Audio with Ogre

[iblues1976]

Hi,

What are you guys using for Audio in OGRE applications. There is xaudio, but a bit problematic because not only is for windows, but there are different versions.

I would love to hear what you guys are using. I'm looking for a simple audio library.

Thanks,
Francisco

[c6burns]

I'm using: http://www.crickettechnology.com/

[Klaim]

Most people in games use FMod.
There is also Audiere but I think it's not maintained. And some other libraries.
For my current game I think I will try something like http://interactopia.com/code/plaidaudio/
It's lower level than FMod but it would allow me to do some audio tricks I would like to try. Also it's free.

[Herb]

FMOD works great and there are already wrappers in the Ogre wiki for them. If you're looking for commercial use, yeah, FMOD is not free though. Some folks will use OpenAL, but I'm not sure how maintained that project is currently. I've used it in the the past. I think you had to convert your audio files to OGG format to play them.

[c6burns]

fmod is 500$ per platform for just the runtime lib, no studio. Your project's specific needs will of course determine how you perceive its value. Personally I have 6 platforms to support, so the per-platform licensing starts to hurt (studio license is per platform as well). Luckily, I have all the software I need to do audio preprocessing and my runtime needs are pretty simple ... cross platform playback, mixing, 3d sound, and simple audio filters.

EDIT: oh I just checked and I was wrong ... indy pricing is 500$ per platform and includes studio. I guess it would have to unless there's a command line util for building audio banks

[TheSHEEEP]

Some folks will use OpenAL, but I'm not sure how maintained that project is currently. I've used it in the the past. I think you had to convert your audio files to OGG format to play them.

We use OpenAL (or rather OpenAL Soft, which is the latest version) in our project. It requires some work to get it going and you have to use other libraries to do the decoding*, but the good thing is that you have very fine control over everything, especially sound effects (stuff like echo in a cave).
It lacks the comfort of libraries like FMOD, but then again, it also lacks the price tag And setting it up is something you do once, then it keeps on working.


*OpenAL Soft has dropped support of the Ogg format, but we are using FFmpeg, so we have audio and video decoding anyway, which makes decoding Ogg for OpenAL a no-brainer.

[Kojack]

Fmod's ability to handle 3d triangle geometry to do audio occlusion is pretty cool.
It's FFT can be handy for making visual things match the audio too.

[iblues1976]

Thank you all!!

[iblues1976]

for FMOD, you mean this one: http://www.fmod.org/fmod-ex/

It is funny that they called it Legacy

Well, there is two in downloads

FMOD api
FMOD ex API

[Kojack]

for FMOD, you mean this one: http://www.fmod.org/fmod-ex/

It is funny that they called it Legacy

Well, there is two in downloads

FMOD api
FMOD ex API

Fmod ex is legacy.
Fmod Studio is the new one.

Instead of having Fmod Ex Designer as the tool and Fmod Ex API as the library, they now have Fmod Studio as the tool and Fmod Studio API as the library. Still looks like all the same stuff (dsps, 3d geometry, etc). Although I can't find the getSpectrum method (the one that does an FFT of audio).

(Edit: looking on their forum, the FFT stuff is now done by adding an FFT dsp then querying it's parameters. So it's still there, just slightly more complicated)

[areay]

I'm using cAudio which is a thin, cross-platform, wrapper around OpenAL. Very easy to use.

[iblues1976]

but is openal still actively develop?

http://kcat.strangesoft.net/openal.html

[Klaim]

I heard that it isn't. Which is one of the reasons I was looking for something else (like Plaid Audio which is used in some "games").

[Kojack]

Fmod Studio has just become free for commercial use for indie teams (under $100000 budget).
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/2126 ... indies.php


Also, the official Fmod Ex Sandbox program uses Ogre, so they are part of the family.

[Klaim]

Wow that's nice! I'll need to evaluate if it's worth spending time building abstractions over plaid audio instead of using FMod, not sure yet in my case.

[Mind Calamity]

Fmod Studio has just become free for commercial use for indie teams (under $100000 budget).
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/2126 ... indies.php


Also, the official Fmod Ex Sandbox program uses Ogre, so they are part of the family.

So glad I've opened this thread, that's just beautiful news. I've always loved FMOD, but the licensing was just killing it for me. This is great!

[c6burns]

Wow that's a crazy great turn! I think it's very wise of them and I would switch over, but I notice there's no studio programmer's API for linux :< I guess they dropped support since the fmod ex days?

[Kojack]

Wow that's a crazy great turn! I think it's very wise of them and I would switch over, but I notice there's no studio programmer's API for linux :< I guess they dropped support since the fmod ex days?

From one of the Fmod devs on their forum (posted in jan):

Absolutely, unfortunately our original estimates for the end of 2013 slipped a bit. But I can tell you I am actively working on the Studio API version of FMOD for Linux right now. We hope to have i386, x86_64 and ARM versions available at launch along with SteamOS compatibility.The current plan to is release Linux support with version 1.4 somewhere around March but I expect I can provide preview versions prior to that date.

[c6burns]

Thank you for reposting that here for me Great to know!

[Kojack]

I may be a little biased in favour of Fmod since they are australian (yay!) and I met some of the team at the GCAP 2007 conference (where my student's game Mawashi Madness (which used Ogre, Bullet and Fmod) won best indie game).

So to balance, here's some others:
- BASS (http://www.un4seen.com/bass.html) is free for non commercial use. 125 euro for shareware license (games up to 40 euro each). Bunch of formats, internet streaming, 64 bit version, 32 bit float dsp, recording, decoding without playback, 3d audio, custom dsps, etc.
- Irrklang (http://www.ambiera.com/irrklang/index.html) is free for non commercial use. 65 euros gets individuals an indie license (games up to 20 euro each) for the pro version. 3d audio, various formats, special effects, etc.
- Miles Sound System (http://www.radgametools.com/miles.htm) has no free version. Apparently it used to cost $3000 per title. I have an issue with any middleware provider that won't include prices on their website. It seems Miles is also the reason Portal 2 for Linux can't run without disabling some security thing.

One fun thing to remember, if you use MP3 files in your game, you may need to buy an extra license from the MP3 patent owners. They don't allow commercial use of MP3's. Audio libraries don't include that license. You will need to pay royalties of 2% of your revenue to Technicolor (representatives of Fraunhofer IIS who invented MP3) with a minimum of $2000 per year.
In other words, NEVER USE MP3! Let's make that horrible greedy format die!


Something that annoys me with audio libraries is that many of them support mod or similar tracker formats, but none expose the note data while playing! Some like Fmod have fourier transform data, but if you want to do things like syncing events in a game to the music (like a virtual band playing) then tracker formats would be perfect for that. But I've never found a single audio library that exposes something like "sample 14 was just played on track 3 with this frequency and volume".

[Kojack]

Wwise by Audiokinetic just went free for commercial use if you have less than 200 sound files in the project.
(It's used in games like Dishonored, Arkham City, Halo 4, Bioshock Infinite, etc)

Otherwise, Wwise is $750 for budgets of $150,000, $6000 for budgets of $1.5million and $15,000 for no budget cap. (That's a per platform cost. Source code is included with the latter 2 options)

Rather uniquely (as far as I've seen at least) is that Wwise require you to buy an extra DLC license if you release DLC for a game (if the DLC uses audio and isn't just visual changes like skins). The $750 option requires $600 for permission to release 1 year's worth of DLC, or $1200 for a lifetime of DLC.

Audio engines seem to be entering a time similar to what physics engines did where they all started dropping prices then going free. Will we see an audio equivalent of Bullet (full featured but open source)?

[c6burns]

Audio engines seem to be entering a time similar to what physics engines did where they all started dropping prices then going free. Will we see an audio equivalent of Bullet (full featured but open source)?

It's an interesting question ... I think it would have to be an open source runtime with a commercially licensed companion studio. Otherwise how would they make money?

Erwin Coumans (and contributors) really pulled off something amazing with bullet. It's hard to imagine an audio-Erwin emerging to do the same in that field but who knows. I sure hope so haha

Cricket is free for commercial use and 99$ full source license, so it's pretty close. But I don't see them going open source as they wouldn't have any revenue stream. They did release their FFT work under zlib though.

[Kojack]

Erwin Coumans (and contributors) really pulled off something amazing with bullet. It's hard to imagine an audio-Erwin emerging to do the same in that field but who knows. I sure hope so haha

Like Sinbad for Ogre.

We almost had it. Niko, who made Irrlicht, changed to audio programming and made Irrklang (mentioned above). But Irrklang was closed source commercial.

Of course the whole game audio thing is so much better than game video (movie playback). That just gets scary. I wish Bink had a non commercial version.

[lunkhound]

but is openal still actively develop?

http://kcat.strangesoft.net/openal.html

Last commit was 5 days ago. Looks pretty active to me:

http://repo.or.cz/w/openal-soft.git

I started out using Fmod Ex. It was pretty easy to get up and running. But having no source code was bothering me, so I switched to OpenAL-soft (plus a free ogg format decoder).