Audio
by Kurtis Seebaldt · in Torque Game Engine · 04/12/2002 (7:40 pm) · 12 replies
I was wondering if anyone is interested in working on the audio portion of Torque. This is one area I'm interested in and feel most games just sort of tack on.
Personally, I'm trying to add streaming background music. I've got a sample program that can stream a WAV or an Ogg Vorbis file off the hard drive using OpenAL. I'm working on trying to fit this into the audio engine. I'm starting to get the hang of how its all laid out.
I know most people are more interested in visuals and AI, but is there anyone out there interested in enhancing the audio?
Personally, I'm trying to add streaming background music. I've got a sample program that can stream a WAV or an Ogg Vorbis file off the hard drive using OpenAL. I'm working on trying to fit this into the audio engine. I'm starting to get the hang of how its all laid out.
I know most people are more interested in visuals and AI, but is there anyone out there interested in enhancing the audio?
About the author
#2
I think that audio is very important (who here still remembers the Mario 1 theme song? :P), but often underrated. Anyway... I wanted to encourage you. Streaming audio sounds like a very useful feature (certainly more universally applicable than AI that uses jet packs...), and I'd love to see it in the engine.
Another area that could use work is (and I don't, as of yet, have my TGE license, so I'm speculating... Tell me if I'm wrong) the voice chat functionality. I've been playing a lot of CS lately, and though I don't use voice all the time, when I do it can be really useful. Having that functionality in Torque would be great, and it's seperate enough that one aspiring audio programmer could probably get it well underway.
04/13/2002 (4:16 pm)
Although I'm poking at other parts of TGE, too...I think that audio is very important (who here still remembers the Mario 1 theme song? :P), but often underrated. Anyway... I wanted to encourage you. Streaming audio sounds like a very useful feature (certainly more universally applicable than AI that uses jet packs...), and I'd love to see it in the engine.
Another area that could use work is (and I don't, as of yet, have my TGE license, so I'm speculating... Tell me if I'm wrong) the voice chat functionality. I've been playing a lot of CS lately, and though I don't use voice all the time, when I do it can be really useful. Having that functionality in Torque would be great, and it's seperate enough that one aspiring audio programmer could probably get it well underway.
#3
04/13/2002 (6:50 pm)
Yeah, voice chat would be handy. I've played with HawkVoice a bit and it looks like it could do the job. The tough part would be to add Audio Capture into the platform. I don't think OpenAL handles audio capture.
#4
Ogg is unquestionably the best way to go for music compression. As far as I know there is no open source voice codec that would work for games (ie very low bandwidth and very low CPU overhead).
04/14/2002 (8:15 am)
HawkVoice is a great project BUT it uses mostly patented codecs, great for just messing around but it will cause you tons of grief if you ever plan to sell your game. Ogg is unquestionably the best way to go for music compression. As far as I know there is no open source voice codec that would work for games (ie very low bandwidth and very low CPU overhead).
#5
04/14/2002 (8:23 am)
Hmmm... May have to wait on the voice chat then. Well, streaming audio is my first priority anyway. Once I get that done, I'll see where to go. 
#6
I've been trying to do this myself buthaven't been able to get it to work... I'm an audio engineer by trade, and as you can imagine sound is very high on my list of priorities... I would love to test anything you come up with or help you in any way I can...
PEACE
Gibby
04/18/2002 (12:07 am)
Kurtis if you port OGG Vorbis to Torque you'll be god-like!!!I've been trying to do this myself buthaven't been able to get it to work... I'm an audio engineer by trade, and as you can imagine sound is very high on my list of priorities... I would love to test anything you come up with or help you in any way I can...
PEACE
Gibby
#7
So you better get down on your knees, hehe ... ;-))
Streaming WAV and OGG VORBIS support!!
You will need the latest HEAD, though...
04/18/2002 (12:24 am)
Well, Kurtis HAS it already working: www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=forums&page=result.thread&qt=4680So you better get down on your knees, hehe ... ;-))
Streaming WAV and OGG VORBIS support!!
You will need the latest HEAD, though...
#8
I just d/l'ed it, will recompile tonight... BTW if ya'll need sounds converted to .ogg let me know...
I don't know how many of you are aware of this, but technically, using mp3 files in a commercial release you are supposed to pay Fraunhaufer a fee, which is in the thousands... This is quite lame considering the thousands of dollars of royalties I've lost as a record producer to Napster, so you can well imagine how elated I am to be using OGG Vorbis...
BTW last year I hosted a shootout between Vorbis and MP3, with a room full of recording engineers and every single one chose Vorbis as the better sounding... Hurrah for Open Source!!!!!
04/19/2002 (6:04 pm)
(Gibby bows down and sez: YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)I just d/l'ed it, will recompile tonight... BTW if ya'll need sounds converted to .ogg let me know...
I don't know how many of you are aware of this, but technically, using mp3 files in a commercial release you are supposed to pay Fraunhaufer a fee, which is in the thousands... This is quite lame considering the thousands of dollars of royalties I've lost as a record producer to Napster, so you can well imagine how elated I am to be using OGG Vorbis...
BTW last year I hosted a shootout between Vorbis and MP3, with a room full of recording engineers and every single one chose Vorbis as the better sounding... Hurrah for Open Source!!!!!
#9
http://www.mp3licensing.com/help/developer.html#9
Don't know how this would work for electronic distribution. Don't really want to hassle with that question anyway.
Hey Gil, do you have some sort of a write up of that shoot out you did between MP3 and Vorbis? Would be interested in seeing the details.
04/19/2002 (8:03 pm)
Yeah I'm thinking Ogg Vorbis is the way to go. According to this MP3 site, you must pay Thomson a royalty for games only if you distribute at least 5000 games:http://www.mp3licensing.com/help/developer.html#9
Don't know how this would work for electronic distribution. Don't really want to hassle with that question anyway.
Hey Gil, do you have some sort of a write up of that shoot out you did between MP3 and Vorbis? Would be interested in seeing the details.
#10
04/19/2002 (9:41 pm)
I was thinking about adding support for using Ogg Vorbis for regular sounds (non-streaming). It would work just like it does now with WAVs, it would just read the entire Ogg sample into the AudioBuffer. That way you could store your sound effects in Ogg Vorbis format. Does anyone think this would be useful?
#11
04/19/2002 (9:44 pm)
Yes that would definately be useful.
#12
04/19/2002 (11:34 pm)
Incidentally, isn't there an Ogg Vorbis ACM codec now? So couldn't anything that can play a WAV play one with the Vorbis codec?
Torque 3D Owner Robert Blanchet Jr.
I would be interested in helping you however I would have to look over how the system is laid out myself. I might not be much help anyway -- as my main area of hobbiest studying is very much geared to OpenGl graphics and game design but maybe we should hook up sometime.
My email is rdblanchet@montana.edu