Reliable, efficient and low cost method for games audio rendering

Abstract

An efficient method for a reliable and accurate rendering of audio in a virtual reality environment, such as computer gaming. It excels other known rendering methods in its ability to achieve high quality audio rendering in real time conditions using a regular personal computer without any need for a special hardware accelerated audio card. A total of k physical properties are defined for the sound source and for the various objects that may affect the generation and distribution of the sound in the simulated environment. For each one of those physical properties some applicable values are predefined in a granularity which is a parameter of the method. This way a k dimensional grid of data points is defined. For each one of those data point the sounds that will be heard by the listener are offline calculated offline as reference samples. When the sound shall be generated in real time, for any given real data point, it is calculated as an interpolation of some near reference samples on the predefined k dimensional grid.

1 . A method for sound rendering to be used in a computer based virtual reality system comprising:
 generating a sound sample emanating from a sound source;   associating one or more acoustic effects to said sound sample for affecting the rendering of said sound sample;   predetermining one or more values for one or more physical parameters for affecting rendering of said sound sample according to said one or more acoustic effects, wherein said physical parameters relate to an interaction of a plurality of objects in the virtual reality system; and   interpolating said predetermined one or more values of said one or more physical parameters to determine an effect on said sound sample.   
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein said predetermining said one or more values comprises associating a total of k physical properties to said sound sample and to any object that may affect perception of said sound sample after rendering, where k may be any positive number, and defining a k dimensional space thereof;
 selecting one or more pre-defined values for each one of said k physical properties to generate a k dimensional grid of data points that is mapped on said k dimensional space;   calculating the sound sample or samples for any data point in said k dimensional grid; and   selecting an interpolation method to be applied to said k dimensional grid for calculating the sound sample or samples that would be heard by said listener for any desired combination of k real values of said k properties.   
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 2  where the acoustic effects that may affect the rendering of said sound sample in said acoustic environment may be echo, reverb, Doppler, flange, occlusion, obstruction etc. 
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 2  wherein said physical parameters comprise one or more of object elasticity, object reflection coefficient, polygon dimensions, or relative distances among said sound source, said objects and said listener etc. 
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 2  wherein a plurality of sound samples are calculated to simulate a plurality of corresponding sounds for playback by a multi track audio surround system. 
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 2  wherein said selecting said interpolation method to be applied is at least partially determined according to an allowed discretization error from said interpolation. 
   
   
       7 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein said selecting said interpolation method to be applied is further at least partially determined according to the number of data points for each one of the k physical properties in said k dimensional grid. 
   
   
       8 . The method of  claim 2  wherein at least a portion of the sound samples that are associated with said grid data points are calculated by interpolating other sound samples on said grid that were accurately calculated beforehand. 
   
   
       9 . The method of  claim 2  wherein the virtual reality system comprises a computer game, wherein the plurality of objects are provided through said computer game and wherein the listener comprises at least one game player. 
   
   
       10 . The method of  claim 8  wherein said calculating the sound sample or samples for any data point in said k dimensional grid is performed before game play such that a plurality of precalculated multidimensional grids are provided with said computer game, and wherein said calculating said interpolation at the game real time conditions is done by the player computer for any actual combination of values of physical properties that pertain to any real situation during the game. 
   
   
       11 . The method of  claim 9  further comprising: following any event of new sound samples generation, forecasting the most probable conditions for the next event of sound generation, and reading one or more new predefined sound samples that are not yet cached in the dynamic memory of the computer. 
   
   
       12 . The method of  claim 8  wherein said calculating the sound sample or samples for any data point in said k dimensional grid is performed before game play such that a plurality of precalculated multidimensional grids are provided with said computer game, and wherein said calculating said interpolation at the game real time conditions, for any actual combination of values of physical properties that pertain to any real situation during the game, is done by a dedicated game server to which the player computer connects and requests the required sound samples when actually required. 
   
   
       13 . The method of  claim 11  wherein the player computer is a thin client such as a mobile phone or a PDA (personal digital assistant).