CDM Interview: Tomb Raider: Legend Composer Troels Brun Folmann on Adaptive “Micro-Scoring”

By W. Brent Latta

The latest installment in the famed Tomb Raider series has done very well under its new developer, Crystal Dynamics. Tomb Raider: Legend debuted at No. 1 on the UK sales charts and has sold nearly 3 million units since release. Composer Troels Brun Folmann, Ph. D. scholar in Adaptive Game Audio from IT-Universitetet i København, was recently awarded a BAFTA award for Best Original Score for Tomb Raider: Legend. We had the opportunity to talk with him about composing for games, adaptive music, and more.

Create Digital Music: Troels, first of all, congratulations on your recent BAFTA award for your Tomb Raider: Legend score!

Troels Brun Folmann: Thanks. I’m still having problems sleeping!

CDM: So this is something I struggle with on a daily basis (with my own surname) — can you tell us how to correctly pronounce your name?

TBF: Haha! I don’t know to be honest. When I order something at Starbucks, they always ask for my name twice. First I go, “Troels.” Then they go, “Charles?” Then I go, “Ehm…Troels.” and get a cup of coffee named “Charles”. The solution was to change my name to “Troy”, so I use that all the time now at Starbucks. But the most common English pronunciation is “Trolls”.

CDM: Tell us a little bit about your background, for those who may not have read your blog, etc.

TBF: The majority of composers always have these cool stories about how they played at the age of 2 and so forth. Unfortunately my story is a little less sexy. I couldn’t speak before I reached the age of 6 and I was generally regarded as a loss for humanity. Nobody in my family played music except of my grand-dad, who was a terrible hobby musician. When I was about 10 years old I decided to follow his majestic path. I eventually became a Ph.D. Scholar in Dynamic/Adaptive music for games and tried building bridges between the academic world and the games industry. But enough about me, please. You can find my narcissistic weblog at www.deffmute.com if anybody should care to drop me a line.

CDM: Adaptive music for games is a fairly new concept, what made you decide to pursue that field for your Ph. D. work?

TBF: Good question. I would not say that adaptive music is a new concept, but the problem is that it’s never really been working. One of the main limitations is the fact that current generation of consoles like the PS2 and Xbox have very little RAM allocated for audio. Typically, sound designers have a mighty 2MB to play around with. True adaptive music needs be generated in real-time, and even the next-generation consoles like Xbox 360 and PS3 will not have resources enough to do this on a larger scale.

However, there are ways to work around the limitations. This usually involves the creation of custom technologies. I invented a methodology known as “micro-scoring”. It’s basically the idea of chopping your score down to very small components and triggering them in a way that compliments the game experience.

CDM: For those who may be considering such an academic pursuit, do you feel that your post-graduate studies have helped you as a working composer?

TBF: This is a very difficult question. Did academia help me become a better composer? No. Did academia help me get a better understanding of communication, clients and business? Absolutely. I would advise aspiring composers and musicians to pursue conservatory degrees or just experiment on their own, since classic academia is far away from the game business. However, I would advise all professional composers to take communication, client relationships, networking, promotion, sales and business seriously. You may be the greatest composer in the world, however you need more than your music to get by, in my opinion. A talent is a person that excels under a given set of circumstances. Professional music composition is bread and butter. Communication is key.

Anyway, let’s get back to your question regarding academia. I do think there is a potential in academia to support this, but the current research on interactive music is highly sparse and I had a hard time finding serious research material to support scientifically valid statements, while I was a scholar.

CDM: Let’s talk a little more in detail about Tomb Raider: Legend. First off, this was the first TR title for Crystal Dynamics, but you had been working with them for some time. Can you tell us how you came to work with them, and how you eventually came to be the composer for TRL?

Read the rest of the interview at Create Digital Music....

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/10/11/c...ring/#more-1664

The soundtrack for Tomb Raider Legend is the most beautiful thing. The main menu music is amazing. Im not sure, but I think I heard snipets (small ones) of the original TR during the first level or something; that brings back such memories.