3D TV's = Cool at first, losses interest very quickly. When people make 2D glasses to counteract the 3D effect and massive headaches I think it failed.
3D TV's = Cool at first, losses interest very quickly. When people make 2D glasses to counteract the 3D effect and massive headaches I think it failed.
Very awesome. I love stuff like this. I seems like the hurdle is to record the audio originally in 3D? I wonder how does that play into video-games if you wanted to implement it in real-time.
I guess it would have to be accomplished with the kinds of filters he was talking about. So would this work for headphones? i was listening to it on headphones and I think I could tell where the voices were coming from in the conference room example.
Very awesome. I love stuff like this. I seems like the hurdle is to record the audio originally in 3D? I wonder how does that play into video-games if you wanted to implement it in real-time.
Well, as he described it's a matter of timing between each ear and other audible differences. If you can effectively manipulate those factors, you can make a sound feel like it's coming from wherever the source is located. Once you know what factors give the desired result, it just comes down to a lot of vector math between the source and the listener.
I always get a bit depressed when these posts come around again.
This stuff has been available for about 15 years. I used to work for Sensaura. We licensed to audio chip manufacturers. All of the problems mentioned in here (cross-talk cancellation, different shapes of pinnae etc for example) have been solved a long time ago. Our technology was in pretty much every PC soundcard that was not made by Creative. It was also in the original Xbox and nForce motherboards. Our later implementation was completely CPU-based; it was all done in the driver and would work on any AC97 chipset. We also had a software implementation for consoles called GameCODA.
Then we got bought by Creative and those patents have pretty much sat in their cupboard, along with the patents from Aureal. Microsoft is also to blame for the demise of 3D audio as when Vista came out, they changed the audio subsystem so that you couldn't access audio hardware (or a custom driver like ours) through DirectX.
So if you build yourself a time-machine, go back 10 years and buy a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz soundcard, all of your 3D audio dreams will come true. In my mind, it was the best soundcard ever made and included Virtual Ear in the driver, which let you tune the 3D audio to your own ear shape. We also had MacroFX, which simulated sounds very close to the head, ZoomFX, which simulated sounds of any size instead of just a point source, a version that would add full 3D (including vertical positioning) to a surround sound setup, and a whole bunch of other marvellous stuff.
As for everyone going on about cross-talk cancellation as if its a big new thing, here's a PDF of the Sensaura whitepaper on it from 1999. Just search for stuff like Sensaura patents for the rest. There are loads of them, all now owned by Creative.
Edit 1 - fixed links and added whitepaper
Edit 2 - some more Sensaura info: Sensaura was originally designed for music recordings. The company itself was born out of a research project at EMI's Central Research Laboratories (CRL); the same building where Alan Blumlein invented stereo and the CAT scanner was invented. We had a little museum near reception with the first CAT scanner prototype (built using a common lathe) and such things as King George's gold microphone.
Some of the first uses of Sensaura were on classical CDs and a couple of other albums (Milla Jovovich, Prefab Sprout and Frank Sinatra). These were all intended to be listened to via speakers, so the cross-talk cancellation was built into the recording. Also, classical music aficionados are amongst the most discerning of listeners, so the 3D and cross-talk cancellation was designed to be as transparent as possible. The cross-talk cancellation was especially good as it produced no noticeable phasing effects as you moved left<->right in front of the speakers.
After Aureal started to produce 3D audio for games, it was realised that the 3D music technology (which at that point was built into a rather cool blue multi-channel mixing console with a joystick in the middle of it) could be scaled down for games. A few years later and it really was in pretty much every piece of audio hardware that wasn't made by Creative. If you're interested, read up on Sensaura's Digital Ear. I'll try to find the rest of the Sensaura white papers as they're really interesting.
Edit 3: Found this Concepts Guide from the web archive of our old GameCODA website which gives a really good overview of all of the Sensaura gaming features. And just think...this was standard on PC games 10 years ago.
Edit 4: I dug out the white papers I could find and uploaded them (they're really good). The ones that I know are missing are the ones about ZoomFX (volumetric sounds) and Multidrive (3D audio through multiple speakers):
An introduction to sound and hearing
Digital Ear Technology
MacroFX algorithms
XTC crosstalk cancellation
Transaural acoustic crosstalk cancellation
EnvironmentFX Audio Environment Modelling
I did find a PDF of a presentation on implementing ZoomFX. Also, as an example of how common place this all was: Interactive 3D Audio Rendering Guidelines Level 2.0 by the 3D Working Group of the Interace Audio Special Interest Group, September 1999.
Edit 5: One last thing for you. I've uploaded CodaPlayer3D. It came with our GameCODA SDK. It just lets you load in a mono sound and move it around in 3D with various other parameters like reverbs and so on. It's got a bug in it that won't let you switch the output mode (or the HRTF mode), so I'm not sure if it's stuck in speaker mode or headphone mode. Also, the effect is much better with reverb switched on, but is also not as good as if you had a Santa Cruz card and had tuned the output to your own ear. Also, one of the big problems with 3D audio is that it doesn't impressive many people without being able to switch between stereo and 3D. I think this is because 3D is our natural way of to hear things and the brain settles into it really easily (like when you watch a 3D film and forget that it's 3D after 5 minutes).
There's a ton of other audio tricks that can be much more worthwhile in games, including actual good sound design.
And on top of that everyone can implement their own way of having 3d audio, nothing is stopping anyone.
You've never heard of patent/copyright trolls have you? Trying to find independent methods of duplicating the results of our patented technology? We'll see you in court.
You've never heard of patent/copyright trolls have you? Trying to find independent methods of duplicating the results of our patented technology? We'll see you in court.
A bit off topic, but are you the same Greevar that comments at Techdirt?
Isnt this a common practice in game engines.Its in UDK I know. I dont see whats the huge huff is. Just needs some hard focus on sound design just like art and gameplay.Sound Design is over looked alot. I do agree that sound quality is can be improved if there is(im no sound guy)some way to modify user soundcards to enhance the 3d sounds in the game engine.
I seriously doubt that the udk offsets and cancels sounds out based off of what times each ear would hear them. game engines just decided play sound at 90% on the left speaker, 60% on the right, no canceling or timing.
You've never heard of patent/copyright trolls have you? Trying to find independent methods of duplicating the results of our patented technology? We'll see you in court.
The idea behind it really is patented? or are you just making it up for effect?
It used to be. Then, Creative Labs got their dirty little hands on it. I used to have a 3D sound card. It was nice, but it died and by then, nobody was making them anymore.
Creative are a bunch of benders. Why do they do these things? How can they even do it, patent 3d audio, "You'll only ever get 3d audio with us guys, but we cant be bovered".
Creative are a bunch of benders. Why do they do these things? How can they even do it, patent 3d audio, "You'll only ever get 3d audio with us guys, but we cant be bovered".
Its brilliant, the genius of it.
They own the patent to the technology that exists. Someone else can develop their own independently, but that won't stop Creative from trying to block it. Patent, copyright, and trademark are the most popular tools for chilling fair competition.
but could you mention what game is it,
my uncle bought soundblaster audio card, ( this is long time ago)
it has an EAX feature .
and it comes up with demo cd + 1 full game
that game has EAX feature, it is 3d cartoony, maybe ratchet and clank style.
when the main guy got his little firend, his little friend always mount on him and yelling wohoooooo , then it got echoed by the surrounding cliffs.
......
well thats all i can remember ....
oh yea what if zacd said true, it got patended, that silly. thats why i never hear that again . i hate patent -_- ..
I'm guessing Tonic Trouble since I'm blindly judging from the location being Canada with a bias for Ubisoft games there. All I remember personally from EAX card bundles was Unreal this, Unreal that
It could also be Croc 2 which supports EAX, though I haven't gotten around to playing either of these mentioned games.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQmQD27uCt0[/ame]
Replies
3D TV's = Cool at first, losses interest very quickly. When people make 2D glasses to counteract the 3D effect and massive headaches I think it failed.
vlog brothers eh? but seriously this is very coo.
Well, as he described it's a matter of timing between each ear and other audible differences. If you can effectively manipulate those factors, you can make a sound feel like it's coming from wherever the source is located. Once you know what factors give the desired result, it just comes down to a lot of vector math between the source and the listener.
[ame]
Nnnngggghhhh, damn electric razor!
And on top of that everyone can implement their own way of having 3d audio, nothing is stopping anyone.
You've never heard of patent/copyright trolls have you? Trying to find independent methods of duplicating the results of our patented technology? We'll see you in court.
A bit off topic, but are you the same Greevar that comments at Techdirt?
The same! (in a knights of nee voice)
Small world. I don't comment at Techdirt but I read it quite often and glance through the comments every now and then.
I seriously doubt that the udk offsets and cancels sounds out based off of what times each ear would hear them. game engines just decided play sound at 90% on the left speaker, 60% on the right, no canceling or timing.
The idea behind it really is patented? or are you just making it up for effect?
I'm pretty sure I've seen it done ages ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_recording
It used to be. Then, Creative Labs got their dirty little hands on it. I used to have a 3D sound card. It was nice, but it died and by then, nobody was making them anymore.
Its brilliant, the genius of it.
They own the patent to the technology that exists. Someone else can develop their own independently, but that won't stop Creative from trying to block it. Patent, copyright, and trademark are the most popular tools for chilling fair competition.
but could you mention what game is it,
my uncle bought soundblaster audio card, ( this is long time ago)
it has an EAX feature .
and it comes up with demo cd + 1 full game
that game has EAX feature, it is 3d cartoony, maybe ratchet and clank style.
when the main guy got his little firend, his little friend always mount on him and yelling wohoooooo , then it got echoed by the surrounding cliffs.
......
well thats all i can remember ....
oh yea what if zacd said true, it got patended, that silly. thats why i never hear that again . i hate patent -_- ..
It could also be Croc 2 which supports EAX, though I haven't gotten around to playing either of these mentioned games.
http://www.paperbackswap.com/Mist-3-D-Stephen-King/book/0671621386/