifications, UI, the room and item generation as well as all visual level design. Models were sourced from Blendswap, OpenGameArt and Bitgem.