5th December 2008

LITTLE BIG PLANET, MAX MSP for Computer Gamers

Kenneth Young from Media Molecule brought our first semester 2008-9 to a close with an informative and superbly illustrated demonstration of his work as the only sound designer on Little Big Planet.

Little Big Planet is one of the most original computer games we’ve seen.  Players can start with what is essentially a blank screen and build a world around themselves, this can then be shared with other online players.

Kenny’s approach to sound design for a world that does not yet exisit is to give players a series of sound options that are all related to physical conditions and that can be controlled by the player to some degree.  The game does not have a sound-physics engine and is entriely sample-based.  Using the sound system prototyping software F-MOD, Kenny showed us the carefully structured rules that are put in place to manipulate a vast library of sound samples and how these are weaved together to make a complex and rich soundscape without recourse to artificial intelligence or computationally expensive sound synthesis methods.

Check out Kenny Young’s Game Audio site for more information:

www.gamesound.org