Re: ITP: OpenAL
On Thu, Dec 14, 2000 at 09:23:17PM -0800, ferret@phonewave.net wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, 14 Dec 2000, Dan Helfman wrote:
>
> > Package: libopenal
> > URL: http://www.openal.org/
> > Version: CVS devel-1-0 branch
> > License: Lesser GPL
> >
> > OpenAL, the Open Audio Library, is a joint effort to create an open,
> > vendor-neutral, cross-platform API for interactive, primarily
> > spatialized audio. OpenAL's primary audience are application developers
> > and desktop users that rely on portable standards like OpenGL, for games
> > and other multimedia applications. OpenAL is already supported by a
> > number of hardware vendors and developers.
> >
> > I've gotten the okay from Joseph Valenzuela at Loki Games to package
> > this right out of CVS as long as I release frequently for the forseeable
> > future. Although OpenAL hasn't yet had any official "releases" other
> > than weekly CVS snapshots, it has been used in a number of finished
> > games.
>
> This is primarily a 'local host' type of API?
AFAIK, OpenAL is a localhost-only type of API, not something like the
Enlightenment sound daemon. It's intended for high-performance 3D audio
playback in games and other apps.
> (Oh no, not another competing fledgeling audio API!) :)
This isn't something like ALSA or OSS. It's a layer above the operating
system's low-level sound drivers. OpenAL is responsible for things like:
Given a 3D coordinate for a listener, and a 3D coordinate for a
sound-emitting object, and a velocity for that object, generate an
appropriate stereo (or quadraphonic) sound, accounting for doppler shift
and other fun stuff. I don't know of any other library in Debian that does
this sort of thing currently.
OpenAL is designed very similarly to the OpenGL API, except that it's for
3D audio instead of 3D graphics. Check out the web page for more info.
--
Dan Helfman
UCLA Linux Users Group: http://www.linux.ucla.edu
My GnuPG key: http://torsion.org/witten/public-key.txt
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