Aves: binaural audio game for the iphone
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"Immerse yourself in a world of stunningly realistic 3D binaural audio and interact with lifelike synthetic flying creatures in the revolutionary 3D bow and arrow hunting game 'Aves'."
What began as tinkering at the DMC and plenty of creativity and ingenuity, graduate student Omar Ahmed created an iPhone game that demonstrates powerful new methods for binaural audio and interactive motion.
Binaural audio allows you to locate objects spatially using your sense of hearing. The idea can be traced all the way back to the 1800s, but due to the expensive technology needed to create binaural recordings, the technique has remained fairly obscure. Dynamic binaural audio is the "Holy Grail" of video game audio, but the high computational cost of previous methods have prevented its use. Thus, the first amazing thing about "Aves" - dynamic binaural audio on the iPhone. Using new computational techniques, "Aves" allows you to hear where your target is, even off-screen, all on one of the smallest processors available.
Another goal of video games is the real-time interaction of characters, having computer models react as if wounded or shoved off-balance. Using yet another novel technique, Omar brought this interactive behavior to the bird in "Aves". When shot, the bird naturally reacts, attempting to stay in the air. When pinned against a wall, the bird begins beating violently, or if precisely wounded, the bird falls from the sky, unable to recover.
With his successful introduction of these two features, Omar is currently planning future game development and starting his own company to do so.
A video of "Aves" in action can be seen below. "Aves" can be found online or in the iTunes Store.
