menu
 

The Little Robot That Could: Wwise Interactive Audio Brings COZMO to Life

상호작용 오디오

Screen_Shot_2016-08-29_at_2.06.18_PM.png

“Why do robots need audio?” I get asked this a lot and, honestly, I had asked the same question when I got to Anki a few years back. Anki is a San Francisco based robotics/AI company of about 150 people and growing fast. We applied some of our skills towards developing smartphone-driven physical toy products, such as DRIVE and OVERDRIVE. Our latest project, COZMO, goes a step further by applying robotics and AI to bring a robot character to life in the vein of Pixar’s Wall-E. And this is just the beginning.

Building robots in the real world is really hard, especially consumer robots that can be mass manufactured at a price point that doesn’t cost a fortune. As I found out, most consumer “robots” are actually simple gimmicky remote “drones” without agency or intent, or so limited in capabilities that you couldn’t really call them robots. Real robots have AI, pathfinding, memory mapping, computer-vision, the capability of manipulating their environment around them, and much more. I’m certainly not a roboticist, so I speak as an Anki layman. Anki not only wants to build real robots for the consumer space, but to bring robots to a price point where a child can own one (or more), much like a gaming console, complete with an SDK.

I saw the plans for COZMO on my first day at Anki and I could just feel the excitement surrounding audio. The team didn’t exactly know how audio was going to enrich the COZMO experience, they just knew that it would. The Anki team was certain that in order to make our robots feel like a character, and especially in order to keep the mechanical costs down, we would use interactive audio to give COZMO personality and charm, and to keep the user engaged, informed, and entertained. The content we generate is very much in the tradition of the best that film and games have to offer. COZMO would have a uniquely emotive voice and a language all his own, along with a custom soundtrack to accompany him on his adventures. And, all of this is being powered by Wwise.

One of the first decisions I made when I got to Anki was to choose Wwise as our audio middleware platform. There were bumps along the way, but in the end, the team understood it was important to leverage tools available to us now to get results faster. With Wwise, we were able to quickly get audio on the smart devices that run the App that talks to COZMO. Furthermore, with access to Wwise source code, we were able to write custom plug-in’s to talk to COZMO’s onboard speaker, ensure sample accuracy, and manage audio buffers more efficiently. In many ways, Wwise has become the common audio “language” speak here at Anki. Wwise makes it easy to describe non-linear audio concepts and behaviors to others who may not be audio professionals. While we still do plenty of custom workflows and pipeline work, Wwise gave us the jump start we needed to focus more on content aesthetics, and less on building tools.

Brian Min

Audio Director

Anki

Brian Min

Audio Director

Anki

Brian Min is currently the Audio Director at Anki Inc, a San Francisco Based Robotics/AI Company. Prior to Anki Inc, he served as the Studio Audio Director at the award winning independent game developer Double Fine, and Sr. Sound Designer at Sony Computer Entertainment.

 @sonicrevo

댓글

댓글 달기

이메일 주소는 공개되지 않습니다.

다른 글

상호작용 사운드를 통한 기능적 오디오 인터페이스: 자동차 안전, 안내 및 엔터테인먼트 응용을 위한 청각적 디스플레이 사용하기

본 백서에서는, 자동차 HMI(Human-Machine Interface)를 향상시키고 전반적인 사용자 환경을 개선하기 위해 소리가 혁신적인 방법으로 사용되는 고급 사용 사례를...

15.7.2020 - 작성자: 프랑수아 티보 (François Thibault)

게임 오디오 직업 스킬 - 게임 사운드 디자이너로 고용되는 법

20.1.2021 - 작성자: 브라이언 슈밋(BRIAN SCHMIDT)

Wwise 2021.1에서 시도해볼 10 가지

Wwise 런처에서 Wwise 2021.1을 다운로드할 수 있게 되었다는 소식입니다. 오브젝트 기반 파이프라인, 방사 이미터(radial emitter), WAQL을 포함한 다양한...

9.6.2021 - 작성자: 매스 마라티 소노로 (MADS MARETTY SØNDERUP)

Wwise로 현실 세계의 상호작용 음악 만들기

저는 몇 년 전부터 상호작용 오디오를 좀 더 깊게 탐구해보기로 했습니다. 제가 하는 작업과 연관된 프로젝트로 만들되, 지루하지 않게 흥미로우면서도 배울 것이 있는 프로젝트를...

24.8.2021 - 작성자: 리사 슈바르츠발트 (Ressa Schwarzwald)

Wwise에서 음악 설계 템플릿을 사용하여 독보적인 사운드 디자인을 만들어내는 방법

Foxface Rabbitfish(폭스페이스 레빗피시)의 작곡가 겸 오디오 디렉터인 가이 휘트모어(Guy Whitmore)는 2019 Wwise 상호작용 음악 심포지움에서 현대...

24.11.2021 - 작성자: 가이 휘트모어 (Guy Whitmore)

Wwise로 게임 마스터링하기 | 제 2부: Mastering Suite 프리셋 및 사용 방법

2부로 구성된 블로그 시리즈의 제 1부에서는 게임 마스터링에 접근하는 방식을 다루었습니다. 여기에서는 Mastering Suite에 담긴 여러 가지 프리셋을 언제 어떻게...

26.3.2025 - 작성자: 로익 쿠티에(Loïc Couthier) & 단제리 스켐브리(Danjeli Schembri)

다른 글

상호작용 사운드를 통한 기능적 오디오 인터페이스: 자동차 안전, 안내 및 엔터테인먼트 응용을 위한 청각적 디스플레이 사용하기

본 백서에서는, 자동차 HMI(Human-Machine Interface)를 향상시키고 전반적인 사용자 환경을 개선하기 위해 소리가 혁신적인 방법으로 사용되는 고급 사용 사례를...

게임 오디오 직업 스킬 - 게임 사운드 디자이너로 고용되는 법

Wwise 2021.1에서 시도해볼 10 가지

Wwise 런처에서 Wwise 2021.1을 다운로드할 수 있게 되었다는 소식입니다. 오브젝트 기반 파이프라인, 방사 이미터(radial emitter), WAQL을 포함한 다양한...