Ketsji Sound and Music, Design Document

Erwin Coumans

May 12, 2000

There are several ways to break the silence in the game. CD music, music steams like MP3, MIDI and Sound Effects (samples).

Decision 1. Sound and Music is modeled as a Sound Actuator within Ketsji.

Sound Actuators have a 3D location and several other properties. To allow special effects for sound, there can be special Sound Actuators with certain properties that allow for things like Doppler effects.

Decision 2. Hardware specific code is wrapped in an Interface.

It’s not necessary to stick to one API, probably there will be platforms that do have it’s own Sound libraries.

Decision 3. OpenAL is used as the main sound API.

OpenAL is very similar to OpenGL, so this will probably help the integration. Also this API is available for several platforms: Linux, BeOS, MS Windows and Apple Macintosh. For more information visit http://www.openal.org .

Decision 4. Similar to a Graphics Camera there will be a Sound Listener.

A Listener has 6 Degrees of Freedom (Position, At Vector and Up Vector).