OpenAL Audio Library Released

Straker Skunk writes, "Loki, in conjunction with Creative Labs, has announced OpenAL, an LGPL'ed audio library for 3D sound generation. It's aimed for use in games as a cross-platform, nonproprietary means of accessing the 3D sound features on many newer sound cards. What's especially cool about it is that the API is designed with the same style, philosophy, and polish as OpenGL. Given enough time, it might very well become just as popular. " I've always been a fan of Loki and it's great to see them supporting the community - someone also sent an interview with Michael Vance, one of the developers behind OpenAL, who talks about the development of OpenAL and how it compares to other sound offerings.

Comments

Re:This is the second library called OpenAL

[MichaelKVance]

Yes, there was a previous API, but it never really got past a header/specification. We took up the name and worked with some of the original people behind the first two iterations.

m.

This can only be good in the end

[hattig]

This is a good move by Loki and Creative, although Creatives involvement might put off other audio companies from wanting to use it - I bet the API is particularly suited towards Creative chipsets.

Anyway, Open Audio Library will signal the beginning of a true cross platform 3D audio system. Hopefully it provides more functionality than Microsofts proprietary single platfrom DirectAudio(?) system, otherwise it will be hard to get companies to switch over.

John Carmack should love this, him being a fan of cross-platform APIs and OpenGL etc.

Apples audio libraries probably aren't available for Linux, only Macs and Windows at the moment, and I don't know much about the Mac Sprockets or whatever they are called libraries, but I thought I should mention them so that it didn't look like I only thought that DirectAudio was the only competitor.

Now to wait the three years for the Amigas Audio system, AHI, to support this :-)

Re:This can only be good in the end

[tjwhaynes]

This is a good move by Loki and Creative, although Creatives involvement might put off other audio companies from wanting to use it - I bet the API is particularly suited towards Creative chipsets. A 3D Open API at this early stage should be something almost any company should be looking hard at. If at the moment it has features that favour Creative, then it is up to Aureal to get in there, do some spade work and add and help form the API to be more balanced. From the sounds of it, the audio geometry processing that A3D 2.0 does is under consideration by the OpenAL team, so if Aureal sees this as a worthwhile opportunity (and I think they should) they should contribute. Like the argument over open/closed source drivers, these big audio card companies make their money from the hardware - getting widespread acceptance of that hardware by making sure that it is widely usable is essential, and OpenAL can only help in getting these cards working in more environments on more platforms. But it does require the companies to seize the moment and help build the API.

Cheers,

Toby Haynes

GPLed

[javilon]

The specification is LGPLed. This should reassure other card vendors.

Also, it is quite telling that they whent for LGPL straight away.

It is probably the best way to create a "de facto standard" if you are not one of the big 5 or 6 software powerhouses. It is much better than waiting for a standards body to go through a formal process that would take years.

It would be great if now the OS comunity has enough power to start setting up the first draft for future standards, instead of the big bad gorillas!

Re:There's more to 3D than games...

[PantalonesVaqueros]

OpenGL provides better "drivers" on better hardware than what is available from MS. The API is much cleaner (and after taking a quick browse of the OpenAL sight, I rather liked their API: very OpenGL-ish). DirectX, more specifically, Direct3D can't hack it for high-quality high-speed rendering. We briefly toyed with Direct3D for some visualization tools, only to realize just how kludgy the API was and promptly went back to OpenGL. The code is much cleaner. And more importantly, we can run our tools on everything from a beautiful 16-processor SGI to a PC to a Mac to some odd Linux box, to well, one day perhaps a PalmPilot (see that link from last week ). Well, okay, maybe not a PalmPilot.... :)

By the way, nice troll on the "exposing geometry features" bit. That has got to be the easiest troll for OpenGL baiters. It's just so obviously wrong that it sucks people right in. It's a bit like arguing with someone who claims gravity doesn't exist: It just hurts your head...

Then again, the number of people with related in-depth technical knowledge responding to a subject in a slashdot article can probably be counted on one hand :)

All output, no input

[Animats]

Although the OpenAL logo is a microphone, the package doesn't offer any input support; it's all output. Maybe the logo should be a speaker.

Useful input-side tools are mixers, noise reduction, conference bridges with adaptive echo cancellation, and such. Those are tools you need for high-quality voice over IP. Anybody doing that?

Loki raises the bar again

[Skyshadow]

IMHO, out of all the commercial Linux-product (as opposed to distro maker) companies out there, Loki is probably doing the most to promote the standards of OSS.

Think about it: How many companies jump onto the Linux bandwagon and just toss out a couple of closed-source programs? How much easier would it be for Loki not to release their stuff?

In short, thanks, Loki.

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A first look

[mav[LAG]]

Nice looking library with lots of potential. It's about a 500k download and compiles out of the box on my RH 6.0 installation. There's no INSTALL and the configure scripts are lurking in the OS-specific directories but they work fine. Make and make test work fine - make install doesn't but I haven't checked why. All the test programs run like a charm on this SB Live! Value and some of them are pretty damn impressive.
From the ./docs/specification.html file:

OpenAL includes several separate sub-libraries:

• AL - core audio library services, including specifying listener orientation; environment geometry and material characteristics; sample data; and source orientation, radiation, and other characteristics.
• ALU - a utility library for AL which provides functionality for doing sample conversion, preset material properties, and a compatability layer for doing simple stereo audio from within AL's 3D spatial framework.
• ALC - a platform specific library for managing OpenAL contexts, including resource sharing, locking, and unlocking. This includes, but is not limited to, ALC/Linux and ALC/Windows.
• ALUT - a cross-platform library for creating an OpenAL context, with support for simple file loading. It also provides a simple API for accessing CD audio.

  It looks like the developers have thought carefully about the spec and managed to combine a clean API with lots of flexibility. Environments can be defined in terms of geometry and materials and "listeners" can have position, velocity and orientation, leading to all sorts of cool stuff like doppler effects and sound radiosity. And yes, if you know OpenGL it takes about ten minutes to get your head around OpenAL.
  Great job Loki.