DESCRIPTION:
Abstract:
Procedural music is sound qua process, as opposed to sound qua product. Procedural music makes it possible to create music for a game that isn’t repetitive, has a low impact on storage space and is more responsive and connected to the game it’s implemented in. These advantages are mainly theoretical conclusions on the possibilities of procedural content. In the practice there arguably doesn’t seem to be an example that has all these advantages. The disadvantages might be weighing more. Procedural music can have a high impact on system recourses, like CPU power, can have an overwhelming effect on programmer and composer, because of complexity. It often has a negative effect on audio quality and it often sounds less good than music composed by a composer.
To test if I could let the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, a procedural music system was made for the game “Remnant”. The system is based on Markov state machines and stochastic processes. The system was made in PD and implemented in the Unity game using LibPD. The result was quite successful; the system is arguably not repetitive, but it doesn’t showcase how responsive procedural music really can be. The sound quality is good though, and it is more responsive than a lot of rendered music currently in games. It doesn’t require too many system recourses and uses very little storage space.
The procedural music system proves that it is possible to make music that benefits from the advantages of procedural music, but it is in no way perfect. There’s a lot of room for improvement, which is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing in the sense that there’s a lot more possible but a curse because of the time consumption it already has taken. In some situations, procedural music is a better option than rendered music, but it cannot replace rendered music anytime soon.

Download the Paper here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/omvqvxk7ockne58/Supportive%20Narrative%20Mathijs%20Wiermans.pdf?dl=1

Download the Mac App here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/eadjub0o91uibuk/Remnant%2020160608.app.zip?dl=1

Download the PD patch here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/re84j6yunyavz7l/Remnant%20PD%20Patch.zip?dl=1


Unfortunately there are no ports to other operating systems yet.