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scientific program electroacoustic musics around set theory music analysis tools musicnetwork workshop professional week ircam forum workshops free software for music international multichannel sound forum performing arts and technologies dance and new technologies access to sound heritage thematic evenings demonstration stands artistic program set theory concert music in creation concert cursus concerts opera "one" sound installations open house weekend technologies gallery conferences demonstrations workshop-performances workshops and films ircam laboratories linux install-party concert distribution on internet associated events resonances night at glaz'art émilie simon at la cigale suguru goto reseaunances guided tours of ircam and the multimedia library resonances in pictures resonances 2002 
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PETER HARRISONEnvironmental Audio for games... and beyond !AbstractIn contrast to more linear media, interactive arts such as video games rely on real-time mixing and rendering engines to provide 3D spatialization. Programming interfaces such as DirectSound3D and OpenAL expose this functionality to game developers. Although these APIs can be configured to drive simple software-based sound mixers, it is PC users with advanced 3D soundcards who benefit from the most convincing 3D renderings, optimized for their playback system. Like any audio professional, a game audio designer likes to use post production sound enhancements. However, pre-processing each sound effect with special effects like reverb doesn't suit the open-ended nature of today's virtual worlds, where the player demands a realistic experience in any situation. Technologies like Creative's EAX allow game developers to leverage hardware DSP power. Flexible digital effects can be applied to 3D sound, and dynamically adjusted in real time. Earlier versions of EAX modeled a simple environmental scenario, with multiple sound sources feeding one reverberator. With careful management, developers could simulate a world full of different environments, but only one could be audible at a time. Today's new EAX 4.0 technology offers game developers a more sophisticated system, where each sound source can feed two of any four effects. This allows multiple environments to be simultaneously rendered. A flexible filtering mechanism is integrated, allowing environmental phenomena such as obstruction and occlusion to be simulated. In a video game scenario, the game logic and the interaction with the user(s) provides the audio engine with the necessary rendering parameters in real-time. The same principle of real-time rendering can be applied to other types of multimedia content, such as music or interactive web content. EAX and existing 3D sound APIs are candidates for building the low level layers of such systems. This presentation will outline the architecture of EAX, and show off the advanced features through audio demonstrations. |
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Organization Committee Copyright Ircam-Centre Pompidou 2003 |