Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
  • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • G06Q50/00—Information and communication technology [ICT] specially adapted for implementation of business processes of specific business sectors, e.g. utilities or tourism
  • G06Q50/10—Services
• • A63F13/10—
• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A63—SPORTS; GAMES; AMUSEMENTS
  • A63F—CARD, BOARD, OR ROULETTE GAMES; INDOOR GAMES USING SMALL MOVING PLAYING BODIES; VIDEO GAMES; GAMES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • A63F13/00—Video games, i.e. games using an electronically generated display having two or more dimensions
  • A63F13/30—Interconnection arrangements between game servers and game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game servers
  • A63F13/33—Interconnection arrangements between game servers and game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game servers using wide area network [WAN] connections
  • A63F13/332—Interconnection arrangements between game servers and game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game servers using wide area network [WAN] connections using wireless networks, e.g. cellular phone networks
• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A63—SPORTS; GAMES; AMUSEMENTS
  • A63F—CARD, BOARD, OR ROULETTE GAMES; INDOOR GAMES USING SMALL MOVING PLAYING BODIES; VIDEO GAMES; GAMES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • A63F13/00—Video games, i.e. games using an electronically generated display having two or more dimensions
  • A63F13/45—Controlling the progress of the video game
• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A63—SPORTS; GAMES; AMUSEMENTS
  • A63F—CARD, BOARD, OR ROULETTE GAMES; INDOOR GAMES USING SMALL MOVING PLAYING BODIES; VIDEO GAMES; GAMES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • A63F13/00—Video games, i.e. games using an electronically generated display having two or more dimensions
  • A63F13/50—Controlling the output signals based on the game progress
  • A63F13/54—Controlling the output signals based on the game progress involving acoustic signals, e.g. for simulating revolutions per minute [RPM] dependent engine sounds in a driving game or reverberation against a virtual wall
• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A63—SPORTS; GAMES; AMUSEMENTS
  • A63F—CARD, BOARD, OR ROULETTE GAMES; INDOOR GAMES USING SMALL MOVING PLAYING BODIES; VIDEO GAMES; GAMES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • A63F13/00—Video games, i.e. games using an electronically generated display having two or more dimensions
  • A63F13/90—Constructional details or arrangements of video game devices not provided for in groups A63F13/20 or A63F13/25, e.g. housing, wiring, connections or cabinets
  • A63F13/92—Video game devices specially adapted to be hand-held while playing
• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A63—SPORTS; GAMES; AMUSEMENTS
  • A63F—CARD, BOARD, OR ROULETTE GAMES; INDOOR GAMES USING SMALL MOVING PLAYING BODIES; VIDEO GAMES; GAMES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • A63F2300/00—Features of games using an electronically generated display having two or more dimensions, e.g. on a television screen, showing representations related to the game
  • A63F2300/60—Methods for processing data by generating or executing the game program
  • A63F2300/6063—Methods for processing data by generating or executing the game program for sound processing
• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A63—SPORTS; GAMES; AMUSEMENTS
  • A63F—CARD, BOARD, OR ROULETTE GAMES; INDOOR GAMES USING SMALL MOVING PLAYING BODIES; VIDEO GAMES; GAMES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • A63F2300/00—Features of games using an electronically generated display having two or more dimensions, e.g. on a television screen, showing representations related to the game
  • A63F2300/60—Methods for processing data by generating or executing the game program
  • A63F2300/6063—Methods for processing data by generating or executing the game program for sound processing
  • A63F2300/6081—Methods for processing data by generating or executing the game program for sound processing generating an output signal, e.g. under timing constraints, for spatialization
• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A63—SPORTS; GAMES; AMUSEMENTS
  • A63F—CARD, BOARD, OR ROULETTE GAMES; INDOOR GAMES USING SMALL MOVING PLAYING BODIES; VIDEO GAMES; GAMES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • A63F2300/00—Features of games using an electronically generated display having two or more dimensions, e.g. on a television screen, showing representations related to the game
  • A63F2300/60—Methods for processing data by generating or executing the game program
  • A63F2300/64—Methods for processing data by generating or executing the game program for computing dynamical parameters of game objects, e.g. motion determination or computation of frictional forces for a virtual car

Definitions

• the present invention relates generally to the field of immersive audio communication, and has particular - but by no means - exclusive application to immersive audio scenes associated with avatars of a virtual environment .
• distributed virtual environments such as multiplayer on-line games
• distributed virtual environments used rudimentary means for allowing users to communication with each other.
• some distributed virtual environments have employed text-based communication while other virtual environments have supported simple mono voice over internet protocol technology.
• a method of using audio for a virtual environment comprising the steps of: identifying a first avatar associated with the virtual environment; determining whether an audio reuse criterion is satisfied in respect of audio information created for a second avatar associated with the virtual environment; and reusing the audio information for the first avatar on determining that the audio reuse criterion is satisfied.
• the method could be executed by one or more central audio scene creation servers to reduce audio scene processing requirements of the central server (s) .
• existing immersive audio communication technologies do not employ an audio information reuse aspect and would thus require more processing resources than systems employing the present invention.
• the method further comprises the step of processing the audio information based on a distance between the first avatar and a third avatar associated with the virtual environment .
• An advantage of performing the step of processing the audio is that it can be used to add a perception of distance to the reused audio information.
• the processing step could involve attenuating the audio information to represent the audio information has travelled a certain distance.
• the method further comprises the step of creating alternative audio information for the first avatar on determining that the audio reuse criterion is not satisfied.
• An advantage of creating the alternative audio information is that it provides a mechanism for obtaining audio for the first avatar in the event that the reuse criterion is not satisfied.
• the step of determining whether the audio reuse criterion is satisfied comprises determining whether the first avatar would perceive the audio information as emanating from a predefined area of the virtual environment in which the third avatar is located.
• An advantage of determining whether the first avatar would perceive the audio information as emanating from the predefined area is that it provides a technique for ensuring reused audio information has spatial characteristics that are reasonably close to the spatial aspects of accurately created audio information, which could be created during the aforementioned step of creating alternative audio information.
• the audio information comprises spatial audio information.
• a system for using audio for a virtual environment comprising a processing means arranged to perform the steps of : identifying a first avatar associated with the virtual environment ; determining whether an audio reuse criterion is satisfied in respect of audio information created for a second avatar associated with the virtual environment; and reusing the audio information for the first avatar on determining that the audio reuse criterion is satisfied.
• the processing means is further arranged to perform the step of processing the audio information based on a distance between the first avatar and a third avatar associated with the virtual environment.
• the processing means is further arranged to perform the step of creating alternative audio information for the first avatar on determining that the audio reuse criterion is not satisfied.
• the processing means is arranged such that the step of determining whether the audio reuse criterion is satisfied comprises determining whether the first avatar would perceive the audio information as emanating from a predefined area of the virtual environment in which the third avatar is located.
• the audio information comprises spatial audio information.
• a computer program comprising at least one instruction that is arranged to cause a computing device to perform the method according to the first aspect of the present invention.
• a computer readable medium comprising the computer program according to the third aspect of the present invention.
• Figure 1 shows a system including an embodiment of the present invention
• Figure 2 (a) illustrates a technique used by existing immersive audio techniques
• Figure 2 (b) illustrates a technique by the system of Figure 1 for creating immersive audio in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention
• Figure 3 is a representation of a virtual environment to which the system of Figure 1 is applied.
• the system 100 includes a virtual environment system 102; user computing devices 104; and a communication system 106.
• the primary functions of the virtual environment system 102 are to maintain state information for a virtual environment and to provide participants in the virtual environment with immersive audio communication.
• the virtual environment is a battlefield of a multiplayer on-line game and the avatars represent participants (that is, users of the user computing devices 104) in the virtual environment and are in the form of animated soldiers .
• the state information maintained by the virtual environment system 102 comprises, for example, the location of the avatars in the virtual environment; that is, the location of the soldiers in the battlefield.
• the present invention is not restricted to virtual environments and avatars for tnulti-player online games.
• the present invention has application to a range of virtual environments including, for example, virtual environments in a business context (such as a virtual staff meeting) or an educational context (such as a virtual lecture) .
• the virtual environment system 102 comprises traditional computer hardware including a motherboard, central processing units, random access memory, hard disks, networking hardware and a power supply.
• the virtual environment system 102 includes an operating system (such as Linux, which can be obtained from www.redhat.com) that resides on the hard disk of the system 102 and which cooperates with the hardware to provide an environment in which software applications can be executed.
• the hard disk of the virtual environment system 102 is loaded with a virtual environment server application (such as the Quake engine, which can be obtained from www.idsoftware.com) for maintaining the state information and an immersive audio communication server application for providing participants in the virtual environment with immersive audio communication.
• a virtual environment server application such as the Quake engine, which can be obtained from www.idsoftware.com
• the user computing devices 104 are in the form of portable wireless communication devices such as the Nokia N-Gage and the Playstation Portable. However, it will be readily appreciated that the present invention is not restricted to portable wireless communication devices. It is envisaged that in alternative embodiments of the present invention the user computing devices 104 could be, for example, laptop or desktop computers.
• Each user computing device 104 comprises traditional computer hardware including a motherboard, central processing unit, random access memory, a hard disk, power supply, monitor and a user information input (for instance, a keyboard) .
• the hard disk of each user computing device 104 is loaded with the BlackBerry operating system.
• the operating system interacts with the hardware of the computing device 104 to provide an environment in which software applications can be executed.
• the hard disk of each user computing device 104 is loaded with a virtual environment client application and an immersive audio communication client .
• the virtual environment client application is arranged to send and receive the virtual environment state information for the virtual environment to and from the virtual environment server application loaded on the virtual environment system 102.
• the immersive audio communication client is arranged to send and receive audio information to and from the immersive audio communication server on the virtual environment system 102.
• each user computing device 104 is loaded with an operating system, such as the Symbian operating system for the Nokia N-Gage.
• the present invention is not restricted to the Symbian operating system and as such the present invention has application to different operating systems loaded on the user computing devices 104 including, for example, Microsoft Windows XP or Linux (both of which would typically be used when the computing devices 104 are in the form of a desktop computer) .
• the communication system 106 enables the virtual environment client application of each of the user computing devices 104 and the virtual environment server application of the virtual environment system 102 to exchange data (more specifically, the state information) with each other.
• the communication system 106 also enables the immersive audio communication client application of each of the user computing devices 104 and the immersive audio communication server application of the virtual environment system 102 to exchange data (more specifically, audio information) with each other.
• the communication system 106 comprises a mobile telephone network 108 for sending and receiving data from the user computing devices 104.
• the present invention is not restricted to being used with the mobile telephone network 108 and an alternative embodiment of the present invention may employ, for example, an 802.11 based wireless network.
• the communication system 106 comprises a public access internet protocol based packet switched network 110 such as the Internet for sending and receiving data from the virtual environment system 102.
• the mobile telephone network 108 and the communication system 106 are interconnected to each other via a communication link 112, which is in the form of a high speed fibre optic link.
• the communication link 112 enables data to be exchanged between the mobile telephone network 108 and the packet switched network 110.
• the virtual environment server 102 is connected to the packet switched network 110 via a communication link 114 in the form of a high speed data link. Furthermore, the user computing devices 104 are each connected to the mobile telephone network 108 via wireless GPRS links 116.
• the embodiment of the present invention is primarily concerned with the provision of immersive audio communication. As such, the following description of the embodiment focuses on the functionality performed by the immersive audio communication client application loaded on the user computing devices 104 and the immersive audio communication server application loaded on the virtual environment system 102.
• the first function is to forward audio information (for example, a user's voice) captured by the user computing device 104 on to the immersive audio communication server loaded on the virtual environment system 102.
• the second function is to receive an audio scene (immersive audio communication information) from the immersive audio communication server loaded on the virtual environment system 102, and to render the audio scene to a user of the user computing device 104. Rendering the audio scene basically involves playing the audio scene through speakers or headphones.
• the immersive audio communication server application loaded on the virtual environment system 102 also performs two main functions. First, the server application processes audio information received from the immersive audio communication clients to create an audio scene for each of the avatars in the virtual environment. Second, the server application forwards the audio scenes to the user computing devices 104. In relation to the first function of creating the audio scenes, it is envisaged that any suitable spatial audio process algorithm can be employed. However, in the case of the present embodiment - li the immersive audio communication server application is arranged to use a Head Related Transfer Function (HRTF) algorithm, details of which are set out in the publication entitled "3-D Sound for Virtual Reality and Multimedia" which appeared in Academic Press Professional, Cambridge, MA, USA, 1994 and was authored by Durand R. Begault .
• HRTF Head Related Transfer Function
• the immersive audio communication server application is arranged to carry out an audio scene reuse algorithm.
• the aim of the audio scene reuse algorithm is to potentially minimise head related transfer function operations performed by the immersive audio server application, which in turn minimises the processing resources required to create the audio scene .
• the following description describes the audio scene reuse algorithm with reference to Figure 2, which represents a virtual environment including three avatars Al, A2 and A3, all of which are facing the same absolute direction (say, for example, north) . This assumption has been made to simplify this description of the embodiment of the present invention. In reality, however, the avatars may be facing different directions.
• Figure 2 (a) shows the result of how existing immersive audio communication technologies accurately place real-time speech from avatar Al in the audio scenes for A2 and A3. This requires two spatial placement operations involving two separate head related transform function computations - one for each listener, Al and A3. Performing accurate placement can be computationally intensive, particularly when many avatars are involved.
• Figure 2 (b) shows the result of the reuse algorithm. Al is accurately rendered in the audio scene for A3 using the head related transfer function. The audio scene for A3 is reused as the audio scene for avatar A2. As a result A2 will hear Al inaccurately as if it is coming from Al ' . The reused audio scene will also be attenuated since it is further away from Al than A3 is.
• the cost for this reuse scenario is one spatial placement operation (that is, one head related transfer function) and one attenuation operation.
• the reuse algorithm is such that in the scenario described in Figure 2 (b) the algorithm may render Al inaccurately (that is, reuse an audio scene) for both A2 and A3 if it can increase the number of reused audio scenes, provided the reused audio scenes are not too inaccurate .
• the reuse algorithm does not simply reuse audio scenes indiscriminately. Before reusing an audio scene the reuse algorithm determines whether an audio reuse criterion is satisfied. In this regard, this embodiment of the present invention uses the concept of angular error as the reuse criterion.
• the angular error is the angle defined by the vectors that extend from avatar Al to avatars A2 and A3.
• the reuse algorithm is such that the audio scene for A3 is reused for A2 if the angle defined by the vectors is equal to or less than a predefined angle (which is also referred to as "angular error") .
• the reuse criterion is not restricted to the previously described concept of an angular error.
• the reuse criterion can be based on the distance between avatars.
• the angular error concept may not be fixed and could, for example, be a relatively small angular error for avatars in a certain distance (say 10m) and a larger angular error for avatars further than this distance.
• a more formal description of the functions performed by the immersive audio server application is as follows: Given a virtual world with N avatars (Al, A2, ...An) each controlled by clients (C2, C2 , ... CN) . Audio samples (Vi) are received from each of these clients.
• the immersive audio server requires less processing power than existing immersive audio techniques
• the acceptable angular error is 10 degrees between 0 and 10 meters from the listener and 30 degrees from 10 meters to the edge of each avatars hearing range.
• the virtual world depicted in Figure 3 it is assumed all avatars can hear each other and the circle around each avatar has a radius of 10m.
• Al requires an accurate rendering of A2 (H2,l)
• A2 requires an accurate rendering of Al (Hl, 2)
• A3 requires an accurate rendering of A2 (H2,3)
• Al requires an accurate rendering of A3 (H3,l)
• A2 can reuse H3 , 1 since it would introduce an angular error less than 30 degrees
• A3 can reuse Hl, 2 since it would introduce an angular error less than 30 degrees
• the present invention is not restricted to being used with a virtual environment.
• the present invention could be used to provide only an immersive audio system for use as, for example, an audio only conferencing system.

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• Acoustics & Sound (AREA)
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• 2006
  • 2006-06-23 CN CN2006800270979A patent/CN101300580B/zh active Active
  • 2006-06-23 CN CN2010102425421A patent/CN101895556B/zh active Active
  • 2006-06-23 SG SG201004523-5A patent/SG163521A1/en unknown
  • 2006-06-23 WO PCT/AU2006/000881 patent/WO2006135979A1/en not_active Ceased
  • 2006-06-23 US US11/993,800 patent/US10155164B2/en active Active
  • 2006-06-23 EP EP06741272.6A patent/EP1897012B1/en active Active
  • 2006-06-23 JP JP2008517278A patent/JP4854736B2/ja active Active
  • 2006-06-23 KR KR1020087001871A patent/KR101253067B1/ko active Active

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