[X3D-Public] potential free audio formats for X3D - ogg and flac

[Michael Aratow]

Gosh, a Zspace board, a Rift, what is a person to do???  I can hardly 
wait for my Rift (no shipping date yet!!).

I'm glad you appreciate the sounds as much as I do, and realize what an 
important part they play with immersion.

Any chance of writing a Rift driver for X3DOM or one of the players?

Mike
On 5/10/13 4:46 PM, Dave A wrote:
> Thanks Mike.
>
> Having played with the Oculus Rift for a bit now, I find myself very 
> taken with the audio. That is, lack of it.
> The demos have neglected sound almost completely. I found a few Unreal 
> samples (more fleshed out for games and other demos) which are very 
> compelling. I found that it really 'turns on the light in the Uncanny 
> Valley' - things you don't notice or are willing to forgive just 
> looking at a screen, or even 3D TV, become glaringly out of place in 
> the 'real' virtual world, when you are fully immersed. You put on The 
> Rift thinking you'll be taken by the scenery, and you are (don't get 
> me wrong) but to the point where you want to close your eyes and take 
> in the ambiance of Tuscany or Fiji. And then there's no good sound. Umph!
>
> I'm working on beefing up the demos with more sound, and it's a whole 
> new world. X3D/VRML is like the only interchange/runtime that includes 
> sound (or did Collada add that?)  No sounds in FBX.
>
> So getting sound right is going to be extra important with the advent 
> of fast+good+cheap VR HMD's like The Rift.
>
> Dave A.
>
>
> On 5/10/2013 4:18 PM, Michael Aratow wrote:
>> I also agree wholeheartedly with revising the spec for true audio 
>> spatialization.
>>
>> We should align with the most current and adopted open standard for 
>> sound (OpenAL?, and if so, as Michaelis has suggested, convert from 
>> ovals to spheres).
>>
>> Dave's suggestions are also great; hardware has been able to perform 
>> true 3D spatialization of sound for a long time: anyone who remembers 
>> Aureal, a descendent of Crystal River Engineering, knows that their 
>> cards were easily capable of performing true sound spatialization, 
>> but Creative bought Aureal as it was failing and I believe locked up 
>> the technology, much like Computer Associates did with the Cosmo 
>> Player technology.
>>
>> Sound always has taken a second seat to graphics, but is just as 
>> compelling.
>>
>> Let's get the spec to be able to take on phase and even HRTFs (Head 
>> Related Transfer Functions) which are used in true audio spatialization.
>>
>> Mike
>> On 5/10/13 2:24 PM, Dave A wrote:
>>> On 5/10/2013 12:49 PM, Michalis Kamburelis wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> X3D working group: we should also consider improving the aural
>>>>>> spatialization model in next year's X3D v3.4. 
>>>
>>> Good point!
>>>
>>> I think it's high time we look at incorporating phase, aka 
>>> time-of-flight, into audio. Binaural or holographic sound is more a 
>>> matter of the timing between when one of your ears hears a sound 
>>> before the other, than of the loudness of that sound. With normal 
>>> stereo 'spatialization' the sound can't sound further apart than the 
>>> two speakers you have (and multi-speaker systems are, IMHO a hack). 
>>> But phase-correct stereo, the sound may even have about the same 
>>> loudness in each ear, yet sound like it's coming from 'way over 
>>> there' or 'up there' or 'back there'.
>>>
>>> I'm pretty sure many hardwares support this, and even if not, 
>>> today's processors can handle it. It's at least worth looking at. 
>>> Even if the typical PC is not up to it today, it will be by the time 
>>> a spec is agreed upon.
>>>
>>> A simple first step would just be to delay the waveform based on the 
>>> distance the audio source is from the current camera, +/- inter-ear 
>>> distance, plus some attenuation for the more-distant ear. Not too 
>>> different from stereo vision in concept.
>>>
>>> Dave A.
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> X3D-Public at web3d.org
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>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
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