Sound for games

Sound for games is very important for atmosphere and immersion, these days i can't really play a game without sound and have much fun, it provides one of the basic senses in a game.
Games use different sounds to create an environment, they would usually have a long sound file of ambient noise to immerse yourself into the game world and make a virtual place seem more believable with wind, traffic birdsong etc
Sound for games have been around almost as long as games have, from simple blips and bloops to full orchestral music scores, i remember the atari 2600 sounds being awesome with its primitive explosions and loud static noises. I also remmeber being really impressed at voice being implemented in sega genesis titles, with its original music giving different feels for its games.
I feel music in games is only recently been thought about seriously again, i remember the old Nes games like mario having really simple little tunes, but they were catchy and made you instantly recognise what game it was from. The Sonic series had its own original little music tunes that helped bring the game to life.
When the playstation was released it wowed people with functioning 3d graphics, but i feel the quality of sounds were lost, although they were at a higher bitrate and sounded clearer they seemed pretty generic and most games used stock sound effects from movies wich were boring.
The music was mostly thumping generic dance tracks with little thought put into them although there probably were exceptions. Most people bring up final fantasy (again) when it comes to music tracks but i listened to a few tracks and their all just poor looping midi files.. in my opinion.
However recent games have been quite impressive with their sounds and music, using full orchestral scores in games like medal of honour 2 and shenmue (bit old but whatever) and good ambient noise mixed with realistic sounds and voices in the game world.
Sound also adds to the gameplay of a game with certain noises being recognisable for when somethings going to happen, or music playing to make certain scenes more intense.
Some games have sound based puzzles, or sounds given as a indication of where to go or what to do.

Task 17 Game engines

The game engine is the core part of games, they bring all the assets together and work them into a playable space, game engines make developing games easier and allows a company to easily port their game to different consoles.
Some engines come with a developer kit that allows the company to quickly edit their game and reduce cost, this also allows mod teams to develop their own content for the engine in question.
I would try and explain scene graphs and graphic engines but that stuff gives me a headache and will just end up as an unreadable paragraph..
Popular engines include Unreal engine, Cryengine, Doom 3, and the source engine, i've only ever used the source engine before and only made a few maps with it. i once had a go with unreal but gave up quickly.
Their are things called Middleware engines where company's develop programs to help developers build their game, one example is speedtree wich makes realistic trees really fast and saves a lot of time.
When a company starts to develop a new game they will either create their own engine or use an existing one, creating a new engine is very difficult, engines like doom 3 and quake have been constantly updated over the years and keep getting enhanced and eliminating bugs. Game engines are expensive but it could work out cheaper than coding one from scratch.
Subtractive and additive, is a term for mapping, it explains how a mapping tool works, in Additive the mapper starts with an empty environment called "the void" or "empty space", the mapper will place a room inside of this by making a hollowed out cube and sealing it, crazy stuff can happen if there is a leak in the box. Sky is created with a skybox, wich is just a normal box with a special skybox texture added to it.
Subtractive mapping uses one infinite solid space instead of a void and a mapper will hollow out the inside to create rooms, this totally gets rid of leaks but i find it an annoying way to map and prefer additive. Some people create their own void by making a giant hollow cube and adding bit inside it.