dhewm3/neo/openal/docs/app-annotations.sgml

   <appendix>
   <title>Miscellaneous Annotations</title>

   <section id="reverb-objects">
   <title>Reverberation Objects?</title>
   <para>
     In a generalization of the I3DL2 Extension for
     listener specific reverberation effects, it might
     be best to implement Reverb Objects. A Reverb Object
     is one example of a parametrized filter. Each
     such object encapsulates a set of attributes (the
     filter parameters). Sources and Listener alike
     have an attribute that allows the application coder
     to choose a reverb object for application either
     at the origin of the sound, or at the position of
     the listener. Initial implementation would only
     support one Reverb Object per Context, applied at
     the listener position.
    </para>
    <para>
      The I3DL2 Environment is a filter that alters the 
      way the user experiences the virtual world. As 
      filters require DSP operations it is limited by hardware
      processing capabilities.
    </para>
    <para>
      The I3DL2 Environment models the surroundings of the 
      listener by simplifying the presumed acoustic properties
      of those surroundings into a small set of parameters.
      It allows to reproduce the effects of sound reflections 
      and reverberation caused by walls and obstacles, and
      the muffling effects of obstacles inside environments 
      or partitions between environments.
    </para>
    <para>
      Environment properties: 
      Early reflections level and delay. 
      Late reverberation level and delay, low- and high-frequency decay time. 
      Reverberation diffusion, density and spectrum. 
    </para>
    <para>
      Source properties: 
      Direct path intensity and spectrum. 
      Reverberation intensity and spectrum.
    </para>            
   </section>

   <section id="al-objects-filters">
      <title>On Filters</title>
      <para>
        RFC/bk000502: Filters as the general concept of modifiers?
        Environment as a special case filter? 
        Can we break down EAX environments into ReverbFilters where we
        parametrize late reflections, and ReflectFilters, which fake
        early reflections? Do we need this separation if we have
        calculated or distinct echo effect reflections instead of
        stocastic ones? Does it make sense to superimpose a general
        reverb kicking in after a delay t, with reflections (random
        or not) or should reverb only kick in after reflections are
        discarded?
      </para>
      <para>
        RFC/bk000502: old text.
        (Environment) Properties: 
        Geometry - geometry is specified using an immediate mode API which is 
        similar to OpenGL. Support for scene lists are also provided on a basis 
        similar to OpenGL's display lists. 
        Materials - specify the absorptive and reflective qualities of a piece 
        of geometry. &AL; should provide a facility for accessing preset 
        materials, and storing and retrieving new materials at runtime. 
      </para>
      <para>
        RFC/nn: Atmospheric/ambient properties? 
        REF/nn: A3D 2.0 IA3dMaterial 
      </para>
 
      <section id="al-objects-filters-atmospheric">
      <title>Atmospheric Filter</title>
      <para>
        The atmospheric filter the effects of media with constant density,
        on propagating sound waves. The effect of the atmospheric filter
        is distance dependent. Atmospheric effects can be parameterized
        by specifying attenuation per unit distance, the scale for the
        unit distance, for one of a minimum of two frequency ranges
        (low frequency and high frequency roll-off).
      </para>
      <para>
        RFC/bk000502: do we specify the atmospheric filter per-source?
        The effect is clearly dominated by the most dense medium, but
        we have little chance simulating crossings between different
        media this way. Distance attenuation in media clearly depends
        on source and listener being embedded in the same medium,
        without any obstruction along the LOS.
      </para>
      </section>

      <section id="al-objects-filters-listenerreverb">
      <title>Listener Reverb</title>
      <para>
        Listener Reverb is a parameterized filter that modifies the sound at
        listener position to emulate effects of the surroundings, namely 
        effects of late reflections. Without simulating sound propagation
        this reverb accounts for the averaged outcome of different arrangements
        of reflecting/absorbing surfaces around the listener. 
      </para>
      </section>

      <section id="al-objects-filters-sourcereverb">
      <title>Source Reverb</title>
      <para>
        There is currently no support for reverb at the source position.
      </para>
      </section>

      <section id="al-objects-filters-reflection">
      <title>Reflection Filter</title>
      <para>
        First order reflection (and, if support, O(n) reflection for small n)
        can choose to simulate the effects of different materials by 
        parametrizing reflection filters.
        There is currently no support for reflections.
      </para>
      </section>

      <section id="al-objects-filters-transmission">
      <title>Transmission Filter</title>
      <para>
        Sound propagation along the LOS can pass through obstructions
        specified as convex polygons. The effects of lossy transmission
        can be approximated by applying a once-off filtering. Like
        atmospheric filters, this can be a frequency-dependent roll-off,
        unlike atmospheric filters this does not take distance into
        account. Transmission filters can be used to emulate losses
        on crossing separating surfaces between different media (water/air
        borders).
        There is currently no support for transmissions.
      </para>
      </section>
    </section>
    
    <section>
    <title>Parameterization over Time</title>
    <para>
       Fading and cross-fading. There are three ways to handle any kind
       of gain control as a function of time:
       <itemizedlist>
       <listitem>
       <para>
         manipulate gain per frame/sufficiently often
       </para>
       </listitem>
       <listitem>
       <para>
         parameterize, i.e. specify a target gain, 
          a duration over which to interpolate, and an interpolation function
       </para>
       </listitem>
       <listitem>
       <para>
         provide an buffer that indicates amplitude, stretched over
         a duration/by a frequency
       </para>
       </listitem>
      The last mechanism also works for early reflections and echos,
      and any other temporal filtering. The first and second approach 
      also work for attributes like Pitch.
    </para>
    </section>


   <section>
   <title>On Geometry</title>
     <para>
        Both the A3D API and implementation as well as EAX related utilities
        like EAGLE seem to indicate that any effort to handle scene geoemtry
        at API level will inevitably duplicate modules found in common game 
        engines for purposes of collision detection, path planning, AI
        support, visibility and sound propagation culling.
      </para>
      <para>
        In other words, any such effort will inevitably lead to competing
        subsystems and multiple use of processing and memory resources to
        implement the same functionality. While it makes sense to provide
        templates, examples, and even utilities like EAGLE and SDK's to
        developers, it makes no sense to integrate any such functionality
        with the API.
      </para>
      <para>
        The geometry based processing inevitably leads to a scene graph
        API, with all the resulting problems. On closer examination it
        seems that the specification and storage of source and listener
        positions is a red herring.
      </para>
      <para>
        Second and higher order reflections seem to be irrelevant.
      </para>
      <para>
        Reflection can be faked by stochastic means, but an actual
        presence/immersion effect will require smooth transitions
        depending on the continuous change of distance between
        sources, listener, and dominant reflectors.
      </para>
      <para>
        Dominant reflectors are presumed to be 1st order,
        with material properties that incur little or no loss
        (or even provide amplification), and significant
        surface area.
      </para>
      <para>
        Transmission loss through dense media is equivalent to
        the distance attenuation model.
      </para>
      <para>
        Refraction/reflection loss at border surfaces separating
        media....
      </para>
      <para>
        No explicit geometry to check whether there is any indirect
        (1st order reflection, multiple reflections) path between
        source and listener - the application is usually better
        equipped to handle this (portal states, PHS). The benefit
        of forcing the AL implementation to check for obstruction
        (object inersecting LOS) is questionable at best - LOS
        checking is also better done by the main application.
        In essence, the application might even handle the 1st
        order reflections IFF we provide the means to generate
        early reflection instead of rolling dice, and if we
        make it cheap to enable a path between a source and
        the listener complete with a material. Come to think of
        it: the implementation guarantees n paths with m filters
        one of which is transmission or reflection, one is
        distance attenuation, one is source reverb, one is
        listener reverb....
      </para>
   </section>
  
   <section>
   <title>No ALU</title>
      <note id="bk000019-01"><title>RFC</title><para>
         ALU, like GLU, is a problem: linkage dependencies, multiple drivers
         sharing one ALU etc. It would be best to not clutter the specification
         with ALU/ALUT. Any support code/template repository/SDK can be 
         maintained as a separate open source project.
      </para></note>
     <para>
       ALU provides operations that do not affect driver or hardware state.
       These can be resampling/conversion methods or other sample data
       processing, or utilities for (optimized) filter generation. ALU
       does not provide I/O operations.  At this time,
       ALU is not specified and not implemented.
     </para>
     <para>
       RFC/bk000502: GLU is becoming a bit of a problem right now, with
       most applications avoiding it as they load GL DLL's explicitely,
       but do not trust the ABI specification enough to link against GLU,
       and not bothering to load it. A vendor-neutral open source ALU
       works for me, but we can not accept link time dependencies to AL.
       ALU (like GLU) is meant for minimal convenience, in small
       building blocks, it is not meant as an SDK. 
     </para>   
     <para>
       RFC/bk000502: old text.
       ALU is the AL Utility library, and provide functions for performing audio 
       conversion, preset material properties, and a compatability layer for 
       legacy stereo format audio. This includes support for panning and per 
       channel volume control.
     </para> 
     <para>
       RFC/nn: Er, what else does the world of 2D sound usually need? 
     </para>
   </section>
 

   <section>
   <title>No ALUT</title>
     <para>
      Application coders frequently request additional support for sound
      handling to the extent of sophisticated SDKs. It is expected that
      SDK vendors will provide such products on top of AL. ALUT (in analogy
      to GLUT) would constitute an "official" SDK if desired. At this time,
      ALUT is not specified and not implemented, and not intended to be part
      of &AL; proper.
     </para>
     <para>
      ALUT is a utility toolkit for &AL;. It sits on top of ALC.
      It provides convenience functions for accessing files, for playing sounds, 
      and an API for accessing CDROM functionality.      
     </para>
   </section>

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   </appendix>