Mediating Interactions in Games Using Procedurally Implemented Modal Synthesis : Do players prefer and choose objects with interactive synthetic sounds over objects with traditional sample based sounds?

Sammanfattning: Procedurally implemented synthetic audio could offer greater interactive potential for audio in games than the currently popular sample based approach does. At the same time, synthetic audio can reduce storage requirements that using sample based audio results in. This study examines these potentials, and looks at one game interaction in depth to gain knowledge around if players prefer and chooses objects with interactive sounds generated through procedurally implemented modal synthesis, over objects with traditionally implemented sample based sound. An in-game environment listening test was created where 20 subjects were asked to throw a ball, 35 times, at a wall to destroy wall tiles and reveal a message. For each throw they could select one of two balls; one ball had a modal synthesis sound that varied in pitch with how hard the ball was thrown, the other had a traditionally implemented sample based sound that did not correspond with how hard it was thrown but one of four samples was called at random. The subjects were then asked questions to evaluate how realistic they perceived the two versions to be, which they preferred, and how they perceived the sounds corresponding to interaction. The results show that the modal synthesis version is preferred and perceived as being more realistic than the sample based version, but wether this was a deciding factor in subjects’ choices could not be determined.