Term Paper Proposal

Paul Jansen

Jansen@sfsu.edu

Video game sounds that stand the test of time.

Yesterday, while walking down Valencia Street in San Francisco, I noticed a young man wearing a vintage “Pac-Man” t-shirt. Having played that game all my life I am now curious how we, society, were able to tolerate the basic “waca-waca-waca” sound generated by this two-dimensional pellet muncher. There are some sounds that may generate more empathy from the user or sounds that sound off that don’t make sense in the gaming environment that could be make or break game success issues. Success can prevail through researching video game sound theory, the technique behind generating sound, the tools used for capturing sound and a look at the end result to determine if future game sounds will have the staying power like games like “Pac Man” or “Metroid”.

Works To Be Cited

Non-Web Based Resources

Collins, Karen. Game Sound : An introduction to the history, theory, and practice of video game music and sound design. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008

Hoffert, Paul. Music for new media: composing for videogames, websites, presentations and other interactive media. Boston: Berklee Press, 2007

Hoover, Tom. Keeping Score: Interviews with today’s top film, television and game music composers. Boston: Course Technology / CENGAGE, 2010

Web Based Resource

Yang, David. Dolby brings surround sound voice chat to online console games: 11 Mar. 2010. Proquest. SFSU Lib., San Francisco, CA. 16 Mar. 2010

Breaking IT Down... Digitally

In this post you will first see a list of public and personal digital media or communication technologies that affect me on a daily basis. Second, you will see an image of how digital was used to capture an analog act in public.



PUBLIC :

Lighting

• Streetlamps
• Electronic sensors and controllers dictate the streetlights at night

Power

• Public Utilities
• Control rooms track, monitor and regulate energy distribution to
• Commercial
• Retail
• Service
• Scientific
• Residential
• Houses
• Apartments
• Group Housing
• Government Facilities
• DMV
• Jails
• Schools

Transportation

• Ground Transportation
• Municipal busses and trains
• GPS systems so riders can access their location from a remote location
• Trains
• Train Tracking and efficiency scheduling
• Vehicular Traffic
• Stoplights
• Monitored through a digital control room
• Regulates the light patterns to optimize traffic flow and driver safety.
• Aviation
• Air Trafic Controllers
• Observe and Track digital representations of aircraft
• Safety and surveillance

PERSONAL :

MacBook Pro

• Alarm Clock
• audio alert from a selected MP3 digital file as alarm
• Good MP3 if its a casual day or a bad MP3 if I must get up for an appointment.
• Email
• Personal
• SFSU
• Work
• ICal
• To coordinate events with IPhone
• Class Schedule
• Event Reminders
• "Go to class" or Paper Due in two days
• Safari
• Craigslist
• Checking for 1960 Willys Overland 4x4 Truck Parts
• Pacific Wave Rider
• Surf Report
• Christian Science Monitor
• Required for Class last semester
• Subjective current event information for the Middle East
• Daily updates sent to my inbox
• Pandora
• Red Sovine Music Station
• My pipeline to good old country

IPhone

• Telephone
• Text messaging
• Weather
• Current Conditions
• Snow / Surf Report
• Clock
• E-mail Alerts
• SFSU
• Personal
• Family Business
• Facebook
• Notifications of new mail or contacts
• Camera
• School
• Notes in class from projected images
• View Class Schedule
• Design Reference Photos
• Textures
• Shapes
• Things I read that were relevant to design
• Compositions
• Visual to do lists
• When taking notes, a picture is worth a thousand words

Korg CA-10 Guitar Tuner

• Displays the current sound frequency on a digital LED display
• For tuning or detuning strings on my guitar

ATT

• Wireless Router
• Connection to the internet and all its glory

This is a photo of my friend Rob filming a calm day at Mavericks in Half Moon Bay. The relevance is that the shot, taken with a digital SLR (bits) camera, is of Rob filming the surf with an analog 16mm film camera (atoms).

Learn From Their Mistakes

I am 32 years of age. When I was a youngster my father worked in shipping and receiving for Apple Computers. I can recall one time when he took my brother and I to the headquarters. While we were there we were introduced to and allowed to play with the first mouse, prior to its release. Apple has played quite the roll in my life throughout the years and at this time right now i am embracing technology on a MacBook Pro. Does this specific computer do my math homework for me? No. It is a tool. Compared to my father my tools are quite complex in comparison to the tools he had at his disposal during his youth. My nephew, having just taken a tying test at the end of 5th grade was able to type at 92 W.P.M..

In my fathers youth in Downtown San Jose time was spent playing in creeks and orchards. The physical life was more prevalent than that of a innovation fueled entrepreneurial mindset that strives for bigger, better and faster. In his time the emphasis was on the traditional roles of gender and occupation coupled with apparent levels of attainable achievement. Men did manly things, and women the womanly things. With the influx of media available for spreading messages in my time groups or individuals that have never felt they had a voice gained one. Consciousness raising has both positive and negative uses, but the former so far seem to outweigh the later. My father did not need a cell phone because the distance travelled from home was not typically very far, as was the case with most people. Peopel had a tendency to stick to their neighborhoods. In my day the car and plane travel has opened up great expanses of land to trek, travel and document. GIS and GPS both based on bits map our world, a world that can be viewed now at the touch of a few buttons.

My generation is bombarding itself with useless information. Too much information based on commerce driven goals clutters our minds and distracts us form things that matter the most to me such as family and my closest of friends.

I do give the oldtimer's props though because we wouldn't be here if they all gave up on embracing technology.

Atoms are Necessary

I am Digital...well, for the most part.
When I was younger I watched cartoons on KQED, a bay area based Public Television Broadcasting Company, and in between the shows there was a segment called "Bits and Pieces." While the goal of the segment was to teach about morals and a childs role in society, the message was sometimes lost in transmission. When reading the DNA of Information by Negroponte in his book Being Digital, we can see a shift from analog to digital. Bits and Pieces is a great example of bits and atoms working together to get a message accross, but what is the value if the message, in a digital format can transfer the message precisely.
The thought that we live in a digital wold is interesting because I myself although I interact with both bits and pieces /atoms have realized that both have their time and their place. My digital life primarily started with Pong, an old video game system that was the rage of its day. While pong was able to keep me entertained in my youth what else did it do for society?
My parents divorced when I was a one year old. Growing up involved going to school coming home to an empty house, doing a little homework then until sunset, beyond bedtime if we were lucky, the video game console was in my face. The Atari, Nintendo, Sega and now the Wii have worked to keep kids from playing outside for as long as I can remember. As Negroponte pointed out, something has to translate the bits to a usable or recognizable form. The game console system itself was not able to be transmitted via bits and therefore business found it necessary to maintain the use of atoms for the function of translating bits of information to a format that we can not only play, but adjust to our individual needs.