[Obsolete as of TDM 2.07] Improve your TDM experience by playing with OpenAL Soft HRTF (better 3d audio)

[STiFU]

Wow, I have to say dataset 1037 works amazingly well for me. Better than my actual surround speakers.

[stgatilov]

First of all, thank you very much for the explanation how to load custom HRTF. Perfectly done.

 

One interesting question is: what is the license for HRTF data?

We have incorporated KEMAR data into 2.07 release, but I could not find any info about whether it is legally allowed or not.

I just hope that if OpenAL-Soft distributes it, then most likely we can too...

The same question applies to IRCAM datasets.

I would be happy to include all those HRTF profiles into TDM and allow player to choose one in-game.

But I'm not sure that redistributing them won't cause legal issues.

 

He means that HRTF-filtering does not work with speakers. HRTF-filtering emulates how the headshape and the shape of your ears interact with sound waves. With a perfect HRTF-Model (taylored to you), you should be able to hear perfect 3d audio using regular stereo head phones. If you use speakers, however, the HRTF-filtering will be performed twice, once in software and once due to your actual head and ear shape. This renders the filtering ineffective and may actually be perceived as a downgrade of software quality. With headphones, the head and ear shape have now effect, because the soundwaves are directly injected into your ear.

Yes, but with only two speakers you are anyway doomed to have weird 3D sound, don't you?

The HRTF would work as some sort of substitute for "crossfeed level", without which sounds are too easily going to one speaker only.

[wesp5]

The HRTF would work as some sort of substitute for "crossfeed level", without which sounds are too easily going to one speaker only.

See the other thread. If this is a solution to better get sounds on both sides, I'm all for it!

[STiFU]

One interesting question is: what is the license for HRTF data?

We have incorporated KEMAR data into 2.07 release, but I could not find any info about whether it is legally allowed or not.

I just hope that if OpenAL-Soft distributes it, then most likely we can too...

The same question applies to IRCAM datasets.

The IRCAM page does not list any license. I will contact the owner of that page.

 

OpenAL Soft uses "GNU LIBRARY GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE" so the default mhr is probably also under that license. So the question is whether that license is compatible to ours.

 

 

stgatilov, you said you don't hear the 3d effect very well. Do you get better 3d-audio results from one of these hrtf-sets? :-)

[stgatilov]

The IRCAM page does not list any license. I will contact the owner of that page.

Thanks.

 

OpenAL Soft uses "GNU LIBRARY GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE" so the default mhr is probably also under that license. So the question is whether that license is compatible to ours.

 

You forgot "2". This is LGPL v2.0.

It seems to be compatible with GPL v3 which TDM source code uses.

 

stgatilov, you said you don't hear the 3d effect very well. Do you get better 3d-audio results from one of these hrtf-sets? :-)

 

To be honest, I did not spend much time with it.

I checked that I can follow the position when the guard goes from left to right. And that was all

But front-vs-back and on-the-side positioning was not clear.

I think I'll ignore these specialized GRTF datasets until I (or someone else) integrate it into TDM.

[Hiradur]

I think I tried both setting no value and hrtf = auto in alsoft.ini, but it did not enable HRTF for me with headphones plugged in.

Are your headphones recognized as such in the OS?

 

Yes, but with only two speakers you are anyway doomed to have weird 3D sound, don't you?

Not necessarily. Positional audio on 2 speakers can be quite good. It is important to have the speakers set up a in an equi-distant stereo triangle though. HRTF over speakers sounds wrong and negatively impacts positional audio as far as my experience goes.

 

Wow, I have to say dataset 1037 works amazingly well for me. Better than my actual surround speakers.

If you have a set of surround speakers you should enable ambisonics processing in OAL Soft, set the proper decoder (speaker layout) and use hq-mode if possible. It's supposed to give very good surround sound over speakers. I heard it once and was impressed. But note that speaker placement is important here. Although there is an option to configure speaker positions manually I would try to stick to the "standard" for 5.1 (see 5.1 preset). This should give the best compability with other audio engines as well as movies and so on. That is unless you only use your speaker set for gaming, using a more balanced layout such as 4.0 quadraphonic may yield better results then.

If you have a 7.1 system you could even try the 3D7.1 speaker for an improved sensation of height.

 

It's best to refer to the documentation if you want to dive into the topic: https://github.com/kcat/openal-soft/blob/master/docs/ambisonics.txt